Page 56
Story: The Curator (Washington Poe)
The CSI technician recorded each individual piece of rubbish Poe picked up. Poe didn’t know what he was looking for, only that he’d know it when he saw it. To that end he didn’t have a system – he just dove in and worked his way through.
To clear space and to keep the air as fresh as possible, Poe worked on the organic matter first. Other than confirming Cowell had a healthier diet than he did, it didn’t reveal anything useful. He soon had most of it bagged up again. Before long, the fetid stench of sour milk, mouldy vegetable peelings and rotten eggs faded.
Next he worked through what he considered normal household trash. Milk cartons, empty crisp packets, paper tissues – the kind of things he had in his own bin at Herdwick Croft. This took a while longer as each piece had to be recorded, examined and catalogued. After an hour he took a break to change his gloves. He sniffed the soiled ones he’d discarded.
‘You don’t see this on the recruitment posters, Tilly: join the police and poke around someone’s rubbish. Try not to stick your finger through a bag of week-old dog shit while you’re at it.’
‘Yuk,’ Bradshaw said, her nose wrinkled. ‘I didn’t even know he had a dog.’
‘I didn’t either.’ He sniffed the discarded glove again. ‘But that’s definitely shit.’
After a cup of tea they walked up to the dog section to see Edgar. He seemed to be enjoying himself. The springer spaniels were on an unstructured play session and there was no dog better at playing than Edgar. He yelped with excitement when he saw them both. A dog handler threw in a punctured football and Edgar lost interest as he joined the scramble to reach it first.
‘Charming,’ Poe said.
Back in the CSI room, Poe suited up and opened the next evidence bag. Bradshaw took up station at her laptop. So far he hadn’t passed her anything. He hoped to soon. He was tired of being sweaty and grimy, and he was tired of looking through stuff that had no bearing on anything. So far his gamble wasn’t paying off. He decided to sod logic and just stick his hand in until he could pass her something to examine.
His hand touched some papers. They must have been at the bottom of the bin as they were stuck together and stained with tea or coffee. Poe handed them to the CSI technician who separated and photographed them before passing them to Bradshaw.
For an hour they worked their way through the second of the three evidence bags. Bradshaw kept up a steady stream of chatter as they did. He suspected it was keeping her mind off the smell. She asked him what Flynn might call her baby. Poe had no idea. He still couldn’t get his head around the idea that his boss would soon have an infant to care for.
‘I think they should call him Bruce if he’s a boy and Diana if she’s a girl. They’d be cool choices.’
‘They wouldn’t happen to be superhero names, would they?’ he said.
No answer.
‘I bet they are.’
Again, no answer.
Poe looked up but Bradshaw wasn’t listening.
Instead she was poring over images on her laptop screen. What looked like the lens and clip from a small head-torch were slotted over the end of her iPhone. A lead connected the phone to her laptop.
‘What’s that on your phone, Tilly?’
‘It’s a macro lens, Poe,’ she said without looking up. ‘It transforms the camera into a digital microscope. I’ve been able to take detailed photographs at times twenty-one magnification.’
‘Of?’
But she was back in her mind again, oblivious to the outside world. Poe kept quiet and let her work.
Eventually she raised her hand and punched the air in triumph.
‘Yes!’ she said.
And then she told him why.
And everything changed.
Chapter 37
Poe had once been asked why the police made arrests so early in the morning. He’d replied that it was c
ommon sense – that dawn was the part of the day when the suspect was most likely to be home.
And officially there were other reasons.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56 (Reading here)
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138