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Poe stepped back and for a moment the two men stared at each other, panting. Poe had a problem: the cosh was an impact weapon and didn’t have a stun setting – if he hit him on the head he risked killing him and, while that was less important than Flynn’s safety, he needed to know who’d hired him.

He remembered Bradshaw’s rushed instructions: ‘Using a sock will lengthen the weapon. Even a small acceleration at the centre will create massive velocity at the other end.’

Poe shortened the length of the sock to about six inches. Enough to put him down but hopefully not enough to kill him. It was guesswork but it was all he had.

The disadvantage of the shortened weapon was that he’d have to get in closer and, while the Curator had a broken right hand and an unusable left, he was still a dangerous man.

But right now, so was he.

Poe charged forwards, swinging the cosh ahead of him in a figure of eight pattern, driving the Curator back against the back wall where there was no escape. He aimed for his head again. The Curator threw up his right arm to protect himself.

The rock shattered his elbow.

He screamed again, both arms now hanging limply by his side.

It had been short and violent but as a fight it was over.

‘OK, OK!’ he shouted. ‘No more! I’ve had enough.’

Poe stared but saw nothing but defeat in his eyes. He didn’t care – there was no honour in what had just happened, no code of conduct, no points deducted for style. All that mattered was that he finished it.

He heard a noise at the French doors.

Bradshaw was standing in the doorway. She was holding a piece of driftwood no bigger than a headmaster’s cane. She looked terrified but determined.

‘Freeze, dirtbag!’ she shouted.

Poe looked at the Curator.

‘What she said.’

He then stepped forward and clubbed him on the side of the head.

And this time he did go down.

Poe had to secure the Curator before he could search for Flynn. He ripped a reading lamp from the wall socket and used the cable to bind his legs. Used another to tie his hands behind his back. He used a third to tie him to the wheelchair he’d been squatting in.

‘Put your stick down, Tilly,’ Poe said.

Bradshaw said nothing. Just looked at the man on the floor and the blood coming from the compound fractures in his hands and elbow. She was trembling. He needed to keep her busy.

He walked up to her and gently prised the stick out of her cold hands.

‘Let’s go and find DI Flynn, Tilly.’

Bradshaw tore her eyes away from the devastation on the floor and nodded. She looked at the Curator.

‘OK, Poe,’ she said softly. ‘But if this man has killed DI Stephanie Flynn I … I don’t know what I’ll do to him.’

‘If the boss is dead, Tilly, this bastard’s going in the sea.’

Poe stood and headed into the guts of the bungalow. He ignored the bedroom and en suite and headed for Atkinson’s treatment room, hoping he wasn’t too late. He tried the door but it was locked.

He didn’t bother searching the Curator for the key – he walked back five paces and ran at it shoulder first. The flimsy internal door was no match for his anger. It tore from its hinges and fell inwards.

Poe stepped over the splintered wood and in a single glance understood why the female victims had been abducte

d and why there’d been anaesthetic in their blood.