The Puppet Show

by M. W. Craven

  Poe grunted in satisfaction.

  He reviewed the notes various social workers, family judges and guardians ad litem had made throughout the years. The boys had never stood a chance.

  Apart from Scott Johnston’s father, there was little evidence that any of the boys’ families would be out there somewhere, seeking their revenge. They were either dead, in prison, or didn’t give a shit.

  There was one photograph of the four boys together. It looked as though it had been taken with an instant camera. It had that thick white band at the bottom, the part you held as you waved it in the air waiting for it to dry. The photograph was poor quality, and had presumably been taken during a Seven Pines outing to a beach somewhere. The boys were smiling in the sunshine. It was tops-off weather. Smith was holding a football. They looked happy. Despite the quality of the old photograph, Poe could see the cigarette scars on Malone’s arms and chest. He put it down carefully. His eyes were moist and he wiped them before tears could form.

  ‘Why weren’t any of them fostered out?’ he asked. ‘I know Hilton had behavioural problems, but the other three seemed to be thriving at Seven Pines. Was it because they didn’t want to be separated?’

  Jackson shook her head. ‘Apart from Michael – who as you said had some deep-rooted psychological issues he still hadn’t worked through – they all came to us later in life, and at that time it was virtually impossible to get young boys placed. They ended up friends because they weren’t being fostered,’ she explained. ‘It became a badge of honour with them, a “nobody likes us and we don’t care” kind of thing.’

  It was a depressing answer and Poe went back to the files. When he’d finished skimming them, he put them down. He needed some fresh air before he tackled a deeper study. Flynn, who was reading similar horror stories with different children, followed him. Jackson joined them a few moments later. She sparked up a cigarette and drew the poison deep into her lungs.

  ‘How do you put up with this shit, day in day out?’ Poe asked.

  She shrugged. ‘If I don’t, who will?’

  It was an answer of sorts. It didn’t invite further conversation. Jackson lit another cigarette from the one she’d been smoking. After five minutes, they went back inside. Poe reopened the files, determined to find something.

  Flynn’s phone rang. She showed Poe the caller ID. It was Gamble.

  ‘Sir?’

  Her expression darkened as she listened. ‘Shit,’ she muttered finally. ‘And there’s no doubt?’

  She frowned some more before hanging up.

  Poe raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Hilary Swift’s daughter has just landed. She’s confirmed that her mother was in Australia when Clement Owens was killed at Cockermouth.’

  Poe felt his pulse quicken. ‘So, we are looking for someone else . . .’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Gamble called an emergency meeting for later that day, and as the files on the children from Seven Pines hadn’t revealed anything actionable, they’d returned to Shap Wells. Jackson had copied everything for them and Poe vowed to take them home and read it all again later. Sometimes his brain needed a calmer environment.

  Bradshaw hadn’t been slacking while they’d been away. She was surrounded by reams of paper. She’d needed the hotel’s strong wi-fi, so the Garden Room, despite its drawbacks, had become their makeshift incident room again. It was as cluttered as the inside of Poe’s mind. Bradshaw looked up anxiously. ‘DI Stephanie Flynn, I think I’ve spent all our money on colour printing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Tilly, I’m the budget holder . . .’ She stared at the masses of paperwork. ‘Er . . . exactly how many sheets have you printed?’

  ‘Eight hundred and four,’ she replied.

  Flynn looked worried.

  Bradshaw dug her grave a little deeper. ‘The hotel had to send out for more ink twice.’

  ‘It’s cheap if we find something, boss,’ Poe said. ‘Now we know there’s another player, ANPR might just be our best shot.’

  Unlike Cumbria Constabulary, the National Crime Agency had live access to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition database. ANPR is the law enforcement system that reads, checks and records every vehicle that passes one of the eight thousand fixed and mobile cameras in the UK. With over forty-five million cars in the country, ANPR cameras take close to twenty-six million photographs a day, and because the National ANPR Data Centre, or NADC, holds every image for two years, at any one time there are over seventeen billion photographs in its archives. Poe knew that Gamble had requested mobile ANPR cameras on the likely routes to some of the more prominent stone circles, but had bust out.

