Page 92 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Bethany might have given Poe the means, but she hadn’t given him the method. That was going to be down to him. So, instead of getting in his car and driving back to Northumberland, he walked to Bettys, ordered a pot of tea and a plate of fried food, and wrote down everything Bethany had told him.

Ezekiel Puck was a vindictive, vendetta-driven man.

Spite personified. Bethany had said that made him predictable.

That he’d be unable to let go of a grudge.

That he would react to real or imagined slights.

But Poe would have to be subtle. He couldn’t do something obvious.

He couldn’t call an international press conference and tell the world Puck was a bed-wetting loser.

He’d see through it. Shrug it off the same way he would.

Bethany had asked him what Puck did. Poe had said he killed people and she’d got angry.

Told him the murders were a byproduct. That Puck was in the despair business, not the murder business.

He pushed people to the brink then kept pushing.

Stamped on their hands as they clung on to what made their lives worth living.

Poe was good at making people angry. He did it without thinking, Bradshaw said. A natural rudeness, she called it. But rudeness, deliberate or not, wouldn’t force Puck into making a mistake. Poe couldn’t bait a trap with an insult.

Poe thought back to the start of his session with Bethany.

To her first question after they’d negotiated what Clara would get in return.

She’d said that if he answered the question honestly, it would be somewhere to start.

Who would he run into a burning building for?

He’d eventually said Bradshaw. If he could only save one of the people he loved, it would be Bradshaw.

But how did that help? He was sure it did, he just couldn’t see it yet.

He poured another cup of tea then got stuck into his food.

He decided to ignore what Ezekiel Puck did and how he did it.

Instead, he thought about what he wanted.

What was his primary goal? That was an easy one to answer.

He’d wanted to destroy his wife’s wedding business.

To bankrupt it. Take her dreams away and make her homeless.

Push her to the brink of suicide then give her a nudge.

You play his game, but you do it better . . .

That’s one of the things Bethany had said.

It had sounded like a throwaway comment.

A platitude. Like one of those motivational posters depressed office workers put on their cubicle wall.

Posters like throw me to the wolves and i’ll return leading the pack and be you, not them.

But neither Bethany nor Clara spoke like that. They weren’t wired that way.

Play his game but do it better . . .

Play his game. But also, something to do with Bradshaw.

Bethany didn’t know Bradshaw. Not really.

Poe and Clara, in her Doctor Lang capacity, had discussed her at length obviously, but the two personalities rarely bled into each other.

So when Bethany said Bradshaw was somewhere to start, it had nothing to do with her extraordinary intellect.

It was something to do with her as a person.

No, that was wrong. It was something to do with what she meant to him.

Play his game, only better, and use Bradshaw.

Logically, that could only mean one thing.

Poe needed to make Ezekiel Puck so angry with him that he became his sole focus.

And when that happened, Puck wouldn’t go after him, he’d go after his nearest and dearest. That’s why Bethany had asked who he would run into a burning building for.

Because she knew Puck would go after Bradshaw.

Just like he had with Alastor Locke. He hadn’t killed the old spymaster; he’d killed his daughter-in-law.

Play his game but do it better . . .

Involve Bradshaw.

Speaking of the next stage in human evolution .

. . Bettys was on the corner of Parliament Street.

On the opposite corner was some sort of fashion shop.

He couldn’t quite see the name, but it began with J.

Poe watched a woman dressing a window mannequin.

Poe smiled. The mannequin looked like Bradshaw.

Another one. He wondered if it was a Yorkshire thing.

Or maybe all mannequins looked like that.

He’d never really paid them any attention.

This case was throwing up mannequins like a size-zero model throws up their breakfast. Every mannequin in North Yorkshire looked like Bradshaw and Ezekiel Puck had used one as a decoy after he’d lured Commander Mathers to that skyscraper roof.

Everyone had had their eyes peeled for a lone gunman.

Puck’s mannequin had allowed him to hide in plain sight. He had set a trap.

Which made Poe think of his beautiful, eccentric fiancée.

Specifically, the wedding favours she and her friend Emma were putting together.

No sugared almonds for the guests of Estelle Doyle and Washington Poe.

No, they were getting carnivorous plants.

Venus flytraps for the ladies, huntsman’s horns for the men.

Traps.

Carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap didn’t rely on disguise.

They didn’t hide in plain sight, didn’t try to look like something else.

The inner walls of their leaves were coated with nectar.

So, despite looking like a miniature bear trap, the flies and the bugs and the other creepy-crawlies couldn’t resist exploring the inside of the trapping structure. And as soon as they did – SNAP.

Mannequins and carnivorous plants. Ezekiel Puck and Bradshaw.

Play his game but do it better . . .

Bethany had said it was as though he was locked in a game of chess. Poe didn’t play chess. But he understood the basics. She’d also said it was a game of strategy and counterstrategy. Which it was. But it was also a game of sacrifice.

And the bigger the sacrifice, the greater the reward.

Poe knew what Bethany wanted him to do. He had to do the unthinkable.

He had to sacrifice his queen.

He had to sacrifice Bradshaw.