The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  ‘It’s time for you to try and avoid black sites and Guantanamo Bay now, Mr Hartley-Graham,’ Poe said. ‘Give me your password.’

  Chapter 87

  After Bradshaw had confirmed the password was valid, Poe went back into the interview.

  ‘Tell me what happened. Just the highlights this time.’

  ‘I’m a problem solver,’ Hartley-Graham said. ‘Under my Curator alter ego I approach wealthy individuals and offer them a way out of whatever trouble they’ve managed to get themselves in. Until this job I have always sought out my clients. I research them, and when I’m convinced it’s safe to do so I offer a bespoke solution.’

  ‘This client approached you?’ Poe said.

  Hartley-Graham nodded.

  ‘They did. At first, I was sceptical. There are a lot of cops out there working full time on this type of crime. It wasn’t until I was authorised to add one million pounds’ worth of bitcoin into my digital wallet that I sat up and took notice. My client said there would be another million if I took the job and a million more after its successful conclusion. I couldn’t turn down three million pounds. I set up an impenetrable firewall between the two of us and opened a dialogue.’

  Before he continued, Poe flashed Hartley-Graham a warning look. Reminded him what they’d agreed on the island about what he could and couldn’t say.

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘Revenge.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘This revenge was in the form of stealing DI Flynn’s baby?’

  ‘And to make it clear to her that it was because of something she’d done at work. The wound’s crude stitching was to be her permanent reminder.’

  ‘But you hadn’t yet had instructions on what you were to do with the baby once you were off the island.’

  ‘I hadn’t,’ Hartley-Graham confirmed. ‘I presume a buyer was lined up.’

  The NCA were already putting every case Flynn had been involved in under the microscope. As Poe understood it, some potential grudge holders had already been dragged out of their beds.

  ‘Talk me through what you did. I want to know how you got from the Black Swan Challenge to performing illegal surgery on an NCA officer.’

  ‘First, I had to make sure that DI Flynn worked the case. That wasn’t as easy as it seemed. SCAS have cracked some high-profile cases recently and you’re in high demand from all the territorial police forces. A single weird murder wouldn’t guarantee your involvement. But a series of weird murders? In Cumbria? The locals would definitely bring in you, Sergeant Poe. And why wouldn’t they? A respected resource right on their doorstep. And once you were involved then DI Flynn would be too. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. I was told she wouldn’t be able to help herself. Even if it meant staying at work longer than she should.’

  ‘You used her stubbornness against her?’

  ‘I did.’

  Poe bit down his reply. This interview was all about delicately threading a needle.

  ‘So you dreamt up a scenario involving a revenge plot against Edward Atkinson?’

  ‘I found a bunch of vulnerable kids online and convinced them I’d installed malware on their computers. Most of them didn’t care and I let them go.’

  ‘Robert Cowell cared,’ Poe said.

  ‘He did. I don’t know what it was he didn’t want me to see but it was enough for him and his sister to commit a couple of nasty offences. After that it was an easy enough thing to steal his kite and put it near one of the victims’ houses, somewhere you’d eventually find it. That would start you off on the path that would lead to the one person who linked the three murder victims. And once you’d made that link it was only a matter of time before you ended up with me on the island.’

  ‘How the hell did you find Edward Atkinson, though?’ Poe said. ‘Even the chief constable hadn’t been told where he lived.’

  Hartley-Graham frowned in confusion.

  ‘I didn’t find Edward Atkinson, Mr Poe,’ he said. ‘I happened upon him. Until I landed on that island I’d never heard of the man.’

  Realisation dawned on Poe. ‘You simply found an isolated location and constructed a narrative around it.’

  ‘I’d been told that it was empty during the winter months,’ he said.

  ‘Because, apart from Edward, none of the other islanders live there full time,’ Poe said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Hartley-Graham said. ‘Edward didn’t advertise his presence there so it was a bit of a surprise when I stumbled upon him. But, after … talking to him, I quickly realised I could turn this to my advantage.’

  ‘You improvised the whole thing,’ Poe said.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ he said. ‘One way or another I’d have found a way to get Miss Flynn on the island when I needed her there. All you need is a good story, Sergeant Poe. People will follow a good story anywhere and Edward Atkinson’s, as sad as it was, was compelling.’

  ‘Correction. It’s what you did.’

  ‘Did,’ he agreed. ‘Anyway, I practised the surgery on the two women. Neither of them were pregnant, but they had wombs obviously. I got Amanda Simpson’s surgery wrong. Didn’t use enough anaesthetic and she woke before I could finish closing the wound. Struggled so much I nicked her ovarian artery and she bled out.’

  Poe knew all this. Estelle Doyle had confirmed it during the post-mortems.

  ‘The second procedure went well. I was able to open and close Rebecca Pridmore without too much mess. I didn’t need to get it exactly right. I just needed the surgery to be survivable.’

  Poe’s fist tightened. He stood up. He needed a break.

  Chapter 88

  Bradshaw leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Will DI Flynn be all right, Poe?’

  ‘I don’t know, Tilly. I really don’t. She’s resilient and she’s tough but something like this changes a person. It has to.’

