Page 50 of The Mercy Chair

‘You said “most” were exceptionally well done,’ Poe said. ‘I take it some weren’t?’

‘No. Six alphanumeric strings stood out. I’ll highlight them on the screen now.’ Doyle walked over to her computer. She drew on a tablet with a stylus-type pen. Red circles appeared on the slides in the viewing area. ‘They’re not easy to see so I’ve put them in a spreadsheet for you.’ She tapped her tablet and a seventh slide appeared.

CC.58.R4.HI

SM.15.NP

AS.104X.GO

CSM.12.R2.CL

SB.47.R9.SG

SJE.77.PC

Now he knew what he was looking for, Poe could make out the corresponding letters and numbers on Cornelius Green’s skin. There was something a bit off with them, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe a stylistic thing.

‘They’re old tattoos,’ Doyle said, ‘but I don’t think they were done at the same time – the ink colour is inconsistent and I’m fairly sure different needles were used. At least two of the needles were blunt-judging by the scarred letters and numbers.’

‘Do you know what they mean?’ Poe said.

‘I assumed they were Bible verses,’ Doyle said. ‘But when I typed them into a reference site none got a hit. Your victimdoeshave Bible verses tattooed on his torso, but these alphanumeric strings represent something else entirely.’

‘Any idea what?’ Poe asked.

‘Even checking if they were Bible verses was stepping out of my remit and into yours.’

‘They aren’t dark web URLs, they aren’t lines of code, and I don’t think they’re passwords,’ Bradshaw said. She was already on her computer. ‘Airline seat maps are alphanumeric, the seats are lettered but the rows are numbered, as are vehicle identification numbers.’

‘Can we try them?’

‘No point, Poe. VINs are seventeen characters long and airline seat maps follow a standard format. Seats start at A and go up to K on planes with four aisle seats and two lots of three window seats. And there’s an I, and I isn’t used as it can be mistaken for the number one. I’ll try computer and mobile phone serial numbers, but I don’t think that’s what they are.’

‘Why not?’

Bradshaw shrugged. ‘What possible reason could there be? I suppose they could be numbered bank accounts, but I think that’s unlikely.’

‘Why is that, Tilly?’ Linus asked.

‘The numbers and letters don’t work.’

‘They don’t?’ Linus leaned in to see what was on Bradshaw’s screen.

‘Am I allowed to tell him, Poe?’

‘Go ahead, Tilly. He’ll only snitch if you don’t.’

Nightingale and Doyle smirked.

‘The alphanumeric strings don’t work because if they were accounts from the same bank they would have the same number of letters and numbers. They don’t. And if they were from different banks, we would not see R repeated the way it is. It’s on three of the strings and always in the same place, four from the end. Statistically, that’s so improbable I was able to discount it.’

Linus looked at Poe. ‘She’s good,’ he said.

Poe ignored him. ‘What else, Tilly?’

‘Usernames or passwords would be my next guess, although I doubt it. If something were so secret it had to be tattooed on his body, I would expect a more complex password chain. None of the alphanumeric strings contain special characters like an exclamation point or a hashtag. The strings also fit Benford’s Law of naturally occurring collections of numbers, which suggests these are real-life sets of data.’

‘What’s Benford’s Law, Tilly?’ Linus asked.

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