by M. W. Craven
Poe pressed play. The video lasted for almost an hour. It was the man who’d piloted the boat around Ullswater. He told the camera that he’d been unaware of what was going to happen on the ‘Are You Feeling Lucky؟’ cruise but realised something was up during the auction. He’d been paid ten thousand pounds for his silence, and a combination of the money and the risk of upsetting powerful people had ensured he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone.
After the man had confessed everything to Reid they’d made a deal. He would stay in the ten-cell truck until it was all over, only leaving to do some small tasks for Reid. Nothing too illegal. Mainly driving jobs. Poe suspected it was the man who’d driven Graham Russell’s car to France and left it there. He was also in no doubt that it was this unknown man who’d taken Hilary Swift and her grandchildren. He was getting on a bit, but a lifetime on the lake had given him wiry strength – he would have been more than a match for the partially sedated Swift.
And if he did all that, the video confession – and his role in the boys’ murders – would never see the light of day. He could go home. But . . . if he let Reid down, two things would happen: he’d suffer the same fate as everyone else and his family name would be disgraced. The man agreed without hesitation. He seemed eager to please.
Poe had found Reid’s accomplice.
Another thought flashed through his mind. One of the cells in the ten-cell truck had been bleached clean. Was that the one in which the man had been kept? Earlier, when Poe had been reviewing the case, there’d been so many unanswered questions it seemed he was reading a book with missing pages. Now, it was making more sense.
Why had one cell been cleaned with bleach?
Why had Reid chosen to burn with Swift?
Why hadn’t he wanted to be buried with his friends?
A reluctant accomplice put a different slant on everything.
Had Reid done what he’d promised: let the man go when he’d fulfilled his side of the deal, or . . . had he killed him then kept his body until it was needed?
What did they really know about what happened that night at the farm? The official version was taken from his own eyewitness statement. But that was just his perspective. It didn’t mean it was the truth.
What if it had all been an illusion?
When Reid threw the Zippo and stepped back, Poe assumed he’d fallen and waited for his death. But Reid could have had time to switch with someone else. It would have been tight, but not impossible.
And Black Hollow Farm had a window at the back. Poe remembered seeing it when the fire blew the roof off.
Evidence of tricks like that can usually be detected for a long time after the event. Usually. But because of the blocked road to the farm, the fire had burned for a long time . . .
All detectives have to submit their DNA so it can be discarded at crime scenes, but with an accomplice to take samples from, who was to say what Reid had submitted. Poe was in no doubt Reid could have doctored a DNA sample. He knew that Gamble and his team had also taken DNA from Reid’s flat. Some hair, a discarded cotton bud, a toothbrush. All of it matched the sample he’d submitted at the beginning of the investigation. It was irrefutable evidence that the body at Black Hollow Farm was Sergeant Kylian Reid.
But . . . why had one of the cells in the truck been cleaned with bleach?
Was it possible Reid had fooled them all?
Poe considered the man piloting the boat. Would Reid really have let him go back to his life? He’d known what had been happening and had been paid to say nothing. Poe didn’t think Reid would have allowed a man like that to live. Everyone involved had to die. As well as being his early accomplice, was it possible that Reid had finally used him as a body alibi? Was it the accomplice whom Poe had tried to drag out of the burning farm, not Reid? It was a theory but one he’d never be able to prove.
And with that, Poe came full circle. Back to the dove.
Had his friend finally found peace?
Was he out there somewhere? Soaking up the sun, flirting with waitresses. Toasting his friends.
Being happy.
He had to tell Flynn. He reached for his phone. His finger hovered over the call icon. She deserved to know. She’d know what to do.
Or would she? Would anyone?
Poe threw his phone down.
Deputy Director Hanson had given him some advice he was happy to follow for once.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Poe sat in a café off the M5. He’d taken public transport to travel south, and then he’d stolen a car from a long-term car park. With luck he’d have it back before the owner knew it was missing. He was nursing a pot of tea. In his hands he had a cheap tablet. He’d bought it second-hand from one of those cash shops that were cropping up everywhere after years of austerity. He didn’t know how easily an IP address could be back-traced and he was taking no chances. He could have asked Bradshaw how to cover his tracks but that would have abused their friendship. If there was any fallout from what he was about to do, he didn’t want anyone else dragged into it.
He’d been sitting staring at the screen for over three hours.
Poe had compressed all Reid’s evidence into a file small enough to be emailed as an attachment. He’d included everything but the accomplice’s file.
There were important aspects of the case that weren’t in the email attachment: the information from the bank and the video interview of Montague Price trying to cut a deal would have been helpful but they hadn’t been available when Reid compiled his evidence. Still . . . what Poe was about to send was the other half of the puzzle that Flynn had talked about, and this time it would be the right half.
