The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  Nightingale put two detectives on it; the rest were reinterviewing anyone who’d been in the office the day the fake book man had dropped off his stuff.

  Poe didn’t hold out much hope. Eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable. Attention is fleeting, recollection short-lived and memory is vulnerable to suggestion. And even if someone did remember him, the human brain isn’t equipped to move from a mind’s eye picture to an accurate verbal description.

  Chapter 9

  Poe wanted to see the food hall next. He wasn’t expecting to get anything new but he wanted to keep moving. They’d just passed Cockermouth when Flynn’s phone rang.

  It was Bradshaw.

  ‘You’ve arrived then? I need you to … What? No, the baby’s fine, Tilly. Stop worrying. As I was say … Yes, Poe’s fine too.’

  Poe chose that moment to start coughing.

  Flynn glanced at him. ‘Well, fine-ish.’ She paused to sigh and roll her eyes. ‘I don’t know if he’s eaten fruit today, you’ll have to ask him.’

  Another pause.

  ‘No, I won’t put him on, he’s driving. Ask him tonight.’

  Poe blew his nose and suppressed a grin.

  ‘OK, you do that,’ Flynn said. ‘We’re going to Whitehaven now to see the crime scene.’

  Another pause.

  ‘Check into the North Lakes Hotel then book a small conference room we can work from … Yes, just the three of us … Yes, we’ll need teas and coffees … If you want to get him some then order it … Just do what you think is best, Tilly. You know what we need.’

  Flynn listened for a bit longer then said, ‘OK, we’ll see you soon.’

  ‘She OK?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Yep. She’s going to read up on everything then sort out a room we can meet in.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And she’s ordering you some fruit.’

  Poe knew and liked Whitehaven, a large coastal town in West Cumbria. It was the last place to be attacked by American naval forces during the War of Independence. Its port used to be the centre of the British rum trade. It is picturesque, crammed with Georgian buildings, and where the spree-killer Derrick Bird wreaked havoc in 2010.

  It was where the real spirit of Cumbria could be found. Tough, no-nonsense men, and practical, unaffected women. A place where problems are solved with fists not solicitors, and rugby league is more important than football.

  Fiskin’s Food Hall was near the bus depot, at the port end of the town. Poe parked in their dedicated car park and they got out. The freezing sea air hit them immediately. A trawler must have just docked as he could smell fish. It was beginning to snow again and Poe didn’t want to hang around. Whitehaven was in a natural cove and in extreme weather liable to be cut off. He had a maxim: if it was snowing anywhere in Cumbria, it was definitely snowing on Shap Fell, and Poe wanted to get home tonight.

  They were about to make their way inside when Flynn’s phone rang.

  ‘OK, we’ll be there,’ she said after listening for a few seconds. She put her phone in her pocket. ‘That was Nightingale. We’re to go to Whitehaven nick and join a videoconference. You know where it is?’

  ‘I do. You OK to walk? It’s about five minutes away.’

  She nodded.

  ‘What’s the conference for?’ he said.

  ‘Estelle Doyle has found something.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘OK, Professor Doyle,’ Nightingale said, ‘everyone who needs to hear this has managed to put themselves in front of a computer somewhere.’

  Poe and Flynn watched Doyle nod in the jerky stop-motion way everyone did on videoconferences. Cops across the county would be watching the same thing.

  ‘I know you’re all very busy so I’ll get straight to it,’ Doyle said. ‘I’ve found an anomaly: both female victims had minuscule traces of midazolam in their blood work.’

  ‘Which is?’ Nightingale said.

  ‘It’s a benzodiazepine commonly used to induce general anaesthetic.’

  ‘They were asleep when their fingers were removed?’ Nightingale asked incredulously.

  Doyle shook her head. ‘Definitely not. The amount I found indicates it had all but worn off. Whatever the reason for the anaesthetic, it wasn’t anything to do with their fingers being removed.’

