Page 107 of The Killer’s Mark

Poe considered that carefully. ‘I’ll have two sausage flats and a steak bake, please,’ he said.

‘Gotcha,’ Esmerée said.

After she’d left, he shrugged and said, ‘I forgot.’

‘I won’t forget to tell Estelle, though. No, sir, I will not forget that at all. You’re in so much trouble, buster.’

Poe did a quick cost–benefit analysis. The cost was a bollocking and a lecture about strokes and heart attacks and diabetes. The benefit was he got to eat some delicious baked goods. He thought that was a fair exchange. He wondered if this was how Edgar approached life. His gluttonous spaniel would happily take a whack to the arse if he could snaffle some food. And Poe didn’t think there was a thing Edgar wouldn’t do for some cheese. Then he wondered if he should be comparing his thought processes to those of a dog.

Bradshaw went to make herbal tea. She took a seat and held her mug in both hands like it was a bowl of winter broth. She looked thoughtful.

‘One of those sausage flats was for Edgar,’ Poe said. ‘I promise.’

She waved him away. ‘I’m not worried about that, Poe,’ she said. ‘Estelle will sort out your diet; it’s just going to take time for you to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits.’

‘Out with it then. What’s bothering you?’

‘What will Esmerée do when this is over?’ Bradshaw asked.

‘I don’t know, Tilly. Whatever she wants, I suppose.’

‘I don’t want her believing she doesn’t have options. She might not have had a thorough education, but she’s very intelligent. She picks up things quickly and she can scrutinise complex data patterns.’

‘She can think laterally too,’ Poe said. ‘I didn’t consider focusing on the second tattoo. That was all her.’

‘She gets bored very easily, but that is due to her immaturity – her prefrontal cortex is still being fine-tuned. I think by the time she’s twenty-five she will be capable of achieving great things.’

‘At the minute she wants to achieve them with us.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yep. Says she wants to be a private investigator.’

‘Gosh.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Tilly; two days ago she wanted to be a pathologist. Tomorrow she’ll want to be a fire engine.’

‘I think she would be a very good private investigator, Poe.’

‘I do too.’

Bradshaw glanced at the clock on Poe’s wall. It ran five minutes fast, but that was OK, he was ex-army – turning up five minutes before every parade was in his DNA.

‘Esmerée has been a while,’ she said. ‘I wonder what’s distracted her?’

‘Probably a quirky fifteen-year-old boy.’

‘She’s been gone almost an hour, Poe.’

‘Has she?’ Poe said. ‘Where the hell is she then? I want my sausage flats, dagnabbit!’

The office phone rang.

‘Ah, a customer,’ he said. He frowned as he tried to remember how to answer it. Bradshaw reached across him and pressed the loudspeaker button. ‘Poe and Bradshaw Investigations. No job too boring.’

Bradshaw winced.

‘Ah, Mr Ex-Policeman, very funny,’ a horribly familiar voice said.