Chapter 92
Even on a sunny day, Cowie House was a dark and gloomy building.
The cobbled street had been constructed with carts and horses in mind, not HGVs and buses.
It wasn’t wide enough to see much sun. And the buildings were tall; the smallest was three storeys.
Walking along the street was like walking along the bottom of a high-sided trench.
Fisher Street was shadows. It was nooks and crannies.
Fisher Street was secrets.
Perfect for the person tucked into the doorway of the nearby RAOB building.
They wore dark clothes. Nothing black. Unless there was no light at all, black stood out just as much as white.
This person knew that. They were wearing shades of grey and green.
A coat with a deep hood. A navy blue COVID mask. No chance of being identified on CCTV.
Poe was back at Highwood. His genius sidekick too. Probably wondering what to do next. Didn’t matter now. Not when he had messed up the way he had.
The person slipped out of the RAOB’s doorway, head down, and walked the forty yards or so to Cowie House.
It was locked, but that was OK. It was an old door, and the lock was unsophisticated.
No match for a locksmith’s destructive entry tool.
They opened the door, stepped inside and closed it again.
Put the deadbolt on. A quick check of the wall chart to confirm which floor the tattooist was on.
Indica Ink. Second floor. The one underneath Poe.
Behind the COVID mask, the person smiled in satisfaction. Not happy; relieved. This whole thing had been a balls-up from start to finish, and the sooner it was sorted the better. With a bit of luck, the murdering bitch would soon be dead. The girl too, unfortunately.
It was a shame for Poe. He was all right. A bit grumpy, a lot sarky, but a decent man nonetheless.
But … business was business.
Poe heard the front door lock shattering.
He winced. Thought about what Monica Costelloe would say in the morning.
Nothing nice, he imagined. He had thought about leaving it unlocked, but that might have been one red flag too many.
The person creeping up the stairs was careful.
They had to be. Bradshaw had checked, and it seemed like they’d been wearing two skins for almost fifteen years.
That was a lot of time to be in the pocket of organised criminals.
Bent cops were the juicy fruits offered by crooks facing fifteen years.
It was how most were caught. They were despised by the criminal fraternity.
Giving up their names wasn’t seen as snitching.
No one was getting stitches. Bent cops were expendable. Disposable assets.
But this bent cop had stayed under everyone’s radar. Which meant one of two things – either no one in the Red Chamber knew their identity, or, more likely, they were so useful to the organisation they were afforded special protections.
They were almost on the second floor. They were climbing the stairs stealthily, but Cowie House was quieter than a Chinese tea ceremony.
The walls were thick. They didn’t just keep out the sun and the warmth, they kept out the street noise.
The only thing Poe could hear was his own breathing and the treacherous bastard who was now walking along the second-floor corridor.
Poe had left the door to Indica’s office unlocked. Hadn’t made sense to wreck that one too. The person on the other side was committed. They weren’t going to chicken out now. The door opened. The intruder slipped inside. Closed the door behind them. Poe heard them breathe a sigh of relief.
He switched on the light.
Susan Hawksworth blinked
Poe did jazz hands. ‘Surprise.’