Page 90

Chapter 47

‘Wecan’t let him speak to the Botanist in this state,’ Chief Superintendent Mathers said. ‘He’s too drunk.’

She wasn’t wrong. Poe had found Stahl in the hotel bar, surrounded by empty glasses. It looked like he’d been having a party.

‘What choice do we have?’ he said. ‘Yes, he’s pissed, but so what? If the Botanist knows him, he’ll also know he’s an alcoholic. If he doesn’t know him, we can send him a scan of his liver.’

‘DI Flynn?’ Mathers said.

‘You’re right to be cautious, ma’am, but Poe’s also right. If we delay he might not call back. I think it’s a risk worth taking.’

‘Where’s Stahl now?’

‘Couple of rooms away,’ Poe said. ‘Doctor Mukherjee’s put an IV in him. He’s topping up his water, blood sugar and vitamin levels.’

‘That’ll sober him up?’

‘No idea. But he took one look at him and said he wanted to treat him for alcohol poisoning.’

Mathers put her head in her hands. ‘What a bloody mess,’ she said.

‘We have to at least try,’ Poe said. ‘You haven’t seen what’s happening out there. There are whackjobs on the street marching in support of him. Queuing up to buy Botanist T-shirts, like children waiting to see a garden-centre Santa.’

‘We know about the T-shirts. Amazon has agreed to remove anything with the Botanist on, but you know how entrepreneurial third-party sellers get on there. They’re avoiding the Amazon ban by selling T-shirts that don’t mention the Botanist at all. “Public Service Isn’t Murder” and “Send That Man A Poem” are the highest selling items of clothing today.’

‘And if he keeps choosing unsympathetic victims it’s only goingto get worse. He has a cult following now, imagine what’ll happen if he gets to Karen Royal-Cross? Most of the country will rejoice.’

Mathers groaned. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘we’ll let Stahl talk to him.’

‘And we have to change the narrative,’ Poe said.

‘How?’

Poe thought about what the Botanist was doing. He was targeting high-profile dickheads, something the UK had an unending supply of. The public wouldn’t turn on him unless he made a mistake and killed the wrong person. And so far he hadn’t put a foot wrong. Given what he was doing, that seemed unlikely.

‘I’m not buying the story he’s feeding, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to big him up, but he’s been flawless so far. Hasn’t left a shred of evidence and has killed exactly who he said he would.’

‘So?’

‘So, how the hell did he get so good?’

Mathers looked at him shrewdly.

‘He rehearsed,’ he continued. ‘That’s how. He practised on people who wouldn’t be missed.’

‘And given how connected the UK is, it wouldn’t be here,’ Mathers agreed. ‘While we do have a homeless population, people would notice if some of them went missing. Plus, where would he do it?’

‘Exactly. I live in one of the most sparsely populated corners of the UK and even there someone would notice if human experiments were going on. That’s too much risk for this guy.’

‘He rehearsed abroad then.’

‘That’s my guess. Somewhere remote.’

‘I’ll get a blue notice drafted. Get it circulated today.’

Poe nodded his approval. An Interpol blue notice was a request to locate, identify or obtain information on a person of interest in a criminal investigation. It would go out to almost two hundred countries. If the Botanist had left breadcrumbs abroad, a blue notice was the first step towards finding them.

The designated phone rang. They all looked at each other.

‘We ready?’ Mathers asked.

Poe and Flynn nodded.

She pressed answer and the voice of the Botanist filled the room.