The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  A bored-looking cop on the front row stuck up his hand. ‘What does a swan mean then?’

  ‘Traditionally, swans have represented grace and white swans have represented light and purity, even the higher self. Swans also symbolise travelling to the otherworld after death. There is also the well-known fable “The Ugly Duckling”, which is about transformation and fulfilling potential. That your perpetrator has chosen a black swan is, I think, very telling. He’s letting you know that he was once pure but he is no longer. When you catch him you’ll find he has been through a transformative life event recently. It is also possible that he thinks he is helping the people he’s killing.’

  Bradshaw folded her arms and scowled. ‘What a blockhead,’ she said.

  ‘This handout is as much use as tits on a flatfish!’ Monobrow snapped.

  ‘If you don’t like it, you know where the bin is!’ Maxwell replied.

  Poe had nodded off. The shouting had woken him.

  It seemed Maxwell had lost control of the room. These weren’t impressionable students, desperate for good grades and willing to put up with anything; these were hard-edged, sleep-deprived cops, most of whom had barely seen their families since Christmas Eve.

  Monobrow didn’t back down. He ripped his handout in half, walked over to the bin and dropped it in.

  ‘Fuck this,’ he said, before storming out and slamming the door behind him.

  Maxwell turned white. Everyone else tried not to laugh. Even Bradshaw was smiling.

  Poe wasn’t.

  Something about their exchange was bothering him. He knew what it was but he didn’t know why.

  It was the bin. Maxwell had told Monobrow to put his handout in the bin and Monobrow had.

  Bins …

  ‘Show me that video again, Tilly,’ Poe whispered.

  Bradshaw brought her laptop from her bag and opened it. She muted the sound and pressed play. Robert Cowell’s street sped by in real time. She slowed it down.

  Nothing.

  No bins.

  She loaded the second video, the one they’d taken after Poe had turned around.

  And there it was: a solitary dark grey bin at the top of Cowell’s drive. Hidden by a hedge on the way in, it had only been visible on the way out.

  Poe knew what he had to do.

  He stood. ‘Please excuse us, Mr Maxwell.’

  Bradshaw looked at him quizzically but followed him out of the room.

  When they were outside she said, ‘Whatever are we doing, Poe?’

  ‘We’re speeding things up, Tilly, that’s what we’re doing,’ he replied. ‘But first, we need to go and get some things from the CSI store.’

  Chapter 35

  ‘She’s stuck in a loop, boss. Fixated on that kite. A literal case of not being able to see the wood because of the tree,’ Poe said.

  It was early the following day and he was in his car, waiting. He had half an hour before he was supposed to be in position and he’d used that time to call Flynn and tell her what he was up to.

  ‘She doesn’t have your freedoms, Poe,’ Flynn said. ‘You can’t expect her to drop a perfectly valid line of enquiry because you want help staking out a suspect who our own profile says is unlikely to be the person we’re looking for.’

  ‘You’ve got a better idea?’ he asked.

  ‘I have. It’s called doing analysis and supporting the investigation like we were brought in for.’

  After a short delay he said, ‘You give your ideas names?’

  Flynn snorted. ‘Dickhead. What are you and Tilly doing today?’

  ‘Tilly’s at Carleton Hall. She’s taking Edgar to the dog section to play with the drugs spaniels there, and then she’s heading over to a room we’ve set up with CSI.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t have anyone to look after him and the dog section very kindly said they’d—’

  ‘Why is Tilly in a specially set up CSI room?’

  ‘Because,’ Poe said, ‘I’m going bin-dipping.’

  The lone bin must have been percolating in the back of Poe’s mind for some time. He put down living at Herdwick Croft as the reason it had taken him so long to make the connection. He didn’t have a bin collection. Initially he hadn’t requested one, as he’d wanted to keep as low a profile as he could. And now the council had found him, providing a bin service would have undermined their position that Herdwick Croft wasn’t a legal dwelling. Poe could have used it in the civil case – an ‘if the council collect my bins then they must also recognise it as my home’ kind of thing. Like a smellier version of Miracle on 34th Street.

