The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

The heavy feeli

ng of sedation was making it hard to think. Poe leaned back on the pillow and shut his eyes.

When he woke, his headache had improved slightly. He tried his eyes again and this time he could fully open them. He gave himself the once-over. His skin was either bandaged or exposed and raw. His nose was splinted. A cannula with a split feeder was attached to the back of his right hand. Poe looked at the IV stand. A bag of saline was half full. Another smaller bag, which he assumed was an antibiotic, was almost empty.

The ward lights were muted and it was dark outside. He was on his own in a two-bed room on a ward. The bed had high-sided rails to stop him falling out.

He wondered how long he’d been there.

He was desperately thirsty but the water jug was out of reach. Poe grabbed the patient alert box and pressed the button. The door opened and a uniformed nurse walked in. She smiled at him.

‘I’m Sister Ledingham. How are you feeling?’ She was ruddy-faced, and spoke with a rich Scottish burr.

‘What happened?’ he croaked. He didn’t recognise his own voice. It sounded like he was speaking through gravel.

‘You’re in the HDU at Westmorland Hospital, Mr Poe. You were burnt in a fire. Lucky to be alive.’

‘HDU?’

‘High Dependency Unit,’ she replied. ‘You’re not really in any danger but burns are easily infected and this is the best way to keep you sterile until the skin begins to heal.’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Almost two days. There’s a queue of people waiting outside to see you, if you’re up for visitors?’

Poe sat up, fought the urge to vomit and nodded.

Instead of the queue Sister Ledingham had promised, one person walked through the door. It was Stephanie Flynn.

She was back to wearing her official two-piece trouser suit. She looked as tired as he felt.

‘How you feeling, Poe?’

‘What happened, Steph?’ His voice came out little more than a whisper. He gestured towards the water. Flynn filled the plastic beaker. She inserted a straw then held it close enough so he could get it in his mouth. No drink had ever tasted so good.

‘What do you remember?’ she said.

He remembered Reid telling him about his mother and he remembered the burning room. He had vague recollections of trying to drag Reid and Swift out of the burning building. He also remembered something about a mud monster but he decided to keep that to himself.

‘Not much,’ he admitted. He had fragments of memory but they were jumbled and unorganised. ‘The children . . .’

‘Alive and well and where you said they were. They’re with their mother now and are unaware anything untoward happened.’

‘And the man who took them?’

‘Wore a baseball cap and sunglasses.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yep. A police artist has sat with them but got nothing usable. The woman who took them to Center Parcs was a registered nanny. Reid had hired her but made it look like the request had come from their mother. The email said it was a treat for them, and a rest for Grandma, before she landed in the UK. They stayed at Reid’s flat until he found time to drop them off with her. She took them straight there. She’s innocent.’

It made sense. Reid had needed him to think the kids were in danger, but given his own experiences at the hands of monsters, he hadn’t wanted to harm them.

‘There was a box. A metal box on the front seat of the—’

‘Of the van you drove into a burning building?’

‘What happened to it?’