The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  Jessica Flynn, the boss’s elder sister, lived on the top floor of a renovated brick factory. It was an open-plan, loft-style apartment, more suited to Manhattan than semi-rural Cambridgeshire. There were at least fifty women there. Poe was the only man, a fact he was reminded of every time someone gave him a weird look.

  He’d barely spoken to his boss. Flynn had said hello when he’d arrived but had been dragged off by a succession of women. She was now seated on one of her sister’s large couches, surrounded by them. She looked angrier than he felt miserable.

  He watched as someone reached over and patted her stomach.

  ‘Will you pack that in!’ she snapped, pushing the hand away.

  Flynn wasn’t a stereotypical pregnant woman, if there were such a thing. She scowled rather than glowed, wore leggings and New York Dolls T-shirts rather than the Laura Ashley maternity dresses Poe knew her partner, Zoe, had bought her, and she flat out refused to take any leave. The only giveaway was that she had a massive belly. Everything else about her was the same: her blonde hair was still tied back in a severe ponytail, her makeup was subtle and her work mobile was never away from her ear.

  Flynn glared at the woman who’d touched her. ‘The next person who pats my belly is getting punched in the fucking throat.’

  The woman smiled nervously, unsure whether Flynn was joking or not.

  Poe knew she wasn’t.

  Because, although Flynn was trying to act as if everything was the same, pregnancy had changed her in one small way. She had a rare pregnancy-related cortisol imbalance, the hormone that sends the body into fight or flight mode.

  And Flynn didn’t back away from fights. Every new experience and challenge had to be beaten into submission. Before she’d got pregnant she’d been a considered and courteous manager. Now she was a foul-mouthed ranting loony. Whereas before she would stay calm, even when up against the most intransigent, obnoxious moron that SCAS occasionally had to deal with, now you risked her wrath if you typed too loudly.

  Poe thought it was hilarious, although he never acted like it was to her face.

  He’d spoken to Zoe earlier but they had little in common. Zoe worked in the City profiling world oil prices and he worked anywhere he was needed profiling serial killers. She earned seven figures a year, he earned … considerably less than that. They didn’t dislike each other but they had an unspoken agreement that they shouldn’t have too much contact.

  Poe glanced at Bradshaw and smiled. She was wearing the dress she’d bought when they’d attended a charity gala during the first case they worked on together – a mosaic of thumbnail-sized comic book covers. She’d marked the night’s occasion by doing something different with her hair. Usually it was tied back and fastened with pigtails; now it was piled high like candyfloss. He wondered idly if she’d had it professionally styled or just followed an online tutorial. His money would be on the latter.

  Bradshaw caught him looking and gave him a double thumbs up. She hadn’t been to a baby shower before and had attacked it with her usual mixture of enthusiasm and research.

  She’d spent a small fortune on gifts – some, like the Spider-Man onesie, were cute and appropriate; others, like the electric double breast pump, were not.

  ‘It’s so you can express milk in the most time-efficient way, DI Stephanie Flynn,’ she’d said in front of everyone.

  Poe envied Flynn her present. She wouldn’t have to use it for long, whereas he knew the state-of-the-art pasta maker Bradshaw had bought him for Christmas would torment him for years. He didn’t like pasta. Didn’t care that it would lower his cholesterol, that it was a ‘gateway to a whole new cuisine’ or that making his own pasta was cost-efficient.

  But that was Bradshaw all over.

  Despite being in her early thirties, the Serious Crime Analysis Section was her first real job. In academia since she was a teenager doing degrees and PhDs, then working on the research grants organisations were throwing at her, she’d had neither the time nor the inclination to develop any social skills.

  SCAS was her first step into the outside world and she’d found communicating with anyone with an IQ lower than 150 a challenge. She was naive, literal and painfully honest but, although Poe had been initially wary of her, he’d recognised that she had the potential to be SCAS’s greatest asset. She specialised in mathematics, but was so intelligent she would know more than anyone else on a subject in a matter of hours when she put her mind to it. She could spot patterns in data when no computer could, she could devise bespoke solutions to intractable problems without breaking a sweat and she was intensely loyal.

