by M. W. Craven
‘And you believe this Oliver Hartley-Graham? He was probably just trying to shock you, Poe.’
‘I believe him.’
‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.’
‘Am I? Explain this then: why was there an untethered lobster pot full of rocks in the boat he planned to escape in?’
‘I have no idea, Poe. Perhaps he was trying to catch lobst—’
‘He told me he’d been instructed to feed Steph’s baby to the crabs, Jessica.’
He paused. Wanted to see if the mental image elicited a response.
It didn’t.
‘I threw the lobster pot as far into the sea as I could,’ he said. ‘I then gave everyone a more palatable version of the truth. No way can Steph ever know.’
‘This is a nice story, Poe, but I’m getting another drink,’ she said. She tried to get up but fell back down.
‘Why’d you do it, Jessica?’ He didn’t raise his voice. Kept it neutral. He could have been asking why she preferred green-topped milk to red-topped.
‘Have a drink, Poe!’ she said. ‘Everything’s OK when you’ve had a drink.’
Poe stood. He walked over to the mountaineering wall. The altar to her obsession. He stood in front of one picture in particular. It was next to her pride and joy: the Tenzing Norgay mountaineering axe. The photograph was of a group of Chinese mountaineers sitting around a fire at a base camp. All mugs of tea and smiles. It had been taken in 1960 and documented the country’s first successful Everest attempt.
‘This is where you went wrong,’ he said, pointing at the photograph. ‘If you hadn’t tried to be clever, if you’d used a randomly generated username, who knows, we may never have caught up with you.’
Jessica Flynn looked thoughtful.
‘But you didn’t, did you? You chose the height of Everest according to the Chinese.’ He pointed at the photograph’s annotation. ‘The Chinese don’t accept the official height of 8848 metres. They believe the height should be to the top of the rock, not the top of the snow. The Chinese say that the official height of Everest is 8844 metres. Like it says here.’
Jessica’s eyes narrowed.
‘That’s it?’ she scoffed. ‘You came all this way with a silly little number?’
‘Tilly did the odds for me. The chances of someone choosing a random four-digit number that corresponds with the one in your flat is … how did she put it? … statistically unlikely.’
It was the first lie he’d told. He hadn’t involved Bradshaw in this. He hadn’t involved anyone.
Jessica waved him away. ‘I don’t care what the odds are, it’s a coincidence. I live in a rented apartment and occupy a minor position in an investment bank, where the fuck am I supposed to get three million pounds from?’
Her words hung in the air. Poe could almost see them.
For several moments neither of them spoke. Poe could hear the television in the apartment below.
‘I didn’t tell you the Curator’s fee was three million pounds,’ he said quietly.
‘I … I assumed, what with you saying all those things you said he’d been asked to do, that’s about what his fee would be.’
Poe said nothing. Just stared at her.
‘Makes no difference, though,’ she said. ‘The facts remain the same. I can’t be the person who hired him because I don’t have three million pounds.’
Poe reached into his inside pocket. He withdrew a sheaf of documents. He put on his reading glasses and read from the top one.
‘Thing is, Tilly tells me that a lot of people who invested in bitcoin in the early days made staggering amounts of money. Money that was never declared and is almost untraceable.’
‘Is that all you have? A theory about bitcoin?’
Poe shook his head.
‘I researched your bank,’ he said. ‘You’re not quite the put-upon corporate drone, are you, Jessica? Far from occupying the relatively junior position you claimed on Boxing Day – you’re actually a senior vice president. Something to do with mergers and acquisitions, whatever that is. It also says here that although your bank did own this apartment, they sold it three years ago when they moved their property investments out of the UK and into mainland Europe. Part of their Brexit preparations apparently. It was bought for cash by an offshore company. That’s who you rent it from.’
He turned the page.
