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Chapter 61

‘He’llonly speak to you, Poe,’ Chief Superintendent Mathers said. ‘He’s calling back in’ – she checked her watch – ‘two minutes. They’ll patch it through to me.’

Poe couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or relieved. Probably a little from column A and a little from column B. Annoyed she’d been reduced to a spectator in her own case, relieved someone else was sharing the burden of responsibility. Now that Karen Royal-Cross was dead, the infectious diseases staff needed to get back to their day jobs. Mathers had taken over a small room off the main ward while her team dismantled the temporary command centre they had set up. The isolation ward’s bed unit would remain a crime scene for now, although Poe doubted CSI would find anything useful.

‘Did he say anything?’ he asked.

‘Nothing useful. Just an instruction to get you.’

‘Why me?’

‘We assume after your last exchange that he sees you as someone who won’t bullshit him.’

‘He’s wrong then,’ Poe said, Mukherjee’s words still echoing in his head. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this prick.’

‘The psychologist thinks you should stick with the same level of aggression as last time. If he thinks you’re a “straight talker”, we might gain a small advantage.’

‘At SCAS we prefer the term misanthropic arsehole to straight talker, ma’am,’ Flynn said, walking into the room. Bradshaw was with her.

‘You got anything?’ Poe asked.

‘Maybe,’ Flynn replied. ‘Tilly, can you tell them?’

‘Certainly, DI Flynn,’ Bradshaw said. She produced a tablet and flipped it to the landscape position.

Poe craned his neck and stared at the screen. It was a chemical formula, all parentheses, letters and subscript numbers – (CH3)2CO.

‘What’s that, Tilly?’ he asked.

‘It’s acetone, Poe.’

‘One minute,’ Mathers warned.

‘And what’s the significance?’

‘Infinitesimal traces of it were found in the samples we sent to Estelle Doyle’s lab from Karen Royal-Cross. I know she’s in that horrible prison, but we thought if—’

‘Who’s this “we”, Tilly?’ Flynn snapped.

‘I explained to DI Flynn that if Estelle Doyle works for a laboratory they must be very good.’

‘Cost me a fortune,’ Flynn grumbled. She looked at Mathers expectantly but got no help. The put-upon chief superintendent had budget problems of her own with all the overtime she’d had to authorise. She wasn’t paying for lab tests unless she was forced to.

‘So itwasacetone he used to make the ricin?’

‘It was, Poe.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Possibly,’ Flynn said. ‘Acetone can be used to make explosives so it’s on something called a precursor chemicals list. It’s difficult to buy in bulk without ID.’

‘Why do we think he bought it in bulk?’

‘We don’t, but at least we’ll be doing something.’

Poe thought about that. Decided Flynn was right. Investigations stalled when detectives were left idling. Following up meaningless leads was useful because it kept people busy. Busy people’s brains worked faster.

‘So, unless he stole the acetone, or bought it in small amounts, he might be on a database somewhere?’ he said.