  Pasta maker aside, she was Poe’s best friend and he was hers. Bradshaw softened Poe’s harsher edges and he helped her plot a course through the outside world. They were a formidable team, which, considering the amount of trouble they frequently found themselves in, was probably for the best.

  Jessica Flynn was a rich woman with rich friends, all of whom worked in the City. They would have been called yuppies in the 1990s. They’d taken Bradshaw into their collective bosom and before long she was the centre of attention. Poe would have stepped in if he thought they’d been taking the piss but it was clear they weren’t. Bradshaw was so honest and agenda-free – the opposite to the people they usually socialised with, people for whom backstabbing, double-dealing and flat-out lying was a way of life. Having a conversation with someone who answered the question you asked, rather than the one that gave a tactical advantage, must have been a breath of fresh air to them.

  Poe looked round Jessica Flynn’s penthouse. It covered the top floor and there were huge windows on all four sides, at least ten feet high. Although it was dark, Poe could see that the windows facing the countryside and the windows facing the car park at the rear had large balconies. The front one was set out with wrought iron seats and benches. An upside-down ice bucket was on a small table.

  The internal décor was open brick with expensive furniture and fittings. Jessica was obviously a mountaineer. Photographs and memorabilia adorned a whole corner. A shelf, filled with a collection of mountaineering curiosities, was the centrepiece of her collection. In pride of place was an old ice axe. It was on a beautiful teak plinth.

  There was a brass plate on the bottom. He could see it was inscribed but it was too far away to read.

  He wandered towards it.

  A woman joined him.

  ‘I see you’ve found my little obsession,’ she said, sticking out her hand. ‘We haven’t been formally introduced – I’m Jessica Flynn, Steph’s sister.’

  They’d been introduced earlier in the evening but it had been quick and perfunctory.

  She was tall and cat-like, lithe and graceful in her movements. She had Flynn’s golden hair although hers was cut much shorter, possibly because of the mountaineering. Poe had served three years in the Black Watch so was aware that personal hygiene was difficult to maintain in the field – anything you could do to make it simpler was not to be ignored.

  She was well dressed, but not over the top like the others. Jeans and a cashmere jumper. Her only piece of jewellery was a delicate golden chain.

  Poe studied the photographs. Jessica was in most of them. Ropes flung across her chest, a string of carabiners on her belt, huge smile on her tanned face. He leaned into one photograph and squinted. He recognised what she was climbing: a rock called Napes Needle in the Lake District. It was thin and tapered and looked like a missile.

  ‘That was taken a few years ago,’ she said. ‘It was afterwards, in a pub in Keswick, that we began planning for the big one.’

  ‘Scafell Pike?’ Poe said. Scafell Pike was the tallest mountain in England but it hardly needed expedition-type planning; on a nice day you could walk up it in shorts and trainers.

  She pointed at a photograph of the most famous mountain in the world.

  ‘Everest?’

  Jessica nodded. ‘Everest.’

  Poe whistled. ‘Impressive. Dangerous.’

  She shrugge
d. ‘Everything’s dangerous.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘They go next May, when the jet stream isn’t hitting the summit at one hundred miles an hour.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘I won’t be going with them, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh … what happened? You don’t seem the type to abandon difficult goals.’

  ‘I was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, unfortunately,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not familiar with it.’

  ‘You’re lucky then. It’s a long-term endocrine disorder. Means my adrenal glands don’t produce enough steroids.’

  ‘It’s treatable, though?’

  ‘It is. I’ll have to take tablets for the rest of my life but it won’t affect how long I live.’

  Realisation dawned on him.

  ‘But for someone attempting an Everest summit expedition it’s problematic?’

  ‘Altitude sickness. My condition means it would have a greater impact on me, and as Everest’s summit is 8848 metres – the cruising altitude of a 747 – my diagnosis would have invalidated the group’s insurance.’