  ‘What have you got for us, Tilly?’ Poe asked.

  Bradshaw, still not sure if she was in trouble or not, coughed nervously and said, ‘After I’d downloaded the data from the ANPR cameras I wanted, I ran it through a program I’ve been working on for a couple of months in my spare time. The way I see it, this is a chaotic system problem so I adapted the Kuramoto model to assess the synchronisation order.’

  She looked at them as if she’d just said something they had any chance of understanding.

  ‘Dumb it down a bit, Tilly,’ Poe said, not unkindly.

  ‘Oh right, basically, Poe, under the right conditions, chaos spontaneously evolves into a lockstep system.’

  Flynn and Poe continued to stare at her blankly.

  ‘I’ve redefined the parameters,’ she sighed.

  Neither of them responded.

  ‘You have to be kidding me?’ Bradshaw said, shaking her head. ‘Jeez, do you two still point at planes?’

  ‘Eh?’ Poe said.

  ‘I ran a program and I’ve got you a list of car registration numbers.’

  ‘Ah, a list. Why didn’t you say so?’

  Bradshaw stuck her tongue out at him before pulling a pile towards her. ‘I focused on the journeys the Immolation Man would have had to make. Abduction to containment site, containment site to crime scene.’

  Poe nodded. This he could follow.

  ‘We know when and where four of the victims were killed and I correlated that with the cameras nearest their homes.’

  It made sense. She was trying to find vehicles that had passed the cameras nearest to the killing sites and had also passed cameras near the likely abduction sites.

  ‘We have five victims,’ Flynn reminded her.

  ‘We do, DI Stephanie Flynn, but for analytical purposes the man in Quentin Carmichael’s coffin is an outlier. We don’t know when he was put in the coffin and we don’t know where or when he was killed.’

  She paused to let them catch up. Poe noticed that when she was talking about data, she lost her awkwardness.

  ‘Of course, we’re not in London so ANPR cameras only cover the M6, the A-roads and some of the bigger B-roads, but I calculated that in all the abductions, some of these cameras would have to be crossed at least once: the ones on the M6 and the ones that cover the roads that cross the M6.’

  Poe agreed. A bit like a major river, the M6 corridor bisected the county through the middle. It was inconceivable that the Immolation Man hadn’t had to cross the motorway at least once. In all probability he’d passed over it, under it and driven along it several times.

  Bradshaw continued. ‘But the ANPR list was far too big. It was six figures high.’

  ‘People use their cars more in rural counties,’ Poe explained. ‘ANPR covers all the commuter routes so I’m surprised the number wasn’t bigger.’

  ‘After I’d run the numbers through my program, it became a bit more manageable. I split the list into three. The first list is the vehicles with the highest probability. Eight hundred and four in total,’ she said. ‘That’s the list I coloured in.’

  As well as logging all necessary details like a vehicle’s registration, where and when it was snapped, that type of thing, ANPR cameras also take two photographs: one of the registration plate and one of the whole vehicle. When Bradshaw said she’d had some
of the ANPR data ‘coloured in’, she meant she’d downloaded those photographs. And probably to appease her analogue colleagues, she’d then printed them off.

  The cost didn’t matter, though; Bradshaw had two PhDs, she was a member of the Mathematics Institute at Oxford University, and she had an IQ higher than anyone Poe had ever heard of. If she said the killer was in that pile of paper somewhere, then he believed her.

  He settled down to read. Flynn did the same.

  Bradshaw smiled.

  ANPR was a fantastic investigative tool when you knew what you were looking for, but its big weakness was that when you were casting a net, it was virtually worthless. It caught everyone, and Poe knew this was why Gamble hadn’t really bothered before. He was sure that at some point he’d have tasked detectives with reviewing ANPR, but it would have been to tick boxes rather than a genuine investigative strategy. He’d have no way of reducing that list from the same six figures Bradshaw found. But Gamble’s detectives weren’t mathematical geniuses; Bradshaw was.

