The Puppet Show (Washington Poe Book 1)

by M. W. Craven

  ‘You don’t know, do you, Poe?’ Bradshaw said, unwittingly rescuing him.

  Poe smiled at her and shook his head. ‘That’s right, Tilly. I don’t.’

  ‘Ah,’ Nolan said. ‘Then how can I help you?’

  ‘We’re trying to trace a watch,’ Poe said.

  ‘Not high-stakes diplomacy then?’

  ‘Definitely not. My boss would be keen to tell you that diplomacy isn’t the strongest part of my character,’ Poe said, taking a bite of the excellent cake. He told Nolan his problem.

  ‘I assume this watch has been stolen?’

  ‘Of a fashion,’ Poe replied.

  ‘And the National Crime Agency gets involved with thefts, do they?’ he asked with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Poe said nothing.

  ‘Sorry. Of course, I’ll help if I can. I used to own three shops and I like to think we had some of the better ones.’

  ‘What happened?’

  He flexed his hand. ‘Arthritis, I’m afraid. Curse of the jeweller. That and fading eyesight meant I couldn’t hold or see anything smaller than a penny. I sold up. The shops are all gone now. One of them is now Coffee Genius, which is why we go there.’ He sighed, ‘Still, I did well out of it so shouldn’t complain. Now, tell me about this watch you need help with.’

  Bradshaw handed over the photograph showing the Breitling’s serial number.

  ‘This is the one we’re trying to trace,’ Poe said. ‘Do you need the model and year?’

  ‘If you have it,’ Nolan said, ‘although Breitling’s serial numbers are unique across the whole range. In other words, there won’t be two different models with the same number. But the model might jog someone’s memory.’

  Poe breathed out. It was nice finally to talk to someone who knew what he was on about.

  Nolan said, ‘I’ll make some calls and see what I can find out. I still keep in touch with a few folk in the trade so I might be able to point you towards someone who could help.’

  ‘Appreciate it,’ Poe said. He wrote his name and number on the same piece of paper the serial number was on and stood to shake Nolan’s hand.

  ‘I’ll be in touch, Sergeant Poe,’ Nolan said.

  His wife showed them to the door. ‘That’ll keep him busy for the afternoon anyway. He’s been a bit lost since he retired.’

  ‘Now what?’ Bradshaw asked when they were back in his car.

  ‘We wait,’ Poe replied.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Nolan rang back within two hours.

  ‘I think I have something for you, Sergeant Poe,’ he said.

  Nolan had begun by ringing people who’d had similar shops to him: jewellery businesses and small chains. Most of them didn’t sell high-end watches; it was a lot of money to tie up in stock that might not sell, and the kind of thing they did sell was mostly bespoke anyway. They made their jewellery from scratch and had little interest in anything else.

  ‘Even that’s a dying art, though,’ he moaned. ‘These days it’s all designed on a computer and then cut with a pre-programmed laser. Flawless results and I suppose it is progress. Makes the end product a bit soulless if you ask me, though.’

  Poe wanted to speed him up but knew better than to say anything.

  ‘Anyway, a friend of mine remembered a dealer in new and antique watches who would visit the various shops and leave leaflets and information for customers. He worked for all the major watch manufacturers. The shop would facilitate the purchase and take a cut. That way they could call themselves official suppliers without having to buy any.’

  Made sense, Poe thought. It also avoided the smash-and-grab raids thirty grand watches attracted.

  ‘The dealer’s called Alastair Ferguson and he’s retired.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I’ve just finished speaking to him. He’s on his way over here now. He’s coming from Edinburgh, though, so it’ll be another couple of hours. If you and Miss Bradshaw can come back we can have a cup of tea while we wait.’

  ‘And he knows something, does he?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t have records for the serial number to hand but he thinks he knows the watch in question.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Because as soon as I mentioned the Breitling, he said he’d been waiting for this call for twenty-six years . . .’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Alastair Ferguson spoke with a strong Scottish accent. He was small and immaculately attired in a three-piece suit, obviously from the generation who still believed in dressing up for appointments. He took a dram of whisky from Nolan, then settled in to tell them what he knew.

