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Chapter 141
Amonth later
Frederick Beck plucked a dandelion from the prison lawn. He held it up to the light and admired its perfect form. The symmetry, the deep yellow, the simplicity. A design that hadn’t changed in millennia. He slipped it into his pocket before someone took it from him. It was worthless, of course, but his fellow inmates didn’t need an excuse to mess with him. He would press it between the pages of his book. It was nice to have a hobby.
He looked through the razor-wire-topped prison fence. The mesh apertures were only half an inch wide so it was difficult to make much out, but he was close enough to see the nearby bus stop. It was one of those with an advert pasted on the side panel. For eight days the picture had been ofThe Nightmares You Deserve: Hunting the Botanistby Henning Stahl. It was being scraped off by the billposter. Beck smiled. He knew from endless walks around the exercise ground that the adverts on that bus stop always stayed up for a fortnight.
Stahl had blown it then. Beck had known he would. Had counted on it, in fact. Knew his hunger for redemption would cloud his vision. Make him careless. He had wanted Stahl to be his first victim. His investigation, his story, had ruined his life. Made him a pariah in the scientific world. But Poe had been right – there’d been no point killing him. Not then. His alcoholism had made him suicidal; his murder would have been a release not a punishment. Beck smiled at the half-removed bill poster. But now he’d built Stahl back up, given him a life to lose.
Right on time.
As a horn signalled the return to his cell, he smiled again. Stahlwould have received the parcel a fortnight ago. Beck had used yet another false name and lodged it with a solicitor in Oldham. Told him he was leaving the country and he needed a parcel posting to his friend in a year’s time. The solicitor took his money without comment. It wasn’t even the weirdest request he’d had that day.
He made a note in his diary and promised his new client he would post the parcel to Mr Stahl on the specified date.
Around the same time Beck had been admiring the dandelion, three hundred miles away, out on bail at last, Henning Stahl opened the door to his new house.
Damn Poe, he thought. His solicitor had told him he was going to be charged and he was advising him to plead guilty. Maybe do a short prison sentence. Stahl went straight to his fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. He kept one in there to prove he didn’t need it any more.
But, by God, he was tempted now.
‘No,’ he said out loud. ‘I’ve come this far.’
Instead, he went to his bathroom cabinet and opened a new box of Antabuse. It was different to his usual brand but he figured it was just his chemist sourcing the cheapest deal.
He popped a tablet and swallowed it.
‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ he said.
