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Cowell shook his head. ‘At first I thought my sister had hidden it. Trying to stop me practising before a meet. She’s done it before but she always returns it.’

‘But she didn’t this time?’

‘No. I was in the process of buying a new one. I was in Manchester a couple of days ago actually. Rhona and I stayed overnight and visited a few shops.’

That explained why his bin had been left out early: he hadn’t been home to put it out at the normal time. The unprompted mention of his sister reminded Poe that she’d run but Robert hadn’t. He was tempted to go off script and see if he could find out why.

Before he’d entered the room Poe had been watching Rhona Cowell’s interview on the monitor. When the police had broken down their door, she hadn’t long been out of the shower and her dark hair – beaded and braided close to her scalp in a style Bradshaw said was called cornrows – was still wet, like damp rope. The hair at the back of her neck clicked whenever her head moved. She had perched on the chair catlike, with her legs tucked under her and out of sight. Her smile was lazy and confident, like she was the only one who understood the punchline. Even in the shapeless forensic suit she was wearing, Poe could tell she was a beguiling woman. High cheekbones and clear skin. A natural beauty, the kind most often associated with supermodels from Nordic countries.

Unlike her brother, she had taken her own advice and said nothing. Not a word, not even to confirm her name.

Poe decided to leave it for now. Why she ran could wait until he had more leverage.

‘Do you know where we found your kite?’ he asked Cowell.

He shook his head.

‘For the tape, please.’

‘No.’

Poe upturned another photograph. This time it was the kite in situ. Not one of the rough-and-ready ones he’d snapped with his BlackBerry, this was a professional one taken by a CSI photographer on a raised platform.

‘It was up a tree in a wood on the outskirts of Dalston. Does that ring a bell?’

‘No.’

Poe turned over the next photograph. It was a close up of lines tangled around the trunk. A knot could be clearly seen.

‘To me it looks as though it’s been tied up there. Would you agree, Robert?’

Cow

ell nodded.

‘For the tape.’

‘I agree. It does look as though it has been tied up there. What’s this have to do with me, though? I told you, my kite was stolen weeks ago.’

Poe showed Cowell more photographs. This time they were of the view taken from the tree. One of them was a long-range shot of Rebecca Pridmore’s back garden.

‘And would you also agree that where this kite had been tied to the tree offered a perfect view of this house?’

‘I would.’

‘So what would you say if I told you that the owner of this house, a woman called Rebecca Pridmore, was murdered just before Christmas?’

Cowell’s eyes widened. His mouth opened.

‘Murdered?’

‘And mutilated.’ Poe rooted through the file and showed him a photograph of Rebecca’s fingers on the carpet tiles at John Bull Haulage.

Cowell clamped his eyes shut.

‘These were left under the Christmas tree in an office in Carlisle. They were found on December twenty-fourth.’

Poe tucked the photograph away. Showing disturbing crime scene photographs, even to the perpetrator, could be viewed as intimidation if done excessively.