  He gestured to the ice axe and read out the inscription on the brass plate: ‘Tenzing Norgay’s mountaineering axe. Mount Everest Expedition, May 1953.’

  The axe had a wooden handle and was a more basic design than the ones Poe saw in the Lake District’s plague of mountaineering shops. The shorter end was wide and flat, like a pickaxe; the longer end was pointed and curved. The handle ended with a tapered metal spike.

  ‘The axe Sherpa Tenzing used to reach the summit is a pretty decent consolation, though,’ he said.

  ‘The one he used to reach the summit is actually in a Nepalese museum. This is a replica of the axe he used to save the life of Sir Edmund Hillary earlier in the expedition when he fell down a crevice. It was why Hillary chose Norgay as his climbing partner when he made his summit attempt.’

  ‘You never thought about trying to get the real thing?’

  Jessica snorted. ‘Way out of my league, Sergeant Poe. Artefacts like that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.’

  He looked at his surroundings. ‘You seem to be doing OK, though. This place can’t be cheap.’

  She burst out laughing.

  ‘The bank owns the apartment, Sergeant Poe, I just pay subsidised rent. I’m expected to entertain at home and investment banking is all about projecting an image.’

  ‘And is that what you do? Investment banking.’

  ‘It is, and it’s not as much fun as it sounds,’ she said with a grin. ‘Walk with me?’

  She opened the double doors. A blast of chilled air filled the room. She stepped outside. Poe followed.

  She turned and leaned against the balcony’s glass and metal guard.

  ‘Stephanie tells me you’re a bit under the weather?’

  ‘Bit of a bug,’ he said.

  ‘Bug’ was an understatement. He’d been laid up for almost a week now. The grandparents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had spent less time in bed. It had started as a headache but had evolved into a hacking cough that had turned his throat red-raw. He felt he was through the worst but it hadn’t been nice. Winter bugs never were.

  ‘I’ve got a fine single malt that’ll sort that out,’ Jessica said. She disappeared inside, returning a minute later with two crystal tumblers full of amber liquid.

  Poe sniffed it, then took a sip. The whisky was like fire and ice. Beautiful, smoky and unlike any hard drink he’d had before.

  ‘Why are you here, Sergeant Poe?’

  He was tempted to say, ‘Because Tilly made me,’ but it seemed flippant. He decided on the truth.

  ‘Steph’s a good friend. We’ve been through a lot together.’

  Jessica nodded thoughtfully. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  Poe said nothing. Jessica seeking him out had been no accident.

  ‘I need you to talk my sister out of this ridiculous career path she’s chosen for herself.’

  ‘And why would I do that?’ Poe said carefully.

  ‘In the next month or so she’s having a baby. My nephew or niece. She’ll have responsibilities she hasn’t had to consider before. Being a police officer’s fine when you’re young and single but she can’t keep putting herself first any more. People are relying on her now and this job you do isn’t conducive to sensible decision-making. She needs to quit playing cops and robbers and rejoin the real world.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Poe said. ‘Most of what we do is office-based.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you nearly burn to death in a house fire last year?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And weren’t you arrested for murder recently?’

  ‘Yes, but that was a misunderstanding. What happened, was this man had—’

  ‘But you’ll agree what you do has its … unnecessarily exciting moments?’

  Poe didn’t know what to say. It was true they had been in a few scrapes recently. He blamed Bradshaw – she kept finding new and inventive ways to get closer to the bad guys …

  ‘Is this not something that the two of you should discuss?’ he said.

  ‘Stephanie doesn’t listen to me, Sergeant Poe. She used to. Used to hang on her big sister’s every word. Not any more.’

  But Poe had stopped listening. Flynn was talking on her phone and she was frowning. She caught his eye and nodded. He drained the whisky, grimacing as it burnt his raw throat.

  ‘Duty’s about to call,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Go,’ Jessica sighed.

  By the time Poe got to her, Flynn was already reaching for her coat.

  Zoe walked across and joined them.

