The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  It was a decent sized, well-equipped room. At the far end was another door, the un-widened one that Nightingale had knocked on earlier. Poe could see it hadn’t been opened for a long time.

  Everything in the kitchen was at an accessible height. It was clean but not so clean it looked unused. Judging by the pots and pans attached to low-hanging ceiling-hooks, Atkinson could cook. A packet of coffee beans and a grinder lay next to a modern kettle. They reminded Poe that he was thirsty.

  It was time to join Atkinson on the terrace.

  Chapter 65

  Poe’s landscape changed over the course of a season, Atkinson’s over the course of a minute. When he picked up the scalding black coffee the sky was a colourless sheet; by the time he’d taken a few sips, the sun had cracked through the cloud cover and the seascape was transformed.

  The choppy waves refracted the light; turning the sea into a glittering pool that Poe couldn’t drag his eyes from. He’d never lived near the sea, had always thought it a bit too busy, a bit too much sensory overload, but the view from Atkinson’s terrace was mesmerising. No wonder he’d been sitting out there.

  Poe didn’t have to ask Atkinson why he lived here – he knew. A few years back he’d been in much the same position: a tabloid pariah, the cop who’d taken the law into his own hands. Instinctively he’d sought isolation and inaccessibility. He’d found what he needed on Shap Fell.

  Atkinson had taken his self-imposed exile even further. Poe was awestruck by his commitment. At Herdwick Croft if Poe needed civilisation he could pop into Shap Wells Hotel for a meal or a pint, or drive into Kendal and beyond. On Montague Island, in a wheelchair, Atkinson had put down roots impossible to dig up.

  ‘Nice coffee,’ Poe said.

  Atkinson raised his mug in acknowledgement. ‘I spend serious money on it. Jamaican Blue Mountain. Get it shipped in, literally, from a specialist in York.’

  Poe had heard of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee but he’d never expected to taste it. Only a limited amount of the bean was grown each year and most of it was sent to Japan or used to make coffee liqueur. It was smoother and less bitter than any coffee he’d tasted before – the kind of brew you could drink all day without getting a caffeine-induced headache.

  Taking the expensive coffee as a cue, Poe said, ‘How much did all this set you back?’

  ‘The land or the modifications?’

  Poe shrugged.

  ‘The house cost me a quarter of a million.’

  ‘Seems expensive?’

  ‘Cheap, actually. The island’s a designated SSSI so there are limitations with how it can be developed. Made it unattractive to prospective buyers and the owner was struggling to sell it. And, because the old admin building is responsible for the upkeep of the graveyard, the surrounding land couldn’t be sold separately.’

  ‘You own the graveyard as well?’

  Atkinson nodded. ‘It’s consecrated land so it’s virtually worthless. It can’t be built on and, as the graves are all designated as infectious, they can’t be exhumed.’

  ‘The island’s an SSSI because of the seals and toads?’ Poe said, remembering Bradshaw’s briefing.

  ‘And the marsh harriers,’ Atkinson said. ‘We have a nesting pair and some of their chicks from previous years still visit.’

  ‘Wow,’ Poe said. He’d never seen a marsh harrier before. He lived too far from the coast and they weren’t particularly well established in Cumbria as it was. ‘Is it the marsh harriers that control the rabbit population?’

  Atkinson raised what was left of his eyebrows.

  ‘I live in the middle of Shap Fell,’ Poe explained. ‘We don’t have a huge rabbit problem there, partly because they’re competing with sheep for food and partly because of predation from the air. Lot of buzzards.’

  ‘The marsh harriers do take some of the smaller rabbits,’ Atkinson agreed. ‘Buzzards take a few and we occasionally get golden eagles, but by and large the rabbits manage themselves. It’s a small island and food isn’t abundant. Enough to sustain a small warren but not much else.’

  They stopped talking and finished their drinks. Atkinson refilled their mugs.

  ‘Anyway, I was limited with how much work I could do,’ he continued. ‘Inside, I could do what I wanted, but I needed permission for any material changes to the building. In the end the extension was granted as I was able to prove I needed a dedicated and sterile treatment room.’

