Chapter 52

‘Bethany can't be back, Sergeant Poe,' Eve said. ‘She just can't.'

Poe drained his espresso before responding. Eve had served the coffee in small white cups, the kind used in coffee shops and restaurants. Poe had never learned how to make espressos last. He felt uncultured when he was served one. To him, espressos felt like coffee chasers, there to be gulped down in one and the cup slammed upside down on the counter. Linus was sipping his like a pro and Bradshaw had hot water with a slice of lemon in a normal-sized mug. They were seated at Eve's kitchen table, a sturdy oak thing with matching high-backed stools.

‘This isn't the only line of enquiry we have, but we think she might be back. And if she is, it's possible she's already killed someone.'

Eve put down her cup and wiped her lips with a cotton napkin. ‘Who?'

‘Cornelius Green,' Poe said. ‘He was murdered three nights ago.'

‘Cornelius is dead?'

‘He is.'

‘I don't know whether to clap or cry,' she said.

‘You knew him then?'

‘From years ago. Mum and Dad were heavily involved in that bloody place they have near Keswick. Believed Cornelius Green was some sort of Messiah. They were there every weekend and most evenings. You say he was murdered three nights ago; I say I'm surprised it took so long.' She stood and refilled their cups. Put them back on little cork coasters. She retook her seat and said, ‘I hope this isn't a shock, Sergeant Poe, but Cornelius Green wasn't a pleasant man. In fact, I would go as far to say he was a monster. Some of the things he put those poor children through—'

‘What things?'

‘He ran courses, Sergeant Poe. Horrible, horrible courses.'

Poe nodded. ‘We know about the courses, Eve. They're what brought us here.'

‘Oh?'

‘We believe your brother Aaron attended one in 2007.'

‘Are you asking me or telling me?'

‘Like I said, we believe he did. We were hoping you might be able to confirm it.'

‘He did,' Eve said.

‘You seem very sure.'

She sighed. ‘It's not something I'm likely to forget, Sergeant Poe.'

‘And why is that?'

‘Because when he got back, he and Bethany had a blazing row. I have no idea what the fight was about, and Aaron never spoke of it, but that night Bethany packed her bags and ran away. Again. Only this time she never returned.' She smiled sadly. ‘Not until . . . well, you're a police officer, you know when she returned.'

Poe wasn't there to get bogged down in the Bowman family massacre – Cumbria would merge it into the Cornelius Green murder, and he didn't want to interfere with their witnesses any more than he had to.

‘This is going to seem like an odd question, Eve, but was your brother gay?'

‘I don't know,' she replied. ‘You'd have to ask him. Oh, that's right, you can't, my psycho sister murdered him.' She closed her eyes briefly. ‘Sorry. Even now it still hurts. Why do you ask?'

‘It's possible Cornelius Green was running some of his conversion therapy courses off the books. It wasn't a tax fiddle so we're working on the presumption he was doing something he shouldn't have been. I'm wondering if they were maybe more extreme versions of the courses on the regular curriculum.'

‘A course for super-gays, you mean?'

‘I mean a course misguided parents might send their sons on, maybe if they were at their wits' end and didn't know any better. I don't pretend to understand why someone might think they can forcibly change someone's sexuality, but I accept it happens, the same way I accept that the Metropolitan Police need a unit dedicated to protecting children accused of witchcraft.'

‘Fair enough,' Eve said. ‘And Mum and Dad were the type of people to believe in that stuff. Whether or not Aaron was gay?' She shrugged. ‘I'd be surprised. Not because a boy from an ultra-conservative Christian family can't be gay, but because, even if he was feeling sexually attracted to someone of his own sex, he certainly wasn't doing anything about it.'

‘I'm not sure I—'

‘We were rarely allowed out unsupervised, Sergeant Poe. All our social interactions were at the Children of Job. We were dropped off at school in the morning and collected in the afternoon. We weren't allowed to join clubs or play sports. There is no way he had a boyfriend, not without me knowing anyway.'

‘Being gay isn't simply about sex,' Poe said. ‘It's about who you are.'

‘I know that,' Eve said. ‘But if Aaron were having feelings like that, given what I've just told you, do you really think he'd have confided in Mum and Dad?'

‘I suppose not.'

‘There's no suppose about it, Sergeant Poe. If he were going to confide in anyone, it would have been me.'

‘Not Bethany?'

‘No. Bethany was . . . troubled. Even from an early age she was in a constant state of war with Mum and Dad. They did the best they could, of course, but I don't think they were equipped to handle someone so rebellious. Perhaps if a less Christian-centric family had raised her she might have turned out OK, but whenever she was bad, my parents' response was either to consult Cornelius Green or seek solace in the Bible. I still believe in God, Sergeant Poe, but sometimes the answers to life's problems are found in the real world, not in the pages of texts written thousands of years ago. And I'm not saying Bethany and me didn't get on, because we did. I'm not even saying that some of her tantrums didn't break up what was at times quite a monotonous childhood, but there was an edge to her. And while it was occasionally entertaining, it was always unpredictable.'

‘Aaron wouldn't have confided in her?'

