Chapter 35
Poe was arrested for the murder of Mark Buckby.
A holding arrest. It meant they could take him back to a police station.
Question him. They could keep him without charge for twenty-four hours.
Longer if they could convince some sucker they needed more time.
He was taken to Walworth. The custody sergeant asked who he wanted informed of his arrest.
‘My wife,’ Poe said.
‘You got her number?’
‘You got my mobile?’
‘No.’
‘Then I don’t have her number.’ Poe cursed what the convenience of electronic devices had done to his short-term memory. ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.
‘A little after five.’
He did some mental gymnastics. Bradshaw would be back at Cowie House now. She’d be waiting for his call. She’d want to discuss the crime-scene videos he’d sent her. He’d asked her not to open them until he got back, and he knew she wouldn’t have. ‘Do you have a Yellow Pages?’
‘What are you, Amish? Of course I don’t have a Yellow Pages.’
‘Can you find a building in Carlisle called Cowie House on your computer then? If you can, dial the number.’
The sergeant did. Monica Costelloe answered. Poe asked her to put him through to Bradshaw.
‘Hi, Tilly,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain right now, but I need you to listen and not ask any questions.’
‘Whatever for, Poe?’
‘That’s a question, Tilly.’
‘Sorry, Poe. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. But Mark Buckby isn’t. By the time I got to Elephant and Castle, he’d been murdered.’
Poe heard her typing. Making notes. ‘Go on,’ she said. No nonsense, all business.
Poe told her what he’d told the responding cops and what he’d repeated to Detective Inspector Greene. Nothing more.
He finished by saying, ‘You know what to do?’
‘I do, Poe.’
‘OK, see you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Even if they let me out tonight, it’ll be too late to get up north.’
‘Who was that?’ the custody sergeant said.
‘Who are you, the gazpacho?’
Poe was put in a cell with a Styrofoam cup of tea and a Mars bar.
He’d always loved Mars bars. Loved the luxury, the thick chocolate, the caramel.
The seductive packaging. And he loved that one of his all-time favourite bands, the Undertones, had written and sung a ridiculous song about them.
Put it out as the B-side to ‘Jimmy Jimmy’.
It became a fan favourite and was now the first song on every setlist.
He didn’t have to wait long to be questioned.
No more than fifteen minutes, which told him they knew he hadn’t done it.
If they thought he had, they’d have spent more time gathering evidence.
They’d have taken away his clothes for testing.
Put him in a paper suit. This wasn’t about charging him with murder; this was about finding out what he knew.
Poe would share what he could, but he wouldn’t tell them about Esmerée.
Not yet. Including Vincent du Buk, Buckby was the second person to be murdered. Better to keep her name out of it.
He was taken from his cell and put in a bog-standard interview room. A table, chairs, recording equipment. Panic strips.
Detective Inspector Greene and a man Poe hadn’t seen before entered the room.
‘Stand up,’ Greene said.
‘Who for? Jesus?’
‘Stand up.’
‘No.’
‘It’s going to be like that, is it?’
‘You started this shitshow, not me.’
Greene sighed and took a seat on the opposite side of the table to Poe.
The new guy did the same. ‘I’m Detective Constable Markus Fitt,’ he said. ‘That’s Markus with a k.’
‘Thanks,’ Poe said. ‘That’ll be handy when it comes to doing my Christmas cards.’
Greene frowned. ‘You’ve said you don’t want a solicitor present.’
‘Don’t need one.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘So do you.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You know I didn’t do it,’ Poe said. ‘The blood that had pooled by his feet was already dry. By now you’ll have checked CCTV. Seen I was on a train out of London when Mark Buckby called and was probably still at Warrington Bank Quay when he was killed. You have no intention of charging me.’
Greene sighed. ‘This is why I hate interviewing ex-cops,’ he said. ‘They think they know everything.’
‘Why not try asking me what you want to know?’ Poe said. ‘We’re on the same side; I won’t conceal anything.’
‘Give us the password to your phone.’
‘Apart from that.’
‘You took photographs of the crime scene. Videos too, I bet. That’s a criminal offence.’
‘It is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just as well you don’t have my password then.’
‘We have people who can unlock it.’
‘No you don’t. Not this phone.’
Poe didn’t know if that was true. He did know that Bradshaw had installed software on it that encrypted every text and email he sent and received. She said Apple had wanted to buy it from her, but Alastor Locke had asked her not to let them have it. He’d said it wasn’t in the UK’s best interests.
Greene was starting to get angry. Poe didn’t care.
Greene was going about this all wrong. It looked like he’d got so used to adversarial interviews he’d forgotten how to talk to a cooperating witness.
Arresting Poe at the scene had been the correct thing to do.
Putting him in a cell on a trumped-up charge had been a mistake.
Greene didn’t get the chance to get any angrier, though. The interview room door opened and a woman walked in. She leaned in and whispered into his ear; Greene blinked and glanced at Poe. He then got up and left the room without a word or a backwards glance. Markus-with-a-k followed him.
Poe was left on his own.
But not for long.