Page 97 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

‘You?’ Poe said. ‘You’re the person Alastor Locke sent?’

‘Didn’t that lanky streak of piss tell you I was coming?’

‘No, he did not.’

But Locke had said, ‘I gather you make a very fetching Doctor Who.’ He’d said it to Poe in that interview room, right after he’d been detained by the security service.

He thought it had been a flippant remark.

He should have known better. Locke didn’t do flippancy.

Everything was a chess move. He’d been letting him know he had a man on the inside and Poe was so caught up in his own shit, he’d completely missed it.

Bradshaw hadn’t. She’d said right from the start that Towler was on the side of the angels.

‘He will play his little games,’ Towler said.

‘You’re Locke’s blunt instrument?’

‘And you’re his sniffer dog.’

‘You work for him?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘What about now?’

‘Mr Arreghini is selling stuff he shouldn’t have to people who shouldn’t have it.’

‘And you’re working undercover. Making sure it doesn’t happen?’

‘Oh no. I’m making sure it does,’ Towler said. ‘The British government can’t always be seen to be interfering in the affairs of others. But we do, all the fucking time. We do this by ignoring the activities of certain people. And right now, the eyepatch is turned in Mr Arreghini’s direction.’

Poe got himself a Spun Gold from the fridge. Offered Towler another. He nodded. Poe opened both bottles and carried them over. He drew up a chair and sat down. Edgar sniffed Towler suspiciously.

‘Nice dog,’ he said. ‘I have a springer of my own.’

‘You do know I thought it might be you for a while? You were the right height, you’re ex-army so know how to shoot, and you work for a man with . . . dubious connections. If Tilly hadn’t kept offering me fresh mango, I’d have brought you in.’

‘I know.’

‘And that didn’t bother you?’

‘Everything bothers me, mate. That didn’t. All that did was demonstrate what Locke was trying to tell me.’

‘Which was?’

‘That you don’t care who you upset, you don’t care who you suspect, and you’ll follow the evidence wherever it takes you. He said if I gave you time, I’d see you for what you were.’

Poe raised his eyebrows.

‘A ramped-up version of my old DI, Avison Fluke,’ Towler said. ‘And he was the best cop I’ve ever met. The best person I’ve ever met.’

‘He’s the guy you broke out of prison?’

‘He was framed for murder.’

‘So I heard. You helped him get exonerated?’

Towler shrugged. ‘I did. We had a . . . job to do and getting him off the murder charge was a necessary byproduct.’

‘Sounds like an interesting story.’

‘It is,’ Towler said. ‘But not one for tonight.’

‘How’s Fluke doing?’ Poe asked.

‘Happy.’

‘Then he’s found the Holy Grail.’

Towler nodded. ‘He got there in the end.’

They clinked bottles. Poe took a long drink. Towler did the same.

Towler yawned. ‘Anyway, I was predisposed to like you.’

‘You were?’ Poe said, surprised. It didn’t seem like Towler would be predisposed to like anyone. Poe knew the type. He was the type. ‘Why?’

‘Because you pulled my old mate Jefferson Black out of a hole. Definitively proved he hadn’t killed his girlfriend. Up until then, suspicion had followed Jefferson around like an eggy fart.’

‘He was a bit of a mess,’ Poe admitted. ‘He was drinking so much he could only have been a few months away from permanent liver damage.’

‘He doesn’t drink at all now. Tea only.’

‘It seems his newfound sobriety gave him the lucidity he’d been sorely missing,’ Poe said. ‘It’s propelled him to the top of Carlisle’s criminal food chain.’

Towler rolled his eyes. ‘And you were doing so well . . .’ ‘You’re saying he isn’t a crime boss?’

Towler didn’t immediately answer. He took another drink, then shrugged. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Locke says I can trust you.’

‘Trust me with what?’

‘We had a problem—’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘ We . I won’t tell you who. The problem we had was a man who called himself Smith.

He was the head enforcer for an extremely intelligent crime boss called Nathaniel Diamond.

Smith was as bad as they come. War crimes, genocide.

Extrajudicial killings. He was lying low in Carlisle, but he crossed paths with me and Fluke on a contract killer case we worked.

I recognised him. I was tasked with removing him, a proper black-bag operation.

Dead of night, me and some men in balaclavas, with zip ties and a propensity for violence, picked him up.

Whisked him away to a place that doesn’t exist. Somewhere he can see out his days without committing any more atrocities. ’

Poe nodded. Sometimes the state had no choice but to take executive action. That occasionally the rights of the individual were secondary to the rights of the whole. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t supposed to. That was the point. ‘Which left a power vacuum?’ he said.

‘Not really. Nathaniel Diamond was a thug in his own right. A nasty man. But with Smith gone he was vulnerable to a hostile takeover. So, I arranged one.’

‘You put Jefferson Black in the hotseat?’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

‘Because my daughter’s talking about studying film and television at the University of Cumbria when she’s older,’ Towler said. ‘Now, I don’t know if this is just a phase she’s going through, but, if it isn’t, by the time she’s eighteen, Carlisle will be the safest city in the UK. I guarantee it.’

‘Black works for you?’ Poe said incredulously.

‘He does. He’ll keep a lid on things until I give him the nod. Then it’ll be like the Night of the fucking Long Knives. Every dickhead in the city will be taken off the streets.’

Poe didn’t say anything. It barely seemed believable. Yet, he knew Jefferson Black. Knew him to be a principled man. A moral man. Poe had always struggled with his move from top chef to top boss. Now it kind of made sense. ‘What’s your daughter’s name again?’ he said eventually.

‘Abi.’

‘Nice,’ Poe said. ‘You should have brought her with you. Edgar loves children.’

‘So does the fucking sniper,’ Towler replied. He finished his beer and looked at his watch. ‘You’ll be doing this in the dark, so we need to do that too. Come on, time to go to work.’