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Chapter 25
Bradshawleft to oversee the forensic examination of Price’s computers. Poe didn’t expect her to find a step-by-step blueprint of how he had done it, but Price was a cop, not a scientist. He would have had to research something.
‘What do you want to do now?’ Flynn said.
‘Have a poke around Cummings’s flat, I suppose.’
‘The search team were pretty thorough. What we looking for?’
‘Whatever it is they missed.’
‘Where do you want to start?’
‘The bathroom.’
Flynn snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.
‘Let’s get started then,’ she said.
The crime scene manager’s video hadn’t done Cummings’s bathroom justice. It was even more ostentatious than Poe had thought, a mish-mash of clashing styles and ideas. Like some Roman and Greek and Spanish designers had put glue on the walls then kept spewing taps, spigots and mirrors until enough of them had stuck.
Poe checked the medicine cabinet first. It was empty. CSI had taken everything. The shelf under the vanity mirror was empty too.
‘You got a list of what was in the cabinet?’
Flynn read from her phone. ‘Spare toothpaste. Floss. Spare soap. Spare shampoo. Aspirin and antacids. Some fungal cream. Box of pills. Few other odds and sods. Usual shit.’
‘What pills?’
‘Statins,’ Flynn said. ‘The family had a history of cardiovascular disease.’
‘They’ve been checked?’
‘They have. Clean. As soon as he received the death threat he chucked the ones he had and sent one of his security detail out with a new prescription.’
‘Wasn’t Price who collected the prescription, was it?’
‘Nope. Someone else.’
‘What about the candles? Maybe there was something in the wax or on the wick … Candle burns down and poof – dead Member of Parliament.’
‘Tilly says that’s impossible, but CSI took them all.’
‘Just leaves this monstrosity then.’
The sunken bath was bigger than Poe’s bathroom but was surrounded by so many vases, candles and tat it looked cramped. It dominated the room and was clearly more than just something to sink into at the end of a long day.
‘The water he died in has been collected and tested?’
‘Along with the shampoo and that ridiculously expensive soap,’ Flynn replied. ‘Even his dressing gown and towels were taken away.’
Poe, who had never paid more than fifty pence for a bar of soap in his life, said, ‘How much is “ridiculously expensive”?’
‘At least a hundred quid.’
‘Just when I thought I couldn’t dislike him more.’
‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ Flynn said. ‘The best you can say about him is he didn’t deny himself anything. He was an out and out hedonist.’
