Page 151 of The Mercy Chair

‘And you?’

‘I’ve been made Acting-Detective Chief Inspector, reassigned to MSHTU.’

‘The Modern Slavery Human Trafficking Unit?’

‘It’s not too bad. Interesting work and I’ll be closer to home.’

‘What about you, Tilly?’ Poe asked. ‘Do you know what you’ll be doing?’

Bradshaw nodded sadly. ‘I do, Poe.’

‘And?’

‘I’m not allowed to tell you. I’d be breaking the Official Secrets Act if I did.’

Poe didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so dejected. ‘We’re always going to be friends, Tilly,’ he said. ‘You know that, right?’

‘It won’t be the same though,’ she sniffed.

‘No, it won’t,’ Poe admitted.

‘You’llhatethe training unit and I don’t want to go back to . . . a desk job.’

‘I won’t hate the training unit, Tilly. It’ll be a welcome change of pace.’

‘What a load of hooey. Seventeen months and two weeks ago, you said new police officers were as much use as a sponge leg in a muddy swamp.’

‘Ah, but that’s because I hadn’t trained them,’ Poe said. ‘I’ll lick those . . .’ A wave of nausea overwhelmed him. He reached for the cardboard bowl by the side of his bed and held it under his chin as his mouth flooded with saliva. One of the machines he was hardwired to started beeping.

Doyle, who had been keeping quiet, bent down and pressed a couple of buttons. A whirr was followed by a two-inch-wide printout exiting a hidden slot. It curled up, like a till receipt. Doyle examined it and said, ‘This is why this news should have waited.’ She made a few adjustments to the machine.

Poe’s urge to vomit subsided. ‘Are you qualified to do that?’ he said.

Doyle ignored him. ‘Come on, everyone out,’ she said. ‘Poe needs rest and he isn’t going to get it with you two doom merchants talking end of days. It’s a job, not a cancer diagnosis.’

Bradshaw scowled.

‘That means you too, Tilly,’ Doyle added gently. ‘You can visit Poe again tomorrow. He isn’t going anywhere.’

After Flynn and Bradshaw had reluctantly left the ward, Doyle dragged a chair over to his bed. She put his hand in hers and said, ‘Are you going to be OK? Tilly’s right: you’ll hate the training unit.’

‘It won’t be for long,’ he replied. ‘The plan is obvious: I’ll tell Sigmund Freud what he wants to hear and get myself declared sane. I’ll be back on the street in no time.’

‘That’s the spirit, Poe,’ Doyle said, rolling her eyes.

‘And as soon as I am, I can start fixing this. They’ve benched us, Estelle, that’s all that’s happened. Who are they going to turn to when the next ghoul crawls out from underneath the bed? Me and Tilly and the boss, that’s who.’

Doyle patted his hand but said nothing. After a while Poe’s eyes closed. His breathing slowed. Doyle stood and checked the machines he was hooked up to. Satisfied his vital levels were stable, she slipped out of the room, gently closing the door behind her.

The moment the door had clicked shut Poe’s eyes snapped open. His breathing quickened. He reached for his phone and thumbed a quick email to Superintendent Nightingale to let her know he was OK. He fired another one off to Alice Symonds. Letting her know the same. He considered sending one to Van Zyl, asking if there was any wriggle room on attending counselling. He decided against it. Counselling was a stupid idea but telling that to the person who had just decided it was necessary probably wasn’t politic right now. He turned off his phone and threw it on to the seat Doyle had vacated.

He was about to turn on the TV when his eyes were drawn to the oak tree outside his window. It was old and grand and looked as if it had been there for centuries. It dappled the low evening sun streaming into his room. Made the shadows on the wall dance. It looked like the Lightning Tree might have done before three hundred million volts had passed through it.

A crow landed on one of its upper branches. It ruffled its inky feathers. Another crow joined it. And then another. It must be their roost, Poe thought. He shuddered but didn’t know why. More joined them. Pretty soon there were dozens, black and ominous, silhouetted against the fading light. Watching, waiting, emotionless, like Bosch’s owls.

Poe usually liked crows. They didn’t care about jobs and they didn’t need therapy. Crows just . . . were. But for some reason their presence tonight was unsettling, threatening even.

He remembered the body dug up by the badgers all those months ago, the body that had started it all. The body had a name now. His parents had been told. He remembered how the crows had fed on it, picking the bones clean. He remembered their feathers, wet with bodily fluids. It was the kind of memory that would reform later as a nightmare.

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