Chapter 14

‘Your engagement was a joke to Superintendent Nightingale?' Doctor Lang asked.

‘Not at all,' Poe replied. ‘Cops have a dark sense of humour and taking the piss is how you show trust.'

‘It is?'

‘Absolutely. I've found the more polite someone is, the more they dislike you.'

‘You must have really trusted Linus then,' she said with a smile.

Poe didn't respond.

‘Tell me about the murder scene.'

‘They'd shot two crime scene videos,' Poe said. ‘It was still dark when Superintendent Nightingale and her team got there so they set up lights and shot what they could. Took samples in case it rained again, a few other things that couldn't wait. They didn't shoot the main video until first light.'

‘I've never seen a crime scene video,' Doctor Lang said. ‘Talk me through it.'

‘It's sort of like a two-person-crew film shoot. The crime scene manager is the cameraperson, and the senior investigating officer is the director. A good SIO will offer commentary on what's being filmed without second-guessing what has happened. Facts, not opinions.'

‘And Superintendent Nightingale is a good SIO?'

‘One of the best I've worked with,' Poe said. ‘She had the crime scene manager shoot the Lightning Tree, the rocks, potential approaches and the surrounding area from a multitude of angles.'

‘And there was a lot to process?'

Poe nodded. ‘Superintendent Nightingale had a mass of potential evidence to recover as there was no way of knowing which rocks had been used in the murder, and which were . . . you know, simply rocks.'

‘They didn't all have blood on them?'

‘Some did. Others had hit the victim without breaking the skin. Some had been thrown but had missed. They all had to be identified, recorded and recovered.'

‘That sounds like a thankless task,' Doctor Lang said.

‘Good crime scene management is a thankless task,' Poe said. ‘It was a straightforward video walkthrough at the end of the day though. Cornelius Green had been tied to a tree and stoned to death. The killer hadn't tried to move the body afterwards and there had been no attempt to tidy the crime scene. There was very little room for interpretation.'

‘What did Cornelius look like?'

‘His own mother wouldn't have recognised him.'