The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

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.’