by M. W. Craven
‘You said you had three reasons for involving me, Kylian,’ Poe said. ‘So far you’ve only mentioned two. What’s the third?’
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Reid stared at Poe with a ferocious intensity. ‘I need to ask you something first, Poe. And I need you to be honest.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide,’ Poe replied.
‘You sure?’
Poe hesitated. ‘I’m sure.’
‘What happened with the Peyton Williams case?’
‘You know what happened!’ he snapped.
‘That DI of yours asked me, you know? Wanted to know why you hadn’t stayed to fight the charges. Why you were just lying down and letting everyone fuck you over.’
‘And what did you tell her?’ Poe said, his voice less sure.
‘I told her that you were struggling to come to terms with having made a mistake that cost a man his life.’
Poe nodded.
‘I was lying, of course,’ Reid continued.
Poe held Reid’s gaze.
‘What really happened, Poe?’
‘I made a mistake.’
‘You don’t make mistakes.’ Reid paused. ‘There’s a darkness in you, Poe. A desire for justice that goes beyond what’s normal. I have it and you have it. It’s why we’ve been friends all these years.’
Poe didn’t respond. He couldn’t hold Reid’s gaze.
‘Tilly told me about how you beat up that man who’d been bullying her in the office in Hampshire—’
‘I hardly—’
‘And how you seriously hurt one of those drunks in the bar at Shap Wells.’
Poe said nothing. He knew both incidents could have been handled differently. Jonathan had called Bradshaw a retard in a room full of witnesses – he was getting the sack regardless – and those idiots in the bar would have stopped the moment he showed them his NCA badge.
Instead, he’d chosen violence.
Reid was right. And his perennial state of anger predated anything that happened with Peyton Williams. The Black Watch had given him a temporary outlet, but the Army hadn’t challenged him intellectually. He’d soon grown bored. He’d never dared look too deeply into the root cause of it all. Instead, he’d used it. It gave him an edge. The ability to see into the shadows. It allowed him to do things others wouldn’t. It saved lives.
But at what cost?
‘Until you face the demons you’re harbouring in there,’ Reid said, pointing down at Poe’s head, ‘they’ll keep pushing you into more extreme things. And at some point, your anger will turn into something more sinister. Trust me, I have experience in these things . . .’
‘But—’ Poe protested.
‘Go and see your dad, Poe.’
‘My dad? Why would I do that? What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘Swallow that pride of yours and ask him why you’re called Washington. It’ll help you to understand.’
Poe was about to tell him to piss off. That Reid knew nothing of his life. But it wasn’t true. Reid had stayed with Poe and his dad for days on end sometimes. With Poe living in Kendal, and Reid a few miles out of town, the two boys would often stay with each other’s families. Reid knew everything about his life.
‘You couldn’t see the darkness in me; your own blinded you to it. But your dad recognised it. He tried to draw it out, and to do that he would occasionally tell me things. Things he probably should have told you first,’ Reid said.
‘What did he tell you, Kylian?’ Poe wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Reid knew.
‘He told me about your mother.’
‘You leave my fucking mother out of this!’ Some things were off-limits, even in a situation like this. He didn’t want to think about her, never mind discuss her. As far as he was concerned, he’d never had a mother.
Reid ignored him. ‘Just go and see your father. Ask him. Nothing was what it seemed, Poe.’
Poe didn’t respond.
‘Please don’t make me say it,’ Reid said. ‘It needs to come from your dad. I will tell you this, though: your mother didn’t hate you, Poe.’
‘She abandoned me. She was a selfish bitch who resented me.’
‘Not true, Poe,’ Reid said. ‘Your mother loved you. Very much indeed.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘And it was because she loved you she had to leave.’
What did Reid know that he didn’t?
‘You’ll tell me or I walk away now, Kylian. I’ll ring it in and you can take your chances with whoever drives up that road next.’
‘I can’t tell you, Poe. Your father has to.’
Poe hesitated. If his father knew something about his mother he hadn’t told him, then they needed to have a conversation. But . . . why had he told Reid? It didn’t make sense. Unless . . .
‘My dad’s not a brave man, Kylian,’ he said. ‘You know that. If he had something bad to tell me that he could put off, you know as well as I do that he’d put it off. Indefinitely, if he could. Did it ever occur to you that he told you because he expected you to tell me? That he wanted you to tell me because he knew he couldn’t.’
This time it was Reid who hesitated.
‘OK, Poe, if you’re sure?’
Poe nodded.
‘Did you know that your mother and father went through a period where they saw other people?’
Poe shook his head. It didn’t surprise him. His parents were hedonists. Monogamy had never fitted the profile he had for either of them. He’d always assumed they’d been liberal with their marriage vows.
Reid continued. ‘Your dad told me that they had almost eighteen months apart. He went to the subcontinent to study some sort of mysticism. She went to the States with a group of CND protestors.’
Poe was vaguely aware his father had studied under a guru in India – they didn’t teach the ridiculous yoga positions he used to practise in England. He didn’t know his mother had been to America. He knew very little about her at all.
