Page 114 of The Mercy Chair

Cobb pressed play.

There was another minute of Cornelius talking to Aaron.

‘Where were you at this point, Mr . . . ?’ Poe asked.

He didn’t finish. Cobb had walked onscreen.

And he wasn’t alone.

He was pushing someone in front of him. Jabbing them in the back to keep them moving forwards. Someone small, smaller even than Aaron and he was tiny. He stumbled and fell. Cobb hauled him to his feet and forced him into the mercy chair. There was a brief struggle, but Cobb was a grown man and he was wrestling a child. He grabbed the boy’s right arm and wrapped a leather strap around it. He pulled it tight and buckled it closed. He did the same with the left arm. With the arms done, he bent down to secure the ankles.

And for the first time Poe could see who was being restrained. He gasped. Whether it was out loud he didn’t know. He tried to swallow but couldn’t.

He understood the context now.

He saw Cobb’s bigger picture.

‘That’s . . .’ Poe whispered. He couldn’t finish.

Cobb knew what he was going to say though. It was the only thing hecouldsay.

‘Yes, Sergeant Poe,’ he said. ‘The person in the mercy chair is Bethany Bowman.’

Chapter 101

‘Aaron Bowman killed his own sister?’ Doctor Lang said, stunned.

‘As good as,’ Poe confirmed.

‘But . . . but why? What possible reason could there be? Let’s not kid ourselves, murdering gay men to cure homosexuality is as abhorrent a thing as I’ve ever heard, but, if you view the world through Cornelius Green’s bile-tinted glasses, to him at least, itdidmake a sick kind of sense. In his world the gay man is going to hell anyway, why not sacrifice him to save the soul of a believer? But asking a fifteen-year-old boy to stone his fourteen-year-old sister to death makes no sense whatsoever. Not from an extreme religious dogma point of view, and not from a common bloody sense point of view. Tell me why Bethany had to die, Washington?’

Poe’s expression was a faraway one, like he was listening to music only he could hear. He tapped a beat on the desk. After a moment, his jaw hardened. Life came back to his eyes.

‘I’ll try to explain this as best I can,’ he said. ‘The way I think it happened.’

‘The way youthinkit happened?’

‘Call it an informed guess. Noah and Grace Bowman were by any standards unconventional parents. Yes, they hated their youngest daughter, but it went far deeper than that. And while Bethany clearly bore the brunt of their craziness, Aaron and Eve suffered too. Eve told me none of them were allowed friends and Bethany’s journal confirmed this. Eve and Aaron were allowed to mingle with the other kids when they were at church, or the Children of Job compound, but other than that Noah and Grace kept them isolated.’

‘That’s probably why the bond between Aaron and Bethany was so strong. Younger siblings often cling to each other in abusive childhoods.’

‘Funny you should mention that,’ Poe said.

‘Why?’

‘Have you readFlowers in the Atticby Virginia Andrews?’

Doctor Lang frowned. ‘Wasn’t there a film adaption?’

‘There was,’ Poe confirmed.

‘I think I saw it when I was younger.’

‘You understand the basic premise: a woman trying to win back her father’s approval after she’d married her half-brother, locks up her children in the attic of the family’s ancestral home? After a year or so of confinement, the two elder children develop a physical attraction to each other.’

He let his words hang. It didn’t take long for Doctor Lang to understand what he was saying.

‘Bethany and Aaron were in a sexual relationship?’ she asked.

---