Chapter 50
Poeleft immediately and was back in Cumbria by midnight. He dropped Bradshaw at the Shap Wells Hotel then quad-biked across the fell to Herdwick Croft.
He was dog-tired and the two cases were beginning to merge in his thoughts. Both impossible, both time-sensitive. Someone who could levitate over fresh snow had murdered Estelle Doyle’s father and the Botanist was killing with impunity. He couldn’t begin to explain either and the stakes were being raised daily.
As he crested the last peak, black against the starlit sky, he thumbed a text to Mathers, asking for an update. She responded immediately. No change in the health of Karen Royal-Cross, no breakthroughs on any line of enquiry. She ended the text telling him to get some rest and come back refreshed.
Fat chance, he thought. He was up here to work.
Poe turned on his generator and fired up the wood-burning stove. He wasn’t hungry, but he opened a bottle of Spun Gold and drained it in one go. He took another bottle upstairs to drink in bed. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Henning Stahl was probably strapped to a gurney somewhere, sweating, withdrawing, IV lines pumping medication and fluids into his alcohol-ravaged body, while he was drinking beer in bed.
He raised the bottle, took a swig and said, ‘Get well, mate.’
Ania Kierczynska, Estelle Doyle’s solicitor, had arranged for Poe and Bradshaw to see Estelle as official visitors. It meant they’d see her in a private room rather than the communal visiting area.
HMP Low Newton was an all-female, maximum-security prison in the village of Brasside, County Durham. Past inmates includedRosemary West and the serial killer Joanna Dennehy. It was a serious prison.
Poe hadn’t been there for years and the process of getting inside had changed dramatically. Last time he’d flashed his ID card and been waved through. This time he had the ignominy of sitting on the BOSS chair, the Body Orifice Security Scanner. Satisfied he hadn’t ‘plugged’ a mobile phone up his rectum, he’d been given a laminated pass and told he was good to go. He turned and waited for Bradshaw. She was deep in conversation with the prison officer operating the chair.
Poe frowned and walked back over.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘Don’t tell me Tilly’s had a positive reading?’
‘Why would I have metal up my bottom, Poe?’ Bradshaw replied. ‘I was asking this lady if the low intensity magnetic field that the BOSS chair uses to detect conductive metal is configured in a Mach–Zehnder interferometric arrangement.’
‘It’s true,’ the prison officer said. ‘Shedidask that.’
‘I’m sure I read somewhere it does, Tilly,’ Poe said. ‘Come on, Estelle’s waiting for us.’