Page 62 of The Mercy Chair

‘Nathan’s the other guy Tilly identified?’ Linus said. ‘One of the six who attended the secret courses?’

‘He is,’ Poe confirmed. ‘Superintendent Nightingale spoke to his wife while we were with Eve Bowman. Nathan will be home by six o’clock. He has a job with the council and he’s on site somewhere until then. Snoopy, I assume you want to come to this meeting at police headquarters?’

‘I’ll observe Tilly if you don’t mind.’

‘I do mind.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Tilly doesn’t have an agenda; you do.’

‘I don’t know how many times I need to tell you this, Poe. I do not have an agenda. My role is to observe the unit.’

Poe stared at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘Youdohave an agenda, Snoopy. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.’

‘Watch out!’ Linus yelled.

Poe whipped his head back. A woman was standing in the middle of the road. He slammed on his brakes and the car skidded to a stop inches from her legs. She made no attempt to get out of the way. Although he’d only been going thirty miles an hour, it had been fast enough to engage everyone’s seatbelt locking mechanisms.

‘Bloody hell, that was close,’ Poe said, breathing a sigh of relief.

They stared at the woman in the road.

Mad Alice stared back.

Chapter 53

‘It was Alice who stepped in front of your car?’ Doctor Lang said. ‘The woman who shouted at you when you visited the Children of Job?’

‘Yep, the one who called us sinners,’ Poe confirmed. ‘Even Tilly.’

‘Was she trying to kill herself?’

‘Far from it. She figured it was the only way to make me stop.’

‘And you did?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did she want?’

‘To talk.’

‘She was lucid?’

‘Very much so,’ Poe said. ‘The wild hair was gone, as was her stooped back. It was like the end of that film Tilly made me watch. This master criminal, the one the cops weren’t even sure existed, had been in their office all day long and as he’s leaving the station the limp gradually disappears and the arthritis in his hands clears up.’

‘The Usual Suspects.’

‘What is?’

‘The name of the film.’

‘OK. Anyway, she was like that. Turns out she adopted the guise of “Mad Alice” to ingratiate herself with the Children of Job. She’d been creeping around their compound for fifteen years like a world champion undercover cop.’

‘Which she wasn’t?’

Poe shook his head. ‘She wasn’t a cop.’

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