Page 35 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Towler shook his finger. ‘Careful what you say there, missy. That was never proven and my friend was later exonerated. I left the force without a blemish on my record.’

Bradshaw blew a raspberry. ‘Oh, pur-lease ,’ she said.

‘Everyone knows it was you. No one knows why you did it, but you definitely did.’ She moved her finger over the laptop’s trackpad.

Brought up a new page. ‘He moved from job to job for a while, Poe. Private security in the Middle East, in Africa—’

‘And now the UK,’ Poe cut in.

Bradshaw frowned. ‘This is odd,’ she said. ‘He started working for Mr Arreghini twenty-two months ago.’

‘Why’s that odd, Tilly? That’s what Archie said when I spoke to him.’

‘No, it’s what he did before that’s odd, Poe.’

Poe glanced at Towler. A smile was dancing across his lips. As if he was in on the joke and you weren’t. ‘And what did he do before, Tilly?’

‘That’s just it. I don’t know. He either dropped off the grid and had no employment whatsoever or . . .’ She bit her lip, looked at Towler and frowned. She then closed her laptop.

‘Or what, Tilly?’

‘Do you want a slice of mango, Poe?’ Bradshaw passed him her fruit bowl. ‘It’s fresh and has a lot of fibre. It’ll help you move your bowels.’

Towler sniggered.

‘Tilly, he either dropped off the grid or what?’ Poe said, ignoring the tall idiot.

‘Eat the mango, Poe.’

‘What did Towler do before he worked for Mr Arreghini, Tilly?’

‘Stop being such a fusspot, Poe,’ she replied. ‘I told you, I don’t know.’

Poe let it go. Maybe it was something Bradshaw didn’t want to say in front of Towler. Maybe it was something else. He’d find out later. He and Bradshaw didn’t have secrets.

‘You asked what I was doing here,’ Towler said.

‘I did.’

‘Mr Arreghini asked me to keep an eye on the investigation, and as you two seem to be the only ones with fresh ideas, it seemed a logical place to start.’

‘We can’t share anything,’ Poe said.

‘Don’t need you to,’ Towler said. ‘The bookworm—’

‘She’s called Miss Bradshaw.’

‘But you can call me Tilly.’

‘The bookworm figured out that the sniper’s choosing his location based on throwing a pair of twenty-sided dice and you came here as it’s where the dorks who use twenty-sided dice hang out. I take it you’re after their mailing lists?’

‘We are,’ Bradshaw said.

‘Tilly . . .’ Poe warned.

Bradshaw waved him off. ‘I think we should trust Mr Towler, Poe.’

‘Tilly, we have a track record of not trusting anyone. Why would we trust a crook’s bodyguard?’

‘Because he has an honest face.’

‘OK, what’s going—’

‘Have some mango, Poe.’

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 canonical D&D works.’

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’re Dungeons & Dragons fans?’

Bradshaw nodded.

Towler gestured towards the D&D stage. 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.

‘The D&D mailing 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 the D&D mailing 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 Club and Trail 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 was not targeted.’

‘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?’

‘You asking me or telling me?’

Towler ignored the sarcasm. ‘What kind?’

Poe told him.

Towler nodded approvingly. ‘That’s where you’ll catch him then,’ he said.

He drained his tea, took a slice of mango and popped it in his mouth.

‘I need to be away. Try to stay out of trouble, kids.’ He took in the Dungeons & Dragons stage queue.

He shook his head again. ‘Do you know something? If they were playing that film on the inside of my eyelids, I’d tape my fucking eyes open. ’