The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

Ferguson removed a newspaper cutting from his pocket. It was yellowing with age but otherwise in good condition. He passed it to Poe. The clipping had been taken from the News & Star. It was a filler article. A single column on page eight. Probably only interesting to those involved. The date was at the top and it was from twenty-six years ago.

Poe read it, then snapped a photograph with his mobile. He passed it over to Bradshaw. She did something with her tablet and scanned it. Poe glanced at the image she’d made on the screen. It was crystal clear.

In a ceremony at Rose Castle, the Bishop of Carlisle presents a watch to the Reverend Quentin Carmichael, the Dean of Derwentshire, in recognition of his outstanding services to charity.

Quentin Carmichael – who was known for holding charity cruises on Derwentwater, the lake near Keswick – was forty-five and had a glittering career with the Church ahead of him.

Poe glanced at Bradshaw and wondered if she’d spotted the importance of his age. She was waiting for him to catch her eye; it was clear that she had. Twenty-six years ago, Quentin Carmichael had been forty-five. That put him right in the target age for the Immolation man.

Poe’s suspicions had been confirmed.

If Carmichael were involved, then it meant Poe was right; the Immolation Man wasn’t choosing his victims at random. He was targeting them. Find out why and he’d be a step closer to finding out who.

Poe turned to Ferguson and said, ‘When I spoke to Charles earlier, he said you’d been expecting a call like this?’

Ferguson nodded. He removed another newspaper clipping from his pocket. Poe read it.

It was another article on Carmichael. This one wasn’t so flattering.

* * *

Disgraced church official, Quentin Carmichael, flees country. Embezzlement suspected.

The article was full of the usual journalistic bullshit phrases of ‘allegedly’ and ‘according to senior sources’ but the gist of the accusations was clear: Carmichael had fled the country because he was about to be exposed for embezzlement. Although it was thin, there’d been corroboratory evidence of his escape from justice: a missing passport and chequebook. There was nothing else of significance in the article and Poe made a mental note to try and get hold of the police file.

‘So, you’d been expecting a visit from the police because Mr Carmichael had been suspected of embezzlement?’ Poe asked.

‘Not exactly.’

Poe waited.

‘I kept these clippings because I though

t there was something a bit off with him. He asked to see me not long after he’d been gifted the watch, and when this happens it’s usually because the person wants to thank me or, even better, they’ve got the collector’s bug and are looking to expand their collection.’

‘But Carmichael wasn’t either of those?’

‘He was not, sir. All Quentin Carmichael was interested in was how much it had cost. He got quite angry when I said I couldn’t tell him. He even offered to sell it back to me for two-thirds of what the bishop had paid. As I don’t own the watches, I refused. I said I’d be happy to act as his broker but he stormed out.’

‘So, the embezzlement thing made sense to you?’

‘Oh, aye. He was all about the green, that man.’

A financially motivated thread was appearing. Now all he had to do was gently tug it. ‘Could you all excuse me a moment?’ He stood and walked to a quiet corner of the large living room. Mrs Nolan came in with a pot of tea and another cake. He was going to put on three stone during this investigation if he wasn’t careful.

He called Reid.

‘Burke, what you after this time?’

Poe told him what they’d found and he asked how he could help.

‘I need to know all about the Carmichael embezzlement investigation. It was twenty-five, twenty-six years ago,’ Poe whispered into his phone. He didn’t want Nolan and Ferguson knowing he didn’t have the authority to request the information through official channels.

‘The Church? Aren’t you in enough trouble?’

‘Please, Kylian.’

‘It’s going to be difficult to do it without alerting anyone, Poe. All our systems leave footprints, you know that.’