Page 74 of The Mercy Chair

‘What would be more usual?’

‘Alcoholism and drug abuse. Postures that show self-protection, like slouching or haircuts that hide most of the face. Membership of a gang isn’t uncommon and paradoxically neither is the desire for extreme solitude.’

Poe sucked air through his teeth. His mother had abandoned him when he was a toddler, and although he had subsequently discovered she’d had reasons he could understand, he had always been a bit of a loner. Herdwick Croft was in the middle of nowhere and until Estelle Doyle had entered his life, he had never had a relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks. He could count on one hand the number of people he trusted. He wondered if it all stemmed from his childhood.

‘Alice said if Bethany was going to murder her family she would have just snapped, she wouldn’t have waited five years,’ he said. ‘Does that bear out with the studies into mass shootings in the US?’

‘No,’ Doctor Lang replied. ‘That’s not what the studies found. The evidence suggests that mass shooters enter into a long-term plan. Their anger builds up over a significant period of time, often since childhood. They rarely snap.’

‘So a five-year gap between running away and returning to murder her family . . . ?’

‘Is entirely consistent with the US studies, yes.’ Doctor Lang tapped the file on the table. ‘Can I remind you, Washington, that I haven’t read this part yet as I want to hear your version first? Other than knowing the guilty parties are either dead or behind bars, I have no idea who did what to whom.’

‘We’re getting there, Doctor Lang,’ Poe said. ‘In fact, we’re now getting to the stage where things started to go wrong, both in the case and for me personally.’

‘What happened?’

‘You remember the alphanumeric tattoos I told you about?’

‘The ones Cornelius Green had on his body? You said Israel Cobb might have had them too.’

‘You have to understand that at this stage of the investigation our priority was finding out what had happened on those secret courses. We believed that once we knew, we would be one step closer to finding out who else Bethany Bowman might target. We’d sort of put the tattoos on the backburner. Tilly was spending a little bit of time on them when she could, but they weren’t our priority.’

‘And they should have been.’

‘Like I said before, the tattoos were the key to everything. Something we were left in no doubt of after our visit to Nathan Rose.’

‘And this was where things started to go wrong?’

Poe looked at the cuts and scars on his hands. Some had healed; some were fresh. Some were little more than scratches; others were deep and had needed stitches. None of them were older than six months. ‘It was,’ he said.

‘What happened?’

‘I’d been reading Bethany’s journal on the way there and by the time I got to the Roses’ I guess I was looking for a fight. Mrs Rose and I took an instant dislike to each other.’

‘Why?’

‘I suppose it saved time.’

‘Washington,’ Doctor Lang warned, ‘we’ve talked about your use of humour as a deflection technique.’

‘Sorry,’ Poe said.

‘What happened?’

‘Something horrible. And later on it gave certain people everything they needed.’

Chapter 64

Nathan Rose lived in Portinscale, a small but typical Lake District village within walking distance of Keswick. With whitewashed houses and ancient pubs, it had once been picturesque and unspoiled, but when tourists found it they infected the village like a fungal rash. It now had as many B & B signs as Keswick. Bradshaw told them Portinscale meant ‘harlot’s hut’ in Old English. Poe said she’d better not tell the deeply conservative Roses that. ‘I don’t imagine they’ll have a sense of humour, Tilly,’ he’d added.

Poe had made Linus drive so he could finish Bethany’s journal. Nothing he read improved his mood. Unless she was a skilled fantasist, Bethany had suffered an appalling childhood.

‘Where am I going?’ Linus said.

‘Second left after the Farmers Arms,’ Poe said.

‘House number?’ Linus said.

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