Chapter 16
‘It could be a tattoo,’ Towler said. ‘It could just as easily be a birthmark. This isn’t exactly HD.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Poe agreed.
‘Seems she has another one on her shoulder.’
Poe leaned in. Squinted. There was a splodge of something. It could have been a second tattoo; it could just as easily have been a birthmark.
‘Can you clean it up, Tilly?’ Towler asked.
Bradshaw shook her head. ‘It wasn’t uploaded in HD. And that’s because it was uploaded by a private individual, not the production company. Whoever did this didn’t have access to the original recording.’
‘And there’s no way to tell who uploaded it?’
‘I’ll be able to find that out fairly easily,’ she said. ‘But as it was uploaded over a year ago, it’s unlikely to be of any help.’
‘You gonna show Corpse Bride?’
‘I can hear you, Lankenstein,’ Esmerée called from the waiting area she’d been banished to. ‘Why don’t you go back to the Harlem Globetrotters, you tall asshole?’
Towler grinned and Poe chuckled. Esmerée’s insults were very inventive.
Poe had found the clip Esmerée had seen.
It was a straight-up sex scene. No script, no plot, no undressing.
Just two people in stupid, voyeuristic positions.
Nothing that normal people would attempt.
The woman was masked; the man wasn’t. And just as Esmerée had described, the man had a shock of blond hair.
Poe had paused the screen and called in Bradshaw to clear it up.
She’d fiddled with the settings, but it was still blurry.
Like Towler said, the mark on the woman’s foot could be a tattoo, or it could be a birthmark.
She could have stood on an inky rat just before she went on set.
‘Can you pixelate out the rude bits, please, Tilly?’ Poe said. ‘And print it off.’
She did. The printer was in her office. Esmerée must have heard it whirring away, because she walked into Poe’s office studying what Bradshaw had sent to the printer. ‘That’s definitely Mom,’ she said. She shook her head. ‘What a classy chick.’
‘Did she have a tattoo on her shoulder too?’ Poe asked.
Esmerée frowned. Studied the photograph again. ‘No, that’s new.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I think I would have noticed; she was butt-naked most of the day.’
‘Yeah?’ Towler said.
‘So this might not be your mum?’ Poe said.
‘No, it’s definitely her.’
Which was when her alien hand syndrome kicked in again. This time it wasn’t Poe’s table that bore the brunt; it was Esmerée herself. She scratched and clawed at her own face. Towler bear-hugged her until it stopped. ‘What the hell was that about?’ he said.
‘My hand is a fucking asshole!’
Poe shook his head. Warned Towler not to push it. ‘Right,’ he said, as if nothing had happened. ‘We’ve found one end of the thread. Now let’s tug it.’
‘How?’ Towler asked.
‘By getting on a train to London and hunting down the film’s source.’