Page 66 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Poe had gone to bed late. He and Bradshaw had spent the day in Gretna Green talking to Joanne Addy, Ezekiel Puck’s ex-wife.

When they’d arrived, the armed cops protecting her made themselves scarce.

Almost as if they’d been expecting them.

Poe was relieved. He liked Mathers and was disappointed by her earlier outburst. Now he understood it was the only way she could keep them involved, he liked her even more.

She wasn’t just a good cop, she was a clever cop.

Poe didn’t get anything new from Joanne Addy, although Bradshaw said it added depth to her emerging profile.

By the time they got back to Highwood, it was past midnight.

Not even Doyle and Edgar were waiting up for them.

He said goodnight to Bradshaw then went straight to bed. He was asleep within three minutes.

An hour later, the grating sound of ‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred filled the bedroom.

Poe reached for his phone, silently cursing Bradshaw and the new ringtone she’d given him.

Every time he did something she disapproved of – which could be anything from eating sausage rolls to telling elected officials to piss off – she changed his ringtone to something he’d hate.

She also did something with the phone settings so he couldn’t change it.

He suspected Right Said Fred was her way of letting him know that she’d found out he’d had two pie lunches the day he’d collected Uncle Bertie.

He stared at the screen, blurry-eyed. It was Flynn. And it was half past one in the morning. This wasn’t going to be good news.

He pressed accept and said, ‘Boss?’

‘Good news, Poe,’ she said.

‘I knew it would be.’

‘How quickly can you and Tilly get to London?’

Poe did some mental calculations. He’d been awake for twenty hours. Bradshaw, who admittedly didn’t need more than four hours a night, had been awake even longer. Getting in his car and driving for five hours wasn’t a sensible thing to do.

‘Five hours,’ he said.

‘You sure?’

‘Maybe a bit longer, I’m still in my underpants. And Tilly probably has to unplug herself from her mainframe or something.’

‘I meant are you sure you don’t need some sleep?’

‘We’ll share the driving. What have you got?’

‘I’ve just got off the phone with Mathers.’

‘Don’t tell me, she’s convinced the commissioner that we need to be officially involved again?’

‘Better than that,’ Flynn said. ‘They’ve got the bastard.’