‘And about your Tenzing Norgay axe,’ he said, gesturing towards the mountaineering display in the corner of the room, ‘the one you claim is a replica. According to this, Christie’s in New York sold the original at auction last year. It went for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have a friend in the FBI now and she did some digging. Guess what she found?’
Jessica shrugged.
‘It was bought by the same offshore company that owns this apartment.’
Poe looked at her over his reading glasses.
‘Is this all a coincidence as well, Jessica?’
She held his gaze for a few seconds then smiled.
‘Busted,’ she said. She pouted, put on a squeaky, cute voice. ‘Jessica’s been a very naughty girl.’
‘Yes, you have,’ Poe said.
‘So what happens next?’
‘You’re going to tell me why. You’re going to tell me why you paid to have your own nephew killed.’
‘You seem to know everything, why don’t you tell me?’
‘OK, I will,’ he said. ‘I think this started with you being told you had Addison’s disease.’
‘Does it now?’
‘Because, although you told me you had been diagnosed with it, you didn’t tell me how you were diagnosed with it. But I think I can guess. You’re a mountaineer. A very good one by the looks of it. You’ve climbed all over the world but the one climb you haven’t done is Everest. And until you have it’s like a pebble in your shoe. Even if it isn’t hurting you know you’ll have to take it out at some point.’
Jessica scowled.
‘You decide to go for it. You start planning. You don’t want to be part of an organised tour so you assemble a team to go with. How am I doing?’
Jessica shrugged again and spilled more of her wine. She got up and refilled her glass.
Poe continued.
‘But then, weeks before you’re about to set off, your little sister turns up. She’s been trying to get pregnant and she now knows why she’s struggled. She has Addison’s disease and because it can be hereditary it means you might have Addison’s disease. You get yourself tested and, all of a sudden, your expedition is off. Stephanie’s dream of having children was the end of your dream of climbing the only mountain that matters.’
Jessica glared at him.
‘So you sought redress,’ he said. ‘As sick as it sounds, you thought it was only fair. A dream for a dream.’
He stopped talking.
Jessica Flynn threw back her head and roared with laughter.
‘You think this was about the baby? Fuck the baby! This was about respect. Respect and the fact that my uppity sister gives me none. I’m her big sister and that should mean something. It should count. She used to look up to me, used to rely on me. I’m worth millions; she didn’t even have enough money for her IVF. Zoe had to pay for it.’
Poe watched her carefully. She was behaving unpredictably and, although she was drunk, she’d be formidable if things turned violent.
‘I make decisions that affect the stock market, whereas she’s a nobody in a nothing job. A fucking servant. And she has the gall to look down on me? Where’s the respect? Where’s the fucking respect! How dare that fucking carpet muncher be happy? Why should she have everything while I have nothing?’
Poe looked at the apartment he was in. The expensive décor. The beautiful fittings. An original slice of history sitting on a plinth.
‘All this means nothing if she isn’t jealous!’ Jessica shrieked.
Poe stood. Easier to move.
‘Sit down!’
Poe didn’t.
<
br /> ‘You wanted your little sister back,’ he said, finally understanding. ‘You knew she’d spend the rest of her life searching for a baby she could never find. It would have consumed her. It would have ruined her relationship with Zoe. She’d have had no choice but to come back to you. She’d need your money to keep searching. She’d be back under your control again.’
‘And it would prove I’d been right all along. Being a police officer is a ridiculous job. So, yes, I paid someone to kill her baby. Big deal. I was going to make amends by setting up a foundation. I thought it would be nice if we could look for the baby together. We could have been a family again.’
Poe knew there and then that what she’d done had stripped her of her sanity. There would be no reasoning with her now; she’d been staring into the abyss for far too long.
He also knew he had no proof. The evidence could be on her laptop but he doubted it. With unlimited resources she’d have used a throwaway to communicate with Hartley-Graham.
All he had was a story.
Jessica reached the same conclusion.
‘Show me your handcuffs,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your handcuffs. Show them to me.’