  Instead, whatever rubbish he couldn’t burn he bagged up and took to the council tips.

  But … when he’d lived in Hampshire he had had a bin service. And there were a few idiosyncrasies associated with British rubbish collections that he hadn’t forgotten. And even in the environmentally friendly age of recycling, where you were expected to root through your garbage like Great Uncle Bulgaria, separating one lot of shit from another lot of shit, there was one golden rule: the first person to put their bin out was a knob.

  And there was always one. One household who ignored the never-enforced rule about what time you were allowed to put your rubbish by the kerb. Poe knew there were reasons to put your bin out the day before collection: you weren’t going to be home until after bin day; you didn’t like dragging them out in the dark; you liked annoying your neighbours …

  A lone bin at night often meant that the rubbish had been collected but the bin’s owner hadn’t been home yet to put it away. But a lone bin in the morning meant that someone was going against bin etiquette, because if it had been bin day, all the houses would have had bins outside. In Poe’s experience, a lone bin in the morning meant that bin collection was the following day.

  That meant that right about now, Robert Cowell’s bin was sitting on the edge of his drive, waiting to be collected. Where Poe could legally grab the contents without the need for a warrant. Or at least he thought he could. In the same way that the term ‘implied consent’ allows the police to enter gardens and driveways and postmen to deliver the mail, Poe believed that anything in a wheelie bin was classed as ‘disclaimed’. Admittedly, it was a grey area, and ultimately a judge would decide whether it had been gathered legally. Anything in a wheelie bin was the property of the council anyway – it was where the authority to issue fines came from when the wrong rubbish was put in the wrong bin.

  Despite being sure he was acting within the law, Poe was being extra cautious. The bin men were collecting Cowell’s rubbish on his behalf. He and Bradshaw had visited CSI the day before and signed out three extra-large paper evidence bags. Three feet by one and a half, they were the same size as a standard bin liner. Poe had agreed to meet the crew that serviced Cowell’s road in the nearby hospital car park to make sure they understood what it was he was asking of them.

  He had considered doing a shift with them but he’d been convinced otherwise. Notwithstanding the insurance issues, no one thought Poe would be able to hack it. And he was minded to believe them; living the life he did at Herdwick Croft had made him lean and wiry, but the men and women who dragged heavy wheelie bins for a living had muscles like cables.

  There was another more important consideration: the killer could have been observing the investigation. If he had, then he’d almost certainly have seen Poe. If Cowell was their man, Poe dressing as a bin man would set off all sorts of alarms.

  An accident at the Hardwicke Circus roundabout had brought rush hour to a standstill and the refuse vehicle was running late. It was why he’d had the time to call Flynn. He had thought of floating it past Nightingale as well but decided it would be better to seek forgiveness than ask for permission. Flynn would tell her anyway but he’d left it late enough so he couldn’t be stopped.

  Poe needed to be proactive. He couldn’t just sit around and hope the killer made a mistake and collected his kite. His brain wasn’t wired that way. Would his life be eas
ier if it was? Undoubtedly. He didn’t enjoy feeling like he was under permanent attack but it was a price he’d learned to pay a long time ago.

  As expected, his mobile rang. It was Nightingale. He was saved the decision of whether or not to answer by the rumbling and metal clanking of a lorry. Ten seconds later the refuse vehicle rounded the corner and parked beside him.

  Poe jumped out to greet them.

  The shift supervisor was a small, mean-looking man called Ben Stephenson. He was sucking on a cigarette like it was an exhaust pipe. Poe felt the power in the man’s grip when they shook hands.

  The crew gathered round Poe as he talked them through what he needed.

  ‘I can’t tell if he’s at home,’ Poe said, ‘so we have to assume he is.’

  He handed Stephenson the three evidence bags. He took them without looking.

