The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  It was starting to get light – more a sensation than anything tangible. The birds knew first, of course, their chirps provoking many more. Melodious choruses without structure or pattern. Poe smiled. Anything seemed possible at dawn. It was a new day, a fresh page waiting to be written on.

  A burst of static came over the radio he’d been given. It was followed by a series of quiet instructions. Confirmations really. Everyone knew what they were doing at this point.

  Poe checked his watch.

  The arrest team was ready.

  ‘Go! Go! Go!’

  Police officers are like greyhounds: they have a natural chase instinct.

  If a member of the public runs, even one they have no interest in, the average cop is going to put their head down and take after them.

  So, when Robert Cowell’s sister jumped out of the bedroom window and ran, three cops sped after her. She was half-awake and dressed only in a T-shirt and knickers – the chasing cops were fully awake and flowing with adrenaline. The chase didn’t last long.

  Poe followed all this on the radio. Excited instructions yelled. Shouted requests for updates. And finally calm.

  ‘Suspect in custody, ma’am,’ a voice said. Poe recognised him as a sergeant from the briefing.

  ‘CSI to me, please,’ Nightingale replied. ‘Oh, and Poe, if you’re listening, you can come in as well.’

  A cop with a clipboard was already controlling egress and access to the house. The vans carrying Robert Cowell and his sister, Rhona, had already left. They’d been taken to Durranhill, Cumbria’s newest and most ridiculous-looking police station.

  Poe suited up and signed into the outer cordon. Nightingale was waiting for him.

  ‘He was awake but he didn’t resist,’ she said.

  ‘And the sister?’

  ‘She ran, as you might have heard. We don’t know why at this stage.’

  Neither of them stated the obvious: that they might have been in it together. A brother and sister killing spree unlike any seen before in the UK.

  ‘What do you think?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Oh, he did it,’ she replied. ‘And she either knew or she assisted him.’

  Poe raised his eyebrows.

  ‘There was a bit of a fuck up,’ Nightingale admitted. ‘Robert was being escorted out of the house when the cops returned with Rhona.’

  ‘And they spoke,’ Poe said. He didn’t phrase it as a question.

  ‘They did. Well, she did at least. She shouted “Don’t say anything” before anyone could stop her. Luckily the cops on Robert muffled his reply.’

  Poe considered this. In the grand scheme of things a successfully executed arrest where no one was hurt wasn’t a bad exchange for one small mistake.

  And it also looked like the Mole People had been right: Robert Cowell was their killer.

  The next question was why?

  Chapter 38

  There were four people in the room: Robert Cowell and his solicitor on one side of the table, Poe on the other. Bradshaw sat in a chair in the corner. Nightingale hadn’t been keen for a civilian to sit in on an interview but she hadn’t had a choice: Bradshaw was the only person who fully understood what she’d found.

  Bradshaw was nervous. Poe knew why: her filter between thought and speech had improved over the last year but she still blurted out things. She didn’t want to let anyone down.

  Poe had chosen the smallest and drabbest interview room available. He wanted Cowell to feel cramped and claustrophobic. Wanted him feeling as though the walls were closing in on him.

  Poe stared across the table.

  Although he knew that they mutated and evolved, Poe was forced to admit that Robert Cowell was the most unlikely serial killer he’d ever come across. A stringy bundle of nerves, he was tall and heron-like and paler than Bradshaw. He had arms like noodles and a voice like a cartoon mouse. His hair was dyed black and held in a low ponytail. He looked like the kind of man who’d had nosebleeds as a child.

  And he was terrified. Fidgety. Sweating. His rapid, blinking eyes were looking at anything but Poe. Far cry from the brazen killer they’d been chasing.

  Cowell’s solicitor was a grey-faced man named Jon Lear. He was frowning.

  Poe thought he knew why. So far, everyone Lear had dealt with had been wearing a uniform or a suit but Poe was wearing jeans and a jumper and Bradshaw was wearing cargo trousers and a superhero T-shirt. Black Panther this time. He must have realised they weren’t Cumbrian cops but he didn’t yet know who they worked for.

