Page 44 of The Mercy Chair

‘I won’t be revealing my source, but I can assure you I am unaware of anything in the public domain.’

‘I have your word?’

‘Is my word worth anything to you?’ Poe said. ‘If it is, then you have it; if it isn’t, then rest assured, I don’t imagine anyone else is looking for it.’

Joshua breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I know your opinion of us is very low, Sergeant Poe, and to be honest I don’t care. I’ve dealt with this my entire adult life and I am used to it.’

‘You have no idea what my opinion is, Joshua.’

‘Your mind was made up the moment you read what was on Miss Bradshaw’s iPad.’

‘Time and time again conversion therapy has been discredited as ineffective, and worse, deeply damaging,’ Poe said. ‘The fact the Children of Job persist with it is a damning indictment of what you stand for. What you might be capable of.’

‘I completely agree,’ Joshua said.

‘You do?’

‘Of course. You can’t stop someone being who they are in here,’ – he pressed his hand against his chest – ‘any more than you can stop the wind. And although I believe homosexuality is a mortal sin, it is not my role to judge. That is God’s privilege alone.’

‘So why do you run them?’ Poe asked.

Joshua hesitated before answering. It looked as if he was deciding the best way to frame his response. ‘I’ve already told you Cornelius was an easy man to admire, but a hard man to like,’ he said eventually.

‘You have.’

‘And you’ve referred to him as a zealot.’

‘I said zealots frighten me, Joshua. I don’t think I attributed the term to Cornelius Green.’

‘But that’s what you think?’

Poe shrugged then nodded. ‘I’ve read his file. If I were asked, I would say hedoesfit the Home Office definition of an extremist.’

‘Although I’m a relative newcomer here, I’m told conversion therapy was entirely Cornelius’s idea,’ Joshua said. ‘He believed it worked and developed the programme accordingly. Other than a few tweaks to keep up with technology, the core programme has stayed the same for thirty-five years.’

‘Talk me through it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘A man is dead, Joshua. Now is not the time to be coy.’

‘I can’t because I don’t know.’

‘It was running for thirty-five years,’ Poe said. ‘How can you not know?’

‘Because I wasn’t told.’

‘You weren’t told, or you didn’t ask?’

‘I agreed with Cornelius Green on almost everything. His position on abortion, the sanctity of marriage, how our children should be raised, his belief that Christian values should form the central tenet of government.’

‘But not conversion therapy.’

‘I’m an intelligent man, Sergeant Poe. I read law at Corpus Christi. I was a practising barrister. I’ve reviewed many papers on the subject, and a man with half my intellect would come to the same conclusion I did. Conversion therapy is futile, counterproductive and the psychological impact has the potential to be catastrophic. Ultimately, there are only three ways to achieve aims such as ours: we win the argument, we win the election, or we put judges in the right places.’

‘But?’

‘But for Cornelius it was a burning belief, almost a crusade. He couldn’t be talked down and there was no point trying. Over the years there have been three or four other members who believed in the efficacy of conversion therapy, and they were the only ones Cornelius allowed to assist with the programme. The rest of us remained unaware of what went on in that classroom.’

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