Dogsbody:
... use an array of 3 chars (char c[2]and look for my byte based on the bytes either side...
 if (c[2] == 'P' && c[0] == 'V') {
}
Regardless of whether there is a null or not, an array of 2 characters has indexes 0 and 1. So you can't check index 2 for a P.