  Poe planted his elbows on the table like they were fence posts.

  ‘It’s been a while since I’ve spoken to someone whose life is in more of a mess than my own,’ he said.

  Poe laid down a photograph of the kite. As soon as Cowell had been taken into custody, CSI had recovered it and fast-tracked the lab work. The photograph on the table had been taken when the kite had been removed from the tree and straightened out.

  ‘This is your kite, yes?’ Poe said, pointing to the gold pterodactyl logos.

  Cowell picked up the photograph. His brow furrowed. Before Lear could stop him, he said, ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘We’ll get to that soon enough. Is it yours, Robert?’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw it?’

  ‘A few weeks ago. I had it outside drying and it was stolen.’

  Poe nodded. He’d anticipated this response – it was the only explanation available to him. They’d found photographs on Cowell’s computer of him flying it and his prints and DNA were all over the frames, grips and fabric.

  ‘Did you report the theft?’ Poe said. ‘A kite like that doesn’t come cheap, I understand.’

  Cowell shook his head. ‘At first I thought my sister had hidden it. Trying to stop me practising before a meet. She’s done it before but she always returns it.’

  ‘But she didn’t this time?’

  ‘No. I was in the process of buying a new one. I was in Manchester a couple of days ago actually. Rhona and I stayed overnight and visited a few shops.’

  That explained why his bin had been left out early: he hadn’t been home to put it out at the normal time. The unprompted mention of his sister reminded Poe that she’d run but Robert hadn’t. He was tempted to go off script and see if he could find out why.

  Before he’d entered the room Poe had been watching Rhona Cowell’s interview on the monitor. When the police had broken down their door, she hadn’t long been out of the shower and her dark hair – beaded and braided close to her scalp in a style Bradshaw said was called cornrows – was still wet, like damp rope. The hair at the back of her neck clicked whenever her head moved. She had perched on the chair catlike, with her legs tucked under her and out of sight. Her smile was lazy and confident, like she was the only one who understood the punchline. Even in the shapeless forensic suit she was wearing, Poe could tell she was a beguiling woman. High cheekbones and clear skin. A natural beauty, the kind most often associated with supermodels from Nordic countries.

  Unlike her brother, she had taken her own advice and said nothing. Not a word, not even to confirm her name.

  Poe decided to leave it for now. Why she ran could wait until he had more leverage.

  ‘Do you know where we found your kite?’ he asked Cowell.

  He shook his head.

  ‘For the tape, please.’

  ‘No.’

  Poe upturned another photograph. This time it was the kite in situ. Not one of the rough-and-ready ones he’d snapped with his BlackBerry, this was a professional one taken by a CSI photographer on a raised platform.

  ‘It was up a tree in a wood on the outskirts of Dalston. Does that ring a bell?’

  ‘No.’

  Poe turned over the next photograph. It was a close up of lines tangled around the trunk. A knot could be clearly seen.

  ‘To me it looks as though it’s been tied up there. Would you agree, Robert?’

  Cow
ell nodded.

  ‘For the tape.’

  ‘I agree. It does look as though it has been tied up there. What’s this have to do with me, though? I told you, my kite was stolen weeks ago.’

  Poe showed Cowell more photographs. This time they were of the view taken from the tree. One of them was a long-range shot of Rebecca Pridmore’s back garden.

  ‘And would you also agree that where this kite had been tied to the tree offered a perfect view of this house?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘So what would you say if I told you that the owner of this house, a woman called Rebecca Pridmore, was murdered just before Christmas?’

  Cowell’s eyes widened. His mouth opened.

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘And mutilated.’ Poe rooted through the file and showed him a photograph of Rebecca’s fingers on the carpet tiles at John Bull Haulage.

  Cowell clamped his eyes shut.

  ‘These were left under the Christmas tree in an office in Carlisle. They were found on December twenty-fourth.’

  Poe tucked the photograph away. Showing disturbing crime scene photographs, even to the perpetrator, could be viewed as intimidation if done excessively.

  ‘Unpleasant, isn’t it?’ Poe said.

