Chapter 122

And finally Poe did understand.

He could see the thread that connected it all. One thing after another tumbled into place. He knew why Noah and Grace Bowman had hated their daughter. He knew why she had survived the mercy chair. He even knew why Cornelius Green had revelled in her torture. Life's harsh reality had taught Poe that genuine altruism was so rare that, as Bradshaw had once put it, it was statistically irrelevant, but Israel Cobb, insane as he was, had been an outlier. When he'd shown Poe the video of Bethany's death his only motivation was to protect her. He'd admitted to her murder, to all the murders, so the police would stop looking for her.

‘You're Eve's half-sister,' Poe said. ‘Israel Cobb is your father.'

Bethany smiled. It looked like an act of self-harm.

‘They had an affair,' she said. ‘My chaste, butter-wouldn't-melt mother had an affair with Israel. When she told Noah she was going to the Children of Job for spiritual guidance, she was visiting Israel in his room. And because Grace believed birth control was a sin, the inevitable happened.'

‘You.'

‘Me. I found out later that Noah and Grace had drifted into a sexless marriage, and when my mother missed her period Noah put two and two together and came up with being a cuckold.'

‘An abortion would have been out of the question,' Poe said.

‘Their only option was the charade of me being a planned and welcome addition to the family. In public, I was their cheeky scamp. Rebellious, yes, but loved all the more for it.'

‘But in private they hated you?'

Bethany nodded. ‘To Noah I was an ever-present reminder of Grace's infidelity. To Grace I was God's punishment for breaking the Seventh Commandment. So yes, they hated me. I remember coming home early from school one day because I'd vomited during PE. That night I heard them praying it was cancer.'

‘I saw the entry in your journal,' Poe said. ‘Things like that made it easy for us to believe it was you who had murdered your parents.'

Neither Eve nor Aaron had spoken since Bethany had told them about her true parentage, but it was clear neither of them had known. Aaron started blubbering again; Eve was staring at Bethany with undisguised hostility.

‘You should be thanking me then, Bethany,' she said, her voice strained and brittle. ‘Instead of making idle threats, you should be on your knees grovelling for what I did.'

‘And what did you do, Eve?'

‘I killed Noah and Grace for you.'

Bethany swung the mallet at Eve's head. It sounded like steak being hit with a meat tenderiser. Poe winced and Eve went limp. Bethany turned to Aaron. ‘Is that true?' she asked as if nothing had happened. ‘Did our sister kill Noah and Grace to avenge me?'

Aaron stared in horror at the mallet. He shook his head manically. ‘It was so we could be together,' he sobbed.

‘In other words, it wasn't about me, it was about her.'

Bethany raised the mallet again.

‘Wait!' Poe said.

She gave him a reverse head nod. ‘What is it? As you can see, I'm busy.'

‘Israel Cobb being your biological father explains why he wanted you to survive the mercy chair,' Poe said, ‘but it doesn't explain how. I saw him slash your throat, Bethany. He didn't fake that. He couldn't fake that, not while Cornelius was watching.'

She lowered the mallet. ‘Tell me what you saw,' she said.

‘Israel Cobb ran that blade across your neck like he was scouring pork. Your skin sprang apart like it was elastic. There was blood. Lots of it. That couldn't be faked.'

Bethany faced him. She untied her scarf and leaned in to Poe, close enough for him to see her neck. ‘No,' she said, ‘it couldn't.'

‘But . . . how?'

Her scar was white and glossy and thin, like there was a fishbone under her skin. It started just under her left ear and stretched to her right. It was neat, as if a surgeon had cut her. Poe knew that, fully extended, Stanley knife blades were an inch long. An injury like that wasn't survivable.

Ifthe blade had been fully extended . . .

‘Israel retracted the blade, didn't he?' Poe said.

Bethany nodded. ‘He told me he was panicking by then,' she said. ‘He'd meant to save me by having me wear a doctored hood. He'd stuffed it with wire wool and metal padding. He thought that would be enough to absorb the worst of the rocks. He'd then tell Cornelius that the stones had killed me.'

‘But because Cornelius had refused to let you wear a hood, he had to improvise.'

‘Cornelius knew I was Israel's daughter. Don't ask me how. I suspect Grace confessed to him. She probably asked him for advice. Israel breaking one of the Ten Commandments had enraged Cornelius. He had believed my biological father to be as devout as he was: pure and untainted and unconcerned with worldly possessions and desires. By having an affair, Israel had betrayed him.'

‘Which is why Cornelius wanted Israel to see your face.'

‘It was. Watching his daughter die was his punishment. And because Aaron was unable to land any serious blows with the rocks he was throwing, Cornelius ordered Israel to finish me off. He had taken a perverse delight in that.'

