Everyone else’s experience of Shap Fell was the ominous moorland they drove over at 85 miles per hour and a thousand feet above sea level; the M6 motorway neatly bisecting the fell the same way the Thames bisects London.
But Poe loved it. Had done since he was a boy. The untameable beauty. He loved that the whole area was littered with prehistoric history. The stone circles, the strange monoliths, the barrows and the henges. Loved that thousands of years ago Cumbria was a cultural hub, a place of great importance. Now, you could walk 20 miles without seeing a soul. A land forgotten. Poe hadn’t been able to believe his luck when he finally got to own a small part of it. When he went from being a wide-eyed visitor to a custodian. And after a year or two, he started tounderstandthe fell. Became attuned to its secret frequency.
Which was why, when he crested the hill that brought Herdwick Croft, his once dilapidated shepherd’s cottage, into view, he knew something was wrong. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew it, the same way he knew when a suspect was hiding a terrible secret. Edgar knew it too. They hadn’t been to Herdwick Croft for a few weeks, and the spaniel was ridiculously excited to be going home. Had probably been looking forward to bullying the sheep and scaring the foxes. But the moment he saw the cottage, his tail stopped wagging. Went straighter than a ruler. He let out a low growl. Poe tapped the brakes on his quad, his transport from the Shap Wells Hotel, and turned off the engine. He put his hand on Edgar’s back. ‘I feel it too, mate.’ He got off the quad. Pocketed the key. Said to Edgar, ‘Think you can be quiet?’
The spaniel replied with another long, low growl.
Poe wasn’t due to ruin Ezekiel Puck’s life for another three days. There was no reason for Puck to have turned his sight Poe’s way yet. Plus, Puck was a sniper, not an ambush predator. He didn’t get up close and personal with his victims.
Someone else was in Herdwick Croft.
Poe didn’t know who it could be. His neighbour, Victoria, sometimes popped in, made sure everything was as it shouldbe. But she didn’t visit this late at night, and if she did, she wouldn’t sit in the dark. And everyone else he knew was back at Highwood.
The first-floor light flashed on and off. Whoever was in his cottage had moved upstairs. Poe set off towards it, at a half jog. He wanted to get there before the mystery person was downstairs again. ‘Let’s surprise this prick, Edgar.’
Poe knew the land around Herdwick Croft better than any living person. Even in the dark, he knew the location of every crevice, every ankle-turning rock granite, every bit of standing water. He knew where to walk and where not to walk. And he knew how to approach his cottage in silence. He reached it in under a minute. He listened at the door but heard nothing. He turned the handle and nudged it open with his foot. Still nothing. He stepped inside and quickly made his way to the sink. He reached underneath and grabbed his skillet. Twelve pounds of cast iron. A skull-crushing weapon, more useful than a baseball bat. He gripped it in his right hand. Tested the heft, the weight.
Which was when someone turned on the downstairs light. Poe shielded his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw Matt Towler, Archie Arreghini’s bodyguard, sitting on his sofa. He had a bottle of Spun Gold in his hand. He wiped some froth off his top lip.
‘Let’s not get melodramatic, Poe,’ he sighed. ‘Put the fucking frying pan down.’
Chapter 97
‘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 Lockehadsaid, ‘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 themover. 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?’
