Chapter 42

‘You ain't with that lot, are ya?' the heavily tanned barman asked with an even heavier London accent. He pointed at the table next to the window overlooking Keswick's Main Street. Three men and three women, quietly chatting.

‘Who's "that lot"?' Poe replied, surprised to be talking to a cockney in a Cumbrian pub.

‘Them seat-blocking conventioneers. Been here three hours already and they ain't spent a tenner between 'em. They ain't even ordered meals; just six orange cordials, two decaf green teas and a packet of salted nuts.'

It was lunchtime and although the pub was full, the bar staff were standing idle. Poe had some sympathy for the barman. They had tried to find a table but had given up. Instead, they were perched on barstools, facing the guy like he was a blackjack dealer.

‘What can I get you, miss?' he asked Bradshaw.

‘A decaffeinated green tea, please.'

‘Oh, for fu—'

‘And I'll have a pint of Sneck Lifter,' Poe cut in. ‘Snoopy will have the same and we'll all need menus.'

‘Steak and kidney pudding's the special today if you're interested?' the barman said, mollified he was finally getting to pull some pints.

‘Very interested,' Poe said. ‘Snoopy?'

‘Same, please.'

‘Can I tell the kitchen we want three, miss?' the barman asked.

‘Don't be absurd,' Bradshaw replied, looking at the specials board. ‘I'll have the watercress soup.'

‘But that's a starter.'

‘And a heavy meal during the day makes me feel sluggish and dull-witted.'

‘You're the boss,' he said, tapping the order into the till.

‘I'm not the boss,' Bradshaw said, frowning. ‘I've never worked in a pub in my life. And while I'm out in the field, Poe's my boss.'

‘Who's Poe?'

Poe reached across and shook his hand. ‘I am.'

‘Mike,' the barman said.

‘You the landlord?'

‘How can you tell?'

‘You're the only one with a tan.'

Mike laughed. ‘You saying I should pay this lot more?' He gestured to the other bar staff. Two of them were on their phones and another was staring, dead-eyed, into space.

‘You been here long?'

‘Ten years now,' Mike said, putting Poe's pint on the drip tray.

‘Not a fan of the convention, I take it?'

‘I don't mind 'em really. I mean, I wish they'd spend some money, but they're polite enough and they seem like decent people. It's just I had to turn down two groups of eight yesterday. Fresh off the fells and thirsty as hell. Wanted lunch and afternoon drinks. Between 'em they'd have spent four 'undred quid. Instead, I had sixteen conventioneers sharing four plates of chips.'

‘You get any of that Children of Job lot in here?'

‘The cult? They have that compound on the dark side of Barf?'

Poe was surprised to hear the term being used so openly. Then again, perhaps he wasn't. Bar staff were constantly taking the pulse of the local zeitgeist. And what else could you call a group who lived as the Children of Job did? Their hair was too short to mistake them for a hippy commune. In the vernacular of the straight-talking local, that only really left cult. ‘Yep, them,' he said.

‘Nah. They don't come in 'ere. You see them outside sometimes, haranguing the punters about the demon drink. But they're harmless. Locals ignore 'em and tourists film 'em for Twitter and Facebook.'

Poe knew what he meant. On the walk from the car to the pub they'd passed a trio of wild-eyed men badgering people about how it wasn't too late to renounce something Poe didn't catch and accept something else he didn't catch. He had been more interested in the crowd's reaction. Most were giving them a wide berth but a few had their smartphones out. Although they didn't have identity cards clipped to their pockets, once you knew what you were looking for, they were clearly Children of Job. He had surreptitiously taken a photo. The more of them he could recognise, the better.

Poe's phone buzzed in his pocket. The dark side of Barf, as landlord Mike had called it, had been a reception dead spot and Keswick, surrounded by some of the steepest fells in the Lake District, wasn't much better. It seemed to have picked up the pub's wi-fi rather than a mast signal. Bradshaw must have logged him in the last time they were there and the password hadn't been changed.

He had messages and calls from both Doyle and Superintendent Nightingale. He used WhatsApp, another of Bradshaw's additions to his phone, to call Doyle. She didn't answer. He called Nightingale and she did.

‘Where are you, Poe?' she said. ‘Estelle and I have been trying to get hold of you for ages.'

Poe told her about his visit to the Children of Job, his meeting with Joshua Meade and the strange note that had been left under his windscreen wiper.

‘You can brief me when you get here,' Nightingale said.

‘Where's "here"?'

‘The RVI. Your missus had a sudden gap in her schedule and she was able to get Cornelius Green on the slab today. The body's arrived from Carlisle. How long will it take you to get to Newcastle?'

‘Couple of hours,' Poe said, ignoring the ‘missus' comment. He'd get this a lot now, he suspected. Cops loved things like that.

‘You OK if we make a start?'

‘It's your case, ma'am. And we're not expecting anything helpful. I'm sure Estelle will have a medical way of saying this, but he died because his head was bashed in with rocks.'

‘See you soon.' She rang off.

While Poe had been on the phone, their meals had arrived. Poe's plate was as big as a wheel cap and overloaded with thick-cut chips and honey-glazed parsnips. The steam rising from the steak and kidney pudding smelled of beef and gravy and childhood.

‘We'd better get these to go,' he sighed.