That early in the morning, the door crashing down under the weight of battering rams gave the police an advantage over sleepy suspects. There was less chance of wits being gathered and evidence being flushed away. An offender known to be violent was less likely to be so when only wearing underpants. And finally, dawn raids caused less disruption to everyone else on the street.
But mainly the police did dawn raids because they’d always done dawn raids.
Poe had attended the midnight briefing for the arresting officers and given a short talk on how they’d honed everything down to this one suspect. The men and women in the room didn’t care about that. They were uniformed cops whose only involvement in the case would be executing the arrest. They were much more interested in what he knew about Robert Cowell.
Was he known to carry weapons?
Yes. A garrotte.
Anything else?
Probably. No one went straight to the garrotte. A garrotte was something you eventually got to. It was the end of a killer’s journey into weapon proficiency, not the beginning.
Would he run or would he fight?
Poe didn’t know.
Could they expect anyone else to be in the house?
Probably his sister.
And after that it was all about the logistics. The crash team were in charge and they ran the show. Poe was told he could attend but only as an observer …
Which was why he was in his car, engine running to keep warm air circulating, just two streets away from Robert Cowell’s cul-de-sac.
He’d been there for an hour and a half already, when the blackness was absolute and the air felt refrigerated. He’d sat silently and sipped his coffee, fingers tracing the swirling steam rising from the hole in the cardboard cup’s plastic lid. The coffee was long gone. The taste nothing but a memory, the lingering smell now almost imperceptible.
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.’