Page 16 of The Killer’s Mark

‘That won’t be a problem.’

‘I’ll send you a list of things to look for.’

When Poe ended the call, Malloy said, ‘What won’t be a problem?’

His phone pinged immediately. He read Bradshaw’s text.

‘I need everything you own that comes with a charging cable. Phones, tablets, your laptop and this desktop—’

‘You can’t take the desktop! It belongs to the hotel!’

‘Please don’t interrupt me, Mr Malloy; I’m only halfway through my list. I need any games consoles you have access to, and if the TV in your room is a smart TV, I’m taking that too.’

The room went quiet. Malloy broke the silence. ‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘No, I don’t. But let me respond by asking if you have a meltproof face?’

‘Pardon?’

‘That’s what they do to child sex offenders in prison. They add sugar to boiling water and use this prison napalm to attack the “beasts”.’

Malloy paled. Then he grinned and wagged his finger. ‘Nice try, Mr Poe. Even if Esmerée is fifteen, nothing happened. Nothing that can be proved, anyway. It’ll be my word against hers and a jury of my peers will find reasonable doubt.’

‘Are you stark raving mad? You have scratch marks on your face, and she has your DNA underneath her fingernails. In my old world, that’s called “indisputable physical evidence” and the CPS fucking love it. They’ll take that case and they’ll press for the maximum charge because indisputable physical evidence is what they call a slam-dunk. It trumps everything else.’ Poe held up his phone. Malloy stared at it. Poe took a photograph. ‘Ooh, that’s a good one. You kept still and everything.’

Malloy looked as though he might try to grab the phone.

Poe said, ‘I wouldn’t, mate.’ He slipped it back in his pocket.

Malloy’s cockiness collapsed like his face muscles had been severed.

‘If I give you my electronic devices, you won’t call the police?’

‘That’s up to Esmerée. If she wants to press charges, you’re screwed. Literally, if you end up on the general population wing of a Cat A prison. If she doesn’t want to press charges, we might be able to work something out. You’ll never be allowed unsupervised access to children again, though.’

‘But I work in the service industry!’

‘Not any more, you don’t,’ Poe said.

Chapter 10

Poe got back to Cowie House around noon. He parked on the double yellow lines and hauled all of Adam Malloy’s electronic bullshit up to their office. It took him three trips. There had been laptops, desktops and a smart TV to collect. Numerous handheld devices.

‘I’ll get all this connected and run my programs,’ Bradshaw said.

‘How long?’

‘I hooked up the laptop first. We can check that now. The rest will be ready in an hour.’

‘Malloy said he’d been watching porn all evening and he couldn’t remember which one was showing when he coerced Esmerée into his room. He thought he’d invited her in – his words, not mine – around eight p.m. Does that sound about right, Esmerée?’

She nodded. ‘I’d just had my supper. Cook made me an omelette that tasted like it came out of a horse’s butt.’

Esmerée had wandered into Cowie House as though no one had been scouring the streets of Carlisle for her the night before. Which, of course, from her perspective they hadn’t. She’d spent the day hammering Adam Malloy’s credit cards. The way she figured it, she’d had to leave Musgrave Hall in a hurry, so he was responsible for replacing all of her ‘shit’. Bradshaw had back-doored her way into the credit card company and told Poe that as well as taking a suite at the Crown and Mitre, Esmerée had bought clothes, an iPad, an iPhone and some make-up. Poe was disappointed. He’d hoped she’d have spent more. Malloy wasn’t going to report his card missing any time soon.

‘OK,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I’ll highlight the material between seven thirty and eight thirty. You’ll just need to click the links I send.’

‘We’ll watch them together,’ Esmerée said. ‘It’ll be quicker that way. I didn’t see much of my mom, as she was wearing a mask, but the senile lardass clapping cheeks with her had more blond hair than Johnny Bravo.’