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Chapter 92

Thecall with DCI Lee was unexpectedly smooth. Poe told her his theory and she was surprisingly amenable to letting him test it. Perhaps a bittooamenable.

‘Talk me through it one last time,’ she said. ‘Just so I have the SOE straight for the assistant chief.’

Poe ran through the sequence of events. How Henning Stahl had recognised Frederick Beck on the list of people who had made a large acetone purchase. How that had led them to flats Alpha and Bravo. He explained that the two threads of cotton embedded in the weave of Bravo’s carpet had smelled of linseed oil, and how one of her cops had told him he’d smelled cricket bats in Elcid Doyle’s office.

‘So it’s DC Bowness’s fault I’m on the phone at four a.m.?’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘Tell me again what you think this all means,’ she said.

‘I’m waiting for confirmation, but I’m sure Elcid Doyle would have kept shotguns. And that he was cleaning them, or had just finished cleaning them, when he was murdered.’

‘Hence the forensic transfer of the threads from Doyle’s office in Northumberland to the flat in north London?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you’re wondering what happened to the shotguns?’

‘I am,’ Poe said. ‘There was no mention of them in the evidence you recovered.’

‘That’s because we didn’t recover any.’

‘Which doesn’t make sense. You saw his office – he had a passion for game birds, he owned the biggest grouse moor in the north of England and we know his office smelled of linseed oil. I’ll get confirmation soon, but trust me, Elcid Doyle had guns.’

Lee didn’t immediately respond. ‘OK, I’m interested,’ she said.

‘You are? Why?’

‘Because Elcid Doyledidhave a shotgun certificate, and therefore the lack of guns is an anomaly. And if for no other reason than I don’t want to be ambushed at court, we’ll conduct another search of the property with a different firearms detection dog to last time.’

‘A different one?’ Poe said. He knew a Belgian Malinois had been through the house in case the killer had been hiding somewhere; hedidn’tknow they had also searched Highwood with a firearms detection dog.

‘A Labrador. It only barked in Elcid’s study, which isn’t surprising.Icould smell a gun had been used to kill him.’

‘The one you haven’t been able to find?’

‘That one, yes.’

The missing weapon was still a major hole in the prosecution’s case. Elcid Doyle had been killed with a small-calibre gun and, as the CPS planned to say the footprints in the snow proved Estelle hadn’t left the house, not having the gun was problematic. It wasn’t insurmountable – there was firearms discharge residue on her hands and there were no other suspects – but Poe knew they would be concerned.

‘The CPS plan to say she flung it out of a window and into the trout stream where it was washed away,’ Lee said.

‘The stream?’ Poe said. ‘The stream that’s almost seventy yards from the house?’

‘From the top floor, it would be possible.’

‘If you’re a track and field Olympian.’

‘I’m letting you into the house again,’ Lee said. ‘Take the win, Poe.’

He sighed. She was right. It was the missing shotguns that were important, not the CPS’s implausible explanation.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘As long as it’s not about our tactics at court. I’ve already told you too much.’