The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

CHAPTER SIXTY

‘A stone circle,’ Reid agreed. ‘They drove us to a remote one not far from here. I was forced to watch as, one by one, my friends were set on fire. I don’t think the men were all comfortable with it but by then there was an escalation of commitment thing going on. Carmichael had videoed them on the boat so no one could back out, and I think, from his perspective, the worse the murders were, the safer they’d all be. Nothing binds people together like a shared atrocity.’

Poe had started this case with the assumption that he was hunting a monster killing innocent men. He might not be able to condone what Reid had done, but he understood it: those men had created the monster they deserved.

‘How did you survive, Kylian?’ For their security, all the boys had to die. Leaving one alive was worse than leaving them all alive.

‘Carmichael,’ he said. ‘The other men begged him to kill me as well but he refused. “It belongs to me” he said. He referred to me as an “it”, Poe.’

‘So . . .?’

‘So eventually he either tired of me or – and this is what I think – he’d started to listen to the men on the boat. Why keep me alive? The risk was too great. He woke me early one morning – it was pitch black and snowing – and drove me to Keswick. Told me we were going to take a walk up to the Castlerigg stone circle. I think he wanted the thrill of doing it outside like the others had.’

‘And you escaped?’

‘No. We were walking through one of the council yards – I later discovered it was a short cut to the circle. It meant he wouldn’t have to park his car too close. We were climbing over one of the salt piles when he suddenly keeled over. Dead before he hit the ground. I think it might have been the excitement of what he’d been about to do.’

Common sense suggested Reid would have gone straight to the authorities yet . . . that didn’t happen.

‘You’re wondering why I didn’t run to the police?’

Poe didn’t say anything. It was what he’d been wondering but it couldn’t be as simple as that. Not when he was carrying that amount of baggage.

‘I think there were two reasons,’ Reid said. ‘One of the men who raped me at Carmichael’s invitation said he was a cop. I had no idea where he worked. In my mind, I was only eleven at the time, all cops were bad. I was scared of them.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘Carmichael had told me that I was complicit in what had been going on. That I was alive and my friends weren’t. He convinced me that if

anyone found out, I’d go to prison along with everyone else.’

At that age, and after that much abuse, you’d believe anything. Carmichael had got off easy with a heart attack. Evil bastard.

‘So, I did the only thing I could think of – I took Carmichael’s wallet and money and ran.’

‘And Carmichael?’

‘Left him where he fell. The snow must have covered him.’

It fitted with what he knew. The fact it was snowing meant that the gritters would have been working. He doubted the road crews bothered to clear snow off the salt before they loaded their wagons. Carmichael must have been scooped up with the mound he was on and taken to the Hardendale Salt Store as part of the M6 reserves. He’d stayed there for quarter of a century.

‘And then I did what I was supposed to have done all those weeks ago,’ Reid continued. ‘I got on a train to London. Got another one to Brighton and went and found my aunt.’

‘No,’ Poe said. ‘I’ve been through your file. You didn’t have an aunt in Brighton. You had no relatives you’d have been happy staying with.’

‘Poe, don’t be stupid. We’re northerners. You don’t have to be related to someone to call them auntie. It was my mum’s best friend I went to see – Victoria Reid. She’d always been nice to me and I trusted her. I thought she’d know what to do.’

‘And she did?’ Poe accepted his explanation. He’d called Reid’s mother Auntie Victoria and his father Uncle George. It’s just what you did when you were a kid.

‘Not really. How could she? She didn’t even know I’d been in care; my father hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone when we moved up here. I told them what had happened. Everything. George was all for going to the police but she was thinking of me, not the men who killed my friends. She was a cognitive behavioural therapist specialising in PTSD. It had only just been identified back then and she didn’t think I would get the help I needed. She thought the criminal justice system would eat me up and shit me out an even bigger mess than I was.’

‘So?’

‘She convinced George to keep quiet until she could work out what was the best thing to do. The best thing for me. First time in a long time someone had put my needs before theirs. I liked it.’

‘And she helped you?’

‘She did, Poe. It wasn’t easy but she knew what she was doing and she had the patience of a saint. It didn’t take her long to realise that I was trapped in a cycle of reliving my ordeal. It’s the big issue with PTSD and she needed to break it. I needed to be able to remember what happened without reliving what happened.’