Page 40 of The Final Vow

Bradshaw shrugged. ‘A few years ago, yes,’ she said. ‘But you’re far more tolerant now. You’ve only laughed at my wings once today.’

‘But?’

‘But there are still a lot of bullies in the world, Poe.’

Poe nodded. He knew that to be true. ‘It’s a safe space,’ he said at last.

Bradshaw didn’t respond. She was being unusually quiet. He thought she’d have been fizzing with excitement. He’d had a sneaking suspicion that insisting they must attend the event inperson was a ruse. She asked him to go to things like this with her at least twice a year and he always found a reason not to. But he was here now, and for some reason it seemed she didn’t want to be. He’d seen her pick up, then discard, a flyer for light-sabre lessons. She was being very un-Bradshaw-like. He wondered why that was.

‘What’s the plan then?’ he asked. ‘Split up, get their mailing lists then head over to one of the hog-roast stalls? Get some roast pork and a drinking horn of mead?’

‘They won’t give you their mailing lists, Poe. They can’t, legally.’

‘Then why—’

‘I’llgettheir mailing lists. I’ve already downloaded most of them.’

‘Legally?’

‘Do you care, Poe?’ she replied, her voice curiously flat.

‘Not even a little bit. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Okaaaay,’ he said, drawing it out. ‘If we don’t need to be here to get their mailing lists, why have we trekked all the way to Birmingham?’

‘I don’t knowallthe games, Poe. I know the established ones and almost all of the newer ones.’

‘But there are some you don’t know?’

‘This convention is where brand new games are premiered,’ she said. ‘Games in beta development. It’s where people look for start-up capital. These are the ones we need to get information on. They’ll all have websites. If we pick up their details, I can get their mailing lists and backers.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said. ‘You go left, I’ll go right. Meet back here in an hour? See which areas we still haven’t covered.’

Bradshaw bit her bottom lip and said, ‘OK, Poe.’

She walked off without another word.

Chapter 31

Bradshaw had asked him to wear the suit he wore when he was in court. Dark blue with pinstripes. She’d insisted. Doyle had picked him out a burgundy tie and a light-blue linen shirt. Andshe’dinsisted. He’d wondered why.

Now he knew.

His first clue was when a guyalsowearing a dark-blue pinstripe suit with a burgundy tie and light-blue linen shirt tried to high-five him. Poe left him hanging. Two minutes later, someone else said, ‘Banging costume, man.’

Up until then, he’d somehow felt over- andunder-dressed. Now he wondered which odd-bod character Doyle and Bradshaw had surreptitiously dressed him as. He decided to grab the next person who looked at him funny. It happened immediately. A man wearing a trench coat, a fedora and a long, multi-coloured scarf approached Poe and offered him a Jelly Baby.

Poe took a black one. Didn’t care that the man scowled at his lack of Jelly Baby decorum. Hiding the black ones underneath the yellow and orange ones was a naive Jelly Baby tactic. If the man thought he’d get away with that, he had no right owning a bag.

‘Who am I?’ Poe said.

The man looked confused. ‘Er . . . have you lost the person who looks after you?’

‘I don’t mean, what’s my name,’ Poe said. ‘I mean whichcharacteram I?’

‘Er, you’re the tenth Doctor.’