‘They’ll be fine too. We’re not in our twenties. We’re inviting friends, not people we go to the pub with.’
‘But . . .’
‘Yes, you can still invite your friends from the pub.’
Poe took that as tacit permission. ‘Right, let’s get down to the logistics,’ he said. ‘I want to do this in six days and there are a lot of things to arrange.’
Locke took an ornate notebook from his inside pocket. ‘Thank you, Washington,’ he said.
‘I’m not doing this for you, Alastor,’ Poe said.
‘I know. But thank you anyway.’ He licked the end of his pencil. ‘Now, shall we get down to brass tacks. Sergeant Poe says we’re on a schedule.’
Chapter 80
Six days later
Poe used the same press briefing room as Mathers had. It seemed fitting. It was also large enough to accommodate the world’s press. And itwasthe world’s press. Locke had done his bit. News stations Poe had only heard about had their cameras and reporters there. Euronews, RT, Al Jazeera and NDTV jockeyed for position with the BBC, Sky News and CNN. They were all showing it live. The written press were seated at the back, pens poised, smartphones and dictaphones at the ready. They hadn’t been told what they were there for, only that they wouldn’t want to miss it.
This wasn’t the first time Poe had been front of camera – the people SCAS hunted were always newsworthy, and the press corps was a hungry beast – but itwasthe largest briefing he’d ever been involved in, and it was the first one he’d fronted on his own. Bradshaw had wanted him to rehearse but he didn’t want his anger diluted. He needed to get emotion across to the waiting millions. Getting the public onboard was going to be key.
The low, rumbling sound of a large crowd ceased the second Poe stepped on to the dais and sat down. He filled his water glass, took a drink.
‘Welcome, everyone,’ he said. He’d planned to start with ‘Ladies and gentlemen’, but Bradshaw had explained that ‘Welcome everyone’ was more inclusive. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Washington Poe and I work for the National Crime Agency. Thank you for breaking into your scheduled programming. I will not keep you long.’
He took another drink. Bradshaw had told him it was a useful way of breaking up different blocks of information. That way the message didn’t get jumbled. Say hello, introduce yourself, then have a drink. Tricks of the trade.
‘Today I want to talk to you about a woman named Joanne Addy,’ Poe said. This was a trick of his own. Don’t lead with your chin. Keep them guessing until they were desperate to know where you were going. ‘Now, Joanne had a dream. Since she was a girl, she’s wanted to own a wedding business in Gretna Green. She’s worked at a venue called the Smithy’s Forge since she was legally allowed a Saturday job, and eight years ago, the opportunity arose to buy it. She took out a large bank loan and purchased it, and because she’d worked there for years, she had her own ideas about what she wanted to do differently. She therefore took out an additional loan, this time against her own home, to refurbish it. She’d realised her dream.’ Another drink. No one in the press was fidgeting. They were all stuck on his narrative. ‘Now, can anyone tell me what happened on the last day of 2019?’
‘COVID,’ the guy from Al Jazeera shouted.
‘That’s right,’ Poe said. ‘The last day of 2019 was when the World Health Organization was informed about a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, China. Spin forward a few months. The UK is locked down. The wedding industry is heavily affected. No one is getting married. For a long time, no one wasallowedto get married unless they could prove exceptional circumstances. But Joanne Addy didn’t lay off her staff. She didn’t tell them to find work at Tesco. She used what little government support was available, she kept her business afloat, and she topped up the wages of her furloughed staff. Joanne Addy is a good employer and a good woman.’ Poe took his third drink. ‘Oh, one more thing, Joanne Addy is the ex-wife of a mancalledRaymondAddy.’ He paused a beat. ‘And Raymond Addy is Ezekiel Puck. Our sniper.’
His fourth and penultimate drink. He took longer this time. Waited for the noise to abate.
‘Raymond, because I think that’s what we should call him from now on, didn’t like that his wife had moved on without him. So, he did what rejected men have been doing since the dawn of time – he focused one hundred per cent of his energy into destroying her happiness. And Raymond figured that if he could destroy her business, he would destroy her. Now, a garden-variety psychopath might have burned down the Smithy’s Forge. Or done something horrific like throwing acid in her face. Men can be inventively cruel when it comes to women who have rejected them. We should really change the saying to amanscorned, don’t you think? Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, unfortunately, Raymondisn’ta garden-variety psychopath. He’s aninventivepsychopath. So instead of doing something mundane like posting a load of mean reviews on Tripadvisor, he went on a murder spree that has so far claimed the lives of twenty people. He’s doing this with only one objective – to decimate Gretna Green’s wedding industry. He thinks if he can stop people from getting married there, the bank will foreclose on the Smithy’s Forge. That his ex-wife will be made homeless; her lifelong dream crushed. Raymond believes that if he can engineer this, Joanne will eventually take her own life.’ Poe took his final and longest drink. He refilled his glass anyway. ‘I don’t think we should let that happen, do you?’
He nodded towards the display screen at his side. It flickered into life.
‘I think it’s time we showed Raymond Addy that we can be inventive too. Now, I know some of you thought this briefing was about offering a substantial reward for information leading to the blah-blah fucking blah.’ He hadn’t told anyone that heplanned to swear. Until he did, he wasn’t sure he would. But it had felt right. It conveyed what he was feeling. What he hoped others werestartingto feel. ‘It’s not about a reward. This meeting is about launching the “Save the Smithy’s Forge Fund”.
‘This is the home page for the PledgePower website. The details have been emailed to everyone here. PledgePower is a company my colleague Ti . . .’ Poe stopped, aware he’d almost slipped up. ‘PledgePower is a company set up by my colleague yesterday. It’s a crowdfunding platform with only one client – Joanne Addy, who, by the way, is unaware we’re doing this. She’s under armed guard in an undisclosed location without access to a phone or a television.’
Poe picked up a clicker and pressed the button Bradshaw had told him to press. The screen changed.
‘PledgePower complies with all current legislation. We are asking for three million pounds, and if we don’t reach that within fourteen days, all monies will be returned. Donations can be made by texting the number on the screen, by visiting the website, or via the app that . . . my colleague has just uploaded to all major platforms. On the right of the screen is a live tally. As you can see, we are already at over one hundred thousand pounds.’
Poe left the screen on. The counter started spinning, too fast to see.
‘Raymond Addy, I’m now talking directly to you,’ Poe said, his voice colder than granite. ‘Your plan has failed. Happy couples will be getting married at the Smithy’s Forge for years to come. If the British public do what I know they’re going to do, your ex-wife’s dream remains alive and kicking.’ Poe leaned away from the microphone. ‘Fucking loser,’ he muttered.
But he made sure he said it loud enough to be picked up. He stood, ignored the chorus of questions, and left the dais. As soonas he was out of shot, he smiled. It had gone as well as he’d hoped.
Joanne Addy was going to be rich.
And Ezekiel Puck was going to be furious.
Chapter 81
