Page 100 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Poe had sweated through his hat, the one the headtorch was fitted to.

He wasn’t surprised. Ezekiel Puck was almost certainly out there, and he had a gun the size of a broomstick, a sight like the Hubble Telescope and bullets like walnuts.

Poe had told Towler that he had planned to come in hard and fast and bumpy to negate the risk.

Towler had agreed that Puck was unlikely to engage a moving target, but there was a point when Poe had to step off and walk to his cottage.

He couldn’t rush that. It had to look natural.

He and Towler had discussed how to do this as safely as possible.

In the end, the simplest solutions were always the best. Towler said as far as Puck was concerned, Poe hadn’t been home for weeks.

It would not be unreasonable for him to have brought supplies.

Food and beer, fuel for the generator. Logs for his wood-burning stove.

And dog food.

Towler had insisted he bring Herdwick Croft’s generator inside so Poe didn’t have to go back outside to turn on his power.

It was a massive fire hazard, but it was only for one night, and there were more dangerous things to worry about.

And the chug-chug-chug would help cover the sound of him climbing out of the roof.

When the generator’s orange light had turned green, Poe unplugged his downstairs light, a cheap thing from IKEA.

He put the timer into the electricity socket and the plug into the timer.

He turned on the light. Checked the timer was working correctly.

It was. Bradshaw had programmed it to go off in twenty minutes, then come back on a couple of minutes after his bedside lamp in the morning.

To Puck, it would seem like he had woken up then gone downstairs.

He had a quick snack – some cold Cumberland sausage in a bun, lots of brown sauce, lots of mustard – and drank a litre of water.

He moved upstairs and fitted the timer to his bedside lamp, checked it was doing the business like its buddy downstairs.

It was, of course. With his neck on the chopping block, Bradshaw had triple-checked the timers then triple-checked them again.

He left the lamp on while he got Edgar settled.

When Edgar finally dropped off, Poe stroking his head and enjoying the sound of his gentle snores, he carefully moved into his bathroom.

He shut the door behind him. The last thing he needed was Edgar following him through the hole in the roof, thinking they were about to embark on another silly adventure.

Before he and Towler had left Herdwick Croft, they’d piled up some wet and spongy bog moss underneath the loosened roof tiles.

Poe had planned to lift them and bring them inside and place them in the bath, but as he’d be doing this in near total darkness, they had factored in human error.

Which was just as well because Poe dropped the first one.

Prehistoric man had used slate as a bladed weapon, as its edge could be as keen as a razor-blade, and the first roof tile Poe grabbed sliced the web between his thumb and index finger.

The roof tile fell to the ground, landed in the bog moss, and made no sound whatsoever.

The next three were easier as the quarter moon had lit up the bathroom like mood lighting lights up a jazz bar.

Poe carefully placed the tiles on a towel in the bath.

He was ready. Towler had told him that on no account was he to leave the safety of Herdwick Croft unless he was absolutely sure.

He’d said that the bravest leaders were the ones who called off operations when they didn’t feel right.

So Poe did exactly that. He mentally rehearsed the route he would take, the obstacles he’d navigate.

He thought through that final 20 metres.

Debated whether to rush Puck or sneak up.

Towler reckoned he’d only know what to do when he got there.

There was no point second guessing. But Towler had reiterated just how focused on Herdwick Croft’s front door Puck would be.

He said Poe had this: that he was ex-Black Watch, ex-uniformed cop.

Brawling was in his nature. He’d then finished by saying, ‘I’m soooo fucking jealous of you, right now. ’

Poe checked the luminescent hands on his Timex. He’d been inside Herdwick Croft for an hour. The first timer would switch on his bedside lamp in another five.

Plenty of time.

Poe put his hands on the edge of the hole he’d made in the roof and hoisted himself up and out. He waited, made sure there were no surprises, then quietly dropped down to the soft Shap Fell.

So far, so good.