  ‘I saw it,’ Poe said. ‘Pretty modern.’

  ‘Chemical burns burn deep and cause problems for years. They require ongoing treatment that I wasn’t prepared to travel for. I have private doctors but they needed somewhere to work.’

  ‘How often do you need treatment?’

  ‘Not as much as I did. I need new masks every few months as the shape of my face changes as the scarring flattens, and they need to take biopsies to see how much the nerves are regenerating. Everything else I can pretty much do myself.’

  Poe drained his mug and looked wistfully at the empty cafetière. Given how expensive the coffee was he didn’t feel comfortable asking for another pot to be made.

  ‘I don’t know much about the actual attack,’ Poe admitted. ‘I haven’t had time to read up on it yet.’

  ‘Not much to tell. The man who did it was fuelled by alcohol and fabricated tabloid headlines. Fake news we’d call it now. His next-door neighbour was a jeweller and he broke into his chemical store. Stole a bottle of the nitric acid he used for etching. Waited outside court for me one day and threw it at my face.’

  Poe grimaced.

  ‘At first I thought it was urine,’ Atkinson continued. ‘Then, when I felt my face burning, I thought it was boiling water. It wasn’t until I felt my skin melting that I knew it was acid.’

  ‘It didn’t get in your eyes?’

  ‘I’d instinctively covered them with my arm. It’s why I had to have skin from my thigh grafted onto my forearm. But it’s also why I can still see.’

  ‘It must have been very painful.’

  ‘It was until it wasn’t. Acid keeps burning until it’s removed and by the time someone had thought to douse my face with bottled water it had already eaten through my pain receptors. My face may look like a melted candle but it wasn’t that painful for the first few months, not until the nerves began to regenerate. That’s when the real discomfort started. I still feel it now.’

  ‘The mask helps?’

  ‘It does. Keeps the scarring moist and supple. I keep it on when I’m outside as the salt in the air isn’t brilliant for it. I tend to take it off at night now.’

  Poe wanted to keep talking. While they were outside he could delve deeper into Atkinson’s life and keep an eye on the western approaches to the island. A win-win situation. It was possible that someone from Atkinson’s past had hired the Curator. Someone unconnected to J. Baldwin, someone who became incensed by the verdict and subsequent payout.

  He’d only find out if he got to know him better and, like reconnaissance, time spent on intelligence gathering was seldom wasted.

  Chapter 66

  Poe had been on a lot of stakeouts and most of them had been boring and uncomfortable. Countless hours spent on bruised estates stripped of hope and ambition. All cracked pavements and broken lives. Estates where the only things that flourished were the weeds and the far-right recruiters, where the only splashes of colour were the gang tags.

  He remembered one he’d been on before things had got technical. He’d been driven into position in the boot of a clapped-out Vauxhall Cavalier. He’d then spent eight hours staring through a strategically placed crack in the brake light. At one point the target of their investigation had actually stopped to relieve himself against the side of the car. To this day, every time he saw a Vauxhall he smelled piss.

  This wasn’t one of those stakeouts. This stakeout was a joy to be on. If he ever did something as unlikely as take a holiday, Montague Island was the kind of place he’d choose to go. The scenery was outstanding a
nd ever changing, the wildlife remarkable and the coffee excellent. And the sea air was doing wonders for his chest. He could breathe properly again, the first time in weeks.

  When the cop on the other side of the island emailed to say his shift was coming to an end and his replacement was in sight, Poe couldn’t remember the last time twelve hours of nothing had passed by so quickly. He hadn’t moved much for the last eight and it felt like his bones had rusted. He didn’t care. He stood, stretched his legs and arched his back. Worked out the major kinks. A bit of stiffness was a minor price to pay.

  He walked over to meet the new cop in case it was someone he hadn’t met yet. Two people, strangers to each other, patrolling an island in the dark was how blue-on-blue accidents happened.

  The outgoing cop had his eyes glued to his binoculars. He was frowning.

  ‘What’s up?’ Poe asked.

