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‘Nothing?’

Bradshaw shook her head.

‘So why did—’

‘His perception is his reality,’ Poe said. ‘Even if he didn’t have anything on his computer he could have been blackmailed over, he obviously thought he did.’

He and Bradshaw had already had this discussion. He privately agreed with Nightingale – that someone with nothing to hide couldn’t be easily threatened – but she’d persuaded him that vulnerable people didn’t have the same cognitive processes as him.

‘And that was enough to blackmail him into committing murder, was it?’ Nightingale said, shaking her head. ‘Please tell me it’s not that easy, Miss Bradshaw.’

‘I can,’ Bradshaw replied. ‘The administrator also applied similar techniques to Blue Whale. Between each challenge, which got progressively more serious, he had them watching videos. Instead of horror films though it was war crimes, beheadings and executions. Instead of desensitising them against pain and the fear of death, he desensitised them against violence and the consequences of violence.’

‘What were the other challenges?’

‘We’ve prepared a briefing pack, ma’am,’ Poe said, ‘but essentially the second and third were more of the same. Nuisance stuff mainly. It wasn’t until the fourth challenge that it started to get serious …’

Chapter 43

#BSC1, 2 and 3 had been low-level offences, annoying to anyone directly involved, but although they were on the wrong side of criminal behaviour, they weren’t on the wrong side of public opinion.

#BSC4 changed all that. When Robert Cowell had told Poe what he and Rhona had done, it had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to slap him in front of his solicitor.

Instead he’d called a break and walked up to the dog section to see Edgar. As he’d stroked the spaniel’s soft ears, he thought about what Cowell had told him. Had it been enough to set him on the path to murder?

Although he knew he might be biased, Poe thought if someone was capable of stealing a wounded soldier’s prosthetic limb they were probably capable of anything …

The Cowells had travelled across the A66 to Catterick Garrison and made their way to Phoenix House, the recovery centre run by Help for Heroes. Posing as family members they’d tricked their way into the hydrotherapy pool where Robert had stolen the trans-femoral prosthetic leg of a Royal Marine who’d had an above-knee amputation after stepping on a landmine in Helmand Province. Rhona had recorded him. The video was on the cloud and Cowell gave Poe the password.

As Cowell described posing for a selfie with the leg outside Phoenix House before discarding it in a ditch on the A66, Poe’s grip on the edge of the table tightened until his knuckles turned white. A marine’s independence, fly-tipped like a piss-stained mattress. Willpower aside, if Cowell had smirked once, or allowed his expression to be anything other than conciliatory, Poe didn’t think he’d have had it in him not to launch himself across the table and pull his face off.

‘Anyway, I’ve called North Yorkshire Police and they have a report on file,’ Poe told Nightingale. ‘Rhona Cowell still hasn’t said anything of substance but Robert has signed a statement saying they were both involved so you should be able to bring charges against them both. Even if she denies it, you can hear her egging him on in the video.’

Nightingale nodded in satisfaction. Although Robert Cowell wasn’t going anywhere, things hadn’t been quite as clear-cut for Rhona. They suspected joint enterprise but without evidence she could easily have walked. The theft of the marine’s leg changed all that. Rhona Cowell had more chance of finding a one-ended stick than making bail.

‘What was the fifth challenge, Sergeant Poe?’ the chief constable said.

‘What was the fifth challenge, Robert?’ Poe had asked.

Cowell’s cheeks flushed. He swallowed a couple of times.

‘We played a joke on someone,’ he said.

Poe took some details then stopped the interview. What Cowell had described wasn’t a joke; it was the abduction of a child. Poe checked with the detective inspector observing. There had been an abduction. A five-year-old girl called Lucy had been taken from Chance’s Park in Carlisle. Although she’d been returned unharmed a few hours later, there was still an ongoing police investigation.

The cop leading the abduction investigation was called Rachael Carrigan-King. Poe had known her when he’d been with Cumbria Constabulary. She was a solid, no-frills detective inspector. She’d asked to see Poe before she went in to speak to Cowell.

‘Is he full of it?’

Poe had shrugged. ‘Hard to say. He’s cooperating now but that could be him attempting to condition us before he starts denying the more serious stuff.’

‘Do you believe he abducted my victim?’

‘I believe Robert and his sister abducted someone. Rhona Cowell isn’t talking but Robert has already admitted they stole a Royal Marine’s prosthetic leg and I’ve confirmed that offence took place. A DC from North Yorkshire is on his way now to interview him.’

‘It must be my victim then,’ Carrigan-King had said. ‘Lucy’s our only open abduction investigation.’

‘And she wasn’t harmed?’