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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.