Poe didn’t move.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she smirked. ‘You’re not here officially. If you had a shred of proof my door would have been kicked in and a bunch of dickheads in white suits would have searched this place top to bottom. And by the way, there’s nothing to find. Nothing to find means there’s nothing you can do. All you have is a number my solicitor will explain away without even trying.’
‘I don’t need proof,’ he said softly.
‘What are you talking about, you fucking idiot? Of course you need proof. No proof, no case.’
She walked over to her front door.
‘I’d like you to leave now.’
Poe didn’t budge.
‘I don’t need proof, not when I have a story. I’m going to see Stephanie now, Jessica. I’m going to sit her down and I’m going to tell her everything.’
Jessica glared at him.
‘Now, I know Stephanie pretty well but I’m not her sister. So I ask you this: who do you think she’ll believe?’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she hissed. ‘It would destroy her.’
‘It will,’ he nodded. ‘But not as much as always having to look over her shoulder. Not as much as always wondering if her child is safe.’
Poe was used to violence but Jessica wasn’t used to being violent. He could read the warning signs as easily as if she’d shouted her intentions, so when she screamed and threw her empty glass at him, Poe ducked under it easily. He heard it smash against the exposed brickwork behind him. Jessica vaulted the couch and sprinted to the mountaineering wall. She snatched the Tenzing Norgay ice axe from its plinth.
She didn’t hesitate. Spinning round, she charged him, her face contorted with fear and hatred.
Because she was drunk, and because he’d been expecting it, as Jessica reached him, Poe twisted out of her way. His movement was subtle, little more than a feint, but it was enough. The swing of the ice axe whistled past his nose and Jessica stumbled past him.
The momentum kept her moving.
Out onto the balcony.
Where the top of her thighs hit the metal railing.
And like a tree being felled, she slowly toppled over.
But, as drunk as she was, she was still a mountaineer. She whipped out her arm and the tip of the axe dug into the floor of the balcony, tearing an inch-deep gouge out of the polished oak floor.
The silence was sudden and all consuming.
Poe stepped out and looked down. Jessica was hanging from the axe, swinging gently like a condemned man hanging from the gallows.
‘Help me,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t want to die.’
‘No, you wanted your sister’s baby to.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll tell her everything. I promise. Just help me up.’
‘Swear on your nephew’s life?’
Jessica nodded before she realised what he’d said.
‘Yes, you’re sorry now but it won’t last,’ Poe continued. ‘It might take a year, it might take five, but at some point your resentment will build up again. While you live, Stephanie’s child will never be safe.’
‘Fuck you then, Poe. I’ll get back up myself.’
She grunted and started swinging. Rocking really. Tried to build enough momentum to get a foot on the balcony ledge. With a foot and a hand she’d have the two points of contact any decent mountaineer could self-recover from. Poe watched. She came close a couple of times but she was drunk and quickly tired. Her mountaineering discipline kicked in and she stopped to conserve energy.
Her hands, wet with sweat, slipped on the axe’s shaft and panic gripped her. She glanced down. Saw only concrete and death in her future.
‘They’ll know you were here,’ she gasped. ‘Your fingerprints will be all over my apartment.’
Poe shrugged. ‘I was here Boxing Day. Of course my fingerprints will be here.’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t let me die.’
Poe stared at her.
‘You wrote this ending, not me,’ he said.
And without another word he turned and stepped back into the room. Picking up the keys to the Range Rover he quietly left her apartment. It was late, and although he could hear movement he didn’t see anyone. He made his way down the fire exit and walked across the road towards the country lane where he’d parked the car.
By the time he reached it the screaming had started.
Author’s Note
Unfortunately, the Blue Whale Suicide Challenge is real. It probably started in Russia, but most countries have reported anecdotal evidence of its reach. And the underpinning psychology that Tilly explains is real as well. It’s a scary world when someone who has nothing more than a damaged mind and access to a computer can manipulate kids and other vulnerable people, who sometimes live on the other side of the world, into doing these awful things. Read about it, if you haven’t already. Educate yourself so you can spot the warning signs.