  A shop that no longer traded had sold the watch he suspected they were following. They had two premises, both in Keswick. One sold costume jewellery to tourists and the other was a more traditional shop.

  The owner had been asked to source a Breitling for a customer and he’d had a healthy budget. Alastair Ferguson had driven down from Edinburgh to meet him with a strongbox full of watches and hopefully to secure a nice fat commission.

  ‘Do you remember who the customer was?’ Poe asked.

  Ferguson nodded. ‘The Bishop of Carlisle.’

  For several moments no one said anything. This is going to get ‘political’, Poe thought.

  Ferguson added, ‘It wasn’t for him, though, and it was all above board. He paid with a church cheque and made sure he had a signed receipt.’

  ‘Do you know who it was for?’ Poe asked.

  Ferguson removed a newspaper cutting from his pocket. It was yellowing with age but otherwise in good condition. He passed it to Poe. The clipping had been taken from the News & Star. It was a filler article. A single column on page eight. Probably only interesting to those involved. The date was at the top and it was from twenty-six years ago.

  Poe read it, then snapped a photograph with his mobile. He passed it over to Bradshaw. She did something with her tablet and scanned it. Poe glanced at the image she’d made on the screen. It was crystal clear.

  In a ceremony at Rose Castle, the Bishop of Carlisle presents a watch to the Reverend Quentin Carmichael, the Dean of Derwentshire, in recognition of his outstanding services to charity.

  Quentin Carmichael – who was known for holding charity cruises on Derwentwater, the lake near Keswick – was forty-five and had a glittering career with the Church ahead of him.

  Poe glanced at Bradshaw and wondered if she’d spotted the importance of his age. She was waiting for him to catch her eye; it was clear that she had. Twenty-six years ago, Quentin Carmichael had been forty-five. That put him right in the target age for the Immolation man.

  Poe’s suspicions had been confirmed.

  If Carmichael were involved, then it meant Poe was right; the Immolation Man wasn’t choosing his victims at random. He was targeting them. Find out why and he’d be a step closer to finding out who.

  Poe turned to Ferguson and said, ‘When I spoke to Charles earlier, he said you’d been expecting a call like this?’

  Ferguson nodded. He removed another newspaper clipping from his pocket. Poe read it.

  It was another article on Carmichael. This one wasn’t so flattering.

  * * *

  Disgraced church official, Quentin Carmichael, flees country. Embezzlement suspected.

  The article was full of the usual journalistic bullshit phrases of ‘allegedly’ and ‘according to senior sources’ but the gist of the accusations was clear: Carmichael had fled the country because he was about to be exposed for embezzlement. Although it was thin, there’d been corroboratory evidence of his escape from justice: a missing passport and chequebook. There was nothing else of significance in the article and Poe made a mental note to try and get hold of the police file.

  ‘So, you’d been expecting a visit from the police because Mr Carmichael had been suspected of embezzlement?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Poe waited.

  ‘I kept these clippings because I though
t there was something a bit off with him. He asked to see me not long after he’d been gifted the watch, and when this happens it’s usually because the person wants to thank me or, even better, they’ve got the collector’s bug and are looking to expand their collection.’

  ‘But Carmichael wasn’t either of those?’

  ‘He was not, sir. All Quentin Carmichael was interested in was how much it had cost. He got quite angry when I said I couldn’t tell him. He even offered to sell it back to me for two-thirds of what the bishop had paid. As I don’t own the watches, I refused. I said I’d be happy to act as his broker but he stormed out.’

  ‘So, the embezzlement thing made sense to you?’

  ‘Oh, aye. He was all about the green, that man.’

  A financially motivated thread was appearing. Now all he had to do was gently tug it. ‘Could you all excuse me a moment?’ He stood and walked to a quiet corner of the large living room. Mrs Nolan came in with a pot of tea and another cake. He was going to put on three stone during this investigation if he wasn’t careful.

