Page 81 of The Mercy Chair

‘What the hell’s going on?’ she whispered.

‘Tilly has a theory,’ he said quietly. ‘She thinks the six tattoos on Cornelius were bespoke codes for the six courses. We know Nathan Rose’s course was one-to-one conversion therapy because he told us before he hanged himself, so it’s safe to assume the other five were as well. Tilly thinks, after each course had finished, the course code was tattooed on both Cornelius and the attendee. If the post-mortem shows Nathan has just the one tattoo, I think she’s probably right.’

Nightingale considered it carefully. After a few moments she said, ‘What possible reason could there be for that?’

Poe shrugged. ‘No idea, but decoding those tattoos is what I’m working on from now on.’

‘And when you say you—’

‘I mean Tilly, yes.’

‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘Didn’t you say Israel Cobb had those tattoos?’

‘I only saw them briefly, but I think they were the same.’

‘And you don’t want to re-interview him?’

‘I don’t think I’ll get anything more from him,’ Poe said. ‘He stormed off last time.’

‘I’ll send one of my guys round tomorrow. We can’t not try.’

Poe nodded. ‘We’ll get away,’ he said. ‘All I’m doing here is causing Mrs Rose distress.’

Nightingale moved aside to let him pass. As he did, she said, ‘She says you made a joke about Jesus?’

Poe said nothing.

‘I told her she must have been mistaken.’

‘She wasn’t,’ Poe said. ‘She overheard me talking to Linus.’

‘Shit, Poe,’ Nightingale said. ‘She said it was a sign of deliberate disrespect and indicative of how you conducted yourself this evening. I can’t protect you if she wants to take it further.’

‘Nor would I ask you to, ma’am.’

Nightingale sighed. ‘What a bloody mess.’

Poe glanced at Nathan Rose’s corpse then across at Linus. The man from London was furiously typing into his tablet. ‘In more ways than one, I suspect,’ he replied.

Chapter 70

‘Did Mrs Rose complain, Washington?’ Doctor Lang asked.

‘Eventually,’ Poe confirmed.

‘I’m not surprised.’

Poe raised an eyebrow.

‘No, not because you’d done anything terribly wrong,’ she said. ‘But the newly widowed often lash out. Usually, it’s close relatives who bear the brunt, but in this case Mrs Rose had someone to focus her anger on. I’m not surprised she made a complaint.’

‘And she did overhear me make an insensitive joke about Björn Borg.’

‘And if her husband hadn’t killed himself, you’d have heard nothing more on the subject. But marriage, even a mixed-orientation marriage such as theirs, doesn’t only mean sharing your life with someone; it meanschangingyour life for someone. You’d be amazed at how entwined two lives can become. It’s a big investment and it ended that night.’

Poe thought about his life with Estelle Doyle. An outsider might think it hadn’t changed too much, but that would be a superficial view. When Poe dug down, he knew his life was very different now. Not permanently living at Herdwick Croft was an obvious change, but there were other, subtler changes as well. He always called to say he was leaving work. He no longer hung around the incident room if he had no reason to be there. He thought aboutherneeds, not just his own. So yes, Poe understood why Mrs Rose had sought someone to blame – if the roles were reversed, he’d probably have done the same.

‘Did it ever get to the formal disciplinary stage?’ Doctor Lang asked. ‘There’s nothing in the file to suggest it did.’

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