The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

She checked her notepad. ‘Cockermouth. That’s what the SIO said.’

Poe stood. ‘Let’s get going then.’ It was getting serious; if the fourth victim had just been found, then he was next on the conveyor belt.

Barrett said, ‘I’m supposed to give you a reorientation tour before you start . . .’ He withered in front of their combined looks. ‘. . . but I suppose under the circumstances it can wait.’

‘Good man,’ Poe said. ‘I want to take an analyst with us. Someone who can do a bit of everything, I have an idea where to start and there’ll be a lot of data mining to do. Who’s the best we have?’

Flynn hesitated and her face coloured. ‘Jonathan Pierce.’

‘And he’s the best, is he?’

‘Well, officially Tilly Bradshaw is the best. She has a skill set like no other here. She’s the one who found your name in all that medical data.’

Poe thought he’d recognised the name. ‘What’s the problem then?’

‘She’s one of our special people. She refuses to leave the office.’

Poe smiled. ‘What you need, DI Flynn, is a sergeant . . .’

CHAPTER TEN

Poe marched into the open-plan office and shouted for Tilly Bradshaw. A small thin woman stood up. She looked shy and bookish, a typical cube-dweller. She pouted and sat back down when she saw who’d shouted for her.

He turned and spoke to Barrett. ‘Can you stay there a moment, Ash? I might need some help.’

Poe had loved being a sergeant. In hindsight he shouldn’t have taken the temporary inspector role. It came with more management responsibility than he was comfortable with. He’d been good at being a sergeant and by the looks of things SCAS had been without one for too long . . .

‘Miss Bradshaw, my office now.’

Bradshaw slouched along to the sergeant’s office. As it had recently been Flynn’s office, it was scarily tidy. Poe sat behind the desk.

Bradshaw didn’t shut the door behind her and that was fine. The unit would do well to pay attention to the new way of working. He gestured to the seat in front of the desk

and she perched on the end.

Poe studied her; 90 per cent of being a sergeant was managing people. She wore no makeup and behind her gold-coloured Harry Potter glasses were grey, myopic eyes. She was fish-belly pale. The front of her brightly coloured T-shirt showed the logo of the all-girl Ghostbusters remake. Her canvas trousers were khaki with large side pockets. Cargo pants, he thought they were called. Her fingers were long and fine-boned. The nails were chewed to the quick. Despite her earlier show of defiance, she looked apprehensive.

‘Do you know who I am?’

She nodded. ‘Your name is Washington Poe. You’re thirty-eight years old and you were born in Kendal, Cumbria. You transferred from Cumbria Constabulary to SCAS and it is believed that a mistake you made led directly to the torture and death of a suspect. The IPCC are investigating you. You’re on suspension.’

Poe stared at her. His piss-taking radar wasn’t beeping; she was being serious. This was how she talked. ‘Wrong. As of,’ he said, checking his watch, ‘five minutes ago, I’m Detective Sergeant Washington Poe. And from now on, if I ask you to do something, you do it. Are we clear?’

‘DI Stephanie Flynn says I’m only to do what she says.’

‘Did she now?’

‘She did, Detective Sergeant Washington Poe.’

‘Poe’s fine.’

‘She did, Poe.’

‘I meant you should call me Sergea . . . actually . . . you can call me what you want,’ Poe said, realising he didn’t have the energy for a meaningless discussion over forms of address. ‘And why did DI Flynn tell you that?’

‘Sometimes people like to joke with me. They tell me to do things I’m not supposed to,’ she replied, pushing her glasses back up her nose and tucking an errant lock of wispy brown hair behind her ear.

A flickering of understanding crept up on him. ‘OK. But I’m your new sergeant so you do have to do what I tell you to do,’ he said.