‘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 bestpersonI’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. Hewasthe 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.’
‘Hewasa 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 heisn’ta 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 individualwere 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.’
