Page 94 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Alastor Locke’s revisions were good ones. They didn’t so much refine Poe’s idea as simplify it. And when you were playing with live rounds, simplicity was your friend.

The first revision he’d suggested was ditching the mannequin idea completely.

He said Flynn was right; a mannequin, even one being moved by the person acting as Mrs Hudson, wouldn’t look natural.

He said they needed to use live bait. And he knew exactly who he wanted.

He made a whispered phone call and ninety minutes later another helicopter landed at Highwood.

‘I’m Hannah Finch,’ she said to Flynn. She grinned. ‘I assume this is another of Poe’s hare-brained schemes?’

‘I’ve chosen Hannah because she has the same light build as Miss Bradshaw,’ Locke said. ‘She’s worked with you all before so doesn’t require extensive briefing and, most importantly, I trust her completely.’

One of Locke’s edicts, one he said was absolute, was that the circle was kept small. The only people who knew what they were planning were now in the room. No one else would be brought inside. Poe had wanted to tell the cop who’d replaced Commander Mathers, but Locke wouldn’t hear of it.

‘I’ve spent my life keeping secrets and uncovering secrets, Poe,’ Locke had said.

‘And the one thing I’ve learned is that the more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep.

More importantly, we don’t know who Ezekiel Puck is still in touch with.

We don’t know who he’s threatened . But you may take it as gospel that he has an ear inside the investigation. ’

‘You can’t know this,’ Poe had said.

‘Oh, but I do.’

‘How?’

‘Because I trained him,’ Locke had replied.

Which was all Poe had needed to be told.

Locke’s second revision was bullet-resistant glass with a UL 752 protection level of 10. He said 10 was rated for .50 BMG ammunition, the same kind Puck was using.

‘Instead of a mannequin, we have Hannah act normally. She’ll enter the house and go up to Miss Bradshaw’s bedroom.

She’ll sit at her desk and turn on the lamp.

Puck will have a clear view of her, but he won’t see the bulletproof screen we’ll have constructed behind the window.

When he shoots, he’ll break Mr and Mrs Bradshaw’s window, but the bullet won’t penetrate the secondary window.

Hannah pretends to fall off her chair. Puck will think it’s job done. ’

‘There’ll be no pretending involved,’ Finch said. ‘Those bullets make quite the bang.’

Flynn scowled. ‘Then what? Who’s the Sherlock Holmes shouting “Gotcha!”?’

‘No one,’ Poe said.

‘No one? Then what the hell are we bothering for?’

‘We can’t take him in Southampton, boss.

It’s too urban. We won’t know where he’ll choose to shoot from, and even if we could somehow figure that out, we can’t risk him going all Gomer Pyle on us.

We can’t risk him going out with a bang.

No, we take him in an area we control. An area we know but he doesn’t. ’

‘And where is this magical place?’

‘We take him on Shap Fell.’