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Chapter 14

‘Ineed you here, Poe,’ Flynn said.

‘I can’t leave Northumberland now. Estelle’s in trouble and these idiots have fixated on the first solution that’s presented itself.’

‘I’m standing right next to you,’ Tai-young Lee said.

‘Sorry,’ Poe mouthed.

‘I’ve been briefed,’ Flynn said. ‘The murder scene won’t be released for at least two days and Estelle’s going to be remanded into custody later. You’re not her legal rep so you won’t be able to visit until she’s been through induction. That won’t be until the day after tomorrow in all likelihood. There’s nothing you can do right now and if you hang around you’re only going to get into trouble.’

Poe didn’t respond. Flynn was wrong. Therewerethings he could do now. He could check the route Doyle had taken. He could find out who else knew Elcid Doyle had put his daughter back in his will. See if her gain was someone else’s loss.

‘Anyway,’ Flynn continued, ‘this isn’t me asking, it’s a direct instruction from Director of Intelligence Van Zyl.’

‘Van Zyl? He doesn’t get involved in operational decisions. What’s going on?’

‘I’ll tell you when you get here.’

‘And where’s “here”?’

‘South Yorkshire,’ Flynn said. ‘The constituency home of the Right Honourable Member for Sheffield East.’

Newcastle to Sheffield was a two-hour drive. Poe tried calling Bradshaw as soon as he was on the A1 but she wasn’t answering. He tried calling Flynn next but she was ignoring him, too.

It was all a bit odd. He decided not to worry about it.

He opened his satnav, punched in the postcode Flynn had given him and thought about Doyle instead. The missing thirty minutes would turn out to be nothing, something easily explained that no one had thought to check. It was where he’d start, though. Like any case with seemingly solid evidence, the moment you pulled the first brick from the wall, the rest began looking shaky. The firearm discharge residue on her hands would have to be explained but he wasn’t concerned about it. Prosecutions were rarely built around FDR these days. All Poe had to do was find whatever it was she had touched that had caused the false positive.

The window being broken from the inside rather than the outside wasn’t bothering him either. It was a fact a murder had been committed, and Tai-young Lee was right – whoever had killed Elcid Doyle had tried to make it look like a botched burglary. That was where Doyle’s defence would begin and end.

The only thing he couldn’t explain – and the bit that worried him the most – was the unblemished snow. Lee said there was only one set of footprints. They went from Doyle’s car to the front door. There were no others around the house. Poe couldn’t explain that.

If it got to court, Doyle’s barrister would ask the jury where the murder weapon was, if she hadn’t left the house. Poe was sure Lee and the CPS were already thinking about how to respond. Poe reckoned their argument would be that she’d hidden it too well. It was certainly more plausible than an unidentified killer levitating out of the house.

As things stood now, a jury wouldn’t need more than thirty minutes to bring back a guilty verdict. His job was to make sure it never got that far.

Not once did he doubt Doyle’s innocence.

Poe headed into Halfway, a ward in the eastern part of Sheffield. He got stuck in a confusing one-way system for a few minutes but eventually pulled up at the end of a line of police cars in Beaumont Street.

As soon as he stepped out of his car, a uniformed police officer approached him. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘Doubt it,’ Poe said, showing him his ID.

He nodded then said, ‘The NCA contingent is down there. I’ll escort you.’

Flynn was in the back of a police incident control trailer.

‘Ah, he’s here,’ she said to the man standing next to her. ‘Poe, this is Chief Superintendent Stewart. He’s South Yorkshire Constabulary’s district commander for Sheffield.’

‘You’re late, Sergeant Poe,’ Stewart said. ‘You should have been here an hour ago.’

‘Why, what happened?’

‘Excuse me?’

Poe turned to Flynn. ‘Where’s Tilly?’