Page 133 of The Mercy Chair

‘I know he’s your baby brother, but we’ll catch him eventually, with or without your help.’

Even as he skirted around the edges of unconsciousness, as his vision began to swim and fade in and out of focus, he knew he was missing something. Eve’s actions didn’t make sense. The thick fog in his brain meant it was hard to make connections, but taking a police officer hostage was a staggering overreaction to a simple request. And Eve seemed too calculating for that. She had reasons for doing what she was doing, reasons that, to her at least, made sense.

A noise from the basement stairs made them both look up. It was Thomas. He joined his wife. If he was surprised to see Poe tied up and with a serious head injury, he didn’t show it. He put his arm around Eve and she leaned in to him. She rested her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into his neck. Thomas gently lifted Eve’s face until it was level with his. They kissed deeply.

Public displays of affection made Poe uncomfortable at the best of times, but something else was happening here. It was as if Eve and Thomas were putting on a display. His own private peep show. After they had finished kissing, Eve tilted her head and eyed Poe coyly. Her face was flushed and her breathing was so fast and shallow she was almost panting.

‘He wants to know why we can’t risk a picture of Aaron being put through their age-progression software,’ she said in a girly, singsong voice.

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Has he worked it out yet?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Eve said. ‘He doesn’t seem very bright.’

She smiled sweetly. Poe turned away from her and faced Thomas instead. He didn’t have his wife’s confidence. Eve was almost hanging off him, but Poe got the impression Thomas was very much the beta to her alpha.

What was it he hadn’t worked out yet? He instinctively knew it was something to do with Thomas. He looked nervous whereas Eve was enjoying herself. Poe had hunted and caught husband-and-wife tag teams before. Couples who killed for pleasure or profit, sometimes for both. He didn’t think that was the case here. This was something he hadn’t seen before.

He cast his mind back. Way before Cornelius Green’s murder had brought him into their orbit. He visualised the Bowman massacre file. Was the answer in there somewhere? He thought it might be.

For some reason, what Aaron had looked like when he was a child was important. No, that wasn’t right. Eve had said it was making sure Bradshaw didn’t get hold of a photograph of a young Aaron that was important. So important that she and Thomas had embarked on a course of action that could only end with them murdering a police officer.

Something in Poe’s muddled brain clicked and, like a spotlight had been turned on, everything became clear. The moment he separated the photograph from the boy, he was able to see what Eve was determined to protect. It had been in front of him all this time, but up so close he hadn’t been able to bring it into focus.

The isolated house.

The husband who wouldn’t take a job locally.

The boy who couldn’t be put through an age-progression program.

Poe locked eyes with Eve’s husband.

‘Hello, Aaron,’ he said.

Chapter 116

‘You’re a good liar, Eve,’ Poe said. ‘One of the best I’ve ever met.’

Poe hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but she took it as one all the same.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘When you’re in a relationship with your brother, your whole life is a lie. It’s the tent we live under. Lying becomes second nature.’

They were alone in the basement again. Eve had asked Thomas to make sure there was nothing incriminating in Poe’s car. He suspected it was so he and Eve could talk, although it could just as easily have been so Thomas didn’t have to watch Poe die. Eve wore the killer’s trousers in their family, not him. She picked up the mallet and this time Poe knew he wouldn’t wake up.

‘For what it’s worth, this isn’t personal,’ she said.

Poe didn’t think it was worth anything, but he kept quiet. He was about to die. He knew that now. No one was going to rescue him. Nightingale knew where he was, but she wouldn’t be expecting his call for an hour. By the time someone thought to check up on him, his body would be cold. In a shallow grave or at the bottom of the Irish Sea with a chain wrapped around his ankles. A less stubborn man might have begged for his life. Made implausible promises about not telling anyone if he were allowed to live. Instead, he said, ‘You’ve already killed to protect your secret.’

She angled her head and gave him a small smile. ‘You know this how?’ she said.

‘Bethany’s dead, so it wasn’t her who killed your parents. And although Aaron faked his own death the night they died, I don’t see him as a stone-cold killer. You on the other hand . . .’

Eve shrugged. ‘We got tired of sneaking around,’ she said. ‘I was twenty-one by then; Aaron was twenty. And you know what they put him through when he was fifteen. What they did to Bethany. Our parents were monsters and I was glad to do it. So yes, we arranged for me to attend Bible study at that dreadful place to make sure I had an alibi for that night. Aaron picked me up in our parents’ car at three in the morning and drove me home. I opened their throats with Bethany’s old clasp knife and we watched them gurgle to death. And I cut Aaron’s arm so it looked like he had been killed too. We bundled their bodies into the Range Rover and Aaron drove to St Bees, dropping me back at the Children of Job on the way. I’d been gone for less than an hour. No one had missed me; I had my alibi. Aaron dumped Mum and Dad in the Irish Sea and, while I was finishing off my Bible study group, he made his way to Wales. Started living as Thomas Gruffud. I joined him a suitable time later.’

‘You let Bethany take the blame.’

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