‘And if I help you?’
‘What do you get?’
‘Everything’s transactional in a secure hospital, Sergeant Poe.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing.’ She smiled. Waited for him to ask the right question.
‘OK, what doesClarawant?’
‘The hospital can’t afford the academic books she needs to stay up to date. If she gets too far behind, she’ll find it difficult to requalify when she gets out.’
‘I’ll see she gets everything she needs,’ Poe said. ‘I’ll pay for it myself, including registration fees, lapsed or otherwise.’
‘That isn’t cheap, Sergeant Poe.’
‘I’m marrying a very wealthy woman.’
‘OK then,’ Bethany said. ‘Clara trusts you, so I will too. Tell me everything you know about this man.’
Poe did. It took two hours. And when he’d finished, Bethany asked just one question: ‘Who would you run into a burning building for, Sergeant Poe?’
Poe didn’t have an immediate answer. He wasn’t even sure he’d understood the question. But after Bethany added context, he did.
And then he knew exactly what he had to do to catch Ezekiel Puck.
He had to do what others wouldn’t.
He had to file down his teeth.
‘Thank you, Bethany,’ Poe said. Distracted, his mind on the calls he’d have to make the second he got his phone back. He stood, readied himself to leave.
‘Oh, one more thing, Sergeant Poe,’ Bethany said.
‘What is it, Bethany?’
‘I know you mean well, and I know that you genuinely care for Clara.’
‘I do.’
Poe stared at the door. There was a commotion outside. Raised voices. Urgent.
‘But, when the scores are tallied,’ Bethany continued, ‘Clara is incarcerated because of actions you took.’
‘Is everything OK?’ Poe shouted. He took a couple of steps forward.
‘You know everything is accounted for on this wing, Sergeant Poe?’ Doctor Gray shouted from the other side of the door. ‘Down to the last plastic paperclip.’
‘I do,’ Poe said. ‘What’s the problem?’
Doctor Gray said, ‘We’ve lost something,’ at the exact moment Bethany lunged for Poe. A wild stab that with empty hands would have missed him by an inch. But her hands weren’t empty.
‘I think I’ve found it,’ Poe said, looking at the fountain pen sticking out of the back of his hand.
Chapter 78
Later that day
