Chapter 34
Poe was in handcuffs. He’d shown the first-response officers – a woman who looked like Sky TV’s Beth Rigby and a man who didn’t – his gumshoe PI business card.
He might as well have shown them his Blockbuster membership card.
He didn’t blame them. Even if he’d still been with the NCA, he was the first person at a suspicious death.
That made him suspect number one until something proved he wasn’t.
So he didn’t complain. He accepted wearing the handcuffs and he accepted being swabbed.
Having his hands put in evidence bags. It was good police work.
And they had taken away his phone.
After he’d been sitting in the back of their car for twenty minutes, the circus arrived.
Plain-clothes cops. The first responders from the on-call murder investigation team.
MITs were how the Met was structured to investigate murder.
They were usually led by a detective chief inspector.
He or she had two detective inspectors, four sergeants and around twenty detective constables.
Some civilian support staff. It was a tried and tested formula.
And with a clear-up rate of over ninety per cent, it seemed to work.
More MIT cops arrived. More uniformed cops.
CSI vans. Cordons were set up – the outer on the street, the inner at Buckby’s front door.
Access was strictly controlled. Poe was glad he’d taken the photographs and the video.
He wasn’t getting anywhere near that crime scene again.
After a few minutes, a cop in a machine-washable blue suit walked over to the car and peered in at him. He didn’t look happy. It was a look Poe was used to, although he’d normally had the chance to earn it first.
The cop opened the door and got in the back with Poe.
‘My name’s Detective Inspector Greene,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’
Greene had a sallow complexion and red-rimmed eyes. Sour alcohol on his breath.
‘Nothing I haven’t already told the uniformed guys,’ Poe said.
‘Tell me.’
‘The victim’s called Mark Buckby. I met with him yesterday. I was halfway to Cumbria today when he called. I got off the train at Warrington and came back. He’d been dead a couple of hours by the time I arrived.’
‘Why did you go inside?’
‘His door was unlocked.’
‘So?’
‘His door was unlocked and he was expecting me. He’d asked for the meeting. I thought it was suspicious he didn’t answer.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m ex-NCA. Detective sergeant. I find everything suspicious.’
‘You’re ex-NCA?’
‘I am.’
‘Why do I find that hard to believe?’
Poe shrugged. ‘You can confirm it with a single phone call.’
Greene didn’t press it, which meant he’d already checked Poe out. ‘And now you’re a private investigator?’
‘I am.’
‘Bit of a fall from grace.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘What was the meeting about?’
‘He wouldn’t say.’
‘Yet you got off the train at Warrington and came straight back.’
Poe shrugged. ‘What can I tell you? I’m whimsical.’
Greene was silent for a few moments. Then he said, ‘No, what you are is under arrest.’