Page 111 of The Mercy Chair

Poe shut his eyes again.

‘It’s a sound no one should have to hear,’ he said. He opened his eyes and blinked in surprise, almost as if he hadn’t known he’d closed them. ‘When it was obvious the boy on the course had given everything he had to give, they would all shake hands and pray together. This sometimes went on for no more than a minute, sometimes it was half an hour. And after they’d finished, Cornelius told Israel it was time for the boy to graduate.’

‘And what didthatmean?’

‘It meant Israel taking a Stanley knife from his pocket, lifting up the man’s hessian hood and, if he wasn’t already dead, slitting his throat from ear to ear.’

Chapter 97

‘Do you want to continue?’ Doctor Lang asked. ‘Watching those videos must have been horrific. Just talking about them will be deeply traumatic for you.’

Poe nodded, but not convincingly. He had tried turning off that particular spigot, but it was stubborn. The screams of the victims, the terror on the faces of the boys hurling the rocks – they were memories that weren’t easily forgotten.

‘Why did you watch all six?’ she asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Israel Cobb made you watch the first video, right?’

Poe nodded.

‘It was basically a snuff movie,’ she continued. ‘You watched a man being murdered.’

‘I did.’

‘And you described it as horrific.’

‘The worst thing I’d ever seen,’ Poe agreed.

‘I’ll ask you again then: after you’d watched the first video, why did you watch the next five? Why didn’t you arrest Israel Cobb and let better-equipped people take it from there? This was Superintendent Nightingale’s case, not yours – why not spread the pain around a little? Why try to carry this burden alone? Look what it’s done to you.’

‘You think Iwantedto watch them all?’ Poe said. ‘The people strapped to the chair were terrified and they died in agony. The boys throwing the stones were going through a kind of hell I can’t even begin to imagine. You think I wanted to watch that more than once?’

‘So why did you?’

‘Because he made me!’ Poe half-yelled. He closed his eyes again and tried to control his breathing. Doctor Lang didn’t press him to expand so Poe said, ‘Cobb told me that if I didn’t watch them all in the order he wanted to show them, I wouldn’t be able to see the bigger picture. I wouldn’t have the context for what happened later.’

‘And you believed him? The man was obviously a sadist.’

‘No, I didn’t believe him and, yes, I have no doubt he was a sadist,’ Poe said. ‘But he said if I didn’t watch all the videos, he wouldn’t tell me where he’d buried Bethany Bowman.’

‘He blackmailed you?’

‘I suppose he did.’

‘And you capitulated. Why?’

‘I needed to know where Bethany was. I felt I owed her.’

‘Was he telling the truth when he said watching all the videos would help you see the bigger picture?’

Poe nodded grimly. ‘He was.’

‘OK, before we get to what you saw, I need you to understand something, Washington,’ Doctor Lang said.

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re about to tell me, but it’s OKnotto be OK. Watching six men die like that can change someone.’ She thought about what she had just said. ‘Scratch that; watching six men die like thatshouldchange someone.’

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