‘Your father told me that your mother wrote him a letter saying she was in trouble and that he had to go back to England. They might have been apart but they did love each other. He flew back as soon as he could. When they met up, she was two months pregnant.’
The news hit him like a sledgehammer. His dad wasn’t his dad . . . All those years raising another man’s child. On his own. The man was a saint. But . . . that made no sense. If it were true, there’d be no reason not to tell him. That his mother had been promiscuous was hardly earth-shattering. Even in those days, there was no shame in raising someone else’s kid. There was something else. Something worse.
‘Go on,’ he said to Reid.
‘While she was in the States, one of their group had managed to get a brief audience with someone in the British Embassy, and they’d all been invited to a cocktail party afterwards. The way your dad tells it, they were only there to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. A “let’s all laugh at the hippies” kind of thing.’
‘In Washington?’
‘What?’
‘The British Embassy, it’s in Washington, DC.’
‘It is.’
‘So, what are you saying? That my father was some sort of diplomat?’
Reid held off answering.
‘What is it, Kylian?’ he said. ‘Tell me who my father is.’
Still he said nothing.
‘Kylian,’ Poe said. ‘You can tell me. I won’t be angry.’
Reid looked down. There were tears in his eyes. ‘Your mother was raped, Poe,’ he said gently. ‘She went to that party to protest against nuclear weapons and someone raped her.’
Poe’s brain registered no thoughts other than he was shocked. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. The crushing ache of abandonment lifted, only to be replaced by something far worse: guilt. All those years hating her? Wasted years. What must she have thought of him? As if his internal light had gone out, darkness washed over him. He stood trying to comprehend what it meant. His mot
her had been raped? Why had no one told him? He was a policeman. He could have done something about it. The future seemed an unwalkable road now. Where did he go from here? What did he do next?
‘I think I’ll go now.’ He turned to leave – all thoughts of the case forgotten.
‘Wait! You haven’t heard everything. You haven’t heard about the good that came from the bad.’
Fuck that! He hadn’t heard why he’d been named after the city his mother was raped in. Bollocks to the good that came out of it, that was the question he wanted answering. He turned back.
‘Your mother hated the idea of bringing you to full-term, Poe. She didn’t want you – you were right about that – but not for the reasons you thought. She came back to the UK to get an abortion.’
‘Fucking great . . .’ Poe snarled. There was a red storm rising. Anger was controlling all his thoughts now. Before long it would consume him.
‘But when she got to the clinic, she couldn’t do it,’ Reid said. ‘She and your dad – because he is your dad, Poe – decided that something good should come of it all. According to your dad, she asked him if he would be prepared to raise you. She intended to give birth and leave the country before you’d drawn breath.’
‘And that’s what she did?’ he asked. ‘She gave birth then dumped me? I thought she’d hung on for—’
‘But instead of hating you as she’d expected to, she loved you intensely. “A burning love,” your dad called it. An immediate bond neither of them had expected.’
‘So . . .?’
‘According to your dad, she never wanted you to know about your start in life. And she knew if she stayed, there’d come a time when you’d begin to look like the man who’d raped her. She had to leave before that happened. She didn’t want you to see her expression when that happened. It would have broken her. She had to leave. But she couldn’t. She loved you too much. She needed something to make it easier. She needed something to remind her. She needed to force the issue before it became too late. Otherwise she’d keep putting it off.’
‘So, she named me Washington as an ever-present reminder,’ Poe finished for him. Every time someone said his name, it would have been a dagger in her heart. A constant reminder of who he was and who he’d eventually become. ‘She named me after the city she was raped in so that she’d have the strength to leave.’
‘Yes,’ said Reid.
‘My name was like the health warning on a packet of cigarettes then,’ Poe said. ‘Don’t get too attached to him; he will turn into his father.’
‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’
‘How would you put it?’
‘Nicer,’ he replied.
Poe’s anger fizzled and died. His name had allowed his mother to make a huge sacrifice. And he’d been embarrassed by it. Well, no more – he’d wear it with pride from now on.
He put it to one side. He’d deal with his parentage later. If whoever had raped his mother was still alive then he hoped they’d gone all cold because he was coming for them. It might take him months, it might take him years, but at some point in the future, he and his ‘father’ were going to meet.
But first he had a job to do.
And before they could move on, Reid had wanted an answer to a question. He deserved one. Reid had been raped. Poe’s mother had been raped. Little wonder they had a bond. So, if Reid wanted to hear the truth about Peyton Williams, then Poe would tell him.
Poe thought back to the day he visited the family of Muriel Bristow. He only had bad news for them. He had a suspect but he couldn’t tell them who. Worse, Peyton Williams knew they were on to him. If she were alive, Muriel would die of dehydration within the week. He had a choice: her life or his career.
And he’d known what would happen. How could he not? Muriel’s father was a tough, working-class man. Used to settling things with his fists. And his brother had a garage in the middle of nowhere.
Poe had handed over Peyton Williams’s name, knowing he was going to be abducted and tortured until he gave up Muriel’s location.
He’d known that and did it anyway.