  ‘I don’t know how you usually do things but if you park up short when you get to his house, he won’t be able to see the back when you transfer his rubbish into my evidence bags.’

  The refuse truck was rear loading. The crew dragged the bins to the back then a mechanical arm hoisted them in the air and tipped the contents into the vehicle’s well. By parking up short Cowell shouldn’t be able to see what was happening.

  ‘And he’s definitely a tax dodger?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’

  It was the only lie he’d told.

  ‘I need you to video it,’ Poe said, handing Stephenson a camera he’d bought the day before. ‘From the moment the bin is collected to the moment the evidence bags are sealed. We can’t have him claiming you lot planted evidence.’

  One of the men, a brute with a face like an Easter Island head, grunted. Poe was under no illusion what would happen to Cowell if he made an accusation against this lot.

  They agreed to meet back at the hospital in an hour. Poe wished them luck.

  Chapter 36

  Poe smiled in satisfaction as he watched the video Ben Stephenson had shot.

  The refuse truck crew had done a sterling job. Robert Cowell was obsessively neat and his wheelie bin contained no loose rubbish. It was all tied up in kitchen bin bags. It had taken the crew seconds to lift them out and seal them in Poe’s evidence bags. They’d even gone through the motions of putting the bin on the truck’s mechanical arm to put it through the disposal cycle. Poe hadn’t identified a single thing he’d have done differently.

  As a token of his appreciation, he handed each of them a crate of beer and a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Just nail the cheating bastard,’ one of them said.

  ‘We will,’ Poe replied.

  Poe returned to Carleton Hall where Bradshaw and a CSI technician waited for him. With a video recording everything, the first evidence bag was emptied onto a forensic groundsheet on the floor. Before they had a chance to start rooting through the rubbish, Nightingale walked in. She was annoyed, but not angry, that he’d gone behind her back. She checked Ben Stephenson’s video and agreed they had an unimpeachable chain of custody.

  ‘I’ll come back in a couple of hours to see how you’re getting on,’ Nightingale said. ‘Call me if you find anything.’

  Poe looked at Bradshaw when she’d shut the door.

  ‘You ready?’

  She was poised with her laptop, ready to analyse or go deeper into anything they found.

  ‘I feel dirty, Poe,’ she replied.

  He nodded. He did too. And not just because he was knee-deep in greasy takeaway boxes, stinking chicken carcasses and bloodied disposable razors. Reverse-engineering the lifestyle of a suspect by going through their discarded rubbish was a window into their most intimate secrets. Poe didn’t care what the law said; it was an invasion of privacy.

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘This is the other part of police work, Tilly. The part the public never get to see.’

  ‘It’s very smelly,’ she said.

  Poe nodded. He’d been trying not to breathe through his nose since the bag had been emptied. Carlisle City Council operated a once-a-fortnight household rubbish collection so some of the stink was two weeks old.

  The CSI technician recorded each individual piece of rubbish Poe picked up. Poe didn’t know what he was looking for, only that he’d know it when he saw it. To that end he didn’t have a system – he just dove in and worked his way through.

  To clear space and to keep the air as fresh as possible, Poe worked on the organic matter first. Other than confirming Cowell had a healthier diet than he did, it didn’t reveal anything useful. He soon had most of it bagged up again. Before long, the fetid stench of sour milk, mouldy vegetable peelings and rotten eggs faded.

  Next he worked through what he considered normal household trash. Milk cartons, empty crisp packets, paper tissues – the kind of things he had in his own bin at Herdwick Croft. This took a while longer as each piece had to be recorded, examined and catalogued. After an hour he took a break to change his gloves. He sniffed the soiled ones he’d discarded.

  ‘You don’t see this on the recruitment posters, Tilly: join the police and poke around someone’s rubbish. Try not to stick your finger through a bag of week-old dog shit while you’re at it.’

  ‘Yuk,’ Bradshaw said, her nose wrinkled. ‘I didn’t even know he had a dog.’

