Chapter 23

‘I think some of the Church's younger, more militant members could do with a shot of what you've told me, Matilda,' Oldwater said when Bradshaw had finally finished. ‘Hearing the other side of the argument so cogently explained would do them good. Might take them down a peg or two. Could I interest you in guest speaking at one of our conferences?'

‘No thank you, Nicholas,' Bradshaw replied. ‘That would bore me foolish.'

‘A refreshingly honest answer. Now, to business. You must be wondering why I've asked the National Crime Agency's most stubborn detective and the world's most eminent mathematician if they believe in the same things I do.'

‘I assumed it was ill-advised small talk,' Poe said.

‘Goodness no, that would be a dreadful waste of your time.'

‘You really needed to know?'

Oldwater looked over Poe's shoulder. ‘Ah, here's the tea,' he said.

Peter, the bespectacled vicar Oldwater had been talking to earlier, was walking down the nave. He had a tray in one hand and a leather document holder in the other. He set everything down on a couple of spare seats and left without speaking.

‘May I?' Oldwater said. ‘Yorkshire Tea for me and Washington; peppermint for Tilly. Is that OK?'

They confirmed it was. After they'd all had a drink, the bishop picked up the leather document holder. He left it zipped. ‘Before I open this, we need to agree some ground rules,' he said. ‘The first is that this file doesn't exist. If it ever gets into the public domain you will confirm you haven't seen it before. Is this acceptable to you both?'

‘Fine by me,' Poe said.

‘If it is with Poe, then it is with me, Nicholas,' Bradshaw added.

‘The second thing we need to agree is the reason for this evening's meeting,' Oldwater said. ‘Loose lips sink ships and the three of us sitting together will not have gone unnoticed. And while I trust Peter implicitly, I cannot say the same for everyone else here tonight. I simply do not know them well enough.'

‘How about we were just catching up?' Poe suggested. ‘You heard through the grapevine that we were working up here and it's been a while.'

‘The simplest solutions are often the best,' Oldwater agreed. ‘And technically I'm not bearing a false witness under God's roof. We did have a catch up.'

‘You OK with that, Tilly?'

‘We don't know why we're here, Poe,' Bradshaw said. ‘I would ordinarily say we'd be ill-advised to agree to anything until we know what's in the file, but I trust Nicholas.'

‘I do too. But if he's about to admit to embezzlement or something, we'll just say we had our fingers crossed. I have no problem whatsoever bearing a false witness under God's roof.'

‘What about Linus, Poe?'

‘Damn, I forgot about that twerp.'

‘Who's Linus?' Oldwater asked.

‘He's either a trainee with the National Audit Office, here to see how SCAS contributes to the national security agenda . . .'

‘Or?'

‘Or he's something else. I think we'll find out one way or another very soon.'

‘Can you trust him?'

‘Not even a tiny bit,' Poe said. ‘That's not an insurmountable problem, however, as I have no intention of telling him what we're doing.'

Oldwater looked at his document holder.

‘Maybe it's best if—'

‘Nicholas,' Poe cut in, ‘if there's something sensitive in there, the best thing you can do is let Tilly scan it to her tablet, then shred it. I can assure you, once it's in one of her devices, not even R2-D2 could get it out.'

‘Who?'

‘It's a robot dustbin that Tilly likes,' Poe said. ‘But, my point is, it's as safe in Tilly's tablet as anywhere on earth.'

‘Please pass me the file, Nicholas,' Bradshaw said. ‘You can trust Poe to do what is right, and you can trust me to keep this information safe.'

‘And it was you who asked for this meeting,' Poe reminded him.

The bishop nodded decisively and passed Bradshaw his file.