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‘Define torture,’ Poe said. ‘Do you mean watching The Jeremy Kyle Show, or the kind of torture that lands you in The Hague?’

‘The boys were strapped into the mercy chair,’ Cobb replied. ‘Their shoes and socks were removed. And while I showed them photographs of naked men, Cornelius whipped the soles of their feet with a length of hosepipe filled with sand. That kind of torture, Sergeant Poe.’

‘The second kind then,’ Poe said.

‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’

‘No. I’m buying myself some time so I can process my thoughts and come up with a more measured response than you’re an evil bastard.’

‘We were in the business of saving souls, Sergeant Poe. There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for those boys.’

Poe stood. In three strides he had reached Cobb’s armchair. Cobb tried to rise to meet him, but Poe jabbed a finger into his bony chest and forced him back down.

‘You don’t get to excuse this,’ he hissed. ‘You don’t get to talk yourself out of torturing children. I don’t care that there are no more living witnesses – you’re going to prison for at least fifteen years.’

‘May I stand, please?’

Poe stepped back.

Cobb struggled out of the sagging armchair. He faced Poe and held out his arms. ‘You want to arrest me?’ he said. ‘Then arrest me.’

‘Not me,’ Poe said.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know the right words.’

‘You don’t know—’

‘We’re going to sit here like adults, Mr Cobb, and you’re going to answer every question I ask. You’re not going to ask for a solicitor and you’re not going to drink any more vodka. And when we’ve finished, I’ll call Superintendent Nightingale and she can send someone to arrest you. Deny it, don’t deny it; it makes no difference to me. I’ll prove it in the end, I don’t care how long it takes.’

Cobb slumped into his armchair. Poe returned to the arm of the sofa.

‘Did any of these boys die, Mr Cobb?’ Poe said. ‘Is that who we’re going to find in these graves?’

Cobb shook his head. ‘Every one of those students walked out alive and well.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Alive then.’

Poe mulled it over. Cobb had admitted to GBH with intent, but unless he was going to repeat what he’d said sober, under caution and in the presence of a solicitor, his confession was meaningless. And given he could argue that he’d thought he had the boys’ explicit consent, Nightingale might not even get GBH to stick.

Something else was bothering Poe. The torture certainly helped explain Nathan Rose’s suicide. And although Cobb had said there was no one left, if a surviving relative of one of the boys had decided to take revenge, it might even explain Cornelius Green’s murder. But the torture didn’t explain the bodies hidden in the graves. That still didn’t make sense.

‘If it’s not students in those graves, then who?’ Poe asked.

Cobb shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Yet you have the same tattoos as Cornelius Green.’

‘If you say. Cornelius didn’t tell me what they meant and when I persisted he got aggressive. I’m not a brave man, Sergeant Poe.’

‘OK, here’s something you might know: why did these secret courses stop?’

‘Because of Aaron Bowman,’ Israel Cobb said.