Page 126 of The Mercy Chair

She picked up her plastic cup and studied his face as she finished the last of her cold tea.

‘So when you lunged at Joshua Meade it was all for show?’ she asked kindly, aware he’d walked into her trap, but not wanting to dwell on it.

‘OK, maybe Iwasn’tfully in control.’

‘And by this time people were starting to realise you weren’t coping. Superintendent Nightingale had told you to go home several times. Tilly was so worried about you she’d called Estelle back from London. She refused to leave your side when you broke down that wall.’

‘I was upset,’ Poe admitted. ‘And yes, I would have assaulted Joshua if I hadn’t been held back, but I’m not sure that was what led to my nightmares.’

‘No?’

‘No. There was still worse to come.’

‘And we’ll get to that, no doubt. But right now I need you to describe what you saw when you stuck your head through the false wall in the basement, Washington. I need you to be able to remember it without being transported back there. I know you think it was a single, traumatic event that led to the PTSD you’re undoubtedly struggling with, but I think in your case it is more likely a cumulative effect. In other words, it doesn’t matter which straw it was, it’s the combined weight that broke the camel’s back.’

Which made sense to Poe. How much was too much? If you asked one hundred cops what the worst thing was about the job, they’d all tell you it was that there were never any good days. Being a cop was like having sewage drip-fed onto your psyche for thirty years. The only ones it didn’t affect were the sociopaths.

‘Cornelius must have erected the wall after Israel Cobb had been booted out of the Children of Job,’ Poe said. ‘Everything Cobb told me, everything heshowedme, was accurate. If he’d known about the false wall, he’d have said.’

Doctor Lang leaned forwards and planted her elbows on the desk. She steepled her fingers and rested her chin on the bridge. ‘What was behind the wall, Washington?’ she asked softly.

Poe didn’t answer. For a moment he was lost in his memories, the sledgehammer on the floor where he’d thrown it, his fingers torn and bloodied from the rough, dry bricks he’d pulled out by hand. Bradshaw at his side, shining her iPhone torch through the gap he’d made, adding to the light of his torch.

‘What did you see?’ she asked again.

Poe shook his head. Tried to get back to the present. Found his mouth was dry. He picked up his empty cup and sucked the last dregs of tea. Licked the rim.

‘The chair,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I saw the mercy chair.’

Chapter 111

‘The mercy chair was still there?’ Doctor Lang asked incredulously.

‘It was,’ Poe replied. ‘I knew it would be, of course, although I was kind of hoping it wasn’t, you know? That it had all been an elaborately staged piece of anti-LGBT propaganda.’

‘Why hadn’t Cornelius destroyed it?’

‘I doubt he wanted to. The more I came to know about the man, the more I understood that he genuinely didn’t think he’d been doing anything wrong. Israel Cobb had stolen the videos, so he’d been blackmailed into stopping his courses, but I honestly believe Cornelius thought he’d be able to start them again one day. Maybe when Israel died and he was sure the tapes weren’t going to turn up at a police station.’

‘Was the chair intact?’

‘It wasn’t the type of thing you could take apart with a screwdriver, Doctor Lang. It had been built using dovetail and tenon joints. Dowels instead of screws. Other than some rivets to secure the straps, there was no metal on it whatsoever. Which, if ithadbeen designed as an electric chair, isn’t surprising. Wood isn’t conductive; metal is.’

Doctor Lang smiled.

‘Sorry, that was what Tilly calls mansplaining,’ Poe said. ‘But my point is, you couldn’t take that chair apart. Not without destroying it.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘Exactly like it did on the videos. About what you’d expect from a hundred-year-old chair. Simple design. Not a single curve on it, just a series of right angles. Looked like a medieval throne. Leather restraints on the arms and the legs, designed in such a way that even if the prisoner managed to get a hand free, it would have been difficult to free the other. Removable panel on the seat in case the prisoner needed the toilet. The oak was dull with the oil they’d used to maintain it. I wasn’t there when forensics took it apart, but I’m told the wood was stained with blood. They collected DNA and linked it to Bethany and five other mispers—’

‘Mispers?’

‘Missing people. There were two from Newcastle, one from Manchester and two from Glasgow. Bethany was the only Cumbrian.’

‘And it was seeing this chair that made you rush upstairs to vomit?’

‘It was.’

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