Nightingale: Agent of Torchwood

Ghost Machine [7]

Nightingale left her flat and noticed a hooded figure sitting on the sidewalk. "Let me guess...Bernie Harris,"

Bernie took off running.

"Damnit!" Nightingale cursed as she took after the lad. She continued down the streets, her legs burning and lungs aching. "Of all the times I wish Loki didn't teleport me everywhere." Nightingale was grateful when Bernie hit a dead-end alley. "Bernie Harris,"

"Who?"

"Look, I've had a shitty couple of days, so let's stop with games, yeah?" Nightingale moved towards him.

"Don't hurt me, please. I've got asthma,"

"You've got asthma, and you have us running across the streets?! Forget crazy, you're bloody senile,"

***

Nightingale sat across from Bernie at a pub, practically chugging her drink as she calmed herself from the adrenaline rush of chasing him. "Why do they call you Bernie?"

"I burned my neighbor's shed down when I was 12," Bernie replied.

"What for?"

"I was just having a fag. Got a bit carried away like..."

"Well, this is cozy. I hope she brought you flowers," Jack placed a reassuring hand on Nightingale's shoulder as he and the rest of Torchwood entered the pub.

"If this is all about the dodgy fags, I don't know what happened to them, all right?"

Jack held out his hand. "Come on, hand it over,"

Looking at him, shocked, Nightingale reached and handed Jack the Ghost Machine.

Jack placed the machine in front of Bernie. "Well, it's worth knowing we're probably the only people you can tell,"

Bernie looked at the group and sighed. "A mate and I were using this lock-up down on Moira Street. It used to belong to this old guy. Soft in the head, he was. There was still loads of his stuff in there, but we cucked most of it. There was this old biscuit tin full of foreign coins, weird bits of rock, and that." he nodded to the Ghost Machine. "Thought it might be worth something. I might take it down the Antiques Roadshow or something,"

Nightingale raised an eyebrow as she took another sip of her drink.

"Well, you don't know, do you? Cash in the attic and all that. So I take the tin home with me, and that thing starts switching itself on. It makes you see things,"

Nightingale straightened up at the mention.

"Real things. Real people. I was down at the old wharf in the bay. I saw this woman with a bundle. Something wrapped up. It was nighttime, and she was putting it into the water, all secret-like. It was weird 'cause it was like I was her somehow. She was scared. She knew what she was doing was wrong. I knew without seeing it was her baby, wrapped up, dead. She hadn't told anyone. Then she just ran away. And I realized. I knew her. She's old now but lives up by the Catholic church in Splott. So I went up to see her, told her what I'd seen, and she gave me money not to tell anyone else,"

"You blackmailed her?" Owen argued.

"She offered. Look, I've seen things you wouldn't believe."

Nightingale scoffed.

"There's the old bridge on Penfro Street. I saw a man and a girl from ages ago. He was following her back from a dance along the canal..."

Nightingale's nails bit into the table. "Lizzie Lewis,"

"How'd you..."

"I saw it too," Nightingale admitted.

Jack grabbed the machine from the table and tapped Nightingale to stand. "Bernie, it's been fascinating meeting you,"

"Hang on! Where are you going?" Bernie exclaimed, "That's mine, that is. You can't just walk off. I got rights,"

Nightingale shook her head.

"Oh, so you don't want the other half?"

Nightingale looked over at Jack.