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‘Did you get the post-mortem reports to her?’ Poe asked.
‘I did. Do you think that’s why she wants to see you?’
‘Possibly. Can you ask her? Because if it is, I can justify seeing her.’
‘I’ll pass it on,’ Ania said. ‘You’ll keep me updated?’
‘I will.’
Poe picked up the file again. Returned to the photographs of the office. Of Elcid Doyle, dead in his chair. The fresh snow with only one set of footprints. Estelle Doyle’s arrest photographs. Side on and facing the camera. She looked defiant but vulnerable. There were pictures of her hands, including a couple taken after they had been bagged to preserve the firearms discharge residue evidence. He paused on the photograph takenbeforethe paper evidence bags had covered her hands. There was something wrong with it but he couldn’t work out what. It was just a hand. A delicate hand. A handskilled with a scalpel. Pale with blue veins. Crimson nail polish, flawlessly applied. He flicked back to a picture of her face and confirmed the nail polish was the same colour as her lipstick.
‘You got a minute, you two?’ he said to Bradshaw and Stahl.
They got up off their knees. He showed them the photograph of Doyle’s hands.
‘You notice anything odd about this?’
‘Who is it?’ Stahl said, taking a pair of reading glasses from his top pocket.
‘They’re Estelle Doyle’s hands, Henning Stahl,’ Bradshaw said. ‘She’s a pathologist who Poe likes to work with. She’s on remand for murdering her father but Poe says she didn’t do it. He’s asked me to explain how someone could have travelled across fresh snow without leaving footprints. If I can’t, then Estelle Doyle will be found guilty.’
‘Have a look at this photograph,’ Poe said. ‘Tell me what you see.’
Bradshaw studied it. Stahl went back to checking the acetone lists.
‘Nothing curious, Poe,’ Bradshaw said after a few moments. ‘Do you think they might be someone else’s hands?’
Poe frowned. He didn’t think that was it. He’d spent a lot of time watching Doyle’s hands as she sliced into the cadavers he sent her. They were definitely hers. And, although he was certain she was being set up, he had no reason to suspect a Northumbrian cop was behind it.
‘They’re her hands, Tilly,’ he said. ‘No doubt about that.’ He put the photograph back in the file and closed it. ‘I’m tired, it’s probably nothing.’
‘You have good instincts, Poe,’ Bradshaw said. ‘We’ll have another look when we’ve finished with the acetone purchases, won’t we, Henning Stahl?’
But Stahl didn’t answer. Poe glanced at him. He seemed trans-fixed by one of the pages. He was holding it like it was radioactive.
‘What do you have there, Henning?’ Poe asked quietly.
He looked at him blankly.
‘What does Mr Stahl have in his hand, Tilly?’ Poe said.
‘It’s a page from the box of people who made a one-off purchase of acetone.’
‘And?’
Stahl came out of whatever fugue state he was in. He jabbed his finger at one of the names on the list.
‘I know this man,’ he said.
