‘Duvet day.’
‘I’m not sure she should still be here.’
‘You going to tell her?’
Nightingale laughed. ‘Do I look stupid? Ah, here’s DC Coughlan. Dave, do you have a minute?’
It was the hulking detective, the one with the monobrow who’d stormed out of the pointless semiotics briefing.
‘Ma’am,’ he said, eyeing Poe with suspicion.
‘Can you make sure Sergeant Poe is given access to all the Rhona Cowell interviews?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
He lumbered off. They both watched him go.
‘DC Coughlan hasn’t been with us long. He’s hardworking and trustworthy,’ she said. They watched as he tried and failed to key in the right sequence to the interview suite’s security pad. ‘But he’s not one of our deep thinkers …’
Poe sat for an hour and watched the last Rhona Cowell interview. The detective had laid down the same information that Poe had laid in front of Robert. Rhona didn’t react to any of it. Even when she was told about the yellow dot tracking and how her brother had been linked to three murders.
His BlackBerry alerted him to an incoming call. It was Bradshaw. Poe muted the sound and tapped the accept button.
‘Hello, Poe. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine, Tilly. What’s up?’
‘Robert Cowell is back from hospital.’
‘His solicitor with him?’
‘I think so. I’m just passing on the message, though. I think they’re ready for you.’
Poe didn’t answer.
‘Poe?’
Poe stared at the screen. He unmuted the sound and rewound it ten seconds. Played it again.
Did it one more time to be sure.
‘Tilly, I’ve seen something odd.’
Cowell had broken his nose when he’d headbutted the table. The ugly, beaklike metal splint he was wearing made him look like RoboDuck. His eyes were bloodshot and his sockets were puffy and yellowing.
‘My client is not prepared to talk about what happened earlier,’ Jon Lear said. ‘We’ll put it down to stress and move on.’
Poe ignored him. Solicitors didn’t determine the parameters of interviews. Especially after what he’d just seen. He opened the laptop Bradshaw had set up for him. It was prearranged to start when the evidence in the church had been laid before his sister. The same bit of evidence that had caused Robert to lose it.
‘I don’t intend to make you sit through the whole interview but, rest assured, up until this point your sister hasn’t reacted to anything put before her. Now, please watch.’
Poe pressed play.
The interviewing detective said, ‘The only time your brother could have put these fingers in the font was after Midnight Mass but before the caretaker came in at 6 a.m. on Christmas morning. That’s a pretty narrow window. We want to know how much you knew.’
Poe made them watch it three times.
‘When I put this to you earlier, Robert, you had a … psychiatric episode and, although your sister’s reaction wasn’t so extreme, she did react.’