Page 91 of The Mercy Chair

‘A long time,’ Alana said. ‘We’ll start a new one when this is full, but as it only gets line entries, they last for years. I’ve included the previous log in the records you can take with you.’

‘How far back does this one go?’ Poe asked.

‘I think it’s coming up to twenty years now.’

‘We’ll take this as well then.’

‘You can’t; it’s a working docu—’

‘Thanks,’ Poe said, picking it up and handing it to Linus. ‘Take this to the car, Snoopy.’

Linus grabbed the logbook and a couple of lever-arch files.

‘I need that!’ Alana said.

‘So do I,’ Poe said. He grabbed a pile of records and followed Linus out of the church office and down the nave.

‘I really don’t know how you get away with being so rude to people, Poe,’ Linus said, shaking his head.

‘The secret is not to care,’ Poe replied.

Chapter 79

All the books and papers and documents Bradshaw had been using had been pushed into one untidy corner. She waved Poe and Linus in.

‘Did you get it?’ she said without preamble.

‘I don’t know what “it” is,’ Poe said, ‘but we have the All Saints Church records for the time period you wanted.’

‘You’ve been ages, Poe.’

‘There’s a lot of stuff and it had to be collated. The churchwarden didn’t want to hand over everything, but my charm won through in the end.’

‘What did Poe do, Linus?’

‘He stole it.’

Bradshaw nodded. ‘Good,’ she said.

‘We popped in to see Eve Bowman while we were waiting,’ Poe said. ‘She was making jam.’

‘Oh, why did you do that?’ Bradshaw said. She frowned and added, ‘And how much jam did you eat?’

‘I wanted to ask her about Bethany’s journal.’

‘And?’

‘She sort of admitted knowing Bethany was being abused, but claims she didn’t realise at the time. Oh, and we met her husband, Thomas. Bit of a geek but he seemed nice enough. They’re off camping and he was sorting through their equipment.’

Bradshaw leaned into her laptop. ‘It’s teatime now, so if you want to go and get something to eat, I think I may have something in an hour.’

‘OK,’ Poe said. He pointed at the stolen logbook. ‘But if you can start there, I can maybe return it tomorrow. The rest we can have as long as we want.’

‘I’ll do that, Poe,’ Bradshaw said.

Poe ordered the slow-braised lamb and a pint of Citadel, an easy-drinking beer from the Carlisle Brewing Company. He scanned the menu for something Bradshaw might find palatable, eventually settling on the pumpkin, sage and honey tortellini.

‘Is honey vegan?’ Poe asked Linus.

---