  Cowell’s solicitor frowned. ‘I assume you think whoever put my client’s kite up that tree is also responsible for this murder?’

  ‘Absolutely we do.’

  ‘And my client absolutely denies having had anything to do with any of this,’ Lear said. ‘I would draw your attention to his earlier statement about the kite’s theft … Robert, are you OK?’

  Cowell had gasped. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the top photograph on the pile. It had been exposed when Poe had picked up the one above it, the one of Rebecca’s fingers.

  It was a photograph of the Secret Santa mug – the one with #BSC6 printed on the side. And for some reason it bothered Cowell far more than its gruesome predecessor.

  He began trembling. His breath became ragged.

  ‘OK, this has gone on far enough,’ Lear said. ‘I need a consultation break.’

  Chapter 39

  ‘My client has explained that his kite was stolen some weeks ago and this is therefore circumstantial evidence at best,’ Lear said after the interview had recommenced. ‘Now, I assume from your informal dress code that the pair of you are with some specialist unit? Why don’t you cut to the chase and show us the real evidence?’

  Poe watched Cowell for a moment more.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said eventually. ‘Tilly, you’re up.’

  Bradshaw stood and moved to the seat beside Poe. As they’d practised, she waited for him to introduce her.

  ‘This is Matilda Bradshaw. She’s a civilian analyst with the National Crime Agency. She’s here to explain some technical evidence.’

  Bradshaw smiled and gave Cowell a small wave. ‘Hello, Robert Cowell.’

  Cowell returned it. He looked confused.

  ‘I gather you like computers,’ Poe said. ‘Miss Bradshaw likes computers too. Please listen carefully as what she’s about to explain gets to the very heart of why we’re here.’

  Bradshaw cleared her throat. ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant Washington Poe. Robert Cowell, I’m here to explain how laser printers work.’

  ‘I know how laser printers wor—’

  Poe had never been able to stop Bradshaw explaining science; Cowell stood no chance. She simply carried on talking. It was possible she hadn’t even heard him.

  ‘When you press print, your computer sends millions of bytes of information to a chip in the printer where it is converted into a two-dimensional image. The photoreceptor drum, positively charged with static electricity, begins to turn and, as it does, laser beams hit it millions of times forming the image of whatever has been sent to it.’

  Bradshaw removed a diagram of a printer and pointed out each part.

  ‘Each spot on the drum the laser hits has its positive charge turned negative. This attracts the positively charged toner powder. Another process puts a stronger negative charge on the paper and when it is passed over the drum, the toner jumps across before being fused on at two hundred degrees Celsius. Do you understand, Robert Cowell?’

  Cowell nodded. Poe did too, even though he didn’t.

  ‘And here’s the thing,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘Because each photoreceptor drum has its own unique, microscopic flaws, they can be treated like fingerprints. Under magnification we can match a drum to a document.’

  There was no reaction. Cowell was either a very cool customer or he hadn’t realised what he’d thrown away.

  Bradshaw brought up blown-up segments of the four A4 pages that had been used to wrap the Secret Santa mug. She arranged them so Cowell could see. She then pointed out the imperfections in the black swan images.

  Each document had identical visible blemishes. A scratch that bisected the black swan logo in the top-right corner, what looked like a patch of dust covering two of the logos in the middle and a bubble that could be seen on a logo near the bottom.

  Bradshaw had told Poe that the photoreceptor drum would have had many more blemishes but they could only be seen on the parts of paper that had logos printed on.

  ‘I am told that these four documents all coming from the same printer is non-interpretable evidence, Robert,’ Poe said. ‘Would you like to comment?’

  Cowell shrugged, which Poe took as a no.

  ‘Show him the next document, please, Tilly,’ Poe said.

  Bradshaw placed a single sheet of A4 on the table. It was a printer test-page. The kind used to isolate problems between computer and printer. It was all square and circles and lorem ipsum, the dummy text used on documents and brochures when the real text isn’t yet available. Parts of the page were in colour and parts were in black and white. Small font, big font, small circles, big circles – the entire page was filled. It was stained, in an evidence bag and, up until that morning, had been in Robert Cowell’s bin.

