Page 120 of The Killer’s Mark

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Poe said. ‘You told them I knew where she was. Why?’

‘I thought you did,’ she said. ‘You’ve met with people we can’t find and others we don’t even know about. You’ve been withholding information from the NCA’s Organised Crime Command from the start. Is it any wonder I thought you knew which rock Océane Blue was hiding under?’

‘But I don’t,’ Poe said.

‘Then you’re screwed. And you can’t bullshit them into telling you where the daughter is without producing the mother. The proof will have to be absolute. They’re too good at this, too practised.’

‘Can’t we just take someone else?’ Towler said. ‘Fake it till we make it?’

Poe shook his head. ‘They know what she looks like; we don’t.’

‘You still don’t know?’

Poe handed him a sheaf of photographs. The lighting photographs from the porn shoot with Chance Ryzcek. ‘This is the best we have.’

Towler flicked through them. ‘You know something, if you lined up my spotty arse with a load of other spotty arses, I doubt I could point mine out.’ He held up a photograph of Océane Blue, back to the camera. ‘I reckon I could pick hers out, though.’

‘I have a question I’d like to ask,’ Estelle said, her voice flat and listless. On the verge of giving up. ‘Is that OK, Poe?’

Poe said it was, and she flashed him a sad smile.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why did you do all this?’

Susan was still lying on Indica’s table, but she did her best to shrug. ‘I like nice things,’ she said.

Poe puffed out his cheeks before forcing the breath back out through his teeth. ‘It’s an answer, I suppose.’

‘I got in too deep,’ she continued. ‘I started the way every compromised cop starts. I was asked to provide a small piece of information. Something inconsequential. It wasn’t even restricted information. And they paid me a lot of money for it. Later on, I found out they already had what they wanted. They just needed leverage. Leverage to ask for the things they didn’t have. Stuff they couldn’t get.’

‘Tilly tells me you have over three million pounds in various bank accounts,’ Poe said. ‘You have properties in Manchester and Ipswich, and two in central London. You have seven safety deposit boxes.’

‘What are you implying?’

‘That you might have started out as their lackey, but you didn’t stay one. You’re now an integral part of the machine.’

‘I am. When the NCA first learned about the snuff movies, a task force was assembled. I told my Red Chamber handler and they promoted me to what they call a straw sandal. Essentially a liaison officer. It gave me a position; a financial stake. A piece of the action. I kept everyone safe. Told them where we were vulnerable to law enforcement countermeasures.’

‘Yet you don’t know where they’re holding Esmerée.’

‘That isn’t the kind of information I need, so it isn’t the information I get. Your only hope is to find Océane Blue. If you can show them you have her, there’s a chance you can get the girl back. It’s a slim chance, but it’s the only one you have.’

‘You’ll think of something, Poe,’ Bradshaw said. ‘One of us will think of something.’

Poe nodded. ‘We will, Tilly,’ he said. ‘We’ve been in tougher situations than this.’

‘We have, Poe.’

But Poe didn’t think they had. For once, he thought they were out of ideas. Out of hope.

He flicked his wrist, checked the time, but he’d left his watch in his office. It ticked loudly and he had needed to wait for Susan in silence. He pulled out his phone. Saw they had used almost twelve hours of their allotted forty-eight. He stared at his screen, willing something from it.

Which proved that sometimes a watched pot does boil.

Because his phone started to ring.

An unknown number.

Chapter 96