Page 45 of The Mercy Chair

‘It must be written down somewhere though.’

‘I’m told it isn’t.’

‘I want to speak to the ones whodobelieve in conversion therapy then. The ones who helped him run it.’

‘I wish you luck. One died of liver cancer in 2016; the others ventured to pastures new many years ago. The only man currently running conversion therapy was Cornelius Green.’

‘The course died with him?’

‘And maybe that’s a good thing,’ Joshua said. ‘I believe the Children of Job deserve a voice in discussions about faith – and that wasn’t going to happen while we ran that course. Perhaps this is a chance for us to take a step towards palatability as far as mainstream Christianity is concerned. To redirect the narrative. That’s certainly the position I’ll be urging the board to adopt.’

‘Is there anything youcantell us about Cornelius Green?’ Poe said, checking his watch. They’d been there for almost two hours now. ‘Something we might find helpful in tracking down the person who killed him?’

Joshua considered the question carefully. ‘Whatever you might hear, Sergeant Poe, whatever impression I might have given you, know this: Cornelius Green was a good man. Some of his ideas were misguided but his faith never wavered. I am profoundly sorry that he never managed to find the peace he deserved, and I can only hope the rest of us can live up to his exacting standards.’

As they left the basement Poe hummed ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, partly to annoy Joshua, although he doubted the starchy bigot had ever seenMonty Python’s Life of Brian, and partly to keep up his spirits. It had been a disturbing interview in a weird, dank location.

They walked back through the rapidly filling gymnasium and out into the fresh air. Poe took in a lungful, glad to be above ground again. The sun was now high in the sky and he wished he’d had the foresight to park in the shade. His car was going to be like an oven. He squinted at his windscreen. There was something off with the glare. It wasn’t uniform. He shaded his eyes and realised what it was.

‘We’ll see ourselves out from here, Joshua,’ Poe said.

‘I’ll walk you to your car, Sergeant Poe. I’m going to check on Alice anyway and the greenhouse is on the way.’

Poe stopped. ‘I’m afraid I must insist. There’s something I need to talk to my colleagues about and it’s confidential. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with you or your organisation.’

They shook hands outside the old school’s front entrance.

‘Why didn’t you want Joshua to walk back to the car with us, Poe?’ Bradshaw asked.

‘Have a look at the windscreen, Tilly.’

Bradshaw’s eyesight wasn’t as good as his, but they were now close enough for her to see it. ‘There’s a bit of paper tucked under one of the windscreen wipers,’ she said. ‘What do you think it is?’

‘I have no idea, but the fact it wasn’t hand-delivered must mean something. As Joshua’s probably watching us, I’m going to leave it where it is until we’re out of sight.’

Which was what they did. The moment Poe drove around the guardian rhododendron bushes he stopped the car, nipped out and collected the piece of paper. It was a folded page torn from an A5 notebook. He climbed back in the car and read the neat, cursive writing.

If you really want to understand cornelius green, seek out israel cobb. They had a massive falling out – ask him what it was about. Ask him why the courses stopped. This is where your answers will be found.

Linus reached forward and took the note from Poe. After a moment he said, ‘Who the hell is Israel Cobb?’

‘He sounds like a salad,’ Poe replied, frowning. Israel Cobb was an unusual name. He would have remembered if it had been in the bishop’s dossier. He retrieved the note from Linus and read it again. Who the hell had written this? And what courses were they referring to?

He passed the note to Bradshaw. She glanced at it then opened her laptop.

Chapter 42

‘You ain’t with that lot, are ya?’ the heavily tanned barman asked with an even heavier London accent. He pointed at the table next to the window overlooking Keswick’s Main Street. Three men and three women, quietly chatting.

‘Who’s “that lot”?’ Poe replied, surprised to be talking to a cockney in a Cumbrian pub.

‘Them seat-blocking conventioneers. Been here three hours already and they ain’t spent a tenner between ’em. They ain’t even ordered meals; just six orange cordials, two decaf green teas and a packet of salted nuts.’

It was lunchtime and although the pub was full, the bar staff were standing idle. Poe had some sympathy for the barman. They had tried to find a table but had given up. Instead, they were perched on barstools, facing the guy like he was a blackjack dealer.

‘What can I get you, miss?’ he asked Bradshaw.

‘A decaffeinated green tea, please.’

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