The email was set to go to every editor, sub-editor, freelance reporter and blogger he could find. Newspapers abroad as well as at home. Almost one hundred names in total.
There’d be no proof it was Poe. In fact, it couldn’t be him. He’d been unconscious when he’d left the farm in an ambulance. His clothes had been burnt to a cinder and taken away for forensic examination. Cumbria police knew for certain he hadn’t left Black Hollow Farm with anything incriminating. Everyone would assume it was the unknown accomplice. Officially, he was the only actor left on the stage. Cumbria were still looking for him but Poe knew they were chasing their tails. And he couldn’t enlighten them without letting Reid down.
If he pressed send, within five minutes nearly one hundred people would see the evidence; by morning that number would be thousands.
There’d be an enquiry. There’d have to be – the public would demand one. He wouldn’t need to do anything more: everything they’d uncovered – Carmichael and Swift’s cruise, the Breitling, the secret bank accounts, Reid’s verbal testimony – Poe would be legally compelled to hand it all over. Someone from Cumbria would leak the Montague Price interview. Too many people had seen it for it to remain secret. Poe would be called as a witness. He’d be ordered to testify under oath.
People would be listening.
He wouldn’t let his friend down.
If he pressed send.
His finger hovered. The problem was that he didn’t know what would happen next. Bradshaw’s butterfly was in his head again. There’d be consequences he couldn’t predict. Two cabinet members had been on TV assuring the public that there was no crime beyond Reid’s madness. Another cover-up wouldn’t be tolerated. There could be civil unrest. Democracy only works when you let it.
Distributing the email was reckless.
But . . . Poe thought about Reid and the trust his friend had placed in him. He thought about Flynn and Bradshaw and the work they’d done to expose what had happened twenty-six years ago. He thought about everyone who’d been involved in suppressing what had really been going on. He thought about the snidey politicians falling over themselves to label his friend a monster. If he didn’t press send they’d win again. Edmund Burke had said that ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’.
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br /> And . . . Duncan Carmichael had called him a ‘rank bad hat’. Poe wasn’t the kind of man to let insults like that go unanswered.
‘For you, Kylian,’ he whispered.
Poe pressed send, leaned back and waited for the future to arrive.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing a book is easy. Getting one across the finishing line is anything but.
First of all I’d like to thank my wife, Joanne. Without her support none of this would have been possible, and, more importantly, she’s the person I have to impress first. She sees the first draft long before anyone else and helps me shape whatever story I’m trying to tell.
Next, a huge thanks has to go to my agent, David Headley, at DHH Literary Agency – you’re a true force of nature; thanks for putting up with me. And, while I’m there, a big thanks to Emily Glenister for fielding a lot of my inane questions . . .
Krystyna Green at the Little, Brown imprint Constable gets a big thumbs up for taking a chance on the unpolished script that landed on her desk at the back end of 2016. Your enthusiasm for Poe, Tilly and Steph, and the scrapes they continue to get in to, is remarkable.
Martin Fletcher, Howard Watson, Rebecca Sheppard and Jan McCann – each one of you has made the book incrementally better. And thanks too to Sean Garrehy for such a killer cover – without using images, you were able to convey the dark menace lurking inside the book’s pages. Thank you, as well, to Beth Wright and Amy Donegan, in publicity and marketing respectively, for their tireless work and endless patience. Both of you rock!
Next I’d like to thank my three beta readers: Angie Morrison, Stephen Williamson and Noelle Holten. If something didn’t make sense or wasn’t working the way I thought it was, they were honest enough to tell me.
I now need to thank some of the people who helped when I was researching the book.
Thank you to my good friend Stuart Wilson (of the real Herdwick Croft), who patiently explained how Poe would have been able to make his croft on Shap Fell habitable.
Thank you, as well, to an old probation colleague and occasional verbal sparring partner, Pete Marston, for talking me through Cumbria’s stone circles (there really are sixty-three . . .). He may not even remember the conversation, or that he loaned me his book on them, but the information stuck in my head somehow, ready to be used five years later . . .
Jude and Greg Kelly get a shout of thanks for helping me with some of the technical aspects of murder investigations and for providing some of the anecdotes I have drawn on to add a bit of depth.
Steve at Shap Wells gets a nod for showing me round the non-public areas. It’s a real hotel, grand and isolated, and it really was commandeered as a prisoner-of-war camp.
And finally, a big thanks to the real Serious Crime Analysis Unit. I’ve taken huge liberties with you, and for that I apologise. Keep on doing what you do, guys – we’re all much safer for it.
Inevitably I will have forgotten to thank someone – please know it is a fault with my memory and not with my appreciation.
Thanks, everyone – it’s been a blast.
