Page 21 of The Killer’s Mark

‘Never mind my fucking tattoo, me and you are going to sort this out once and for all. Right here, right now.’

‘Sort what out?’

The man wasn’t used to complicated questions like that. His sloped brow furrowed. He rallied well. ‘My ear’s still fucking knocking.’

‘And I’m not an otorhinolaryngologist.’ Poe waited out his confused pause. ‘An ear doctor,’ he explained.

‘You’re a fucking arsehole, Poe.’

‘It’s been said before. Today, as it happens, and by someone with more guts and intelligence than you.’

‘Outside, now!’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean, “no”?’

Poe didn’t answer.

‘Just as I thought, you’re not hard unless you’re sneaking up on someone.’

‘Poe might not be hard,’ someone behind the group of drunken idiots said. ‘But I fucking am.’

Matt Towler pushed his way through them. He rolled his shoulders and grinned, happy as a sandboy. ‘Right, who wants to go first?’

Poe opened his laptop.

‘Not in here, Matt,’ he said.

Chapter 15

When Bugger Rumble had told Poe some men were mustering the courage to beat him up, Poe had sent Matt Towler a text. He’d met Towler the previous year during a serial sniper case. At one stage he’d thought Towler was the sniper. He was certainly tall enough. But although Towler was ninety-nine per cent demon, he was on the side of the angels. He’d had a chequered and violent career. He’d been a sergeant in the Parachute Regiment, a sergeant with Cumbria Police, and he was now used by the security services. Poe had once asked him what he did, and Towler’s response that he was a hammer and sometimes the problem was a nail didn’t really explain anything. Poe suspected that he was one of the security service’s necessary evils.

After they’d worked together to catch the sniper, Towler had spent a few weeks helping Poe through the latter stages of his PTSD. They were now good friends.

Towler was a bright man, a cunning man, but his most singular attribute was his extraordinary capacity for violence. So when he told the man with the badly spelled tattoo that he was hard, it was not hyperbole. He was literally the hardest man Poe had ever met. The hardest man he’d ever heard of.

And because Towler had been a Cumbrian cop, he had a reputation. One that the chuckleheads who’d stormed into Poe’s office were very much aware of. When they saw the hibernating bear they’d just woken, their expressions went from angry sneers to shitting themselves so fast it was like they’d had a stroke.

Begging didn’t work with Towler. Bribes didn’t work. Genuine contrition had no impact. They’d threatened his friend and there had to be consequences. Poe had known this when he sent Towler the message, but he’d thought it best to nip it in the bud now. Otherwise they might take it out on Indica, or come to the office when Bradshaw was on her own. He doubted Towler would go so far as to inflict life-changing injuries, but he also doubted any of them would be at work next week.

He listened to the ruckus outside his office but soon got sick of the crying and the begging and the screams being cut off. He opened his laptop and pressed play. It seemed the woman had another idea about how to lessen the impact of the man’s Viagra overdose. It involved lube.

Two minutes later, Towler was back. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. The man was a freak of nature.

‘Cheers, Matt. Owe you a pint.’

Towler waved him away. ‘Where’s the bookworm?’

Poe smiled. Bradshaw had two nicknames now. The bookworm and Till-meister. ‘I told her and Esmerée to stay in her office until I came to get her.’

‘Who’s Esmerée?’

‘New case. Came in yesterday. Thought her mother was dead. Turns out she might not be.’

‘What are you doing to find her?’

‘Watching porn.’