‘He went to plan B,' Poe said. ‘Tried to kill you without killing you.'

‘He left the tip protruding, enough to pierce the thin skin on my neck, but retracted the rest of the blade. And because he'd jerked my head back before he did it, it looked more violent than it actually was. He didn't know if it would work, but he was out of options by then. He had to cut me deep enough for it to look real, but he wasn't a doctor; he had no way of gauging what a safe depth was. The man who later patched me up told me that if the blade had been protruding even one more millimetre it would likely have been a fatal cut.'

Poe nodded. It had been a desperate move. Wouldn't have worked nine times out of ten. Bethany would have bled out or screamed in pain. ‘A cut like that would have been like a head wound,' he said. ‘Lots of blood, but ultimately superficial. And luckily Cornelius didn't check.'

‘It wouldn't have occurred to him, Sergeant Poe. To check would be to admit he wasn't confident his orders were being carried out.'

Poe thought that sounded about right. Cornelius Green was the Children of Job's founding member, their magnetic leader. His word was infallible.

‘Did you know Cornelius had a grave earmarked for you?' Poe asked.

‘Yes. Israel told me.'

‘Where did he take you instead? Your scar isn't raised or lumpy so I assume you had medical attention that same night.'

‘Before the Children of Job, like Cornelius, my father had been active in what he called the fight to preserve the sanctity of life. But whereas Cornelius's background was in direct action, such as firebombing abortion clinics in the States, Israel had been one of a select few who sought out the underground networks. Northern Ireland was a fertile battleground in those days as abortion was illegal in all but a few circumstances. A lot of girls were smuggled across to the mainland to give birth or to have their pregnancy terminated. My father tried to stop the doctors secretly performing abortions over here. The transport arrangements. The families who looked after these young, often terrified girls, while their parents thought they were away on a school trip. The ones who made sure that when they returned to their communities no one was any the wiser. He sniffed them out like a bloodhound.'

‘To stop them?'

‘A prevented abortion is a soul saved, he told me. He sought them out. Exposed them when he could. Disrupted them when he couldn't.'

‘He knew doctors then,' Poe said. ‘Doctors who wouldn't ask too many questions?'

‘Yes, Daddy was quite the hypocrite. He begged help from those he'd previously tried to destroy.'

‘He had you patched up?'

‘And spirited abroad to recuperate. As well as families who would see girls through their secret abortions, there was also a well-established network of families who would take on the babies of the girls who couldn't go through with, or just plain refused to have, an abortion. Some of these families were abroad. The family I ended up with were good people. They showed me the love I'd never had before and that's all I'll say on this matter.'

‘You got better.'

‘And I made a life for myself.'

‘But sixteen years later you came back to murder Cornelius Green. Why put yourself through all this again?'

‘Some things can never be forgiven, Sergeant Poe.'

‘I get that,' Poe said. ‘I really do. But why now?'

Bethany frowned. ‘I don't . . . I can't be sure. I remember seeing something on the news, something that reminded me of what Cornelius had planned to do with me. That he wanted to bury me underneath someone else's coffin. I think I must have snapped. To be honest, Sergeant Poe, it's all been a bit of a blur. I can't remember parts of the last sixteen years. I imagine I've found a way to block out the worst memories.'

‘But the news article brought it all back?'

She nodded. ‘I returned to Cumbria and sent a note to Cornelius saying I was a mother who needed advice about her gay son. I asked if we could meet at an out of the way place.'

‘The Lightning Tree?'

She nodded again. ‘I used to go there with Alice. She would pinch a can of her dad's cider and we would pretend we were drunk.' She smiled at the memory. ‘Cornelius couldn't resist that, of course. He didn't recognise me, even when I stunned him and tied him to the tree. It wasn't until I showed him the scar on my neck that he realised the peril he was in.'

‘You stoned him to death.'

‘As he had wanted Aaron to do to me. Except I didn't beg for mercy. He did. He cried for his "momma" at the end. Kept crying for her right up until I crushed his skull with a rock the size of a melon.'

Poe resisted saying Good for you. Instead, he said, ‘And you spared Israel because he'd saved your life sixteen years earlier?'

‘Oh no,' she said, smiling grimly. ‘I'll be making time for dear Papa. He might think he's found redemption, but I have a long memory and a short temper. He'll get out of prison eventually and when he does, I'll be waiting for him.'

‘Israel Cobb will never be released,' Poe said quietly.

‘I think you underestimate his knack for self-preservation, Sergeant Poe. He'll have information on some of these extremists. He ran with them in his activist days, and some will still be making a nuisance of themselves. He's bound to know something the authorities will find useful. He'll do a deal and get a much-reduced sentence.'

‘Israel Cobb will never be released,' Poe said again.

‘How can you be so—'

‘Because he's dead, Bethany.'