Page 101

‘I saw it,’ Poe said. ‘Pretty modern.’

‘Chemical burns burn deep and cause problems for years. They require ongoing treatment that I wasn’t prepared to travel for. I have private doctors but they needed somewhere to work.’

‘How often do you need treatment?’

‘Not as much as I did. I need new masks every few months as the shape of my face changes as the scarring flattens, and they need to take biopsies to see how much the nerves are regenerating. Everything else I can pretty much do myself.’

Poe drained his mug and looked wistfully at the empty cafetière. Given how expensive the coffee was he didn’t feel comfortable asking for another pot to be made.

‘I don’t know much about the actual attack,’ Poe admitted. ‘I haven’t had time to read up on it yet.’

‘Not much to tell. The man who did it was fuelled by alcohol and fabricated tabloid headlines. Fake news we’d call it now. His next-door neighbour was a jeweller and he broke into his chemical store. Stole a bottle of the nitric acid he used for etching. Waited outside court for me one day and threw it at my face.’

Poe grimaced.

‘At first I thought it was urine,’ Atkinson continued. ‘Then, when I felt my face burning, I thought it was boiling water. It wasn’t until I felt my skin melting that I knew it was acid.’

‘It didn’t get in your eyes?’

‘I’d instinctively covered them with my arm. It’s why I had to have skin from my thigh grafted onto my forearm. But it’s also why I can still see.’

‘It must have been very painful.’

‘It was until it wasn’t. Acid keeps burning until it’s removed and by the time someone had thought to douse my face with bottled water it had already eaten through my pain receptors. My face may look like a melted candle but it wasn’t that painful for the first few months, not until the nerves began to regenerate. That’s when the real discomfort started. I still feel it now.’

‘The mask helps?’

‘It does. Keeps the scarring moist and supple. I keep it on when I’m outside as the salt in the air isn’t brilliant for it. I tend to take it off at night now.’

Poe wanted to keep talking. While they were outside he could delve deeper into Atkinson’s life and keep an eye on the western approaches to the island. A win-win situation. It was possible that someone from Atkinson’s past had hired the Curator. Someone unconnected to J. Baldwin, someone who became incensed by the verdict and subsequent payout.

He’d only find out if he got to know him better and, like reconnaissance, time spent on intelligence gathering was seldom wasted.

Chapter 66

Poe had been on a lot of stakeouts and most of them had been boring and uncomfortable. Countless hours spent on bruised estates stripped of hope and ambition. All cracked pavements and broken lives. Estates where the only things that flourished were the weeds and the far-right recruiters, where the only splashes of colour were the gang tags.

He remembered one he’d been on before things had got technical. He’d been driven into position in the boot of a clapped-out Vauxhall Cavalier. He’d then spent eight hours staring through a strategically placed crack in the brake light. At one point the target of their investigation had actually stopped to relieve himself against the side of the car. To this day, every time he saw a Vauxhall he smelled piss.

This wasn’t one of those stakeouts. This stakeout was a joy to be on. If he ever did something as unlikely as take a holiday, Montague Island was the kind of place he’d choose to go. The scenery was outstanding a

nd ever changing, the wildlife remarkable and the coffee excellent. And the sea air was doing wonders for his chest. He could breathe properly again, the first time in weeks.

When the cop on the other side of the island emailed to say his shift was coming to an end and his replacement was in sight, Poe couldn’t remember the last time twelve hours of nothing had passed by so quickly. He hadn’t moved much for the last eight and it felt like his bones had rusted. He didn’t care. He stood, stretched his legs and arched his back. Worked out the major kinks. A bit of stiffness was a minor price to pay.

He walked over to meet the new cop in case it was someone he hadn’t met yet. Two people, strangers to each other, patrolling an island in the dark was how blue-on-blue accidents happened.

The outgoing cop had his eyes glued to his binoculars. He was frowning.

‘What’s up?’ Poe asked.

‘There’s someone else with my replacement,’ he replied, passing the binoculars over.

Poe raised them to his eyes and burst out laughing.

The rigid-hulled inflatable boat – the RIB – carrying the incoming cop did indeed have an extra passenger. It was Bradshaw. He didn’t need to ask why she’d made the trip across the Walney Channel. He was her friend and, as long as she had access to the internet, she would always want to work where he was.

Even if it meant crossing a choppy body of water, apparently. By the looks of things, she hadn’t enjoyed it. She was wearing two lifejackets and a woollen hat. She had a stiff but determined expression on her face. She was even paler than usual. Despite the boat only being in a few feet of water she clung to the gunwale like ivy on oak.