‘No, if he'd told her a secret like that, she'd have told Mum and Dad just to spite them. She wouldn't have meant to hurt Aaron, but he would have ended up as collateral damage.'

Poe considered this. Decided that the more he knew about Bethany Bowman, the more she scared him. ‘Do you have a photograph of her?' he asked.

‘From when she was fourteen?'

‘If it's not too much trouble. Tilly's a bit of a whizz on the old computer. She'll be able to put it through some age-progression software the Cumbrian cops don't have access to.'

‘Why don't they have access to it?'

‘I only wrote it a month ago,' Bradshaw said. ‘It's still at the beta-testing stage.'

‘There'll be some photographs in the filing cabinet,' Eve nodded. ‘I'll go and get one.' She left the kitchen and walked through a door to what Poe had assumed was a larder, but it turned out to be the door to the basement. A lot of the old farmhouses had basements – a pre-fridge legacy, when root cellars were the only way to keep food fresh.

‘"A whizz on the old computer"?' Bradshaw said. ‘You really are a twit, Poe.'

Eve returned a few minutes later with a handful of Polaroids. ‘I'm sorry they're not digital; our parents wouldn't let us have mobile telephones.'

She handed Poe half-a-dozen photographs of a spiky, sullen teenager. She had a ferocious stare, like she was trying to kill the photographer with the power of her mind. In all the pictures she wore scruffy jeans and ripped T-shirts.

‘As you can see,' Eve said, ‘she hacked off her own hair. She did it to annoy Mum and show her up in front of her church friends.'

‘Thank you,' Poe said. ‘I'll get these back to you as soon as I can.' He tucked them into his top pocket. He opened his notebook and checked he hadn't missed anything. He had. Something important. The reason they were there. ‘Is your husband from Cumbria, Eve?'

‘Thomas? Good grief, no. Thomas is a valley boy.'

‘He's Welsh?'

She nodded. ‘Pontypool.'

‘And does he still have family down there?'

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘Because if he does, now might be a sensible time to visit them.'

‘Even if Bethany is back, I'm in no danger, Sergeant Poe.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘Because she didn't hate me.'

‘From what you've told us, she didn't hate Aaron either.'

‘He got in her way. Maybe he tried to stop her. I wasn't there that night, but killing Aaron was never part of her plan. I'm convinced of that. And if she wanted to kill me I'd already be dead, Sergeant Poe. I haven't been hiding. I even kept my maiden name.'

‘Yes, why is that?'

‘It was all Bethany left me. It didn't seem right to let it go. My husband understood.'

‘What does he do for a living?'

‘Graphic design. When we moved up here, he got a job with a company in Preston.'

‘That's a bit of a journey,' Poe said.

‘There isn't a specialist company in Cumbria like the one he works for so he had no choice.' She smiled. ‘I actually think he enjoys the time on his own. He says the commute helps keep his creative edge sharp.'

Poe could relate to that. Decluttering his mind on long journeys, or on extended walks with Edgar, was often when he made breakthroughs in cases. Not looking at something was often the clearest way to see it. He checked his watch. They'd already been there an hour and it was now bordering on being intrusive. ‘One last question,' he said. ‘If it is Bethany who has killed Cornelius Green, why do you think she's returned after all these years?'

Eve considered this for several moments. ‘Because she's insane,' she said eventually.

‘There must be more to it than that.'

‘I don't care.'

‘But—'

‘I loved my sister, Sergeant Poe, but she murdered my little brother. As far as I'm concerned, she can rot in hell.'

‘Where to now, Poe?' Bradshaw asked when they were back in the car and Poe had three-point-turned his way on to the Kendal road.

‘I have a case progression meeting with Superintendent Nightingale this afternoon. I'll drop you off at Shap Wells, Tilly. I want you to start profiling Bethany Bowman. If she's up here again, we need to know who we're dealing with. I'll get Cumbria to send you everything they have on her.'

‘OK. I'll have a look at the alphanumeric tattoos while I wait.'

‘And Superintendent Nightingale has sent me a text confirming our meeting with Nathan Rose this evening.'

‘Nathan's the other guy Tilly identified?' Linus said. ‘One of the six who attended the secret courses?'

‘He is,' Poe confirmed. ‘Superintendent Nightingale spoke to his wife while we were with Eve Bowman. Nathan will be home by six o'clock. He has a job with the council and he's on site somewhere until then. Snoopy, I assume you want to come to this meeting at police headquarters?'

‘I'll observe Tilly if you don't mind.'

‘I do mind.'

‘Why?'

‘Because Tilly doesn't have an agenda; you do.'

‘I don't know how many times I need to tell you this, Poe. I do not have an agenda. My role is to observe the unit.'

Poe stared at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You do have an agenda, Snoopy. I just haven't figured out what it is yet.'

‘Watch out!' Linus yelled.

Poe whipped his head back. A woman was standing in the middle of the road. He slammed on his brakes and the car skidded to a stop inches from her legs. She made no attempt to get out of the way. Although he'd only been going thirty miles an hour, it had been fast enough to engage everyone's seatbelt locking mechanisms.

‘Bloody hell, that was close,' Poe said, breathing a sigh of relief.

They stared at the woman in the road.

Mad Alice stared back.