  ‘Steph, your absence is conspicuous,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Zoe. We’re going to have to leave, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Bradshaw cried.

  ‘Oh no,’ Poe said.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ Flynn muttered.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Our analytical support will be here this afternoon,’ Flynn told the group that had assembled in Conference Room A of Carleton Hall, Cumbria Constabulary’s headquarters building in Penrith. ‘We were at a social function last night and Tilly had to head back to Hampshire to collect her computers. Sergeant Poe and I were able to leave immediately.’

  Poe had got back to Herdwick Croft, his secluded home on Shap Fell, in the early hours; Flynn had booked into the nearby North Lakes Hotel and Spa. It was now 8 a.m. and it looked as though Poe wasn’t the only person who hadn’t had a full night’s sleep. There were around forty people in the room, a mix of senior uniformed officers, senior detectives and essential support staff. The atmosphere was sombre.

  Flynn had taken a seat at the front. Poe was standing at the back, next to the freestanding banner displaying the Constabulary’s and the Police and Crime Commissioner’s logos. When the briefing was finished the last rows of chairs would be reversed and the room would be set up for press conferences, the first of which was scheduled for later that day.

  ‘We have computers here,’ Detective Superintendent Jo Nightingale said.

  ‘Not like hers you don’t,’ Flynn said. ‘Trust me, what Tilly Bradshaw brings to the investigation can’t be overvalued.’

  Nightingale nodded, satisfied. She was a serious-looking woman in her early forties. Cropped dark hair, black trousers and a white shirt. Eyes green enough to start traffic.

  Poe had met Nightingale only once. She’d taken over the vacant detective superintendent position when Ian Gamble had retired after the successful conclusion of the Jared Keaton case. Poe had returned to Herdwick Croft one afternoon to find her waiting outside.

  She’d introduced herself and said Gamble had advised her that Poe was an asset if used properly. She’d brought a case file with her. A murder. After the 2015 floods, when Carlisle had been flooded for the second time in a decade, a lot of buildings became all but uninsurable. People had a choice: pay for the repairs themse
lves or cut their losses. Several chose the latter with the result that there were abandoned buildings all over the city. A body had been found in one of them.

  The victim was an economic migrant from Poland, and Nightingale had asked Poe if SCAS could add value to her investigation. He’d read the file while she waited then said, ‘You don’t need us – you’ll catch the perp using the investigation strategy you’re already following. He’ll be from within the Polish community and he’s probably already returned home. He’ll be known over there and your forensic evidence will be enough to extradite and convict him.’

  She nodded.

  It felt like he’d passed some sort of test. That she’d needed to reassure herself that Poe wasn’t going to invent drama just so he had an excuse to leave Hampshire. It had been unnecessary anyway – Poe lived in Cumbria full time now. At the end of the Jared Keaton case, Detective Chief Inspector Wardle, a cop Poe had had a run in with, had done the dirty. Realising that the Lake District National Park’s new boundary included Shap Fell, the prehistoric moorland where Poe’s croft was situated, he’d asked the local authority, ‘purely as a concerned citizen’, if Poe had been granted permission to convert the two-hundred-year-old building into a dwelling. Poe hadn’t and they’d issued a legally binding instruction to return it to its original condition.

  Although he was fighting it in court there had been an upside. In the law of unintended consequences, Wardle had done him a favour: Poe’s solicitor had said it would be helpful if he could demonstrate that Herdwick Croft was his sole residence.

  Poe, who up until a couple of years ago wouldn’t have cared if he lived in a shoe, had asked if he could work from home when they weren’t out in the field. Director of Intelligence Edward van Zyl had immediately agreed.

  ‘You’re like a caged animal down here anyway, Poe,’ he’d said. ‘The open space up there has cleared your mind and brought a clarity to your work – I don’t want to lose that.’

  ‘I’ll send the SCAS guys videos and photographs of the crime scenes when we’re finished, but it’ll be helpful for me to summarise,’ Nightingale said. ‘Some of my colleagues were away visiting family over Christmas and aren’t up to speed.’