  It was still an immense amount of data to review but Poe didn’t lose focus. His faith in Bradshaw was absolute; the answer was there somewhere. After he’d read a page, Bradshaw would take it from him and pin it to the wall in a pattern known only to her. It was a good idea. Looking at the montage gave a different perspective to looking at them individually. Of course, at some point they’d have to deal with the hotel manager’s wrath when he saw what they’d done to his freshly decorated wall, but that was a problem for another day. Or for Flynn. During a break to stretch his legs, Poe walked across to the flipboard the hotel had supplied and they had never used – Bradshaw frowned upon such technologically backwards tools – and picked up a marker pen from the tray underneath. He walked to the wall and started putting red crosses through vehicles he felt confident in ruling out.

  Out of the 804 vehicles, over 30 were buses full of passengers. He put a red cross through them, doubting the Immolation Man had brought a coachload of supporters to his bonfires. He ruled out all the motorcycles; they might be able to go anywhere, but they couldn’t be used to transport victims, containers of accelerant and stakes. There were four minibuses, and although the pictures were small, Poe could see they were charities transporting adults with learning difficulties. He red-crossed them.

  There were others he was happy to cross out as well. Police vehicles were an obvious one. It was possible the Immolation Man was a cop, but police vehicles weren’t used by one person; they did eight or ten hours with one shift, then would immediately be on the road with the next one. He crossed off ambulances for the same reason.

  Next up were the prisoner-escort vans. The county’s tagline for years had been: ‘Cumbria: A Safe Place to Live, Work and Visit’, and, the Immolation Man aside, it usually was. But there was still a hard-core element of crooks and ne’er-do-wells, and although the number of courts had reduced, the number of idiots hadn’t. The GU Security vans were a regular sight on the Cumbrian roads as they serviced the county’s courts and its sole prison. But they were also shift vehicles. Poe put a red cross through them all.

  He also red-crossed the bigger lorries. Although they’d have been ideal for transporting bodies and equipment, the winding routes to some of the killing sites ruled them out.

  The number of pictures without red crosses was still unmanageable, though. Poe stood up and down on his tiptoes to stretch his calf muscles while he thought how he could reduce the number further.

  He walked back to the wall and, in a fit of pique, red-crossed every car he thought was too small to comfortably transport a driver, a body and a can of petrol. When he’d finished he threw down the pen in frustration.

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. More for Bradshaw’s sake than Flynn’s.

  ‘You OK?’ Flynn asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, keep going. I think you’re onto something.’

  He walked back to the flip chart and picked up a green pen. He ticked vehicles he wanted to prioritise. Any van with panelled sides got a green tick. Any estate car, four-by-four or MPV got a tick. There was even a hearse. That got a double tick.

  Eventually every vehicle either had a red cross or a green tick. Some, after discussion, changed colour, but after an hour they had some sort of consensus.

  Poe rocked backwards and forwards on his heels as he scrutinised the wall.

  He was sure the answer was there. He just needed a spark of inspiration to find it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  They stared at the wall well into the evening. As they didn’t want to take down the pinned ANPR pictures, and because none of them fancied eating in shifts, Poe drove into Kendal to get food from the British Raj Indian and Tandoori takeaway. He’d just ordered butter chicken for Flynn, vegetable balti for Bradshaw and lamb madras for himself, when his phone alerted him to an incoming text. It was from Reid saying he’d been to Herdwick Croft. He wanted to know where he was. Poe typed a reply, telling him they were at the hotel and that he should walk across to meet them. He ordered him a lamb madras.

  The hotel was kind enough to provide plates and cutlery and they had begun eating when Reid arrived. He said he was famished and wolfed his down, refusing to speak until he’d finished.

  Reid wandered over to the wall. Despite the late hour and the heat of the day, he was as immaculately dressed as always. Poe, who’d removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves hours ago, managed a sly sniff of his own armpits. He’d need a shower soon.

  ‘You heard Hilary Swift’s in the clear?’

  ‘She’s involved, though,’ said Poe.

  ‘No doubt,’ Reid said. ‘You think she was working for someone? Or someone was working for her?’

