The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

‘We assume you’re earmarked as the fifth victim.’

He picked up the last photograph. After the crude attempt at the number five, the Immolation Man had given up on curves. All the letter strokes were straight.

Although they were only looking at a computer image, Poe could see the wounds were too crude for a scalpel. His money was on a Stanley knife or similar. The fact that the letters had been picked up by the MSCT meant two things: they were ante-mortem – if they hadn’t been, the post-mortem examination would have found them – and they were deep; the burning would have destroyed shallower wounds. The victim’s last few minutes must have been hell on earth.

‘Why me?’ Poe said. He’d spent a career making enemies but he hadn’t worked a case involving someone this nutty before.

Flynn shrugged. ‘As you can imagine, you’re not the first person to ask that question.’

‘I wasn’t lying when I said I only know what’s been reported in the papers.’

‘We know that when you were a Cumbria police officer, you had no official contact with any of the victims. I’m assuming you hadn’t had any unofficial contact with them?’

‘Not that I know of.’ He gestured to the croft and surrounding land. ‘This place takes up most of my time these days.’

‘That’s what we assumed. We don’t think the link is the victims; we think the link is with the killer.’

‘You think I know the Immolation Man?’

‘We think he knows you, or knows of you. We doubt you know him.’

Poe knew that this was the first of many discussions and meetings, and that whether he wanted to or not, he was involved. In what capacity was still up for debate.

‘First impressions?’ Flynn asked.

He studied the slash marks again. Not including the messy number five, he counted forty-two. Forty-two wounds to spell out ‘Washington Poe’. Forty-two individual expressions of agony. ‘Other than the victim wishing I’d been called Bob, nothing.’

‘I need you to come back to work,’ she said. She looked around at the desolate fells he now called home. ‘I need you to re-join the human race.’

He stood up, all previous thoughts of resigning dismissed. There was only one thing that mattered: the Immolation Man was out there somewhere, selecting victim number four. If he ever wanted to feel at ease again he had to find him before he reached number five.

‘Whose car are we taking?’ he asked.

CHAPTER FIVE

As soon as they were out of Cumbria the land flattened and the M6 stretched ahead like a runway. Spring was having delusions of summer grandeur, and Poe found himself having to turn up Flynn’s air-conditioning. Sweat pooled in the small of his back. It had little to do with the heat.

An uneasy silence had stifled them. When Poe had dropped off Edgar with his nearest neighbour, Flynn had changed out of her crisp power suit into a more casual outfit of jeans and a jumper, but despite her relaxed attire, she twirled her fingers through her long hair as she stared at the road.

‘Congratulations on your promotion,’ Poe said.

She turned her head. ‘I didn’t want your job. You must know that?’

‘I do. And for what it’s worth, I think you’ll make an excellent DI.’

He wasn’t being spiteful. She relaxed and said, ‘Thank you. You being suspended wasn’t exactly how I envisaged getting a DI position, though.’

‘They had no choice.’

‘They might not have had a choice when they suspended you,’ Flynn said, ‘but anyone could have made that mistake.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied. ‘We both know there’s a clear evolutionary line from that mistake to what happened, Steph.’

Flynn was referring to their last case. His last case. A mad man in the Thames Valley area had abducted and killed two women, and Muriel Bristow, a fourteen-year-old girl, was missing. SCAS had been involved from the beginning. Offender profiles and crime mapping had been completed but it was the geographic profile that led them to their main suspect: Peyton Williams, an MP’s aide. Everything fit. He had a previous conviction for stalking, was in the area every time a girl had been abducted, and had a string of failed relationships.

Poe wanted to arrest and question him, but his boss, Director of Intelligence Talbot, had refused. A general election had been called and they were in the pre-election period known as purdah – without evidence, arresting an MP’s aide in a marginal seat could be viewed as election tampering. At least it could in Talbot’s eyes. ‘Go and find something solid,’ he’d been told. In the meantime, Talbot told Poe he would inform the MP in question. Tell him they were investigating a member of his staff. Poe begged him not to.

Talbot ignored him. The MP fired his aide.