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Chapter 101

‘Cross-contaminationis a legitimate defence strategy, Poe,’ Tai-young Lee said. ‘But again, it isn’t new evidence. It’s not something you can bring up at a Judge in Chambers bail application.’

Poe pouted. She was right, of course, but it was all he had come up with so far. CSI were still processing the strong room so they had decamped into Elcid Doyle’s sitting room to brainstorm how Doyle had ended up with firearm discharge residue on her hands. He and Lee were now talking in circles. Each time he speculated on how it had happened, Lee either disproved it or said it wasn’t new information and was an argument for the trial, not a judge in chambers.

The latest theory to be shot down was that the FDR had been transferred from the handcuffs used to secure Doyle after her arrest. Poe had argued that, if they had been recently used on someone who had handled a gun, there could have been cross-contamination. That it wasn’t FDR on her hands from the gun that had killed her father, but from another gun entirely. Lee had said her hands had been bagged before the cuffs were put on. He’d said so what, mistakes happen. Which was when she had reminded him that this was an argument for a jury, not a judge in chambers application.

And so on.

‘You’re being uncharacteristically quiet, Tilly,’ Poe said.

‘I’m reading an FBI article on gunshot residue, as they call it in the United States of America, Poe,’ Bradshaw replied. ‘Did you know the following have all given false positives: fireworks, welding, key cutting, even some types of paper?’

‘I know, it’s unreliable.’

‘And that’s before you get on to cross-contamination from theback of police cars, holding cells, interview rooms, even police officers themselves.’

‘None of which is new information, all of which we’ll raise at her trial.’

‘I’m sorry, Poe. I don’t have anything that can help you.’

Poe frowned. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘This is bullshit. If she had FDR on her hands—’

‘Which she did,’ Lee said.

‘—Then it was because of something that happened. And that means we should be able to work it out. The fact we haven’t worked out how yet means we need a different approach.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘You ever seeCrimewatch, ma’am?’

‘Of course.’

Crimewatchran on the BBC from 1984 to 2017. It was one of the BBC’s largest live factual programmes and was a collaboration between the public and the police. Three or four cases would be profiled each episode. The sixty-minute programme featured interviews with detectives, the victims’ families and witnesses. Key evidence like E-pics would be shown. TheCrimewatchtelephone number remained open until midnight the following night. In the years it ran, fifty-seven murderers, fifty-three rapists and eighteen paedophiles were apprehended as a direct result.

‘And what was the most powerful tool at their disposal?’

Lee nodded in understanding. ‘You want to do a reconstruction,’ she said.

Poe turned to Bradshaw. ‘You up for being a corpse, Tilly?’