Chapter 70

‘Did Mrs Rose complain, Washington?' Doctor Lang asked.

‘Eventually,' Poe confirmed.

‘I'm not surprised.'

Poe raised an eyebrow.

‘No, not because you'd done anything terribly wrong,' she said. ‘But the newly widowed often lash out. Usually, it's close relatives who bear the brunt, but in this case Mrs Rose had someone to focus her anger on. I'm not surprised she made a complaint.'

‘And she did overhear me make an insensitive joke about Bj?rn Borg.'

‘And if her husband hadn't killed himself, you'd have heard nothing more on the subject. But marriage, even a mixed-orientation marriage such as theirs, doesn't only mean sharing your life with someone; it means changing your life for someone. You'd be amazed at how entwined two lives can become. It's a big investment and it ended that night.'

Poe thought about his life with Estelle Doyle. An outsider might think it hadn't changed too much, but that would be a superficial view. When Poe dug down, he knew his life was very different now. Not permanently living at Herdwick Croft was an obvious change, but there were other, subtler changes as well. He always called to say he was leaving work. He no longer hung around the incident room if he had no reason to be there. He thought about her needs, not just his own. So yes, Poe understood why Mrs Rose had sought someone to blame – if the roles were reversed, he'd probably have done the same.

‘Did it ever get to the formal disciplinary stage?' Doctor Lang asked. ‘There's nothing in the file to suggest it did.'

Poe shook his head. ‘It didn't,' he said.

‘Why not?'

‘That depends on who you ask.'

‘Which sounds . . . complicated.'

‘It was,' Poe said. ‘The official reason Mrs Rose withdrew her complaint was because of what we discovered about her husband.'

‘And the unofficial reason?'

Poe held up his hands for her to see. ‘You see these scars? There are what, seven or eight that are visible now? Maybe another twelve or thirteen that have healed and gone away. Loads more that are too small to make out.'

Doctor Lang frowned. ‘I don't understand,' she said.

‘You will.'

‘But not yet?'

Poe shook his head again. ‘It'll make more sense later. You don't have the context yet.'

‘OK, it's your story,' she said. ‘What happened next?'

Poe smiled. ‘Tilly tried to do the impossible.'

‘And did she?'

Poe offered a grim smile. ‘Of course she did.'

‘You don't look happy about it, Washington. Surely progressing the case was a good thing?'

‘It was.' Poe nodded. ‘But also, it wasn't.'