Page 105 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

The sky was denim-blue, and last night’s wind had blown itself out.

It was warm, not hot. Summer was hanging on, but its colours were changing.

Green leaves now tinged with yellow. A solitary kestrel hovered over a field of golden wheat.

Death from above. A trio of buzzards worked the thermals, riding the invisible columns of rising air.

Poe had once said to Bradshaw that an empty sky was a rare and beautiful thing.

She’d replied that an ounce of air contained one thousand billion trillion atoms. Poe had asked if she’d personally counted them, and she’d delivered a tedious lecture on how scientists counted things that couldn’t be counted.

He smiled at the memory. It was one of his favourites.

He wondered if she’d still speak to him.

Bradshaw was at Highwood now. She had decided to spend the night with Doyle rather than take a room at Shap Wells.

She’d said that he should enjoy his last night of freedom, ha ha ha.

So, Poe had spent the night with Edgar. Alone and brooding.

He’d tried to take his mind off everything by forcing the spaniel to have a bath.

Edgar hated baths. Absolutely hated them.

But, as he’d decided the night before Poe’s wedding was the night he would roll in a dead fox for the first time, he’d left Poe no choice.

Poe had lathered on the dog-friendly shampoo, avoided Edgar’s snapping jaws and ignored his howls of indignance, washed it off and rubbed him dry with a towel.

Edgar had sulked for five whole minutes.

Poe turned on to Highwood Road. It was actually called Oak Tree Avenue, but he’d always thought of it as Highwood Road as Highwood was the only house on it.

He stopped in front of the cast-iron gates.

Remembered the first time he’d seen them.

They’d been locked then. Doyle incarcerated for her father’s murder.

The house a crime scene. Poe had tried to pick the padlock until he’d realised he had no idea how to do it.

It was during that case that he and Doyle had gone from being adversarial friends to something more.

She would be up there as well. Probably getting dressed.

She and Emma sharing a bottle of fizz as they giggled and laughed and gossiped about the things friends do when their minds are elsewhere.

He wondered if Doyle would be wearing white.

She had been curiously secretive about her dress.

He didn’t think she’d be so Goth as to wear black, although he wouldn’t put it past her, but white .

. . maybe not. Poe would be surprised if Doyle owned a single item of white clothing.

The guests had arrived. He could hear them.

Excited chatter, the occasional burst of laughter.

All but one had been able to rearrange their diaries after the wedding had been postponed.

Uncle Bertie was up there. His big booming laugh was distinctive and loud.

He was probably threatening to horsewhip one of the caterers.

He wondered if he’d found the Macallan M.

Poe was supposed to text Bradshaw. Tell her he was outside Highwood. She’d said that as his best man it was her job to escort him to the marquee. He’d said he was perfectly capable of finding it on his own, but she had insisted. She’d said it would be her honour . Poe had hugged her.

He opened the car window. Eager to take in Highwood one last time. The smell of freshly cut grass detonated softly in his memory. Took him back to more innocent times. To short trousers and scraped knees and endless summer holidays. It took him back to the days before Clara Lang.

To the days before Ezekiel Puck.

I will never stop thinking about you . . .

That’s what Puck had said. And although Poe had dismissed it out of hand, he’d only done that because Bradshaw was standing next to him.

He didn’t want her to worry. But Poe was worried.

Because Puck was right. His Majesty’s prisons were full of the gullible, the dim of wit, the easily influenced.

They were full of men who hated cops. Hated them with a passion bordering on mass hysteria.

And Puck was the right person to exploit that.

He had the skills and the rest of his life to ply them.

Poe didn’t doubt that he would bend someone to his will.

To exact his retribution. And Puck being Puck, he wouldn’t come after him.

Not immediately. He’d go after those he loved.

Poe wouldn’t, couldn’t , allow that to happen. He couldn’t involve Doyle in the revenge fantasies of others. He couldn’t involve anyone. Not Bradshaw, not Flynn.

‘How can I marry Estelle?’ he said to Edgar. ‘How can I be so selfish?’

The spaniel wagged his tail. Thump thump thump. Helpful.

‘Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?’

Edgar whined.

‘Me neither,’ Poe said. He started the BMW’s engine. Put it in reverse. ‘Come on, Edgar. It’s time to go home.’