Page 93 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

The Council of Highwood

‘Obviously, we aren’t putting Tilly at risk,’ Poe said when he’d finished explaining what he wanted to do. ‘We’ll use a mannequin instead.’

His assembled audience of Locke, Flynn, Bradshaw, Doyle and even Uncle Bertie stared at him in astonishment.

Flynn was the first to break cover. ‘A fucking mannequin ?’ she snorted. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

Poe shrugged. ‘Why not? It worked for Puck.’ He didn’t add that North Yorkshire mannequins looked like Bradshaw anyway. Flynn already thought he’d lost his marbles. This would tip her over the edge.

‘Because Tilly moves, Poe.’ She paused. Thought through what she’d just said. Corrected herself. ‘Tilly occasionally moves. Mannequins don’t.’

‘I have a plan for that,’ Poe said. ‘It worked for Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Empty House”, and there’s no reason it won’t work for us.’

‘That’s fiction, Poe!’

‘The theory is sound, though,’ Poe countered. ‘And the execution is simple enough. Sherlock Holmes lures Moriarty’s henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, into shooting at a wax bust.’

‘Who’s Mrs Hudson in this whack-a-doodle plan? Who’s underneath the chair, making the mannequin move?’

Poe frowned. That was the weakest link in the chain. ‘I haven’t got that far,’ he admitted.

‘And who’s the kamikaze pilot in a wig who drives Tilly’s car to her parents’ house?’ Flynn asked. ‘Because we sure as shit aren’t asking Tilly to do it.’

‘I haven’t figured that bit out either.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Bradshaw said. ‘If Poe thinks—’

‘No!’ everyone yelled in unison.

‘You need to be somewhere else, Tilly,’ Poe said. ‘But I’m not benching you. I do have a role for you.’

‘If I’ve understood you correctly, dear boy,’ Locke said, ‘you plan to have the mannequin in place before our driver arrives at the house of Miss Bradshaw’s parents?’

Poe nodded.

‘Our driver enters the house via the integral garage, then goes upstairs to Miss Bradshaw’s bedroom.’

‘Yes.’

‘They then turn on her desk light, and hide under the desk, occasionally reaching up to move the mannequin.’

‘Is it crazy?’

‘Fucking A, it’s crazy,’ Flynn said. ‘It’s the stupidest idea you’ve ever had, Poe. And given that you tried to drive across the Irish Sea in a BMW five years ago, that’s quite a high threshold.’

‘Yes,’ Locke said. ‘I fear it is a crazy plan.’

No one said anything.

‘But?’ Flynn said.

‘But what, dear?’

‘There’s always a “but” with you, Alastor.’

‘But this is the nation that dressed up a dead tramp as a Royal Marines captain, set him adrift in Spanish waters with some forged documents, and successfully fooled Hitler into thinking the Allied forces intended to invade Greece rather than Sicily.’

‘I know what Operation Mincemeat was, Alastor,’ Flynn said. ‘Do you have a point?’

‘My point, Stephanie, is that all the best plans are crazy.’ He removed his ornate notebook from his inside pocket and jotted something down. ‘Now, might I suggest a few revisions?’