Page 157 of The Killer’s Mark

The Beretta had been loaded and the safety catch had been off, but Poe figured Esmerée’s healing started now. There was no need for her to carry the guilt of what she’d almost done.

‘What now?’ she said.

‘You’re going to bed, and I suspect Estelle is going to sit up there with you.’

‘She’s not leaving my sight tonight, Poe,’ Estelle confirmed.

‘Tilly, can I have a word?’

‘Of course, Poe.’

He left the kitchen and walked into the drawing room.

‘I need you to do something for me,’ he said.

He told her what it was.

Bradshaw frowned. ‘Are you sure, Poe?’

‘No, but I can’t think of any other way.’

Part 6

The Man With the Head of a Dragon

Chapter 132

Four days later

Poe plonked his coffee on his desk with enough force to make the lava-hot liquid squirt through the mouth hole in the lid of his disposable cup. He mentally corrected himself. It wasn’t called a ‘mouth hole’, it was called a ‘vent’. Bradshaw had told him this during a tedious lecture on why he shouldn’t use disposable cups any more. Apparently they were bad for the environment. Or maybe it was the bees. She was always going on about the bees.

But today he wanted five shots of thick black espresso, and as Bradshaw wasn’t there, he’d brought his drink back to the office in a disposable cup. Esmerée wasn’t there either. They were both staying with a friend of Estelle’s late father, a cantankerous old fool called Uncle Bertie. Poe had met Bertie the previous year. He was landed gentry, permanently drunk, and owned the largest Purdey shotgun collection in the world. More importantly, he kept them loaded for deer and he wasn’t afraid to shoot humans. Esmerée and Bradshaw were safe with Bertie. Estelle was flitting between Bertie’s and her office in Newcastle. Poe had insisted. He didn’t think anyone was in danger, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He’d expected to hear something by now.

He sat at his desk and transferred the espresso into his Stiff Little Fingers mug. He threw the disposable cup in the bin, and because he wasn’t an idiot, he hid it under a load of crisp packets and grease-stained Greggs bags. With no Bradshaw to hassle him, he’d bought a sausage flat every single day.

He was fidgety. His fingers drummed a beat on his desk. He picked up his coffee, took a sip and again wondered why no one had been in touch. He’d asked Bradshaw to contact them. She’d done it their way, not the police way. Through the dark web. Broken into their encrypted communication channels as if their security had been designed by an Apple Genius. Her insult, not his. She said his message had been received.

And read.

So why had no one reached out.

His desk phone rang.

And just like that, the shopkeeper appeared …

It was an internal number. Good. Poe knew how to answer internal numbers. It was the external ones he had trouble with. He stabbed the receive button.

‘Someone here to see you, Poe,’ Monica Costelloe said.

‘Who?’

‘He won’t give me his name. Just said you were expecting him.’

‘Wouldn’t be an oldish Chinese man, would he?’

‘Chinese enough to make me want to watch a Jackie Chan movie.’

Finally.