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.’