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Poe gripped the bone.

‘OK! Stop!’

And so he told Poe what he’d been hired to do. All of it. He spoke flatly and without emotion. When he’d finished it took every ounce of Poe’s willpower not to grab a scalpel and open up his throat.

Instead, he leaned into the Curator’s ear and spoke for five minutes, his voice never getting above a murmur.

When he’d finished, Poe said, ‘Are we in agreement?’

The Curator nodded.

‘We are.’

Chapter 83

Poe stood alone in the hospital room. He hadn’t been in one quite like it before. He’d ended up in a private ward after the Immolation Man case but that had been because his burns had been so susceptible to infection. But whereas his had been sparse and functional, Flynn’s was … well, Flynn’s was an example of what money could buy.

It was light years away from anything available on the NHS.

It was larger than Poe’s croft, a light and airy room with views of the landscaped garden, an ornamental lake and the rolling Cambridgeshire countryside beyond. Warmly wrapped patients took strolls or rested on one of the many benches and seats. A lone gardener tidied one of the raised flowerbeds.

Poe didn’t know if Zoe or Flynn’s sister was paying for it, but whoever it was they were getting their money’s worth. The monitoring equipment was state of the art, sleek and polished and expensive-looking. The en suite was modern with a bath, a shower and a bidet. There was even a guest room off to the side.

It was spotless and dust-free. No lemon-scented disinfectant to strip the inside of the nostrils, just the pleasant and fragrant bouquet of lavender.

A fifty-six-inch 4K television hung on the wall. Instructions on how to access Netflix, Sky and Amazon Prime were in the welcome pack Poe had read. A Bose sound system and DVD player were on shelves underneath the TV.

Fresh flowers in expensive vases and original watercolours completed the décor.

The room had everything.

Everything that is except a patient. There was an ominous space where the bed should have been.

Flynn had been in surgery when he’d been driving down. She was now in recovery. He’d been there for two hours and so far hadn’t spoken to anyone he knew. Someone had brought him a pot of coffee and a selection of pastries. Poe had eaten the lot then worried they hadn’t all been for him.

He picked up what passed for a hospital menu. It was simply an instruction for Flynn to write down what she wanted and, after her consultant had reviewed it, the ingredients would be sourced and it would be freshly prepared.

It was blank.

Of course it was blank.

Flynn wasn’t going to be hungry. Not for a long time.

He’d brought flowers. The NHS no longer allowed them on their wards. Something to do with the water being a breeding ground for bacteria. This hospital had the staff to do regular water changes, though, and flowers were encouraged.

Until he’d been forced to spend time in one, he hadn’t understood the purpose of flowers in hospitals. Although they made the room look pretty and smell nice, that wasn’t their primary purpose. They were there to remind the doctors and nurses that patients weren’t just units, there to be fixed and sent home. They were humans, and humans needed more than technology and medicine to get better. They needed to feel alive again.

Flowers were essential to the healing process.

Even the bed didn’t squeak.

A smartly dressed orderly wheeled in Flynn. He was followed by a doctor and two nurses. Jessica, Flynn’s sister, and Zoe, her partner, brought up the rear. They looked dog-tired, worse than he did, and he wouldn’t have thought that possible.

The orderly manoeuvred Flynn’s bed into the gap and the nurses fixed it to the machines. One of them handed her the remote control that raised or lowered the bed, then left the room.

Poe smiled at Flynn. She ignored him. He wasn’t sure she’d even registered who he was.

She seemed to be radiating heat. Her skin glistened like warm cheese. Her lips were cracked and hollow sockets framed her bloodshot eyes. Her face was still bruised. She looked small and vulnerable.