  ‘There’s someone else with my replacement,’ he replied, passing the binoculars over.

  Poe raised them to his eyes and burst out laughing.

  The rigid-hulled inflatable boat – the RIB – carrying the incoming cop did indeed have an extra passenger. It was Bradshaw. He didn’t need to ask why she’d made the trip across the Walney Channel. He was her friend and, as long as she had access to the internet, she would always want to work where he was.

  Even if it meant crossing a choppy body of water, apparently. By the looks of things, she hadn’t enjoyed it. She was wearing two lifejackets and a woollen hat. She had a stiff but determined expression on her face. She was even paler than usual. Despite the boat only being in a few feet of water she clung to the gunwale like ivy on oak.

  Poe walked to the end of the pier and caught the rope the marine unit cop threw him. Never having been a Scout, he tied it with the only knot he knew: the reef knot. Right over left and under, left over right and under. Gave it a tug to tighten it. It’d do; it wasn’t his RIB.

  ‘Hi, Poe,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I’ve never been on a boat before.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘I saw a shark,’ she added.

  ‘I told you, it wasn’t a shark, it was a bloody harbour porpoise!’ the marine cop snapped. He looked like he’d had the journey from hell.

  ‘Can’t you swim, Tilly?’ Poe said.

  She looked at him blankly. He might as well have asked if she fancied suckling pig for dinner. He reached down and helped her onto the pier.

  The replacement cop disembarked without his assistance. She introduced herself before removing her lifejacket and throwing it back onto the RIB. She handed Poe a small canvas bag.

  ‘For when it gets dark,’ she explained.

  He pulled the Velcro straps and looked inside.

  ‘It’s a thermal imaging monocular,’ she continued. ‘Courtesy of Detective Superintendent Nightingale.’

  Poe nodded in appreciation. No one was getting on the island now.

  ‘Can I have my lifejackets back, please?’ the marine cop said to Bradshaw.

  ‘No, you may not.’

  He muttered something under his breath. It sounded like ‘Why me?’

  ‘I intend to wear them any time I’m outside,’ Bradshaw said.

  ‘No you bloody aren’t. They’re part of the boat’s manifest.’

  A spirited exchange of ideas followed, one the marine cop had no chance of winning. In the end he gave up and compromised: Bradshaw could keep one as long as he got it back.

  ‘What do you want a lifejacket for anyway?’ Poe asked as they made their way to Atkinson’s bungalow.

  ‘I’ve read the weather reports, Poe – I don’t want to drown if I’m blown off a cliff.’

  ‘It’s the rocks you’ll have to worry about, not the Irish Sea.’

  She stopped in her tracks.

  ‘I need a helmet then,’ she said. ‘I wonder if the boat driver has one.’

  It was pointless explaining he was joking. He waited while she made her way back to the pier. She returned two minutes later.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘What a rude man,’ she said.

  Chapter 67

  To his surprise, Atkinson and Bradshaw hit it off immediately.

  ‘He speaks my language, Poe,’ she said.

  Bradshaw had a working knowledge of several languages including Klingon and Elvish. Atkinson, with nothing but books, a computer and a Netflix subscription to keep him company, was no doubt just as geeky as she was.

  ‘What language is that, Tilly?’

  ‘Computers, silly.’

  ‘Oh. Here, grab these mugs and take them outside, can you?’

  They were in Atkinson’s kitchen. Poe was making more of that wonderful coffee; Bradshaw was making something green and awful called matcha tea.

  When they were seated, and after Poe had checked in with the cop on the other side of the island, they got down to more intelligence gathering.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to cause you harm?’ Poe said. ‘Someone we might not automatically think of.’

  ‘I can’t, no. And I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s anyone from J. Baldwin. It wasn’t a publicly listed company and my understanding is that when they filed for bankruptcy they lost everything. I don’t see how they could have afforded this Curator of yours.’

  Nightingale was chasing down the financial angle but Atkinson made a fair point. According to Melody Lee, the Curator didn’t come cheap and no one involved in the company had that type of cash any more. Not unless they’d hidden it offshore somewhere.

  ‘What about the families of the children who were injured?’

