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‘Four of them with hyoscine and four of them with tetrodotoxin.’

‘The mandrake root poison and the fugu fish poison,’ Poe said. ‘Beck was testing his doses.’

‘He was.’

‘And the last two victims?’

‘You don’t need me to tell you, Poe,’ Mathers said.

‘Ricin?’

‘Exactly.’

‘He only needed two test subjects as there’s no antidote for it.’

‘Again, that’s our conclusion.’

‘It’s him then.’

‘It is. You were right. He didn’t get brilliant straight away, he got brilliant by practising. By testing his doses, by monitoring the results.’

‘And becoming desensitised to murder.’

‘The sick bastard,’ Mathers said.

‘He’ll have had easier access to the fugu poison as well,’ Poe said. ‘I never bought him obtaining it in London. Somebody would have remembered. But Tilly tells me there are still ten thousand restaurants selling it in Japan.’

‘I’ve already scaled back the number of detectives working the private supper club angle.’ Mathers paused. ‘I’m thinking of releasing this at a press conference. What do you think?’

‘He’s containable right now, ma’am. Remove his celebrity status and he becomes an unpredictable loser with a weapon capable of killing dozens of people. I’d think very carefully about a press conference, if I were you.’

She didn’t respond. Poe liked that about her. She wasn’t fixated on her own ideas. She made the decisions, but only when she had all the available information.

‘I’ll pass that up to my commander,’ she said eventually. ‘But this investigation has been a one-way street of humiliation so far: the advance notice he gives, the Chance’s Park debacle, the press deliberately getting the wrong end of the stick with that photograph of you and Tilly outside Low Newton. They may not want to sit on this.’

‘It’s your call,’ Poe said.

‘Is Douglas Salt still safe?’

‘Yep. Everyone’s staying put. The boss’ll make sure nothing happens to him.’

‘And you’ll keep me updated?’

‘I will.’

‘Let me know if you need pressure put on anyone.’

‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that. And, in the meantime, there’s a slow-roasted goat going spare if any of your guys are hungry.’

‘Not any more,’ Mathers said. ‘DI Flynn called the council and had someone collect it for disposal.’

‘That cost me over two hundred quid!’

‘I think she told them it was a dead dog.’

The phone went dead.

Poe scowled; Bradshaw sniggered.