Chapter 41
Poe didn’t get back to Highwood until three in the morning.
Bradshaw was waiting for him. Poe didn’t think he could remember ever being awake when she was asleep.
He wasn’t even sure she did sleep. She said Estelle had wanted to wait up as well, but she had a complex post-mortem first thing in the morning and needed her wits about her.
‘Why do you think he’s manipulating you, Poe?’ she asked.
‘It’s what he does.’
Bradshaw nodded. She was aware of Locke’s duplicity. ‘But why do you think he’s manipulating you on this occasion?’
Poe hadn’t elaborated in the car. He’d assumed Locke’s driver would report back on his side of the conversation.
‘Because he asked to see the tattoo photographs. Alastor never asks a question he doesn’t already have the answer to, so he’ll have known the cops at Elephant and Castle took my phone. Yet he asked to see the photograph anyway. Why?’
‘Perhaps he forgot.’
‘Really?’
Bradshaw paused a moment. ‘No, you’re right; he’s manipulating us.’
‘The tattoo is important to him. Or maybe it isn’t. Perhaps he just knows it’s important to us but didn’t want to step on any toes. I imagine all sorts of intelligence passes across his desk.’
‘You have no idea, Poe,’ Bradshaw said. ‘He receives daily reports from more than a hundred agencies. And he reads them all.’
‘And not all of those reports can be relevant to national security.’
‘Only a tiny percentage.’
‘So it’s not implausible he’s read something relevant to Esmerée’s case but wasn’t sure how to tell us.
His intentional slip about the tattoo was his way of doing it.
’ Poe blew on his tea and took a sip. ‘So, we have a senior spook talking about the tattoo, we have someone telling us the tattoo is an urban myth, and we have a dead pornographer.’
‘Was Mr Buckby definitely tortured?’
Poe nodded. ‘They wanted something from him. As soon as they got it, the torture stopped.’
‘They must have wanted the name of his contact. The man who told him the tattoo was an urban myth.’
‘That’s what I think too, Tilly.’
‘I wonder what happened to him?’
‘Nothing nice. He only stayed in London because Buckby had convinced him to talk to me. The fact that he didn’t arrive for our meeting means Buckby gave him up.’
‘Do you think he’s dead too?’
Poe nodded.
‘How did they even know to torture Mr Buckby, though?’ Bradshaw asked. ‘If we correctly understand the time frame, he was dead two hours after he called you. That’s not a big window, Poe.’
‘No, it’s not. That part doesn’t make sense.’
‘Unless they were listening to his phone calls,’ she said. ‘They heard him talk to his contact and knew they couldn’t allow you to meet him.’
Poe nodded. That made sense. ‘Maybe they were listening to my phone.’
‘You can’t listen to our phones, Poe. I’ve encrypted them against anything available today.’
‘His phone it is then,’ Poe said. ‘Which leads us neatly on to the next question: how did they know they needed to listen to him? He isn’t involved in whatever this is.
He didn’t know anything about it. His entire involvement was identifying the guy in the porn movie and sending out the tattoo pics to some of his contacts. ’
‘Did you tell the police about Chance Ryzcek?’
‘I didn’t, Tilly. But I called him from the back of Locke’s car and advised him to leave town for a few days. He’s safe.’ He yawned. ‘We’ll have a look at the Buckby crime-scene photographs and videos first thing tomorrow. I don’t want them to be the last thing I see before I go to bed.’
‘Nor me, Poe,’ she said. ‘And you’re looking very tired.’
He stretched. Yawned again. ‘To be honest, I’m more full than tired.’
Bradshaw frowned. ‘Why would you be full? Alastor Locke told me you had a salad at Dookers.’
‘Slip of the tongue.’
‘But—’
‘Not everything has to be about me, Tilly,’ he cut in.
‘That makes no sense.’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter if it was a salad or a massive sticky toffee pudding with thick caramel sauce, the important thing is Estelle doesn’t need to find out. Agreed? And tomorrow we hit the tattoo with everything we have. Someone doesn’t want us looking into it; I want to know why.’