‘You must be Detective Sergeant Poe,’ the man with the King-Charles-in-his-forties haircut said. ‘Glad to have you onboard.’
‘Onboard what?’ Poe said carefully.
‘Haven’t you been briefed?’
‘I haven’t even had time to shower.’
‘You can say that again,’ Flynn muttered. Then louder, ‘There were things to clear up before we could get away, sir, and Poe needed to be on the phone for the entire journey.’
‘What things?’ the man said. ‘This has thehighestpriority.’ An aide came in and whispered in his ear. She handed him a memo. ‘I’m not sure this is going to work,’ he said. ‘It says here that not two hours ago you assaulted one of your colleagues with a deadly weapon.’
‘It was a fish,’ Flynn said. ‘Hardly deadly.’
The man rechecked his memo. ‘It says Sergeant Poe hit a Border Force agent called Clancy Bright with a halberd.’
‘It was a halibut, sir.’
The man handed the memo back to the aide. ‘Who wrote this?’ he said.
The aide shrugged then fled. Someone was in line for a telling-off later, Poe thought.
‘Regardless, this is indicative of what we were told of the man—’
‘I’m out of here,’ Poe said, getting to his feet.
‘Sit down, Poe,’ Flynn said. ‘And, sir, perhaps we can start again. The reason we were late, and the reason Sergeant Poe hasn’t been briefed, is because not two hours ago he broke a major gun-running operation, one we didn’t even know existed. That’s why he was on his phone all the way here. He was arranging for the shipment of halibut to reach its intended destination,sansguns, of course. That way we can pick up the buyers as well as the couriers.’
The man with the King-Charles-in-his-forties haircut said, ‘Of course. Things are getting heated and I apologise. So yes, let’s start again. My name is Timothy Spiggens.’ Poe looked at him blankly. ‘I’m a minister with the Home Office,’ he added.
‘And what is the Home Office?’ Poe said.
‘Are you serious? It’s the biggest department in His Majesty’s Government, man!’
‘And what is a govern—’
‘Pack it in, Poe,’ Flynn cut in.
Mathers hid a smile behind her hand.
‘Fine,’ Poe said. ‘I take it this is something to do with that lunatic who’s shooting people?’
Spiggens nodded.
‘And you’re the group spearheading the strategic and political response?’
‘You’ve heard of a COBRA meeting?’
‘I have.’
‘Well, this is one.’
‘In that case I won’t waste your time,’ Poe said. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!’
‘Don’t I?’ Poe said. ‘Six months ago, I asked the man who dismantled SCAS who he was going to call the next time a monster crawled out from under the bed, and do you know what he said?’
‘Whatwhosaid?’
