Page 46 of The Final Vow

Poe scowled.

‘How are you getting on with the mailing lists?’ Towler said. ‘Did you get everything you need?’

‘We were doing OK until the Norse Pantheon surrounded me and started being rude,’ Bradshaw said.

‘I thought they were supposed to be Vikings?’ Poe said.

‘They are, Poe. The Norse Pantheon are a group of deities who appear in several canonicalD&Dworks.’

Poe considered the men who had surrounded Bradshaw. They’d looked more like sex tourists than Nordic gods. The kind of men who got their wives from catalogues. ‘They’reDungeons & Dragonsfans?’

Bradshaw nodded.

Towler gestured towards theD&Dstage. It was easily the most popular. The queue to see the actors from the recent film and the spin-off television series snaked around the inside of the main arena. The fans loved the actors and the actors pretended to love the fans. ‘I guess that nerd-circle jerk is the payload?’ he said. ‘TheD&Dmailing list will be an amalgamation of almost every other list.’

Poe raised his eyebrows.

Towler shrugged. ‘I have a daughter who likes goofy shit.’

‘She’s called Abigail,’ Bradshaw said.

‘Abi,’ Towler confirmed.

‘And I already have theD&Dmailing list. We’re only here in person to make sure there are no games in the start-up or beta phase I was unaware of.’

‘Were there?’

‘Poe found two.The Liar’s ClubandTrail of Tears. I’ve already accessed their mailing lists. We’ll have a walk through the convention centre to make sure we haven’t overlooked any when Poe’s finished his mango.’

‘Then you’ll start crosschecking the lists against your databases?’

‘I will.’

‘Which includes the names your boss sent over?’ Poe said.

Towler shook his head. ‘That’s the wrong tree to bark up.’

‘We still haven’t confirmed he wasn’t targeted.’

‘The random nature of dice throwing means he wasn’t,’ Towler said.

‘That’s an unproven theory,’ Poe said. ‘We still haven’t ruled out Mr Arreghini’s . . . life choices being behind his daughter’s death.’

‘Look somewhere else, Poe. My boss wasnottargeted.’

‘I think we should trust Mr Towler,’ Bradshaw said.

‘All right, you’re being very weird, Tilly,’ Poe said. ‘That’s the second time you’ve said that – and stop pushing that plate of mango towards me. I’m not eating it. I hate tropical fruit.’

‘You’ve found where he’s zeroing his rifle,’ Towler said.

There didn’t seem to be any point denying it. Archie Arreghini was getting his intelligence in real time, and he was passing it straight to Towler. He was better informed than most of the cops on the investigation. ‘Police Scotland did.’

‘On your hunch.’

Poe shrugged. ‘We came with fresh eyes.’

‘They’ve set up trail cameras?’