Chapter 35

The moment they turned the corner, the road changed from dirt track to tarmac. The difference was stark, like the rhododendron bushes were Checkpoint Charlie and they'd just left Soviet-controlled East Berlin and entered the more vibrant West.

Poe thought back to what Linus had said: that it wasn't exactly welcoming. He thought the spook was probably right. The first one hundred yards of access road were deliberately in disrepair to discourage nosey tourists. Cumbria hosted twenty million a year and, like a flea infestation, they got everywhere. The potholes and the overgrown vegetation would be enough to deter even the most inquisitive weekend camper. Anyone who persevered down the track had legitimate business with the Children of Job. It was a bit like Herdwick Croft in that regard. In all his time there, Poe had not once had a casual visitor.

‘Blimey,' Poe said. ‘I wasn't expecting this.'

The Children of Job's estate was sprawling and impressive. Poe had assumed there'd be the old boarding school and maybe one or two outbuildings, all sagging roofs and black mould.

He was wrong.

The old school was the centrepiece of the estate, a beautiful three-storey building of pink granite and creeping ivy. The roof was slate and immaculate, the windows were highly polished and reflected the flinty sky and the quince-yellow sun. The main entrance was an imposing double door of oak and brass, although Poe noticed people going in and out of a smaller side door. And instead of the ‘one or two outbuildings' he'd expected, there was at least a dozen. Some were as old as the school, some were new.

Poe pulled up in the small car park. There was one other car there. A flock of house sparrows roosting in the ivy on the old school were startled by the growl of Poe's diesel engine and took to the sky in a flutter of small wings. He turned off his engine and took in the rest of the estate.

It appeared that as well as providing conversion therapy, virginity tests and hosting ‘Why Jesus Was White' seminars, the Children of Job also ran a farm. In addition to the cattle Poe had noticed earlier, there were goats, sheep and chickens. In a meadow a hundred yards from the buildings was an apiary, a series of white beehives. A woman wearing a suit, gloves and fencing hood fussed around them with a stainless-steel smoker. Poe could hear the angry buzz of displaced bees.

In front of the school was an expansive lawn dotted liberally with tables and chairs. The eastern edge had a slight slope and a small stage had been positioned at the bottom. Wooden benches were arranged on the slope in tiers like an amphitheatre.

‘They have ducks as well, Poe,' Bradshaw said, touching his shoulder and pointing at a pond in the half-shade of a willow tree. A score of Aylesbury ducks rested on the grassy banks and the ramp of the pond's duck house, their plumage thick and white, their bills as pink as a kitten's tongue.

‘What now, Poe?' Linus asked.

‘We wait.'

‘For what?'

‘Him,' Poe said, nodding towards the prissy-looking man marching towards them like he was wearing someone else's underpants. ‘I want to ruffle some feathers.'