Page 11 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Mathers beckoned them over.

‘He’s called,’ she said.

‘I knew he would,’ Poe said.

Bradshaw rolled her eyes. ‘No, you said—’

‘We can laugh at Poe later, Tilly,’ Flynn cut in. ‘Who took the call, ma’am?’

‘No one,’ Mathers replied. ‘It was left on someone’s voicemail not fifteen minutes ago. A North Yorkshire detective called Neil Munro.’

‘How did he get his number?’ Poe said.

‘A question for later, I think.’ She nodded at the man hovering over his computer. ‘Let’s hear it again.’

A mechanical voice filled the room.

‘I’m the man who’s culling the herd. The man who’s causing the dip in GDP.’ There was ten seconds of static. ‘I’m the man leaving his empties at each firing position. And I’m the man sprinkling sugar so the wee beasties make recovering my DNA all but impossible.’

Poe and Flynn glanced at each other. Wee beasties? Very Scottish.

The voice continued. ‘Now you have my credentials, here are the rules of the game. Rule one: I keep killing until you stop me. Rule two: I keep killing until you stop me. I know technically that’s the same rule, but it’s such an important one I thought it was worth mentioning twice.

Rule three: and here’s where it gets interesting.

Despite what you might think, I’m not a monster.

I want this to be a fair contest between bat and ball.

And to make it fair, I leave a clue at each scene.

A very small clue. If you’re good enough, they’ll lead you to my identity. ’ He paused. ‘Until later.’

The room went silent.

Poe broke it. ‘Either he’s using voice-distorting software, or we’ve just heard from WALL-E.’

‘I thought you didn’t have a TV?’ Mathers said. ‘How the hell do you know who WALL-E is?’

Poe looked accusingly at Bradshaw. ‘You’d be surprised at the useless shi . . . stuff I know now, ma’am. But my point is, voice-distorting software is another line of enquiry.’

‘It’s not,’ Bradshaw said. ‘There are hundreds of open-source programs out there. Unless he’s as stupid as a chemistry teacher, he’ll have downloaded one.’

‘Untraceable then?’

‘Yes, Poe.’

Mathers sighed. ‘We’ll run down official purchases anyway,’ she said. ‘But Tilly’s right; this is a dead end.’

‘Do we know where he was calling from?’ Poe said.

‘We’re working on it,’ the man on the computer said. ‘It’ll take time as it was left on a voicemail.’

‘At least he’s made contact,’ Flynn said. ‘Because Poe was kind of making sense; there was no upside to getting in touch. Only downsides.’

‘It’s how he asserts his dominance, DCI Flynn,’ Bradshaw said.

‘The BTK serial killer was caught after he sent a floppy disc to a television station, the Zodiac Killer left ciphers, and Son of Sam sent a letter to one of the police officers trying to catch him. It’s his way of showing that he’s in charge, not us. ’

‘He wanted us to know he’s leaving clues at each scene,’ Mathers said. ‘Clues we’ve somehow managed to miss.’

‘Which probably annoyed him,’ Flynn said.

‘Particularly if he’s put time and effort into them.’

‘We need to start at the beginning, ma’am,’ Flynn said. ‘We’ll visit each scene, see what he’s left for us.’

‘Poe, you’re being uncharacteristically quiet,’ Mathers said.

Poe was rooting through a directory he’d found on the computer guy’s desk, ran his finger down a list of names. He stopped, grimaced, then said, ‘That’s because revisiting the scenes would be a colossal waste of time, ma’am.’

Mathers blinked in surprise. ‘I’m assuming that’s not hyperbole?’

‘No, ma’am. Looking for secret clues would be a colossal waste of time because the person who left that message isn’t the killer.’

‘Who did leave the voicemail then?’

Poe held her eye. He said, ‘Wearside Jack.’