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Nightingale said after Estelle Doyle had left the videoconference. ‘Why does he put his female victims to sleep? What does he do to them while they’re asleep? And why does he wait until they’re awake to mutilate them?’

  She paused.

  ‘They weren’t rhetorical questions!’ she snapped.

  ‘Sadist?’ someone said.

  ‘Only explains why he mutilates,’ Nightingale said. ‘Come on, people, we need ideas.’

  If it weren’t for the laptop’s fan, the silence would have been absolute.

  ‘Anything,’ she insisted.

  More silence.

  ‘Hashtag BSC6 then? Are we closer to figuring out what that means?’

  The only reason Poe had expected more silence was because he didn’t know Bradshaw had just joined the videoconference.

  ‘It’s supposed to look like a social media tag, Superintendent Jo Nightingale,’ she said, ‘but if it is, it’s sui generis.’

  Poe couldn’t see her – when Doyle had left the videoconference their computer screen had switched to Nightingale – but he’d recognise her voice anywhere.

  ‘Who is this, please?’ Nightingale said.

  ‘Matilda Bradshaw,’ she replied. ‘I work with Detective Sergeant Washington Poe and Detective Inspector Stephanie Flynn of the National Crime Agency.’

  ‘Ah, you’re the analyst. Well, ma’am’s just fine, Matilda.’

  ‘OK, Detective Superintendent Jo Nightingale.’

  Nightingale rolled her eyes.

  ‘Tell us what you have, Matilda.’

  ‘I get called Tilly.’

  ‘Tell us what you have, Tilly. What does sui generis mean?’

  ‘A hashtag is used on social media to draw attention to, or to facilitate a search for, a message or keyword. I’ve searched and there’s nothing on any of the major platforms. It is therefore sui generis. One of a kind. Unique.’

  ‘Perhaps our High-Tech Forensic Crime Unit will have more luck.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘If Tilly can’t find it then it can’t be found,’ Poe said. ‘You’ll get used to her, ma’am, and then you’ll be glad you did.’

  ‘We’ll revisit this later,’ Nightingale said. ‘Poe, you’ve got to grips with this quicker than anyone else. You must have a theory?’

  ‘I can’t begin to connect these dots, ma’am. All I have are questions.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Estelle Doyle thinks he used rib shears to remove one pair of fingers. Yet he chose to use a hacksaw and scissors on the others. Why?’

  No one said anything.

  ‘And who the hell are the victims? It’s Christmas; someone must be missing them. Why haven’t they been reported AWOL?’

  ‘I’ve asked all police stations in the north-west, north-east and south of Scotland to inform me the moment someone rings up about a missing loved one,’ Nightingale said. ‘I don’t want anyone fobbed off with the “wait twenty-four hours” protocol. For now I think we need to focus on—’

  The door to Conference Room A burst open and one of Nightingale’s detectives ran in. He was out of breath.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’ve DNA-matched one of the victims.’

  Chapter 11

  The victim was called Howard Teasdale and he lived on the top floor of a townhouse in the higher part of Whitehaven. As they were already in town visiting Fiskin’s Food Hall, Poe and Flynn arrived at Teasdale’s address at the same time as the Whitehaven CID. Nightingale was being blue’d and two’d from Carleton Hall but she’d be another hour.

  ‘Can’t let you in yet,’ the cop on the outer cordon said. ‘It’s an active crime scene and we’
re still securing it.’

  ‘Were you first here?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Second.’

  ‘What can you tell us?’

  ‘Only that he’s inside and it isn’t pretty.’

  Poe would have liked to question him further. The first officers at the scene often saw, smelled or sensed things that had disappeared by the time CSI and CID got there.

  But the machine that is a large-scale murder investigation was beginning to be assembled. Pretty soon they were in the way. Poe and Flynn moved a few yards down the street and, after clearing it of snow, sat on a low garden wall. It had good views of the harbour below.

