Page 34 of The Final Vow

‘Only sort of?’

‘In that it’s mainlyincorrect. The dice the US Navy use in their wargaming are pentagonal trapezohedrons, not icosahedrons.’

‘Pente?’ Poe said. ‘Isn’t that Greek for five?’

‘It is, Poe. Pentagonal trapezohedrons have five planes on each side, ten in total. The US Navy used them in pairs as percentile dice. You throw a pair, and you get a percentage.’

‘He’snota military strategist then?’

Bradshaw shrugged. ‘I don’t know. RPGs aren’t all dragons and goblins and magic suits of armour. Some of themdodeal with strategy.Spycraftis an obvious one. It deals with modern-age espionage.’

Mathers leaned back in her chair. She put her hands behind her head and looked at the command trailer’s ceiling. ‘OK, how do I develop this into an actionable line of enquiry? I can’t possibly investigate every person who’s playedDungeons & Dragonsbut, as it’s the only lead I have, neither can I ignore it.’

Bradshaw put her hand up.

‘Yes, Tilly?’ Mathers said.

‘I have an idea, Commander Mathers,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Poe and I go to the UK Games Expo.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘It’s the largest tabletop games convention in the UK and it’s on this weekend. And it’s not just for hobbyists, all aspects of the industry attend. FromDungeons & Dragonsto fledgling companies wanting start-up capital, every business involved in the TTRPG community will have a stall there. It’s the only weekend of the year when they’ll all be under the same roof.’

‘You think the sniper might attend?’

Bradshaw shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. He might, I suppose. But that’s not why we would go.’

‘Oh?’

‘No, we would go to get the mailing list of every TTRPG company that attends. I’ll bet you my dinner the killer is on one of those lists. I only playWarlocks & Witchesyet I’m on forty-seven mailing lists.’

‘You are? Why?’

‘Because it’s not just the games manufacturers and organising bodies who attend, it’s the companies that make miniatures and costumes. The replica weapons and the souvenir T-shirts. Trust me, if he’s a TTRPG player, he’ll be on one of those mailing lists. Probably more than one.’

Mathers said, ‘How many names are we talking about, Tilly?’

‘Probably hundreds of thousands,’ she replied.

‘That’s far too many. If it were one or two thousand, I could allocate a team to it. But checking hundreds of thousands of names can’t be done.’

‘I’m not proposing we check the names, Commander Mathers,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I’m proposing we collate the list then you run them through the police national computer and the police national database.’

‘And what will you do?’

‘I’ll run the list through some of the watchlists I now have access to. If he’s come to the attention of either the police or the security services, we’ll get a match.’

‘There’ll be more than one match,’ Poe said. ‘One in three men in the UK has a criminal record. It’s still too many.’

Mathers stood. ‘Not if we restrict the offences to ones that are indicative of a propensity for violence. In other words, we remove minor road traffic offences and drunk and disorderly arrests from when they were students. Keep in things like arsonand torturing animals. Tilly, can you help narrow down the list of offences?’

Bradshaw nodded. ‘I can, Commander Mathers.’

‘Just how big is this convention?’

‘There’ll be at least twenty thousand people there. It’s held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.’

‘And you think you and Poe can cover it all?’