Page 31 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

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. And she’d insisted. He’d wondered why.

Now he knew.

His first clue was when a guy also wearing 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- and under -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 which character am I?’

‘Er, you’re the tenth Doctor.’

Poe looked at him blankly.

‘Doctor Who . The one David Tennant played. Although, I guess you could be the fourteenth Doctor.’

Before he could stop himself, Poe said, ‘Why?’

‘Duh,’ the man said. ‘Because Tennant returned to the role in 2023. I’m the iconic fourth Doctor, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ Poe said. The moment the fourth Doctor had disappeared, along with his Jelly Babies, he tapped out a text to Doyle.

It said: YOU 2 ARE SOOOOOO FUNNY. He got a line of laughing emojis a few seconds later.

He was about to send the same text to Bradshaw, but something stayed his hand.

She hadn’t seemed happy when they’d split up.

Poe wandered over to a small stall. It was the first one he’d seen that didn’t have a crowd of people hovering. The stall owner was painting little figurines like he was six years old.

‘All right?’ Poe said. He peered at the name of the game. It was in a Gothic script and had a picture of some men and women at what looked like a séance. The stall owner’s name badge said BARTY. ‘What’s The Liar’s Club about, Barty?’

‘It’s a hardboiled detective game,’ Barty said. ‘The player assumes the role of one of twenty cops and the object is to solve the riddle of The Liar’s Club .’

Poe waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. It seemed that was all the information Poe was getting. ‘And it’s a role-playing game, is it?’

‘Think Disco Elysium , but with a better combat system.’

‘No, I don’t think I will.’

‘Do you want me to talk you through the rules?’

Poe ignored the question. ‘Does The Liar’s Club require twenty-sided dice, Barty?’

Barty frowned. ‘What an odd question,’ he said. ‘As it happens, it does. A pair. The players throw them to—’

‘Can you fax me your mailing list?’ Poe said, holding up his NCA ID card.

‘Not from here, mate.’

‘Where’s “here”?’

‘Twenty twenty-five.’

Everyone’s a comedian , Poe thought. ‘Email it then.’

‘I can’t do that either. Data protection. I think you’d need a warrant or something.’

‘Do you even have a mailing list?’

Barty nodded. ‘Four thousand members of The Liar’s Club get a newsletter twice a month.’

Poe picked up The Liar’s Club flyer. It displayed the only thing Bradshaw would need to access the mailing list – the name of the company and their website. He thanked Barty and wandered across to the next stall. This one was for an RPG called Trail of Tears .

He listened to the guy’s pitch then ran into the same problem.

He soon realised that Bradshaw had been right – there was more chance of the British Museum returning the Elgin Marbles than of gaming companies willingly sharing their mailing lists.

The laws on data protection were rock solid.

And the stalls on the periphery were the minor players.

The one-man bands. He imagined that when it came to the bigger, more established companies, he’d be given even shorter shrift.

Instead of persevering, he did what Bradshaw had asked – he grabbed as many leaflets as he could.

If anyone asked what he was doing, he told them he was a games vlogger.

He didn’t know what a vlogger was, but he’d overheard a bespectacled girl use the term when she was asking for information. It had seemed to work.

Poe’s stomach growled. He wasn’t hungry but he could smell one of the hog-roast food stalls.

He circled back to where he was due to meet Bradshaw and found a seat.

She wasn’t there. That was unusual. She was always early.

He checked his watch. He was on time. He was on time and Bradshaw was late.

He noticed a crowd had formed. A crowd had formed and Bradshaw was missing.

The two things were rarely unrelated. He got to his feet just as a man wearing a Viking helmet started shouting at someone much smaller.

Someone wearing elf wings.

Shit.