  ‘I can’t see them having the motivation – the court case against J. Baldwin was iron-clad.’

  Iron-clad and compelling, Poe thought. It had removed all doubt about Atkinson’s culpability. But if it wasn’t someone from J. Baldwin, and it wasn’t someone whose children had been chemically burned, who was left? Who else had been damaged by Atkinson’s hung jury and subsequent exoneration?

  ‘Do we know if anyone’s career was damaged, Tilly?’ Poe said. ‘Someone in the police, maybe? It was high profile and the chief constable in those days was our old friend Leonard Tapping. No way he didn’t find a suitable scapegoat.’

  ‘I’m not sure we’ve looked at that, Poe. I’ll check now.’

  She removed her mobile and began typing.

  ‘You won’t get a signal here, Tilly,’ Atkinson said.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ She scurried off inside.

  Poe turned back to Atkinson.

  ‘What about the islanders?’

  ‘Here?’

  Poe nodded.

  Atkinson shook his head. ‘We’re not a community, Mr Poe, we’re a gathering of hermits. The people who live here aren’t the type to commit to time-consuming machinations like this. They might get into the occasional argument with the supply boat but otherwise we avoid human contact at all cost.’

  Bradshaw was standing on a chair waving her mobile in the air as she searched for a signal. Despite being indoors she was still wearing her lifejacket and woollen hat.

  ‘What a bunch of weirdos,’ she said.

  Chapter 68

  It had been an interesting night. Poe had felt like a gooseberry at times. Bradshaw and Atkinson had talked non-stop about computers and Netflix and movies and books. If she’d been able to get a signal on her mobile she’d have probably moved in with him.

  So Poe had done what he was there to do: he’d watched.

  He’d watched the sea disappear under the moonless night and he’d watched it reappear as dawn struggled through the murky clouds, shockingly bright but only in comparison to the Stygian darkness it had followed. He’d watched the seals slip into the freezing water and he’d watched them return to eat their catch on the slippery rocks. And he’d watched the clouds tighten and the first flecks of snow float weightlessly down – colourless confetti landing silently on the terrace before melting into nothing.

  But most of all he�
��d watched the approaches to the island.

  He doubted a boat could dock on the western side but he wasn’t taking any chances. Everything about this case had been unlikely and, now that he’d spent almost twenty-four hours there, slipping unseen onto an island with 360-degree surveillance somehow no longer seemed impossible.

  Atkinson wheeled himself out to hand Poe another coffee. Instead of going back inside to Bradshaw he took up the position beside him, the light snow sticking to his mask and shoulders like dandruff.

  After a few moments Bradshaw joined them.

  ‘Why did you try and kill yourself, Edward?’

  Poe noted Bradshaw’s use of his first name. She’d been calling him Mr Atkinson up until then. He wondered what had changed.

  ‘Have you ever suffered from depression, Tilly?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘I have,’ he said. ‘Had it bad and couldn’t see a way out. I didn’t have the mask at that point and I was in too much pain to sleep naturally. I could either take the pills that turned me into a zombie or stay exhausted. I wanted to be alone but I couldn’t stand the silence.’

  ‘It sounds like you had post-traumatic stress disorder, Edward,’ she said.

  Poe thought the same. It wasn’t just returning veterans who suffered from PTSD. People had developed it after being involved in something as simple as a traffic accident. An acid attack certainly passed the threshold.

  ‘I saw a shrink,’ Atkinson said. ‘He suggested PTSD but his solution was more medication. I started drinking heavily. By the time I was ready to end it all I was drinking two bottles of Jack Daniel’s a day.’

  Bradshaw, who’d never had an alcoholic drink in her life and therefore couldn’t comprehend how quickly it could become a crutch, said, ‘There’s one unit in every ten millilitres of alcohol and Tennessee sour mash has an alcohol content of forty per cent. If we assume a standard bottle holds one litre’ – she looked up and did some mental arithmetic – ‘that’s four hundred millilitres of alcohol, which means forty units a bottle. You were drinking eighty units of alcohol a day, Edward.’