  Although Bradshaw was using her glasses as a hairband, her candyfloss-hair was all over the place. Her eyes were hollow and empty. She was close to tears but was holding it together. He suspected it was for his sake. She knew he had to go back in.

  ‘I think DI Flynn will be back at work one day,’ she said as if she’d come to a decision.

  His phone rang.

  It was Special Agent Melody Lee. Bradshaw had sent her everything they’d found relating to the White Elephant Challenge and she’d promised to ring with an update.

  ‘Stuart Wilson’s legal team have filed an emergency briefing,’ she said. ‘I’m told the DA won’t contest it. He’ll be out soon. Our DC field office has already arrested the man who hired the Curator to set up Stuart. He’s lawyered up but we have him. It was exactly as I said – he had his business partner murdered so he didn’t have to buy him out at full value. The family will be in touch personally at some point but I’ve been told to thank you, Poe.’

  ‘Glad it worked out,’ he said.

  They chatted for a while longer but Poe wasn’t really interested. He was glad for the family, of course he was, but he had bigger concerns right now.

  Melody Lee picked up on it.

  ‘Are you OK, Poe?’

  Poe dodged the question. He was far from all right. He’d taken on a burden, and although he was the only person that could, he knew it would weigh heavy over the coming weeks, months, even years …

  ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Must feel nice to be vindicated.’

  ‘I have some things to finish up here but I’ll be back in DC by the end of March.’

  ‘I’m glad for you.’

  ‘Any time you need a favour, just pick up the phone.’

  Washington Poe, named after the city his mother was raped in … The city Special Agent Lee would soon be heading to.

  ‘I do need a favour,’ he said.

  ‘Already? That was quick.’

  He told her what he wanted.

  ‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I
just want the names of everyone who attended that diplomatic party in Washington.’

  Melody Lee paused a beat.

  ‘Is this official or personal?’

  Poe said nothing for several moments.

  ‘Personal,’ he said eventually. ‘Very personal.’

  ‘Well, then may God help them.’

  Chapter 89

  ‘I want specifics now,’ Poe said.

  He wasn’t sure he could cope with much more but he owed it to Flynn. If there was something in the details, one little clue to the identity of the person who’d hired Hartley-Graham, it had to be him who heard it.

  So Hartley-Graham told him.

  Told him that he had modelled both the White Elephant Challenge and the Black Swan Challenge on the suicide game Blue Whale. Hid some single-board computers locally then kicked it all off.

  ‘I suspect that Robert and Rhona Cowell were in so deep that if I’d actually told them to kill Rebecca Pridmore, they’d have done it. I didn’t leave clues at the two other murders but once you’d learned about the Black Swan Challenge I assumed you’d think you were looking for two other murderers. I wanted you to think there were others out there and Atkinson was their final challenge. I know you found out about me but the end result was the same: you and DI Flynn still had to protect Edward Atkinson.’

  ‘What if I hadn’t noticed the kite?’ Poe asked. ‘Or the printer test page you’d planted in his bin?’

  ‘I had contingencies to make sure you ended up at Robert Cowell’s house.’

  ‘Let me guess: an anonymous phone call?’

  ‘Something like that. You’d have found the document I planted in his bin eventually. If you missed that one, I’d have planted another.’

  Poe had thought the Immolation Man was the ultimate puppet master. Hartley-Graham took things to the next level. They’d all danced to whatever tune he’d played …

  Hartley-Graham said that, while they’d been running around Cumbria and the north-east, he’d been getting used to Atkinson’s medical mask and spending time in his wheelchair. Immersing himself in his new legend.

  ‘How long did you keep him alive before you killed him?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Four days,’ Hartley-Graham replied. ‘I needed to become him. That could only happen with an in-depth interrogation.’

  ‘Something you learned in army intelligence.’

  Hartley-Graham nodded. ‘I then found a guy who’d been on the jury. He did some stupid interview with the press a year ago. I paid him ten grand for the names of the not-guilty jurors.’

  Poe didn’t say anything. Nightingale’s team had already charged the man who’d leaked the names.

  He told Poe how he’d practised with the rigid collodion, the solution used on actors to create the effects of scarred skin. Played about with different shades until he had the look of an acid-attack survivor. He explained that by the time Poe arrived on Montague Island, he’d been using it so much that his skin was wrinkled and puckered even when he wasn’t wearing it.

  Poe asked how he kept his client up to date with his progress. As he’d expected he didn’t understand any of Hartley-Graham’s technical explanations. It didn’t matter – Bradshaw was watching and would provide him with any supplementary questions. He wrote everything down anyway, mainly so he didn’t have to look at him.

  Something he said made him pause.

  Something about his client’s username. He’d said it was anonymous earlier, but he hadn’t actually told him what it was.

  He asked him to repeat it.

  Hartley-Graham did.

  Poe wrote it down then underlined it.

  It was a number.

  8844.

  He tapped it into his phone. In less than a second Google returned over seventeen million results.

  8844 was a form used by the IRS, the American tax authorities.

  It was a Lego helicopter set.

  It was part of the genomic sequence for a protein found in a human chromosome.

