The Puppet Show (Washington Poe)

Poe told Bradshaw that as he was officially on leave she should head back to Shap, but she was keen to see through the Breitling line of enquiry. Poe relented. They decided to grab breakfast from the Sainsbury’s café. Poe chose the full English and Bradshaw got the vegetarian equivalent. They shared a pot of tea.

As the bacon broke over his tongue, the salty flavour like a bomb in his mouth, they discussed the best way to track down the watch’s owner. Bradshaw wanted Poe to go straight to Breitling – she assumed there’d be a central database somewhere – but he had reservations. They were a big company, with clients all over the world, and some of them would be extremely wealthy. Breitling weren’t going to breach their confidentiality policy just because some dickhead from the NCA asked them. Instead, he planned to hit the county’s high-value dealers and frighten them until they gave him what he wanted. There weren’t many, and if Tollund Man had been a Cumbrian, it was possible the watch had been bought locally.

As he was mopping up egg yolk with a bit of fried bread, Bradshaw asked him why he was taking leave now of all times.

‘Just need a bit of time, Tilly.’

‘Are you sure it’s not because of me, Poe?’

‘What . . . no, of course not. Why would it be about you?’

‘People get sick of me.’

‘Well, if they do, they’re idiots,’ he said. ‘No, the real reason is because last night DCS Gamble asked me to leave his investigation.’

‘Is that why DI Stephanie Flynn rang me to say I was to help if you asked?’

‘I didn’t know she had.’

‘She said I wasn’t to tell you.’

‘But?’

‘Friends should never lie to each other, Poe.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Come on, eat your sawdust. The shops will be open soon.’

As they’d been talking Bradshaw had taken advantage of the store’s free wi-fi. She’d been trying to shorten the search by finding jewellers with staying power, those who’d been around for a long time. She’d collated a list, then switched to a ne

ws channel. It was nine o’clock and the headlines were on. Bradshaw’s mouth opened as she stared at the screen. ‘No . . . no . . . that’s not right at all,’ she cried.

‘What isn’t?’ Poe said absentmindedly, as he chased a snide baked bean around the plate with his knife.

‘Look at this, Poe!’ She turned the tablet round so they could both see it. She turned up the volume and pressed play.

In the middle of a scrum of cameras and oversized microphones, wearing a clean suit as if he hadn’t just spent three hours in a Kendal graveyard, was Gamble. The news anchor led into the interview by saying, ‘Police have said that the body found in a grave in Kendal early this morning could be another victim of the serial murderer known as the Immolation Man. We’ll now go live to Cumbria where Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Gamble will be making a short statement.’

Gamble had been waiting for the go-ahead and he started speaking as soon as the anchor finished. ‘After some exceptional police work by Cumbrian detectives, the investigation team applied for an exhumation order for a grave in the Parkside Cemetery in Kendal. We had reason to believe that a coffin that should have contained the unidentified body found at the Hardendale Salt Store last year had been recently tampered with. As expected, the coffin’s original occupant was missing. In its place was the body of an as yet unidentified male who we believe to be a victim of the Immolation Man.’

Gamble’s statement was concise, well written, didn’t contain a single lie and was total bullshit. The NCA wouldn’t dare contradict him; they wouldn’t risk exposing their own faultlines. Poe had seen to that.

‘Prick,’ said Poe. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’

Although he knew the watch could have been bought anywhere, Poe planned to start looking in Carlisle as they were already there. If he were lucky, it had been bought before online shopping took off, when people tended to buy high-end items in person.

He was happy to discount the cheaper stores and focus his efforts on the smaller upmarket chains and family-owned businesses. There was only a handful of smaller shops that sold watches – although to be thorough they would check the ones that didn’t in case they used to sell watches – but even so, they were soon struggling.

Every shop except one was happy to let Bradshaw into their records, and the one that didn’t was able to confirm that they’d never sold Breitlings, new or second-hand.

The serial number BR-050608 wasn’t on any of the computer databases they checked, and because very few of them had transferred their paper records to electronic, searching old ledgers was slow and laborious.

One jeweller smiled as he dumped ten ledgers on his table, each one thicker than a copy of Yellow Pages. Poe groaned, although it didn’t seem to faze Bradshaw. She had the kind of analytical mind that relished things like cross-referencing lists.

However, effort didn’t guarantee outcome. After she’d finished the seventh and final ledger in a shop that might have sold Breitlings a few years ago, Poe called a halt. It was lunchtime and standing around doing nothing had made him hungry.

They walked to the car and bought another parking ticket before wandering over to a little-known old-school coffee shop he’d recently discovered in Carlisle. Coffee Genius was down Saint Cuthbert’s Lane, near the medieval West Walls. It had a high counter, expensive-looking chrome machines and plenty of home-made cakes and scones. They roasted their own beans and it was a coffee snob’s paradise. Poe found the smells intoxicating: freshly brewed coffee, the acrid smell of espresso, sweet warm caramel and chocolate, a tingle of cinnamon . . . His mouth watered as soon as he walked in.

It was full of the lunchtime crowd but they found a seat near a window. Poe ordered a slow-brewed Peruvian black and the club sandwich of the day – pulled pork and caramelised onions. Bradshaw ordered a hot chocolate before asking him if she was allowed the meal deal: soup and a sandwich.