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Chapter 23

‘Ithasto be the wine,’ Poe said. ‘Tilly says the fugu neurotoxin works within fifteen minutes and Cummings was in the bath longer than that.’

‘It’s been triple-checked,’ Flynn replied. ‘It isn’t.’

They were in a heated mobile command and control centre. It was parked at the end of Cummings’s street. The rat-tat-tat of rain on the roof was giving Poe a headache, but at least they were dry. He had asked why they weren’t allowed in the building and Detective Chief Superintendent Alice Mathers, the senior investigating officer, had told him the residents were already complaining about the police presence in their area. Poe got the impression this was a street with connections. He didn’t blame her for moving. Some battles weren’t worth winning, never mind fighting.

‘Everything else in the bathroom has been checked?’ Poe asked, sipping tea from a mug stamped with a Metropolitan Police Service logo.

Flynn nodded.

‘Even the soap?’

‘Custom made and very expensive, but there was nothing wrong with it. All of his toiletries were checked.’

‘His razor? Maybe he nicked himself, put it into his bloodstream that way.’

‘That seems unlikely, Poe. This guy warned Cummings he was going to be poisoned – I doubt he was relying on a shaving cut.’

Poe sighed. ‘Yeah, I know.’

‘But we checked it anyway,’ Flynn said.

‘And?’

‘Clean. Everything in the bathroom was clean. Everything intheflatwas clean. I’ll get you a copy of the inventory but you won’t find anything.’

Poe considered what that meant. Decided only an unpalatable truth remained. ‘Someone on his residential security detail slipped him a Mickey then,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing left.’

‘I thought that would be the conclusion you came to.’

‘Because it’s where you ended up as well?’

Flynn nodded.

‘How were they selected for this job?’ Poe said. ‘Were any of them volunteers?’

‘We don’t think so. It seems they were assigned.’

‘By?’

‘By someone we’re checking out,’ Flynn said. ‘I’ve asked Tilly to draw up profiles on anyone who had prior contact in any capacity with Harrison Cummings.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Where she always is – trying to find a wi-fi signal.’

‘Anything come out of the PM?’

‘The only thing in his stomach was the wine, and the toxicology report confirmed it was tetrodotoxin found in the livers of fugu pufferfish that killed him.’

‘Have we had sight of Kane Hunt’s PM report yet?’

‘We have,’ Flynn said. ‘Same shit. Other than the hyoscine there was nothing of note in his system. Not even sildenafil.’

‘Which is?’

‘Viagra. Hunt had suffered from erectile dysfunction since his twenties. Morgan Soames hit him with it during her interview.’