Another gull pinwheeled overhead. It shrieked like it had stood on some Lego. Poe looked up. Mathers wasn’t wrong; they were noisy bastards.
Poe said, ‘I guess in this part of London, which is basically a glass city, the landlords of buildings like this get particularly vociferous about the council keeping gulls under control.’
He pointed at a skyscraper a couple of hundred yards away and the window-cleaning platform inching its way down from the roof. It was long and wide, big enough for workers and their equipment. Two guys in white overalls were cleaning windows. One of them was seated, his back pushed against the safety barrier. The other guy was standing, operating the controls. Poe wondered if they’d go all the way down then work their way up, or whether they had predetermined windows to clean. Or maybe they just went to the ones the gulls had been using as faecal targets that day.
‘One man’s shite is another man’s treasure,’ he said. ‘Cleaning the windows on that monstrosity must be like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – a never-ending job. Big money, I bet.’
Mathers shielded her eyes. The skyscraper had so much glass it was worse than staring at the sun. Poe wondered if it was one of those buildings that acted like a giant refractor lens, melting cars and blinding cabbies.
‘That’s 22 Bishopsgate,’ Mathers said. ‘It’s the second tallest building in the UK.’
‘You say that like it’s a good thing,’ Poe said.
They watched as the platform stopped. Which answered Poe’s unasked question about whether or not they started at the bottom. The guy holding the controls had stopped the platform only a few storeys from the roof. He put the control pad in its holster and started unpacking his equipment. The guy sitting down didn’t move. Poe frowned. Not only did the guy not move, he alsohadn’tmoved. Not since Poe had been watching. Not even an inch. It was almost like he wasn’t real.
Like he was a prop.
Oh shit.
Poe realised this at the same time he saw the glint of a telescopic sight.
‘Sniper!’ he screamed. He threw himself in front of Bradshaw, pulled her down just as he heard the crack of the supersonic round.
But Bradshaw wasn’t the target.
Commander Mathers was.
And Ezekiel Puck never missed.
The Second Light
Chapter 71
Two weeks later
Highgate Cemetery, north London
It was atmospheric carnage. The first summer storm of the year. Thunderclaps and sheet lightning. The graphite sky congested and bruised, the air charged and dangerous. Puffs of dust rising as the rain machinegunned the parched earth. Nature reminding humans of the fragility of their existence.
It was two weeks since Ezekiel Puck had lured Commander Mathers to the roof of 100 Bishopsgate. Two weeks since he had dressed a tailor’s mannequin in white overalls to avoid suspicion as he lowered himself down the outside of the second tallest building in the UK until he had the perfect shot. Two weeks since he’d punched a fist-sized hole in the back of Mathers’s head, dressing the roof of 100 Bishopsgate with bits of her skull and brain.
And two weeks since he had disappeared without a trace.
There had been no reason for the coroner to hold on to the body. Everyone knew what had killed Mathers. Everyone knewwhohad killed Mathers.
Poe hadn’t attended the church service. He hadn’t felt able to look her family in the eye. Mathers was a senior police officer in the Met, but she was also a wife and a mother. She’d left behind a husband and two young children. Flynn had found the courage, and so had Bradshaw, but he was racked with guilt. Flynn had told him he was being stupid. That she’d had the same doubts, the same sense of unease about Ezekiel Puck being caught on CCTV at the Can of Ham. She’d said that they’d been rightto keep their doubts from Mathers. Doubt wasn’t actionable intelligence, and Mathers had a complex operation to manage. Poe knew she was right, just as he knew the only person to blame was Ezekiel Puck, but it still consumed him. He’d tried to book an appointment to talk it through with Clara Lang, but her doctors said she was still unavailable. He’d hung up in the middle of their mealy-mouthed excuses.
So, Poe stood alone by the empty grave – a hand-dug trench, the rain turning the earth at the bottom into a thick black paste – and waited for the committal to start, his clothes and hair unable to get any wetter. Water dripped from his nose. He made no move to wipe it away. He knew he was being watched. Highgate was the most secure cemetery in the world right now. There were cops everywhere. Poe didn’t know if it had been chosen because the heavily wooded grounds made it a sniper’s nightmare, or whether this had always been intended to be Mathers’s final resting place. But he knew thateveryonein Highgate Cemetery was being watched. Not that there was anyone around. Ezekiel Puck had ended public displays of grief, the same way COVID had ended low interest rates.
Poe stared at the grave spoils until his eyes blurred, a loop in his head replaying everything that had happened on that rooftop. Decisions made; decisionsnotmade. There would be an investigation, of course. The Independent Office for Police Conduct would pull apart Mathers’s operation like they were shredding crispy aromatic duck. Poe would be called on to give evidence. They’d all be called on to give evidence. And those blessed with twenty-twenty hindsight would conclude that Mathers had made a mistake. That she’d been too hasty in believing the evidence of her own eyes. That she should have questioned it more vigorously. And Poe knew that everyone on the panel would privately be thinking the same thing – that Ezekiel Puck had outmanoeuvred them at every turn and, ifthey’d been in Mathers’s shoes, they’d have been on that roof too.
Over the sound of the rain, Poe heard muted voices. He stepped away from the grave – that was for family and close friends – and waited for the committal party. People in black appeared out of the rain, spectral, like something out of a Stephen King movie. They gathered around the grave, taking shelter under the trees, making sure to leave room for the family, who would follow the coffin.
Bradshaw arrived; her usual attire of cargo pants and a Marvel T-shirt replaced with a black pant suit and a crisp white shirt. He wondered where she’d bought it. Then he wondered if this was her first funeral. He thought it probably was. She joined him, her face streaked with tears. She leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. Poe put his arm around her.
Flynn stood next to them, her face stoic, her eyes full of rage. Of helplessness.
They waited in silence. The coffin bearers would be taking their time, careful not to slip on the treacherous mud.
