Page 4 of The Mercy Chair

‘No, your mind will heal. At the minute the traumatic memory isn’t stored properly. It’s unprocessed and that means it’s easily accessible, easily triggered. We can fix this, but we need to take the first step together.’

‘Which is?’

‘We need to distinguish between the external threats that demand action and the internal threats that are causing this overwhelming, paralysing fear. In other words, you need to be able to dream of crows without reliving what happened.’

‘And how do we do that?’

‘Initially, by talking.’

‘I’m a man, I’m in my forties and I’m a police officer,’ Poe said. ‘I don’t talk about my feelings.’

‘And I don’t want you to talk about your feelings. The last thing I want you doing is talking about your feelings. This is about getting to know your history, the kind of difficulties you’re experiencing. We’ll then target the distressing memories.’

‘With what?’

‘We’ll come to that later, but nothing that will make you uncomfortable.’

Poe wasn’t convinced. It must have shown.

‘Do you trust me, Washington?’

‘You come highly recommended.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Trust is earned.’

‘Spoken like a true police officer. Why don’t you let me start earning your trust now?’

‘I have to do something,’ Poe admitted. ‘I can’t go on like this.’

‘Good man,’ Doctor Lang said. She turned to the activity log at the front of the file. ‘It says here the case officially began when you were asked to consult on the Lightning Tree murder,’ she said. ‘But why don’t you tell me when itreallystarted? Why don’t you tell me about the crows?’

Poe looked at his empty cup. He wondered if he could get another tea. His mouth had gone dry. ‘It’s true that I encountered some crows,’ he said. ‘But this whole thing began a few hours earlier with another hooligan of the British countryside.’

‘Oh?’

‘What do you know about badgers, Doctor Lang?’

Chapter 3

Nine months earlier

As a way of getting Poe to stop moping over his lunchtime drink, a well-heeled man holding a posy of flowers marching into the pub and yelling, ‘Bloody badgers!’ was as good as any. Poe had been about to ask for a second pint of Borrowdale Bitter. Maybe add a Scotch egg to the order. Make it a government-approved substantial meal. Now, he wanted to know what the ‘bloody badgers’ had been up to.

But the man had slunk to the other end of the Crown Inn’s polished mahogany bar. He was now muttering to himself. The landlady, a no-nonsense woman in her mid-forties, winked at Poe before making her way to the man’s end of the bar. She planted her elbows on the wood and said, ‘You want some water for them flowers, Stephen?’

Instead of answering, Stephen said, ‘Bloody badgers’ again. Less venomous this time.

‘What have you got against badgers?’

‘My poor mum. Went to put flowers on her grave. Bastards have only dug her up.’

Poe leaned sideways so he could hear better, all thoughts of Scotch eggs abandoned.

‘But she’s been dead, what, fifteen years?’ the landlady said.

‘Seventeen.’

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