The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

The result came on to Bradshaw’s screen and she turned and nodded. She had tears in her eyes.

She wasn’t the only one.

Poe knew who the Immolation Man was.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Poe stared at the number on his mobile. There would be no going back if he made the call. No bell could be unrung. His finger hovered over the dial icon. Eventually he touched it. He closed his eyes as he waited for the call to be answered. She might not. She’d be involved in the search for the abducted children and trying to identify the owner of the prisoner-escort van. He had to tell her before anyone else. He needed to convince her.

After eight rings – and Poe counted them with a heart that grew heavier with each one – Flynn answered her phone.

‘Poe,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t talk. DCS Gamble’s just delivering his briefing.’

‘You need to go and get him, Steph.’

‘It’ll have to wait. I’ve got—’

Poe spoke firmly. ‘You need to go and get DCS Gamble and you need to do it right now.’

‘I’m going to need more,’ she replied after a small pause.

Poe told her.

There was a delay of three or four minutes as Flynn manoeuvred her way through the briefing room. Despite the fact it sounded as though she was holding her phone at her side, Poe could still hear her as she ‘excused me’d’ her way to the front of the room.

It was tinny, but when she arrived, Poe could hear both sides of the conversation.

‘It’s DS Poe, sir.

He says he needs to speak to us.’

‘Does he now?’ Gamble replied. ‘Well, he’s going to have to get in the queue. When I’ve finished here, the chief constable wants me to accompany him to the PCC’s office. We’re both in for a bollocking.’

‘You need to take this, sir. Trust me.’

Poe heard Gamble sigh. ‘Look, I know he’s been a small help on this investigation but we have missing children now. I really don’t have time to waste on another of his theories.’

Flynn didn’t respond.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll go into my office.’

A minute later Flynn put the mobile on speakerphone.

‘Out with it, Poe,’ Gamble snapped.

‘I know who the Immolation Man is, sir, and we need to act now.’

‘You do, do you?’ Gamble said sceptically.

Poe ignored the rudeness. Gamble was under enormous pressure. ‘It all comes down to a suit jacket at the end of the day, sir,’ Poe replied. ‘A suit jacket and the flap of a butterfly’s wings.’

‘What are you talking about, man?’ Gamble snapped.

‘It’s Kylian Reid, sir. The Immolation Man is Kylian Reid.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

It was Bradshaw who’d pointed him down the road he’d just travelled. Rattling on about that stupid butterfly and how it kept causing hurricanes. She’d said the body in the salt store wasn’t the anchor for this case. The anchor – the first flap of the butterfly’s wings – was that someone had thought to mention Tollund Man at all. Without that chance comment in Kendal police station, they’d have been nowhere.