  He called Reid.

  ‘Burke, what you after this time?’

  Poe told him what they’d found and he asked how he could help.

  ‘I need to know all about the Carmichael embezzlement investigation. It was twenty-five, twenty-six years ago,’ Poe whispered into his phone. He didn’t want Nolan and Ferguson knowing he didn’t have the authority to request the information through official channels.

  ‘The Church? Aren’t you in enough trouble?’

  ‘Please, Kylian.’

  ‘It’s going to be difficult to do it without alerting anyone, Poe. All our systems leave footprints, you know that.’

  ‘Tell Gamble then. I was just about to tell DI Flynn anyway.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Poe lied.

  ‘I’ll get back to you then,’ Reid said before hanging up.

  Poe returned to his seat and finished his cup of tea. He asked Ferguson some more questions but it was clear he had everything the ex-watch salesman knew. After thanking Mrs Nolan for her hospitality, they made their excuses and left.

  He rang Flynn on the short walk back to his car and was relieved when he got her voicemail. He left her a quick update, and then turned off his phone. He was going to have to do it the hard way and he didn’t want any interruptions.

  They hadn’t even got out of Warwick Bridge when Bradshaw’s phone rang. She answered it quietly, then frowned. ‘It’s for you, Poe,’ she said.

  Poe pulled over at a bus stop and took the phone from her.

  ‘Poe,’ he said.

  ‘Poe, this is DCS Gamble. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be on leave.’

  Sometimes the best thing to do is to deny everything. This was one of those times. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.’

  Gamble grunted. ‘DS Reid tells me you think you’ve discovered Tollund Man’s identity?’

  ‘Quentin Carmichael, sir. Disappeared about twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘And you think it’s linked to the Immolation Man?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘How?’

  Poe didn’t have a clue and said as much. Gamble seemed annoyed that he didn’t have more. He said, ‘And how did you get his name?’

  ‘I’ve emailed Flynn a full report, sir. I think it would be best coming from her.’

  Gamble either didn’t realise or didn’t care he’d been brushed off. He said, ‘I want to make it absolutely clear – you are not to go near any Church officials. Do you understand, Poe? My team will go through the proper channels and set up appropriate interviews if they’re needed.’

  Poe said nothing.

  ‘Do you hear me, Poe? You don’t go near the Church!’

  ‘Sorry, sir, you’re breaking up.’ He pressed the end-call button and handed the phone back to Bradshaw. She started fiddling with it.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, Tilly. I just needed to end the call. It’s easier to say things like that sometimes.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What did he say, Poe?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So, what are we going to do now?’

  Poe frowned. He’d always thought that if someone would rather you stopped doing what you were doing, you were probably on the right path, but . . . he didn’t want to drag Bradshaw down at the same time. As adorably awkward as she was, she had an important career ahead of her. He told her he would do the next bit on his own.

  She refused.

  He stared at her, trying to fathom if she really wanted to help, or whether she was blindly following him because of some new-found, misguided sense of loyalty. The only thing he could see was determination. He sighed then thought, Why not? He was on leave, what was wrong with taking his new friend round the sights of the Lake District? And if they happened to end up in Keswick, near the Bishop of Carlisle’s residence, then so be it . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Between 1230 and 2009, the Bishop of Carlisle’s official residence had been Rose Castle, near the village of Dalston. A huge and sprawling, culturally significant part of the country’s heritage, it had long been considered one of the jewels in the Church’s property portfolio. The last bishop, however, had elected to move out, believing it to be inappropriate to live in such opulence when others, including his own parish priests, were living in poverty.

  It had made the headlines so Poe knew this without having to look it up. Bradshaw’s quick internet search found the bishop’s new address. He’d moved into ‘Bishop’s House’ in Keswick. Poe didn’t know it, but he recognised the street.

  Although he hadn’t slept since the day before, he was gaining momentum and no decent detective slept when a case was hot. Twenty minutes into the journey Bradshaw’s phone rang. This time it was Flynn warning them away from the Church.

