Page 26 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

The UK Games Expo was taking place at the weekend.

Jools Arreghini was murdered on the Tuesday before.

Mathers offered to put them all up in a London hotel, but Poe took the opportunity to head back to Northumberland for a couple of days.

He wanted to apologise to Doyle for abandoning her during their wedding rehearsal.

There was nothing he could do in Oxfordshire anyway.

His main task now was to try and get inside the head of a man who indiscriminately shot people.

An intelligent, forensically aware, technically proficient man.

A ruthless man. And, if Bradshaw were to be believed, a tabletop role-playing game nerd.

That was quite the cassoulet of character traits.

He also wanted to check out Archie Arreghini’s personal protection officer, Matthew.

Archie had said Matthew knew Poe, and he wanted to know how.

He would get Bradshaw to run him through every database she had.

A man in an old-fashioned suit appeared as the front doors opened.

Doors, plural. Poe now lived in a house with a doorway so large it needed two doors and a portico.

The first time he’d set foot inside Highwood, he’d been examining a murder scene, trying to root out the clues Northumberland Police had missed.

The clues that would eventually clear Doyle of her father’s murder.

Now he called Highwood his home. It had fifteen bedrooms. A vestibule.

The curved stairway looked like something out of Gone with the Wind .

Suits of armour guarding internal doorways; portraits of long-dead ancestors on the wall.

Highwood also came with a butler.

His name was Richard Brunton, but he only ever answered to Brunton.

Poe knew this for a fact. He’d called him Richard once and his tea had been milky for a month.

Poe hadn’t liked the idea of a servant in the house.

In fact, he’d hated the idea. He’d told Doyle.

She’d said if he disliked the idea that much, he could tell Brunton his services were no longer required.

But she’d added that Brunton’s cottage in the village was dependent on him remaining in the family’s employ until he was sixty-five.

‘Can’t we just tell him he can stay in the cottage?’ he’d said. ‘Kind of like early retirement.’

‘Like charity?’

Poe had nodded.

‘Would you accept charity?’

‘I suppose not,’ he’d said before adding, ‘But when your dad was murdered, he hadn’t been using Brunton. Why do we have to?’

‘My father didn’t use Brunton that year because he was on compassionate leave. His wife was battling lung cancer and my father said he didn’t want to see him at Highwood until she was better.’

‘And she did get better?’

‘She did. And as soon as she’d regained her strength, Brunton returned to work. Of course, that was after my father had died.’

So, Highwood still had a Brunton, who only ever called Poe ‘sir’ and Doyle ‘Lady Doyle’. Poe quite liked the cantankerous, stuffy old man. Brunton was sixty-three, so only had two years until his retirement, and Poe saw no reason to make them awkward just because he felt awkward.

‘Welcome home, sir,’ Brunton said before he reached the door. ‘They’re expecting you on the south lawn.’

‘Estelle’s not on her own?’

‘Miss Emma is with her, sir,’ he replied. ‘And your dog, of course.’

Brunton said ‘dog’ the way other people said haemorrhoids.

Brunton didn’t like Edgar and Edgar didn’t like Brunton.

Poe didn’t know why, although Brunton had limped for a week after Edgar had moved in.

Poe knew from experience there was only so much Edgar would put up with before he used his teeth to express his displeasure.

Poe made his way around the back of the house to the south lawn. It was where the marquee had been sited. Edgar rushed out to greet him. When Poe had finished getting his face washed with dog saliva, he made his way inside. Doyle and Emma were sitting at one of the tables, giggling.

‘Poe!’ Doyle shouted. ‘Tilly texted that you were heading home. Emma and I decided to wait up.’

‘Hi, Poe,’ Emma said. ‘Rough day?’

‘I’ve had better,’ he replied.

Emma was one of Doyle’s oldest friends. She was a medical doctor who, unlike Doyle, practised on the living.

Poe thought she was an oncologist. Doyle was not only a professor but a medical practitioner, too; as she was a pathologist, though, her patients were already dead.

There used to be a handwritten sign on the mortuary door saying ‘Pathologists have the coolest patients’ but when they’d moved into a more modern suite, she’d been told she couldn’t take it with her.

She now had it tattooed on her shoulder.