‘It was no mistake,’ Poe said. ‘I gave them the wrong report on purpose.’
Reid nodded as if he’d known all along. He probably had. He knew Poe better than anyone. ‘And why did you do that?’
The answer to that was far from simple. He could spout all the excuses he’d used at the time to convince himself he was on the side of right. That they were exceptional circumstances. That he was out of time and out of options.
Flynn had accused him of binary thinking that night in the graveyard, but the truth was more complex. While he remained resolute in his belief that it had been the right thing to do – if the choice was between the rights of a murderer or the rights of an innocent victim, well . . . that was no choice at all. If he could have gone back in time, he’d have done the same thing. Because making sure the girl had a chance to live; dealing with Tilly’s bully in Hampshire and the idiots in the bar; all the ignored instructions – everything that others viewed as self-destructive was part of who he was. Who he’d always been.
The truth was, he did these things because the guilty had to be punished.
Was he sorry Peyton Williams was dead?
Of course he was.
Would he do it again?
In a heartbeat.
‘Don’t answer, Poe,’ Reid said. ‘I already know why. You’ve been wondering lately if you’re a sociopath. You’re not. Your nightmares prove you have empathy. You tell people you hate bullies but that only scratches the surface. What you hate is injustice. It’s why it had to be you.’
‘I’m not following,’ Poe said. His head was spinning. The revelation of his mother, and the need to admit his role in the torture and death of Peyton Williams, had combined to throw him. Reid was now reading him completely. No secrets were hidden to him. He wondered if it had always been the case.
‘Why do you think I made you jump through so many hoops, Poe?’ he asked. ‘The body in the graveyard, the instruction to leave the bishop alone that I knew you’d ignore. Why did I not just leave you a note somewhere? Why didn’t I just kill them all, tell you everything I knew, then quietly disappear?’
Reid might be the sanest insane man he’d ever met, but by anyone’s definition he was mad.
‘I needed to make sure you were still the same person, Poe. That living at your croft hadn’t softened you. This is the culmination of my life’s work, and if you weren’t prepared to challenge the clergy or disturb a grave, you wouldn’t be able to do what I need you to do next.’
‘You’ve been testing me? What for?’
‘You’re going to tell my story, Poe.’
‘So all this,’ Poe replied, ‘is just so I can be your fucking biographer?’ He was struggling to keep up. He had sensory overload. He needed to sit in a dark room for a week. He needed to speak to his dad.
Reid remained silent.
‘Anyone could have done that for you,’ Poe continued. ‘People with more credibility and technical expertise than me. Hell, why not just put everything on the internet? Let the conspiracy nuts do the work for you.’
Reid shrugged. ‘There are supporting documents I don’t have. The bank statement you found. The party invitation. The thing with the Breitling. Things that corroborate their video confessions.’
He was right. They both held two halves of the same puzzle. Without Poe’s evidence, the confessions were just frightened men saying whatever their torturer wanted them to say; without the confessions, the evidence was circumstantial at best. He understood now. It had to be him. He wasn’t just the only one who could, he was also the only one who would.
‘He’d held these parties before you know,’ Reid said.
‘Carmichael?’
‘Yes. I don’t know if they had the same level of depravity as ours, but you can be sure nothing good happened at them. I know that some of the people who’d attended his earlier parties are very powerful no
w. The establishment will try to protect itself. You must realise this.’
Van Zyl had already told him that people in Westminster wanted it finished quietly and sensitively. He could imagine them whispering in the ears of Cumbria’s chief constable: Everyone involved is now dead. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. No need to look beyond the actions of a mad man. And by the way, how’s your application for the Met coming along? You must let me know if I can help. See if I can call in a few favours. No way would the full truth get out. The men and women who controlled the media, the CPS, the courts and the police would do their masters’ bidding. Sure, a few of the more liberal papers might suspect a cover-up, but without Poe’s assistance there’d be nothing for them to find.
Reid spoke carefully. ‘You’ve always claimed you’ll follow the evidence wherever it takes you, but I’m asking you, if I give you the evidence, will you make sure it gets out? Will you tell the world our story, Poe? My friends deserve nothing less.’
‘I’ll make sure it gets out, Kylian. All of it.’
‘Thank you, Poe.’
He looked up when Reid said, ‘I told you not to tell anyone.’
A vehicle was threading its way along the road to the farm. The headlights could be seen through the fog.
‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ Poe replied. He turned to Reid but he’d disappeared. When he returned, he wasn’t alone. A semiconscious Hilary Swift was with him. They were now handcuffed together. He was holding a Zippo.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The light from the approaching vehicle was illuminating Poe’s car.
‘Who’s that?’
‘No bloody idea,’ Poe replied. ‘But I promise you I told no one. If I had, they’d have been here before now.’
He figured that whoever it was, they were still ten minutes away. The distance wasn’t far, but because of the sharp incline there were another seven or eight hairpin turns for the vehicle to navigate. As the crow flew, it had two hundred yards to travel, but by road it still had at least a mile. They both knew the vehicle was coming to them. Black Hollow Farm was the end of the road.