  Sailing boats and fishing trawlers bobbed and creaked, tugging at their moorings. Some harbours are bitten from the land by men, deep channels dredged and cleared and deepened wherever they were needed. Not Whitehaven. Whitehaven harbour was naturally occurring. Until ports with larger shipping capacities, such as Liverpool and Bristol, began to take over its main trade, Whitehaven had been one of the most important ports in the country. It had been renovated as part of the millennium developments and was quite beautiful. Even in December people were sitting on benches sipping coffee and eating chips.

  Seagulls the size of chickens wheeled overhead, flashes of white in the dark sky, occasionally swooping down to brazenly snatch food from the unwary. Although they could be a menace, Poe liked seagulls. Without their squawks and cries, the air above the harbour would be empty, the same way the fells had been when the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis had decimated whole bloodlines of sheep.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and get a brew,’ Flynn said. ‘This wall’s playing havoc with my haemorrhoids.’

  An hour later Nightingale called to say the video walkthrough of the scene and the crime scene manager’s evidence-recovery strategy were complete. She could allow them in.

  ‘What do we know?’ Flynn asked when they got there. They were both out of breath. The road from the harbour to the townhouse had been steep.

  ‘It’s a bit different in there,’ she said. ‘His name’s Howard Teasdale and he was a freelance website designer.’

  ‘Why was his DNA on the database?’ Poe said.

  ‘He was convicted of making and distributing indecent images of children earlier in the year. Got twenty-four months’ probation, a sex offenders’ course and a SOPO prohibiting him from accessing the internet for anything other than work.’

  Poe nodded. Sex offender prevention orders were a commonly used tool to manage DBs, or dirty bastards to give them their full name. He didn’t know much about web design but he knew you couldn’t do it without the internet.

  ‘You think we’re looking for a vigilante?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’m not prepared to rule anything out.’

  CSI had put anti-contamination stepping plates down. They were transparent plastic with a slip-resistant tread. The rubber pads on the bottom of each foot would be removed and bagged as evidence when CSI had finished.

  Poe took his time and followed Nightingale into Teasdale’s dining room. Flynn trailed after them both. He was surprised. It was one thing to insist she was fit to work while heavily pregnant to make a point, another thing entirely to fall off a footplate because she was less certain on her feet.

  ‘See what I mean about it being different?’ Nightingale said.

  Poe did.

  Teasdale had been secured to a wooden chair with zip-ties. He had been a fat man – the kind who could have used a sports bra – and the ties had dug into his fleshy wrists and ankles. One of his hands was clenched into a fist, as if he’d been in pain when he died. The other was open. It was missing two fingers.

  His mouth was partially open, his lips were covered in shiny cold sores. His T-shirt was stained red. A pair of bloodied kitchen scissors rested in his lap. Poe wasn’t surprised to learn that Doyle had been right about the method of amputation.

  Flynn retched. She rushed out before she could contaminate anything.

  ‘Women, eh?’ a CSI man laughed.

  ‘It’s pregnancy-related chronic indigestion,’ Poe said, ‘and if your face is still here in ten seconds I’m punching it.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You heard.’

  Nightingale gave Poe an appraising look.

  ‘I’d leave if I were you, Andrews,’ she said. ‘Apologise to DI Flynn on your way out, then go back to Carleton Hall and wait for me.’

  After the CSI tech had left, Poe said, ‘I can’t see the wound that killed him.’

  Nightingale gently lifted Teasdale’s head and showed him a thin ligature wound around his neck. It had cut through the skin, hence the blood-stained T-shirt.

  ‘Looks like he’s been strangled,’ she said.

  ‘Garrotted more like,’ Poe grunted.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Estelle Doyle will be able to confirm it.’

  He studied Teasdale’s bedsit, looking for inconsistencies. It was filled with the debris of a lonely life. Takeaway containers, pizza boxes and empty energy drinks were piled on the kitchen counter. Coffee mugs with green mould at the bottom had been abandoned in the sink. The bin was overflowing and smelly. The tiling at the back of the cooker was covered in grime.