  It didn’t take long for Bradshaw to point out what was obvious to them all: the imperfections on the test-page stood out like they’d been highlighted. There were more of them as there was more ink on the page, but the imperfections she’d identified on the documents wrapping the Secret Santa mug were all present.

  ‘They match, don’t they?’ Poe said.

  Cowell looked at him in confusion.

  ‘I’ll recap for everyone. The documents used to wrap the mug that contained Rebecca Pridmore’s fingers match the document we found in your bin, the kite you say was stolen was found in a tree overlooking her back garden and when the police raided your house this morning your sister ran and then told you to say nothing.’

  Poe turned to the solicitor.

  ‘Do you think a jury will find that circumstantial, Mr Lear?’

  Lear said nothing.

  ‘Tilly, please show Robert the documents recovered from the next two crime scenes.’

  Bradshaw laid out blown-up segments from the A4 pages found at the church and Fiskin’s Food Hall.

  ‘This was found on Christmas Day at a crime scene in Barrow,’ Poe said, pointing to the document from the church. He then pointed at the one found in Fiskin’s Food Hall. ‘And this was found on Boxing Day at a crime scene in Whitehaven.’

  Bradshaw indicated how the flaws on the photoreceptor drum had left corresponding marks on the two documents.

  ‘You can see that a different photoreceptor drum was used on both these documents,’ she said. ‘They do have blemishes but they match neither those on the printer test page that Poe found in your bin nor the ones that wrapped the Secret Santa mug.’

  ‘So why show us them?’ Lear said.

  ‘I’d pay attention,’ Poe said, ‘because you ain’t gonna believe this.’

  Chapter 40

  ‘When Miss Bradshaw matched the flaws on the document found in your client’s wheelie bin to the flaws found on the paper used to wrap the Secret Santa mug, she was using what’s ca
lled a passive printer identification technique,’ Poe said. ‘It means the marks are unintentional. A by-product we’re happy to exploit. But, and I could scarcely believe this when she told me, there’s another printer identification technique and this one isn’t passive, it’s active. It’s called yellow dot tracking and it rendered redundant all the steps Robert had taken to make it look like the three murders were the work of three separate killers.’

  ‘What the hell is yellow dot tracking?’ Lear said.

  ‘I’m glad you asked,’ Poe said. ‘Tilly?’

  Bradshaw turned over seven photographs and laid them out in a row.

  ‘These images are heavily magnified sections of each of the seven A4 pages connected to this case,’ she said. She pointed at the first four. ‘These are from the pages used to wrap the Secret Santa mug.’ She pointed at the next two. ‘These are from the documents found at the church and the food hall. The last one is the document Poe found in your wheelie bin.’

  Cowell and Lear both leaned in.

  Lear looked up first, his face showing the same level of confusion Poe’s had when Bradshaw had explained it to him earlier.

  ‘What are we supposed to be looking at?’ he said.

  ‘Yellow dot tracking is an active technique where traceable data is explicitly and covertly embedded within the body of a document,’ Bradshaw said. ‘The dots are arranged in grids and are printed in a regularly repeating pattern across the whole page. Each grid can encode up to fourteen seven-bit bytes of tracking data. They are embedded into each document about twenty billionths of a second before printing commences. They can only be seen under blue light or under a microscope.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Lear said. ‘What about privacy laws?’

  ‘It’s been around since the 1980s, Jon Lear. No laws are being broken and the public don’t have a right to be informed. Most of the major manufacturers use active printer identification techniques.’

  Lear shook his head in disgust. ‘This is absolutely unacceptable.’

  ‘Hate the game, not the player, Mr Lear,’ Poe said.

  Bradshaw opened her laptop. ‘I scanned and magnified all seven photographs. The software needed to separate the colours, which would enable us to examine the blue channel in isolation, hasn’t arrived yet so the yellow dot tracking just look like flecks of dust. But, when I do this,’ – she typed a series of commands and superimposed the seven images – ‘you can see that the pattern on all seven documents is identical.’