Page 153
Chapter 83
Poefollowed Mathers up the tight staircase. They were togged out in full barrier clothing: white paper suits, hoods, face masks, gloves and overshoes. Like nurses during a pandemic.
With the exception of Sergeant Holder, SCO19 were outside forming a perimeter.
‘What do we have?’ Mathers asked.
‘He’s used every room, ma’am. There’s a single bed in Bravo, and a lot of stuff on the walls. Looks like he was using the rooms in Alpha as laboratories.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant Holder. Good job.’
After he had joined his colleagues, Mathers asked her crime scene manager to start recording. CSI would be there at least a week. The TV shows consistently got it wrong – processing a crime scene was laborious, painstaking work. It couldn’t be rushed.
The architectural plans showed the two flats were mirror images of each other. The front doors were thin and flimsy and had been kicked off their hinges by SCO19. They entered Alpha first, the flat Sergeant Holder had said contained laboratories. The front door led directly into a cramped living room. On the wall opposite the window was the kitchen area. Little more than a stove and an oven, both electric, both fed by the meter fixed to the wall.
The landlord’s cheap furniture had been pushed aside to make room for objects seldom found on any furnishings and fittings inventory. Poe couldn’t identify most of them, but he knew what they had been used for.
He followed Mathers as she moved methodically from living room to bedroom to bathroom, pointing out things she needed the crime scene manager to record. No emotion, no opinions, just facts.The video might form part of the prosecution one day and it was important to keep emotion out. This part of the investigation was all about evidence recovery.
They left Alpha, crossed the landing and entered Bravo. Sergeant Holder hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said there was stuff on the walls. There wasn’t a spare inch. The living room was dedicated to the three victims: Kane Hunt, Harrison Cummings and Karen Royal-Cross. Press clippings, long-distance photographs of them and their homes, research on their friends, families and neighbours. Details of their vehicles and what public transport they used. Freedom of information requests. Medical histories and information on their hobbies. The pubs and restaurants they frequented, the gyms they used, where they shopped.
The poems he’d sent, the poisons he’d killed them with …
They waited for the crime scene manager to video everything then moved into the bedroom. The bed had been pushed against the wall. It was neatly made. A clean duvet and a single pillow. A bedside table and a lamp. No personal items whatsoever. Like the rest of the rooms, the curtains were drawn.
Mathers turned on the light.
‘Bloody hell,’ Poe muttered. ‘Where’s he getting all this?’
Chrissie Stringer and Douglas Salt’s lives were laid bare on two of the walls. A third wall was dedicated to the website. The server Beck was using, the hashtags he hoped would make the vote go global. Measures he’d taken to ensure it couldn’t be taken down. The last wall was all about the parkrun. An estimate of the number of people who would attend. Start and end times. A circuit diagram of the radio frequency jammer he’d used to render Stahl’s microphone redundant. There was even a photograph of the tree he stood under when he removed his hat, the simple trick that ensured air surveillance couldn’t track him. Poe had been on army ops with less planning. If he hadn’t been appalled, he’d have been impressed.
With both flats documented, Mathers let the crime scene manager leave so he could brief his team. She turned to Poe and said, ‘Is this guy taking the piss?’
Poe nodded. ‘This isn’t a crime scene,’ he said. ‘It’s an exhibition.’
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153 (Reading here)
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231