  The only things Teasdale appeared to care about were his video games. He had hundreds of them. They were neatly stacked on two bookcases. A third bookcase held his controllers. Poe looked for the consoles and found them. A PS4 and an Xbox.

  ‘He was in breach of his SOPO just by having these,’ Nightingale said. ‘They’re both internet-enabled. Anything?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Poe said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The smell, it’s unusual.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What’s the dominant one?’

  Nightingale sniffed the air the same way Edgar did.

  ‘Faeces,’ she said. ‘He voided his bowels when he died.’

  Poe shook his head. ‘He’s been dead a few days, why doesn’t he smell gamey?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s because he was on an electricity meter and the money’s run out. That’s why it’s so cold in here.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said.

  ‘He obviously never left his bedsit so he’d have needed his heating on permanently. Coupled with his electricity-heavy entertainment choices, he’d have been putting coins into it like a fruit machine.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘All this took time. Hours probably. The killer had to secure Teasdale then wait to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. Cutting through his fingers with those scissors will have taken an hour at least. Although the actual killing wouldn’t have taken long, he’d have been covered in blood. No way did he leave Teasdale’s bedsit without cleaning himself up.’

  ‘You think we need to check the shower?’

  ‘I think you need to check the electricity meter,’ Poe said. ‘Unless the killer did all this and then cleaned himself in the dark, it’s entirely possible he’d had to put some money in just to see what he was doing.’

  ‘And we might get a fingerprint.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Do electricity meters even use coins any more?’

  Her phone buzzed.

  ‘We’ll check it out, Poe,’ she said before answering. ‘Superintendent Nightingale.’

  She frowned as she listened.

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  She turned to Poe.

  ‘We may have identified another victim.’

  Chapter 12

  Not found. Identified.

  A man called Andrew Pridmore had called 101, the police non-emergency number, and said he couldn’t get in touch with his ex-wife. He was supposed to arrange a drop-off time for their kids and he was worried she’d done something stupid. The family court judge had given her less access than she’d wanted and she’d taken it hard. He lived in Reading and wanted uniform to go round to her house in Carlisle to check she was OK.

  The woman i
n the control room at Carleton Hall had been briefed on Estelle Doyle’s findings and knew that one of the victims had had a finger tattoo removed. She asked Pridmore if his ex-wife had any distinguishing features.

  ‘She had our wedding date tattooed on, then lasered off her finger,’ she’d been told. Pridmore then added that she still wore her ring when she was with their children as it upset them when she didn’t.

  Nightingale had to stay with the dead man – a corpse at a crime scene required her attention more than what might just be an unrelated missing person’s case – so she asked Flynn if she and Poe could attend. Uniform had already secured the woman’s house and CSI were processing it.

  Poe was pleased when Flynn readily agreed. He rarely got to see fresh crime scenes these days. It wasn’t what SCAS did.

  Rebecca Pridmore lived in Dalston, six miles west of Carlisle. It was an affluent village with a population of two and a half thousand. The inappropriately named ‘The Square’, which was actually a triangle lined with shops, pubs and a church, was the beating heart of the village.

  Her bungalow was on The Green, Dalston’s main thoroughfare. It was three hundred yards from The Square. Opposite was a field and the River Caldew. To the rear was another field. The bungalow was set back from the road and had a large gravel drive. The front was bordered by a chest-high stone wall.

  Dalston rarely saw serious crime and the presence of so many police vehicles was causing a commotion. Villagers had lined up to stare. A uniformed cop kept them from getting too close. He was wearing gloves, had red ears and was stamping his feet against the pavement. Sentry duty in the cold sucked.

  Although the drive would have fitted five cars comfortably, all police vehicles were parked on the opposite side of the road. Poe pulled up behind a CSI van.