Page 25 of The Mercy Chair

Christianity had a complex history with stoning and the victim was covered in religious tattoos. Poe was familiar with most religious dogma and he knew the Old Testament in particular prescribed capital punishment for a variety of sins, and the most commonly used method was death by stoning. Some of these sins – murder and rape, for example – were still classed as serious crimes but others like disobedience to parents and homosexuality were spectacularly outdated. According to the Bible, even gathering firewood on a Saturday was enough to be put to death. So, Christianity and death by stoning had a bloody past, and now the Bishop of Carlisle had asked to see him. Poe doubted this was a coincidence.

Poe turned his thoughts to Linus Jorgensen. If Linuswasa trainee in the National Audit Office, Poe hated sausages. He had strong suspicions about who Linus really worked for and, if the trap he had set with Bugger was sprung tonight, he would be able to confirm it. He could then turn his mind to the ‘why’.

Bradshaw nudged him. ‘The service has finished, Poe,’ she said.

She was right. The chanting had stopped, the small congregation was breaking up. The bishop had climbed down from the pulpit and was chatting to some of the clergy.

‘Let’s go and see what he wants,’ Poe said.

Chapter 21

The Bishop of Carlisle was in his sixties. It was five years since Poe had seen him, and it looked like he’d lost a bit of weight. Probably cut down on the biscuits. Poe seemed to remember he had a fondness for Rich Tea; a wan, flavourless biscuit the nation should be ashamed of. Poe had seen the bishop in an ill-fitting cardigan before, and he’d seen him in a suit, but he’d never seen him wearing his religious fripperies. Perhaps it was because of where they were, but they conveyed an air of authority Poe hadn’t noticed before. The bespectacled man he was talking to certainly thought so – he could only have been more deferential if he’d been lying on the floor kissing the bishop’s feet.

‘Thank you, Peter,’ the bishop said. ‘Can you make sure we aren’t disturbed?’

‘Certainly, Bishop.’

‘And perhaps some tea?’

Peter nodded and left. Oldwater guided them towards the seats near the pulpit. ‘Sorry you had to wait,’ he said. ‘That went on a tad longer than I anticipated. It was good of you to come.’

‘I didn’t feel as though I had a choice,’ Poe said.

‘Sorry. But, in my defence, I think you might find what I have to say quite useful.’

‘That was a pretty hardcore service.’

‘Evensong? Yes, I suppose it is one for the purists. It’s taken from the Book of Common Prayer and dates back to the Reformation. It went out of fashion for a while, but for some reason it’s going through a bit of a revival at the moment. Anyway, enough about my day job – how are you both?’

After they’d caught up, Poe said, ‘You asked to see me, Nicholas?’

‘Both of you actually.’

‘Oh?’

‘But before we get to the nub of the matter, I would like to ask you something. Something personal.’

‘OK,’ Poe said cautiously. ‘Go for it. Can’t promise I’ll answer.’

‘Do you believe in God, Washington?’

Poe didn’t think he’d ever been asked that before. Not in a serious way.

‘Well, someone’s out to get me,’ he replied, to buy time more than anything else.

‘Given where we are, it’s not an unreasonable question,’ the bishop said.

Poe stopped to give it some thought. His answer was obviously important to the bishop, and he wasn’t a monster – he wasn’t going to lie to him in his own church.

‘I know the words to the Lord’s Prayer,’ he said eventually.

‘But do youbelieve, Washington?’

‘Do I think that two penguins walked all the way from Antarctica to the Middle East simply to get on a big wooden boat?’ he said. ‘Or that you can live forever by symbolically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus, or that a talking snake grifted a woman made from a man’s rib into eating a Granny Smith?’

‘The Bible isn’t meant to be taken literally, Washington,’ Oldwater laughed. ‘Nowhere in its thirty-odd thousand verses does it claim to be inerrant. It was never an accurate account of the history of that time and place. And it wasn’t until the middle of the nineteenth century that scholars stopped examining it as they would any other historical document. And if itweremeant to be taken literally, it would actually undermine, rather than reinforce, the word of God. Moses is a murderer, David slept around, and Abraham pretended his wife was his sister. If it’s read in context, the sole purpose of the Bible is to reveal God to us. It tells us who we are. Where we’ve come from and where we’re going. The Bible isn’t the ancient predecessor of your Police and Criminal Evidence Act.’

‘That’s good, Nicholas,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Because Poe doesn’t believe in that, either.’

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