  ‘This username, is it randomly generated?’ Poe said.

  ‘No. The user chooses their own.’

  ‘So there’d be nothing to stop someone from calling themselves say … James Bond or Basil Fawlty?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Obviously no one uses anything that could identify them. It’s why random number streams are so popular.’

  ‘A bit like numbered bank accounts?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Poe stared at the number. He underlined it again.

  8844. Why did it seem familiar?

  He reviewed where he’d been recently. Nothing jumped out. He went back further.

  Into last year.

  Poe went rigid. He caught his breath. Blood pounded in his temples. Hartley-Graham was saying something he couldn’t hear. The other cop in the room was looking at him strangely.

  Poe didn’t care.

  It couldn’t be.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Only it did …

  When he teased it all out, in the worst way imaginable, it absolutely did make sense. In fact it was the only thing that could.

  ‘I was told she wouldn’t be able to help herself …’

  That’s what Hartley-Graham had told him. That 8844 had said that Flynn wouldn’t be able to help herself. She’d get involved in the case even when she should be on leave.

  He forced himself to breathe normally. He kept his expression neutral. He needed to be careful. Along with what Hartley-Graham had told him on the island, Poe was in a whole new thing now.

  Because if he was right nothing was going to be the same again.

  For any of them.

  Chapter 90

  It had turned midnight and Poe sat alone in a dark room.

  Waiting.

  Thinking.

  The darkness was his friend. It was where the answers were. No matter how hard they tried to hide, he knew he’d always be able to track them down in the darkness. In the shadow of a blizzard he’d uncovered the Curator’s plan and on the cold, black island he’d listened as he described what he’d been paid to do.

  All of it.

  Not just the sanitised account he’d allowed Hartley-Graham to say to camera.

  And the sanitised account being the only account was now Poe’s primary concern. Because the un-sanitised account was the most horrific thing he’d ever heard of. It would stay with him for ever. He’d try, but this wasn’t something that would fade with time.

  So he waited.

  No plans, no intentions.

  Just counting down the time until the lights would go on.

  A noise focused his attention on where he knew the door was. Someone was trying to get a key in the lock.

  Fumbling. Unsteady.

  Drunk …

  The door opened and they stumbled in. The lights snapped on. Poe blinked. Twice. He didn’t allow himself the luxury of a third.

  ‘Washington,’ a glassy-eyed Jessica Flynn slurred, ‘what are you doing here? How did I get in?’

  She giggled.

  ‘I mean, how did you get in?’ She waved her hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. Good that you’re here. Drink? I’m having one.’

  ‘I’m good, Jessica.’ He remained seated.

  ‘Party pooper.’

  Jessica lurched over to the polished wooden bar and opened a bottle of wine. Clumsily poured it. More fell on the floor than in her glass.

  ‘I need some air,’ she said. She opened the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the car park. She stepped outside and peered over the balcony. ‘I don’t see your new Range Rover down there, Washington.’

  Poe didn’t respond.

  She stepped back inside and collapsed onto the couch. Half her wine slopped out.

  ‘Balls.’

  Poe said nothing.

  ‘What’s happening with the … the … you know, the case thingy?’

  ‘We have a name for the Curator. He’s called Oliver Hartley-Graham.’

  ‘And the org
an grinder?’

  ‘We have a decent lead,’ Poe said. ‘A few years ago Stephanie helped convict a paedophile. He died in prison. Last year his daughter won the lottery. The financial adviser the lottery company appointed helped her invest in bitcoins. It’s how Hartley-Graham was paid. Cumbria are investigating.’

  ‘S’good,’ Jessica said. ‘Sounds promising.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘What you doing here anyway?’

  ‘I’m on my way to see Steph. Thought I’d pop in to see you first.’

  He held up the keys to the Range Rover.

  ‘I can’t accept this,’ he continued.

  ‘Why not? You earned it. My little sister would be deaded or something and baby Flynn would be in the Middle East by now if you hadn’t gone all Starsky & Hutch on us.’

  ‘Actually, Scrapper wouldn’t be in the Middle East.’

  ‘Well, Russia then. You’re the policeman, how am I supposed to know where trafficked babies end up?’

  ‘Not Russia, either.’

  ‘Where then?’ she snapped.

  ‘I’ve been keeping something back from everyone,’ Poe said. ‘Something Hartley-Graham told me on the island. Something he only told me. I made a deal with him there and then that if he didn’t mention it, I wouldn’t mention it.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘That he wasn’t to wait for instructions on what to do with Steph’s baby.’

  ‘He wasn’t?’

  ‘No, because he’d already had them.’

  ‘So what was he supposed to do?’

  Poe stared at her for several moments. Watched her carefully.

  ‘He was to kill it,’ he said quietly.

  Jessica took a drink of wine. ‘Bullshit,’ she said.

  ‘He was to record himself disposing of the body,’ Poe continued. ‘Somewhere it could never be found. On receipt of the recording his client would release the last payment.’

  Flynn’s sister said nothing. She seemed to be sobering up, however.

  ‘Hartley-Graham planned to dump Scrapper in the Irish Sea, halfway between Montague Island and the Isle of Man.’