Poe didn’t like most of Doyle’s friends, but he did like Emma. She didn’t take herself too seriously.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

The table was covered in boxes, soggy newspaper, ornate vases, ribbons and, bizarrely, what looked like plastic tubs of flies.

‘I’ve decided carnivorous plants will make ideal wedding favours,’ Doyle said. She reached into a box and pulled out two plants. ‘Venus flytraps for the ladies. Huntsman’s horns for the gentlemen.’

Poe stared at the phallic-shaped huntsman’s horn, the red, glistening globes of the Venus flytrap. ‘Subtle,’ he said.

Doyle grinned. ‘We think so.’

‘And the flies?’

‘ Drosophila melanogaster ,’ she replied. ‘Flightless fruit flies. The plants arrived early, so after we’ve potted them, we’re feeding them.’

‘Looks fiddly.’

‘You have no idea.’

‘Then why . . . ?’

‘We’re not doing this because it’s easy, Poe,’ Doyle said. ‘We’re doing this because we thought it would be easy.’

They collapsed into fits of giggles. Picked up their wine glasses and clinked them together. ‘There’s some Spun Gold cooling in the fridge,’ Emma said. ‘Why don’t you grab a bottle and join us?’

Poe did. He drank half the beer in one go. It had been a long day. He pressed the bottle against his forehead.

‘Do you think this is over the top, Poe?’ Emma said.

‘The sex plants?’

‘Yes.’

‘The wedding I’ve just come from was supposed to take place in a tent that P.

T. Barnum once owned. It was themed around The Night Circus .

The bride’s father had hired a midnight performance by Cirque du Soleil.

The last venue the wedding band played was Madison Square Garden.

They’d built a walk-in wine cellar.’ He took another drink.

Enjoyed the fresh, hoppy taste. The cool finish.

He turned the bottle in his hands. Thought how he’d prefer a Spun Gold to a glass of the Macallan M any day of the week.

‘They had a live lobster tank and a Michelin-starred chef to cook them.’

‘And the sniper got her?’

‘The marquee was open-sided,’ he said. ‘He shot her through a crowd of people. Almost took her head off her shoulders.’

Doyle said nothing. Emma stayed quiet too.

‘Her father’s almost certainly a crook,’ Poe continued, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such despair. He was waiting in Barnum’s tent, surrounded by his daughter’s blood and bone fragments. He refused to move until he’d spoken to me.’

‘Why you?’

‘He had a file on me. He had a file on everyone .’

‘Between his daughter being murdered and you arriving,’ Doyle said, ‘what was that? About four hours?’

‘He said he’s connected, but something’s not adding up.’ Poe shrugged. ‘Or maybe I’m overthinking things. He’s a rich man and rich men have powerful friends. He also had a personal protection officer who knew me.’

‘He knew you? From where?’

Poe shrugged again. ‘Cumbria, apparently. I have no idea who he is. There was something about him, though. Familiar but unfamiliar, you know what I mean?’

‘I don’t, but you have good instincts. Why not get Tilly on it?’

‘I plan to.’

‘Speaking of Tilly, she tells me the sniper is rolling a pair of twenty-sided dice to get random locations.’

‘She proved it with maths.’

‘Then it’s settled,’ Doyle said. ‘She also tells me you’re infiltrating a Dungeons & Dragons convention this weekend.’

Poe put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘She’s wearing her sky elf costume,’ he said.

‘You’ll have fun,’ Doyle said.

‘Really?’ Emma said.

‘Hell no. He’ll hate it more than he hates having a butler.’

They laughed.

‘I’m glad my pain amuses you,’ he muttered.

Doyle smiled. She reached across. Put her hands on his. They were cold. They always were. Sometimes Poe thought Doyle had more in common with her patients than she let on.

‘There’s only one thing to do, Poe,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

‘We’ll get you blind drunk then you can help us feed flies to the plants.’ She picked up a tub of the fruit flies. Held it up to the vivarium-style lighting in the marquee. ‘Or, seeing as they don’t have wings, maybe they should be called walks?’

Edgar woofed. Poe had known his dog long enough to know he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing but having a great time doing it. He looked down at the spaniel. His tail was wagging. Fast. He was licking one of the plastic tubs, like it was ice cream.

Poe sighed. ‘Don’t eat the walks, Edgar,’ he said.