Page 77 of The Killer’s Mark

‘Exactly.’

‘Yeah, you’re still not coming.’

As soon as Nigel had slunk back into his office, muttering legal threats no one took seriously, Poe turned to Bradshaw and Esmerée.

‘We need to talk,’ he whispered. ‘But not here.’

Chapter 63

The Kings Head was the oldest pub in Carlisle. The current building dated back to the seventeenth century, although records showed that a hostelry had occupied the site since medieval times. Its rich history wasn’t why Poe liked it, though; he had nothing against new pubs or new ideas. But he did have something against landlords who didn’t know how to keep beer. A pub had one job. A very important job as far as Poe was concerned, and any landlord serving beer as flat as piss on a plate should be forcibly relocated to London. The Kings Head landlord was called Renfield Scudder. Poe had never worked up the courage to ask if he’d been named Renfield after Dracula’s fanatical assistant. He was notoriously acerbic – Poe had seen him throw out a tourist who’d asked for a glass of water for the plant he’d just bought at the continental market – but he knew how to keep beer.

Poe led Esmerée and Bradshaw into the back. The nook was empty, and they took that. He went to the bar, explained to Renfield that he had a child with him, that she wouldn’t be drinking – despite the yells for Guinness coming from the back of the pub – and that it was an emergency. All he needed was somewhere he wouldn’t be overheard.

‘I don’t want your life story, Poe,’ Renfield said. ‘Do you want a fucking peeve or not?’

Peeve was Carlisle slang for drink. Poe said he’d have a pint of Spun Gold, a Diet Coke and a bottle of tonic water.

‘I’ll bring them over,’ Renfield said.

Poe joined Bradshaw and Esmerée. He asked Bradshaw to check her emails. While he was at the bar, he’d sent her the footage he’d shot in Cowie House’s loft.

While she waited for his email to download, he said. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said it was rats making the noise you and the palmist could hear. But I was kind of stretching the truth when I said they were “day rats”. Rats in the UK are mainly nocturnal.’

‘Ha!’ Bradshaw said. ‘I knew they only came out at night.’

‘You called it, Tilly,’ Esmerée said, yawning. ‘Why d’ya lie, Poe? Just to piss off the hippy?’

Bradshaw started Poe’s video. He asked her to pause it, then expand a dark patch on the loft’s wooden floor.

‘Let me talk you through the sequence of events as I see them,’ he said. ‘Someone was in the loft. He was there for a while as he brought something to eat and drink. Something to go to the toilet in. A jar. That’s why I know it was a man. At some point he dropped a bottle or can of Coke, or it fizzed when he opened it. Regardless, it ended up on the floor. After he left, the ants found the drying drink. They started feeding on the sugar. Some of them are still there, trapped in it as though it’s flypaper. The ants attracted the rats. They usually sleep during the day, but they’re scavengers. They won’t turn down a free meal. And they don’t just eat babies’ fingers, they eat insects too.’

‘Just when I thought they couldn’t get any grosser,’ Bradshaw said.

‘It was the rats eating the ants that you and the palmist heard. The floor is covered in their droppings.’

‘OK, Sherlock,’ Esmerée said. ‘You’ve proved it ain’t a ghost up there, but you’re being weird about it. What the hell was this asshole up to?’

‘He was working.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Setting up a complex surveillance system.’

Bradshaw’s eyes widened. ‘You mean …?’

Poe nodded. ‘Yes, Tilly,’ he said. ‘The Red Chamber has been spying on us.’

Chapter 64

Renfield brought their drinks over. If he was curious about what they were talking about, he didn’t let on.

‘This chap’s been drilling up there,’ Poe said after he’d left. ‘Probably came in a couple of days ago. Drilled into the ceiling above our offices. Put in cameras. One watching you, Tilly, the other watching me.’

‘Whoa,’ Esmerée said. ‘That’s some creepy-ass stuff. I don’t like it, man.’

Poe didn’t like it either. Didn’t like that they were messing with an organisation who murdered on a whim and could mount a sophisticated surveillance operation at short notice. He said, ‘And I’ll bet my next bacon sandwich that when we search our offices, we’ll find listening devices.’

‘A bacon sandwich? I ain’t known you long, Poe, but that’s hard currency for you.’