  ‘Tell her I’m driving and don’t have hands-free,’ he said when Flynn wanted to talk to him. ‘I’ll call her when I get a signal but we’re heading into the National Park for some ice cream and the mountains make coverage a bit thin.’

  Poe could hear Flynn swearing through the small speaker. Oh well, couldn’t be helped. Anyway, she shouldn’t be calling him; he was on leave. It left him with a problem, though: Bradshaw’s continued involvement. It was all right him being reckless – he didn’t care about the inevitable fallout – but when the big dogs fight, it’s the little dogs that get hurt. However, there was no public transport he could put her on and he didn’t fancy the two-hour detour back to Shap. He settled for a compromise: he’d take her to Keswick but would drop her off in one of the nicer pubs until he was finished ruining what was left of his career.

  He told her.

  She said no, folded her arms and refused to acknowledge him until he relented. He tried explaining the potential consequences but she stood firm.

  Fair enough, then.

  Bradshaw wasn’t the most streetwise person in the world, but she was an adult and was allowed to make disastrous decisions along with everyone else. And, as strange as it sounded, they worked well together. Misfits often do, he thought.

  Her phone rang.

  ‘It’s DI Stephanie Flynn again,’ she said, looking at the caller ID.

  ‘Answer it. You don’t want to get into trouble.’

  She flicked the switch to silent, and put it back in her pocket. ‘I don’t have a signal.’

  Poe flinched. What had he created . . .?

  The bishop might have downgraded when he left Rose Castle, but he was hardly slumming it. The unimaginatively named Bishop’s House was on Ambleside Road in Keswick town centre. It was an elevated and imposing triple-fronted, slate-faced Lake District building. It sat behind an acre of large garden, which still needed a few years to bed in. Poe could see no drive or obvious place to park so he entered the Keswick on-street parking lottery.

  Eventually he found a recently vacated spot on nearby Blencathra Street. He se
t his parking disc on the dashboard next to a scrap of paper with ‘police business’ scribbled on it. If the traffic warden was new he might get away with it.

  He and Bradshaw made their way back to Ambleside Road, and walked up the large gravel path to Bishop’s House. There was a doorbell and a large black knocker. Poe pressed the bell.

  Poe hadn’t called ahead, so had no idea if anyone would be in. He didn’t know much about the hierarchy of the Church, but he knew being a bishop was a big deal. He imagined they spent a lot of time away on business.

  If someone knocked on Poe’s door and he didn’t answer in ten seconds, he was either out or he was dead, but in this house he was prepared to wait three minutes before giving up. After a minute, he decided he might have more luck with the oversized knocker. He raised it and sent it crashing back against the striking plate.

  Poe and Bradshaw looked at each in shock; the noise would have woken the dead. A few seconds later, the large door opened.

  A rotund man peered out at them, blinking in the low afternoon sun. He was in his sixties and was wearing a scruffy cardigan. Reading glasses hung from a leather strap around his neck. He smiled at them curiously. Bradshaw had found a recent photograph of the bishop on the way over and Poe knew he was looking at the Right Reverend Nicholas Oldwater.

  ‘You must be Sergeant Poe,’ he said. ‘I was warned you might visit.’ He frowned. ‘Although I was told you’d be on your own.’

  Before Poe could stop her, Bradshaw stepped forward and curtsied. ‘Matilda Bradshaw, your holiness.’

  Poe winced but Oldwater laughed and said, ‘Nicholas will be fine, Matilda. You’d better come in. Whatever it is, it sounds intriguing, I’ve never had so much contact with the police. The chief constable’s been on the phone twice and someone called Stephanie Finn from the NCA called not fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘DI Stephanie Flynn, Nicholas. She’s our line manager at SCAS. That’s the Serious Crime Analysis Section,’ Bradshaw said. ‘We’re part of the National Crime Agency, aren’t we, Poe?’

  Poe nodded. ‘We are indeed, Tilly.’

  ‘Well, they all seem very keen on us not talking,’ Oldwater said. ‘Whatever can it be about?’