Page 138 of The Killer’s Mark

‘What should we do with Susan Hawksworth?’ Estelle asked.

… that.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘We can’t leave her chained to your radiator.’

‘Why not? Need I remind you she’s the reason the Red Chamber have Esmerée?’

‘I’m aware of that, Poe. But she is going to need to use the toilet. She is going to need food and water. Is there no one you can call? No one who can look after her until this is over?’

Poe shook his head. ‘She needs to be here when the phone rings. She’s the only one who can tell us what we might expect. She’s told us what will probably happen, but until we know the handover location, we haven’t read the fine print.’ He glanced in the direction of his office. ‘She stays here. We’ll feed and water her, and you guys can take her to the toilet, but she isn’t leaving Cowie House until we have Esmerée back.’

‘Can I have the documentation you got from Océane Blue, please, Poe?’ Bradshaw said. ‘Some of what you emailed me was a little blurry.’ She flicked her wrist, checked the time. ‘If you give me a couple of hours, I’ll have the final presentation ready for you. We’ll fine-tune it so it’s more user-friendly, then I’ll set it up on some tablets you can take with you to the exchange.’

‘What do you want to do until then, Poe?’ Estelle asked.

He rolled his shoulders and yawned. ‘I need to eat, then I need to sleep.’

Bradshaw turned back to her laptop. ‘You sound like a grizzly bear,’ she said.

Chapter 114

Poe curled up on the sofa in the reception area, but it was no good. He was too wired to sleep. After an hour, he got up and prowled the office like a caged tiger. Estelle eventually got sick of him and sent him to the pub.

‘Get something to eat, Poe.’

Poe nodded. It was a good idea. He went to the Kings Head and ordered fish and chips and a pint of Corby Blonde. One of the barflies tried to talk to him about Carlisle United’s chances next season, but Poe wasn’t in the mood. So instead of standing at the bar until his food was ready, he slunk off to the back of the pub and sat on his own.

While he sipped his pint and waited for his meal, he mentally rehearsed what he would do when he squared off against the Red Chamber. What he would say. What he would do if Esmerée had been hurt. What he would do if she was dead. That last one was easy. He’d step back and tell Towler to do his worst. And he reckoned Towler’s worst would be pretty fucking terrible. Then he’d go back and tell Estelle that the people who had killed Esmerée were dead, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. Estelle didn’t live for revenge. She wasn’t built that way. If Esmerée didn’t come back in one piece, it would destroy her.

He finished his pint and risked another.

While he was at the bar, he wondered why it always seemed to be him. That even after he’d left the National Crime Agency, he was still being forced into life-or-death situations. The whole point of being a gumshoe – and the reason he’d avoided taking on cases – was to avoid things like this. Making decisions when all the options were bad.

His food arrived, and for five minutes his mind was occupied with tackling the slab of whale meat that masqueraded as haddock in the Kings Head. It was a sight to behold. People travelled for miles to sample the pub’s fish and chips. He had just speared the last garden pea with his fork when his phone buzzed. A text message from Estelle. It said: Tilly’s ready.

Poe made one or two suggestions to Bradshaw’s final presentation, mainly about how a layperson might view it – about the only thing he could ever contribute when it came to things like this – but otherwise it was good to go. She said she would upload it to two tablets – one to show the Red Chamber and one for him – and a laptop as backup. She disabled internet access on all three devices as a precaution. The Red Chamber’s tablet only had two icons – the presentation and a no-frills countdown.

Bradshaw had wanted it to count down from six hours. Poe thought that was too long. Six hours was enough time to panic, but also enough time to think of a countermeasure they hadn’t considered. He thought thirty minutes was better. They went back and forth for a while until Estelle decided. They would give them an hour. That was long enough for the presentation to sink in, but not long enough to counter-attack. Bradshaw fixed the timer at sixty minutes. It would start when the presentation finished.

‘We’re ready then,’ Poe said.

‘We are,’ Bradshaw said. ‘All we have to do is wait’ – she checked her watch – ‘another nineteen hours for them to call.’

The phone rang.

‘Or maybe we won’t,’ Poe said. ‘Can you put it on speakerphone, Tilly?’

Bradshaw did.

‘Poe and Bradshaw Investigations,’ he said. ‘A cat isn’t lost; it’s an opportunity.’

‘Mr Ex-Policeman, you’re back,’ Dongyang Dong said.

‘And you’re nineteen hours early.’

‘I was too excited to wait. Do you have her?’