Yellow dot tracking is real, as well. Sixteen years as a probation officer rammed home the offenders’ code that snitches get stitches, and, believe it or not, your printer is a tittle-tattle. So, if you’re planning on posting something brown and smelly to Number 10, you’d better use someone else’s printer if you want to add a typed message. Preferably belonging to someone who’s annoyed you recently.
Now, a quick word of caution. Although the Walney Channel and the Islands of Furness are real, Montague Island is most definitely not. And, although you can walk to Piel Island when the tide is out (although you should never try this without a guide), please don’t try to walk to Montague Island – you will drown in the Irish Sea. And, whilst I appreciate this might feel heavy-handed, please remember hotels have to put stickers on their hairdryers that say ‘Please do not use in the shower’ …
And finally, for all the pedants out there, I’m fully aware that describing Walney Island as being quarter-moon shaped is technically incorrect. The correct term would have been ‘waxing gibbous’, but I used more accessible language. Please forgive me. Also, I hope you’re aware that knowing the meaning of waxing gibbous is the reason you don’t have any friends. If you feel as though you can’t let this go, please do write a letter. But don’t send it to me.
Acknowledgements
Lots of people to thank, not a lot of energy to do it.
In no particular order:
My wife and soulmate, Joanne. Not only do you go through the final draft and hunt out those stubborn little typos, you – and I really don’t know how you do it – put up with someone who’s such a constant chatter of shit. I know I wouldn’t like to live with me.
David Headley (and just so we can all feel a bit inadequate here, let’s list his jobs, shall we? Agent, bookseller, publisher, festival organiser …) for his friendship, guidance,
and enthusiastic championing (and selling) of Poe & Tilly and Fluke & Towler, both nationally and internationally. You’re a good man, David.
Everyone at DHH Literary Agency and Goldsboro Books, not least Emily Glenister, for all your support and kindness. And beer when I visit.
My editor at Constable, Krystyna Green, for being so awesome. And for letting me have the ending I wanted in this book. Let’s see how long we can keep this racket going for, shall we? I reckon I have a few left in me if you have?
Sarah Murphy and Hannah Wann for their patience and good humour. Like Joanne, I don’t know how you put up with me.
Martin Fletcher and Howard Watson, both of whom prove that you can polish a turd. Martin helps me see the wood when all I’ve been able to see is the trees, and Howard makes wot I write more good. And Howard also manages to make sure I’m not contradicting myself from what used to be book to book, but now includes series to series. Don’t know how you do it, Howard, but I’m glad you do.
From the start of my journey with Constable, one thing about the books that has really caught readers’ eyes is the covers. Every single one (from The Puppet Show to the recently refurbished Fluke series) has been absolutely spectacular. So take a bow, Sean Garrehy – you are seriously talented. And I’m sorry you missed your train after the Black Summer launch. Next time we’ll be more sensible. Promise. ;-)
Rebecca Sheppard, a desk editor like no other, who, in the chaos of multiple drafts, last-minute inserts, last-second edits, and simple buffoonery on my part, manages to stay calm, organised and makes sure everything that needs to happen, happens.
My proofreader, Joan Deitch, for doing the most underrated but arguably most important job in the process – checking the final proof before it goes to production. And with someone like me, who scatters words around like rice at a wedding, it can’t be easy. Thank you for your diligence.
Beth Wright and Brionee Fenlon, publicity and marketing respectively, for putting Poe & Tilly into the hands of so many readers it’s indecent. And Beth, I’m sorry you had to hear the Mick Herron story …
And to everyone else at Little, Brown who has worked on Poe & Tilly in whatever capacity. It’s a privilege to be published by such an eminent house and one I’ll be eternally grateful for. Thank you.