Page 72 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

‘So, now you know,’ Locke said.

‘Commander Mathers was your daughter?’ Poe asked.

‘In-law.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss. Truly. I liked her. She was a good cop. A clever cop. But more than that, she was a good person.’ ‘Thank you, Poe. She was.’

They stood in silence, waiting for the funeral party to disperse. Locke shared a glance with Mathers’s husband, his son. It looked as though he was about to walk over but Locke shook his head and stopped him.

‘Your daughters need you more than you need your father, Tom,’ he said. ‘I’ll be along presently, but first I need to talk to Sergeant Poe.’

Poe untangled himself from Bradshaw’s grip.

‘Give me a few minutes, Tilly,’ he said. Bradshaw nodded and joined Flynn on the path. ‘Walk with me,’ Locke said.

‘Did you know Charles Dickens’s parents are buried here?’ Locke said.

‘I did actually.’

‘The popstar George Michael is here somewhere too.’

‘I’m more into punk, Alastor,’ Poe said.

‘Yes, yes you are.’

The rain had stopped. The ground steamed.

Water dripped from the trees. Birds chirped.

As they walked the leafy, sinuous pathways, stopping to examine the occasional vine-covered headstone, Locke gave him a potted history of the Victorian cemetery.

He told Poe it was the final resting place for over 170,000 souls.

That the great and the good, the rogues and the ne’er-do-wells, all shared the same 37-acre hillside that enjoyed sweeping views of the capital.

‘I want to show you something,’ Locke said. ‘Arguably Highgate’s most famous resident.’

He led them down a winding trail, the light dappled by the trees.

His long strides meant Poe had to jog to keep up.

Locke noticed and slowed enough for Poe to take in his surroundings.

Poe thought it was a stunning graveyard.

Tranquil, a slice of overgrown Gothic beauty, a secluded funerary landscape in the middle of one of the biggest urban jungles in the world.

Old graves and contemporary graves. Elaborate tombs and sweeping mausoleums. Catacombs and vaults.

There was even an Egyptian Avenue, built after the nineteenth-century boom in Egyptology.

The steeply wooded hill was a place where architects’ imaginations had run amok.

He thought he might come back next time he was in London.

Spend a day or two exploring the city of the dead.

He’d take Bradshaw. She’d love telling him about all the scientists who were buried there.

Poe knew you could buy maps – and if he’d been there on his own, he’d have needed one – but Locke seemed to know where he was going.

After a twenty-minute walk through the West Cemetery, Locke led them into the flatter, more manicured East Cemetery. They soon arrived at their destination.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Highgate’s star attraction – the tomb of Karl Marx.’

Poe was impressed. He’d known Marx was interred at Highgate, of course, but he hadn’t realised how big his tomb was.

The Grade 1 listed monument was twelve-foot-tall; a pedestal topped with a Space Hopper-sized bronze bust of Marx’s head and shoulders.

Poe thought Marx looked a lot like Brian Blessed.

He imagined they shared the same booming voice.

Inscribed in gold letters in the granite were the words, WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE , one of his best-known lines.

Locke stared at the tomb for a moment then shook his head. ‘Did you know Alexander Litvinenko is buried at Highgate as well?’

‘The Russian spy? The one Putin had poisoned?’

Locke nodded.

Poe said, ‘I didn’t.’

‘He has a cut-off column to symbolise a life cut short.’ He sighed.

‘I don’t know if it’s because the Father of Communism is interred here, or if it’s just somewhere quiet and out of the way, but in the sixties and seventies there were so many spies meeting at Karl Marx’s grave, MI5 had a permanent detail observing it. ’

‘That’s how you know it so well?’

‘The Highgate detail was a rite of passage,’ Locke said. ‘Somewhere to test your mettle. The cemetery, particularly the West Cemetery, is unnerving enough as it is at night, but throw in some armed KGB assets and it was a genuinely scary task.’

‘What do you want, Alastor?’ Poe said.

‘I am a man not without considerable influence,’ he replied.

‘You don’t have to remind me of this; I still smell of fish.’ Poe held up his scarred hands. ‘And some of those dorsal fins cut through my gloves.’

Locke nodded. Point taken.

‘Nonetheless, I will not wield the power of the state to avenge my daughter-in-law’s death,’ he said. He stopped staring at Karl Marx’s tomb and turned to face Poe. He took a breath and added, ‘But I will wield you.’

‘I don’t know how to beat him, Alastor,’ Poe said.

‘If not you, who?’

‘I don’t know how to beat him,’ Poe repeated. ‘Even Tilly is struggling with his profile.’

‘Alice liked you, Poe. She said you were a forward-thinking dinosaur. I think it was a compliment.’ He smiled. ‘You reminded her of Sylvester Stallone’s character in The Demolition Man .’

Poe had got so used to thinking of her as Mathers he’d almost forgotten her first name was Alice. ‘I haven’t seen it,’ he said.

‘Neither have I,’ Locke said. He sighed and added, ‘What a pair we make, Washington. Two analogues, trying their best to navigate an increasingly digital world.’

‘I have Tilly to help me.’

‘And I had Alice.’

‘I don’t know how to think like him,’ Poe said.

The fuel that burned in Ezekiel Puck’s engine seemed to be a mixture of cruelty and sadism.

Throw in some revenge and a sprinkling of spite and you had a psyche that was beyond Poe’s understanding.

Beyond his reach. He simply couldn’t bend his mind that far.

But then he thought, perhaps he didn’t have to.

Not when he knew someone equally as twisted and damaged.

‘I don’t know how to think like him, Alastor, but I know someone who might. ’

‘Oh?’

‘But I will need some help.’

‘What do you require of me, Sergeant Poe?’ ‘You can get me in to see Clara Lang.’

And Locke said, ‘Consider it done.’