  Poe shrugged. ‘She didn’t recognise me. If she is working with the Immolation Man, then she’s his apprentice.’

  Reid didn’t have an answer. There was no answer. Swift was involved; they just didn’t know how. Until she was caught, it would stay that way.

  ‘What did you get from the social worker?’ Reid asked, ready to move on. ‘I assume you think the boys are dead?’

  ‘That what you think?’ Poe replied.

  ‘Hard to see it any other way. I take it by visiting Children’s Services again, you’re looking at the families?’

  ‘We are, but so far there’s no one jumping up and down shouting “pick me”. You’ve never read about a bigger bunch of wankers in your life. They didn’t give a shit about the boys when they were alive, I don’t see them developing consciences now.’

  ‘So, we’re back to an unknown. Someone who hasn’t revealed their hand yet?’ He sat down. ‘Speaking of Hilary Swift, Gamble’s asked me to tell you all that there’s no evidence she’s managed to leave the country. No one using her name or fitting her description has passed through a UKBA controlled point. Gamble’s convinced – and I agree – that she’s holed up somewhere.’

  Poe grunted.

  Reid stood up. ‘Well, it looks like you’re all on a mission so I’m going to love you and leave you. I’ll call tomorrow if there’s an update.’

  ‘Call regardless, Kylian,’ Poe said. ‘We can tell you what we’ve found.’

  He nodded and left.

  Bradshaw walked to the board. Poe joined her. She said, ‘How about we use a third colour, Poe? Vehicles we’ve ruled out that we want to reconsider?’

  Poe picked up a blue pen and said, ‘Let’s get started then.’

  They worked through the night, taking turns to nap on a sofa the porter had brought in.

  By nine in the morning they’d used four more colours and had stared at the photographs until it felt like their eyes were bleeding.

  ‘This isn’t working,’ Poe snapped. He turned to Bradshaw. ‘Tilly, can you please put that big brain of yours to use? Find me something I can recognise because at the minute I can’t see shit.’

  Bradshaw flinched. He apologised. It certainly wasn’t her fault.

  ‘That’s OK, Poe,’ Bradshaw said. ‘You
and DI Stephanie Flynn go to breakfast. I’ll try an old university trick: if you can’t see the pattern, change your perspective.’

  She didn’t explain what she meant or wait for permission, just walked up to the wall and started unpinning pictures. Poe had seen her like this before and knew there was no point talking to her; she wouldn’t be listening.

  ‘Come on, boss. I’ll buy you a bacon sandwich.’

  When they returned, the pictures were back up but in four different blocks. There was a mixture of red crosses and green ticks. Poe looked at Bradshaw quizzically. The printer was clinking as it cooled. Bradshaw had printed off more photographs.

  ‘We added more vehicles, Tilly?’ Poe asked. It would be a backwards step if they had.

  ‘I haven’t, Poe. I’ve rearranged the photographs so they’re now displayed on the day the victims were murdered. Each block is a separate day. I only had one photograph per vehicle so if they appeared on more than one day I had to print another copy.’

  She’d obviously hammered more of SCAS’s printing budget because some of the vehicles were on all four days. Bradshaw had put the date and the victim’s name beside each block. Poe ran his eyes over how the information was now being presented to them.

  Bradshaw said, ‘While you look, Poe, I’ll go and get a boiled egg.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Rats. Breakfast finished at ten. I’ve just missed it.’

  ‘Only on Wednesdays and Sundays, Tilly. They need to set up for the carvery lunch on those days. It’s open until eleven today, you go and get your boiled . . .’ The rest of the sentence died on his lips.

  ‘What is it, Poe?’ Bradshaw asked.

  He ignored her and marched up to the block of the second victim. Joe Lowell had been immolated in the middle of the Swinside stone circle near Broughton-in-Furness. Telling Bradshaw about the hotel’s breakfast had jolted something in the recesses of his mind. He could almost reach it. Almost but not quite. Poe stared at the vehicles until they were burned into his retina. For twenty minutes he looked without seeing anything.