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Chapter 97
‘Doyou think Tilly can crack this?’ Tai-young Lee asked.
‘If she can’t, it can’t be cracked,’ Poe replied.
Poe had dragged a chair from another room and was sitting behind Elcid Doyle’s desk. CSI still had the chair he had died in. Lee was in the wingback armchair by the fire. Bradshaw had put a stool in front of the strong room’s keypad and was methodically working her way through a list of possible combinations.
‘And if we finally get it open, so what?’ Lee said. ‘The shotguns are either there or they aren’t. I fail to see how this helps you.’
She had a point. Howdidthe locked strong room help them?
‘It’s the only thing we have left,’ he said eventually. ‘Leaving it closed means Estelle gets a life sentence.’
‘Why are you so sure she didn’t do it?’
‘Why are you so sure she did?’
‘Because the evidence supports it.’
‘Not all of it. Some of it is contradictory.’
‘No case is perfect, you know that. There are always unanswered questions.’
‘Like, how someone can throw a handgun seventy yards?’
‘Like that, yes.’
She took a swig from a bottle of water. She offered it to Poe. He shook his head.
‘So,’ she said, ‘what’sreallygoing on here?’
‘Cards-on-the-table time, is it?’
She glanced over at a muttering Bradshaw. ‘It seems we have time,’ she said. ‘Be honest – are you trying to exonerate Professor Doyle or are you just throwing shit at the case to sow reasonable doubt?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’ve been told you’re the last honest cop. That you follow the evidence where it takes you, regardless of the personal cost.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘We both know the Botanist wasn’t in this room. What possible reason could he have had? All you’ve done up here is annoy me and embarrass Chief Superintendent Mathers.’
‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ Poe said.
‘What?’
‘Itwasyou who leaked that photo of me and Tilly visiting Estelle at HMP Low Newton, wasn’t it? I don’t actually blame you – if someone was interfering with my case I’d do what was needed to get them to stop.’
‘You still think that?’ she said. ‘I told you, we had nothing to do with it.’
Poe said nothing.
‘Seriously, Poe, we didn’t. And believe me I checked. All of DC Bowness’s phones were forensically examined and came back clean. He didn’t take a photograph. And even if he had, we wouldn’t have impeded a major investigation in London just to get you to back off.’
‘Who the hell did then? You say it wasn’t you – OK, I believe you. But it not being you doesn’t make sense.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said. ‘Unless …’
