Page 68 of The Mercy Chair

Poe frowned. ‘But you’ve told us what the catalyst was: she had a horrific childhood and she hated her parents.’

‘Then why am I here?’ Alice said. ‘Why have I spent years shuffling around the Children of Job? Why am I Mad Alice?’

‘You don’t think shedidrun away?’

‘No, I believe she did.’

‘Then what?’

‘She’d run away before, Sergeant Poe. More than a few times actually. She would stay at my house, her refuge she called it, or she would hide out in the woods. Never for more than a day. Attention-seeking behaviour really.’

‘But it was different in 2007?’

‘Something happened, Sergeant Poe,’ she said. ‘And it must have been awful because she didn’t stop at mine to collect her things; she just stuffed some clothes in her schoolbag and disappeared. Some people think she got on a bus in Keswick; others that she hitchhiked to the M6 and got a lift with a lorry driver.’

‘What do you think?’

‘That unless she’d had no choice, Bethany wouldn’t have left like that. Not without saying goodbye to me.’

‘You were that close?’

Alice’s face coloured. ‘We were.’

‘Maybe you weremorethan close?’

‘We were.’

‘She was your girlfriend?’

‘Neither of us was gay, Sergeant Poe. We kissed once. I suppose we were experimenting. Certainly nothing more.’

‘Did Noah and Grace Bowman know about the kiss, or any other experimenting Bethany might have done? Was that why they hated Bethany?’

‘They didn’t know. I’m sure of it.’

‘But if they did, would they have tried to stop her?’

Alice shrugged. ‘I doubt they’d have cared enough. Not unless she’d flaunted it in front of their friends.’

Poe wasn’t convinced. Young love was a weird and powerful thing, and it wasn’t easily hidden. And if Noah and Grace Bowman had found out and tried to stop the relationship, Bethany could have reacted violently. It didn’t explain the five-year gap between her running away from home and returning to murder her parents, but it did explain some of the animosity they had towards her. The more Poe thought about it, the more he thought Alice was right: the answer wouldn’t be found in the present, it would be found in 2007, the year Bethany ran away from home and the year Aaron attended his course.

‘I’m told Bethany and Aaron had a blazing row immediately after he got back from the course he attended,’ Poe said. ‘Do you think that was why she ran away?’

Alice nodded. ‘And in all the time I’ve spent there, I’ve never heard a whisper about what went on,’ she said. ‘If anyone knows, they aren’t talking.’

‘Yetyouknew enough to leave me that note.’

‘That was years of putting two and two together. The existence of courses came from me pestering Eve about what Bethany and Aaron had rowed about. That the courses had stopped after Israel Cobb was banished from the Children of Job, I picked up by paying attention to Cornelius when he flew into one of his rages.’

‘Did you speak to Aaron Bowman about what he’d been through?’

‘He refused to talk about it. In fact, Aaron didn’t speak to me again after Bethany ran away. He withdrew into himself. It wasn’t long after that his parents began home-schooling him.’

Poe sighed. ‘We’re speaking to another witness tonight, someone else who might also have attended one of these courses. Perhaps he’ll be prepared to talk.’

‘Good luck with that.’

‘You don’t think he will?’

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