Page 104 of The Killer’s Mark

‘You can trust me. You can trust Estelle and you can trust Tilly.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘When you get older, you’ll realise that being able to trust even one person is a gift.’

‘What about Ladder Legs?’

‘I trust Matt Towler,’ Poe said. ‘I haven’t known him long, though.’

‘I haven’t been able to see the guys he’s got watching the house, even though I look out my bedroom window every single night.’

‘If you could see them, Matt wouldn’t use them. But rest assured they’re there.’

‘We should moon them.’

Poe smiled. ‘Let’s not and say we did.’

Esmerée giggled. ‘You’re all right, Poe.’ She spooned in another sugar. ‘How about you root through these, remove the ones where she is butt-naked. We can look at them together.’

‘OK,’ Poe said.

Chapter 85

‘Tell me what it is you’re doing again,’ Esmerée said. ‘I need to learn this shit.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t stay here for ever. And because I don’t officially exist, I can’t apply to med school like the doc did. I heard you telling that butthead Gilliard that private dicks in this country don’t need no licence. I figure I could maybe be one. Maybe I could even work for you and Tilly. You know, like an apprentice?’

Poe put down his mug. ‘Listen, Esmerée,’ he said. ‘I will get to the bottom of who you are. And if you don’t like what I find, then so what? Tilly will give you a new identity. You will exist, and it’ll be in any form you want. If you want to study medicine, that’s what you’ll study. Any university in the country. In the world.’

‘What if I don’t want to be a pathologist, though?’ she said. ‘Will Estelle not be pissed?’

‘No. She’ll be happy if you are.’ He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me, being a detective is much more fun than being a doctor anyway. Don’t tell the boss I said that, obviously.’

He turned over the sheaf of documents. He’d been through them and either removed the pornographic ones or put Post-it notes over the performers’ genitals. ‘No peeping,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me what you see.’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then how the hell can I find it?’

‘Welcome to my world, kiddo,’ he said. ‘A case like this is a giant jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes you’ll have the right bit in your hand, but it’ll look like the wrong bit. You think it’s sea but really it’s sky. You could stare at this bit of the puzzle a gazillion times, but until you put it next to another piece of sky, it won’t make sense. And it won’t provide the answer. If we’re lucky, it’ll show us the next question to ask. Sometimes it’s something that’s not there, sometimes it’s something that’s there that shouldn’t be. The important thing is to keep going. To move forward. Cases die without momentum. Sometimes that momentum is this. Sitting at a table with a pot of strong coffee. Thinking of a question that no one’s thought to ask. So go on – have a look. Tell me what you see.’

Esmerée said nothing. She stood and took in the whole table. She leaned in and studied individual pictures. After ten minutes, she gathered up the crime-scene photos that Poe had taken at Mark Buckby’s house and put them to one side.

‘Why did you do that?’ Poe asked.

‘They ain’t relevant.’

‘I’m sure his family thinks differently.’

‘Yeah, yeah, it sucks to be them. My point is, he’s not relevant to us. Mark Buckby died because he knew the name of the man who recognised my pretend mom’s tattoo. That’s his only connection to the case. Therefore, he’s irrelevant.’

Poe nodded. ‘Cold, but true,’ he said. ‘What else?’

Esmerée went back to the table. She put the notes he’d taken after his conversation with Chance Ryzcek, the man who’d performed with Océane Blue, next to the notes and photographs from the interview with Toby Knight at Pure Pulse Productions. She pushed everything else aside.