Page 140 of The Mercy Chair

‘It was all Eve, Sergeant Poe,’ Bethany said. ‘She was the bad biscuit who kept hiding my underwear in Aaron’s room. She knew Noah and Grace would come down hard on him, but she also knew they would ultimately blame me. You say my parents sacrificed me to rid Aaron of his obsession, and you’re right, they did. They were insane and that’s what insane people do. But the thimble rigger was my cold and calculating big sister. She manipulated Noah and Grace like a master chess player. Sacrificed me like a pawn to get me out of her way. She didn’t know about the mercy chair, of course. I think she was just hoping they would kick me out. Leave her alone with Aaron. Without me there, she could bend him to her will. And, as a few years later they’re living as husband and wife, I’d say she got exactly what she wanted.’

‘And when Aaron told Eve what had happened at the Children of Job, what hadreallyhappened – that you hadn’t run away, you’d been murdered – she had the perfect patsy for the murder of your parents a few years later.’

‘Oh, this is too much, Bethany,’ Eve sneered. ‘You know as well as I do that the moment you’d grown a pair of tits you’d have been panting after Aaron as well. What choice did I have? I’m sorry for what you went through, obviously—’

‘You’re sorry?’ Bethany deadpanned.

‘Yes, believe it or not, Iamsorry. I cried when Aaron told me what had happened.’

‘Oh. Youcried. Everything’s OK then.’

‘Yes, it is! And then Mum and Dad said you’d run away after arguing with Aaron. I knew it wasn’t true, but I had to keep it secret anyway. We were just as much victims in this as you were.’

‘I told you she’d try to rewrite history, Sergeant Poe,’ Bethany said.

‘Oh, cut it out, Bethany,’ Eve said, her voice like a fingernail down a blackboard. ‘We both know you’re not going to kill us. Untie us and disappear back to whatever rock you’ve been hiding under all these years. We’ll get rid of Sergeant Poe, and we can all go back to our lives.’

‘Thanks,’ Poe said.

‘I’m curious, Eve; why do you think I won’t kill you?’ Bethany asked.

‘Because I’m your fucking sister!’

‘Actually,’ Bethany said, smiling sweetly, ‘you’re not.’

She turned to Poe. Found his eyes in the gloom and held them.

‘Nowdo you understand?’ she said.

Chapter 122

And finally Poedidunderstand.

He could see the thread that connected it all. One thing after another tumbled into place. He knew why Noah and Grace Bowman had hated their daughter. He knew why she had survived the mercy chair. He even knew why Cornelius Green had revelled in her torture. Life’s harsh reality had taught Poe that genuine altruism was so rare that, as Bradshaw had once put it, it was statistically irrelevant, but Israel Cobb, insane as he was, had been an outlier. When he’d shown Poe the video of Bethany’s death his only motivation was to protect her. He’d admitted to her murder, toallthe murders, so the police would stop looking for her.

‘You’re Eve’shalf-sister,’ Poe said. ‘Israel Cobb is your father.’

Bethany smiled. It looked like an act of self-harm.

‘They had an affair,’ she said. ‘My chaste, butter-wouldn’t-melt mother had an affair with Israel. When she told Noah she was going to the Children of Job for spiritual guidance, she was visiting Israel in his room. And because Grace believed birth control was a sin, the inevitable happened.’

‘You.’

‘Me. I found out later that Noah and Grace had drifted into a sexless marriage, and when my mother missed her period Noah put two and two together and came up with being a cuckold.’

‘An abortion would have been out of the question,’ Poe said.

‘Their only option was the charade of me being a planned and welcome addition to the family. In public, I was their cheeky scamp. Rebellious, yes, but loved all the more for it.’

‘But in private they hated you?’

Bethany nodded. ‘To Noah I was an ever-present reminder of Grace’s infidelity. To Grace I was God’s punishment for breaking the Seventh Commandment. So yes, they hated me. I remember coming home early from school one day because I’d vomited during PE. That night I heard them praying it was cancer.’

‘I saw the entry in your journal,’ Poe said. ‘Things like that made it easy for us to believe it was you who had murdered your parents.’

Neither Eve nor Aaron had spoken since Bethany had told them about her true parentage, but it was clear neither of them had known. Aaron started blubbering again; Eve was staring at Bethany with undisguised hostility.

‘You should be thanking me then, Bethany,’ she said, her voice strained and brittle. ‘Instead of making idle threats, you should be on your knees grovelling for what I did.’

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