Page 44 of The Killer’s Mark

‘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.

Chapter 36

The door to the interview room opened. Three people walked in. Two men and, at the back, Susan Hawksworth. The men were wearing identical suits. There’d either been a communications breakdown or they were recently separated conjoined twins. One of them had a horseshoe moustache and thick mutton chops. Made him look like a cop from the seventies. The kind who wore flares and smoked in the office. Drove a Ford Cortina. The other was clean-shaven. He wore glasses and seemed like he might enjoy crossing things off a list.

There were only two seats on the recently vacated cops’ side of the table. Susan Hawksworth dragged the spare one from Poe’s side, the one the solicitor usually used, and sat in the middle like a tennis umpire. She caught his eye and shook her head. Almost imperceptible, but it was there. She didn’t want her colleagues to know they already knew each other.

‘Why were you meeting with Mark Buckby, Mr Poe?’ Mutton Chops said.

‘I’ll tell you that if you tell me why the National Crime Agency is interested in a pornographer.’

The two men glanced at each other. Susan didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘We didn’t say we were NCA. Why would you say that? It seems like a strange assumption to make.’

‘I only left six months ago and I have an excellent memory for faces,’ Poe lied. He had a terrible memory for faces. ‘I remember you from a briefing.’

‘Why did you meet with Mark Buckby yesterday?’

‘A case.’

‘Can you elaborate?’

‘No. It’s confidential.’

Mutton Chops glared at him through thick eyebrows. ‘You do realise that everything you say sounds sarcastic, Poe.’

‘I’m told it’s very annoying.’

‘Might I remind you that we are triple-warranted officers in the NCA.’

‘You may,’ Poe said. ‘Although there’s really no need; I’ve just told you I have an excellent memory.’

‘I’m triple-warranted and you’re a private investigator,’ Mutton Chops said anyway. ‘You have no legal standing in this country. You don’t enjoy client-confidentiality protections. If you don’t tell me why you were meeting with Mark Buckby, I will charge you with wasting police time.’

‘No you won’t,’ Poe said. ‘That only applies if I give you false information. And so far, I’ve been nothing but truthful.’

‘The MIT seem to think you couldn’t have murdered Mark Buckby. That you appear elsewhere on CCTV at the time he was killed. I’m not convinced of that. You may not have wielded the meat tenderiser, but you wanted information from him yesterday, and today he was tortured, almost certainly for information. I don’t think the two things are unrelated. Do you want to know what I think?’

‘No.’

‘I think he told you to piss off yesterday, that’s what I think. You went there for information and he blanked you. So you and your colleague arranged for someone to extract that information by force while you were safely on a train. That’s what I think.’