  ‘I didn’t either.’ He sniffed the discarded glove again. ‘But that’s definitely shit.’

  After a cup of tea they walked up to the dog section to see Edgar. He seemed to be enjoying himself. The springer spaniels were on an unstructured play session and there was no dog better at playing than Edgar. He yelped with excitement when he saw them both. A dog handler threw in a punctured football and Edgar lost interest as he joined the scramble to reach it first.

  ‘Charming,’ Poe said.

  Back in the CSI room, Poe suited up and opened the next evidence bag. Bradshaw took up station at her laptop. So far he hadn’t passed her anything. He hoped to soon. He was tired of being sweaty and grimy, and he was tired of looking through stuff that had no bearing on anything. So far his gamble wasn’t paying off. He decided to sod logic and just stick his hand in until he could pass her something to examine.

  His hand touched some papers. They must have been at the bottom of the bin as they were stuck together and stained with tea or coffee. Poe handed them to the CSI technician who separated and photographed them before passing them to Bradshaw.

  For an hour they worked their way through the second of the three evidence bags. Bradshaw kept up a steady stream of chatter as they did. He suspected it was keeping her mind off the smell. She asked him what Flynn might call her baby. Poe had no idea. He still couldn’t get his head around the idea that his boss would soon have an infant to care for.

  ‘I think they should call him Bruce if he’s a boy and Diana if she’s a girl. They’d be cool choices.’

  ‘They wouldn’t happen to be superhero names, would they?’ he said.

  No answer.

  ‘I bet they are.’

  Again, no answer.

  Poe looked up but Bradshaw wasn’t listening.

  Instead she was poring over images on her laptop screen. What looked like the lens and clip from a small head-torch were slotted over the end of her iPhone. A lead connected the phone to her laptop.

  ‘What’s that on your phone, Tilly?’

  ‘It’s a macro lens, Poe,’ she said without looking up. ‘It transforms the camera into a digital microscope. I’ve been able to take detailed photographs at times twenty-one magnification.’

  ‘Of?’

  But she was back in her mind again, oblivious to the outside world. Poe kept quiet and let her work.

  Eventually she raised her hand and punched the air in triumph.

  ‘Yes!’ she said.

  And then she told him why.

  And everything changed.

  Chapter 37

  Poe had once been asked why the police made arrests so early in the morning. He’d replied that it was c
ommon sense – that dawn was the part of the day when the suspect was most likely to be home.

  And officially there were other reasons.

  That early in the morning, the door crashing down under the weight of battering rams gave the police an advantage over sleepy suspects. There was less chance of wits being gathered and evidence being flushed away. An offender known to be violent was less likely to be so when only wearing underpants. And finally, dawn raids caused less disruption to everyone else on the street.

  But mainly the police did dawn raids because they’d always done dawn raids.

  Poe had attended the midnight briefing for the arresting officers and given a short talk on how they’d honed everything down to this one suspect. The men and women in the room didn’t care about that. They were uniformed cops whose only involvement in the case would be executing the arrest. They were much more interested in what he knew about Robert Cowell.

  Was he known to carry weapons?

  Yes. A garrotte.

  Anything else?

  Probably. No one went straight to the garrotte. A garrotte was something you eventually got to. It was the end of a killer’s journey into weapon proficiency, not the beginning.

  Would he run or would he fight?

  Poe didn’t know.

  Could they expect anyone else to be in the house?

  Probably his sister.

  And after that it was all about the logistics. The crash team were in charge and they ran the show. Poe was told he could attend but only as an observer …

  Which was why he was in his car, engine running to keep warm air circulating, just two streets away from Robert Cowell’s cul-de-sac.

  He’d been there for an hour and a half already, when the blackness was absolute and the air felt refrigerated. He’d sat silently and sipped his coffee, fingers tracing the swirling steam rising from the hole in the cardboard cup’s plastic lid. The coffee was long gone. The taste nothing but a memory, the lingering smell now almost imperceptible.