Treatment

One July 17 WHEN IT WAS ALL OVER, DI Jack Caffery, South London Area Major Investigation Team (AMIT), would admit that, of all the things he had witnessed in Brixton that cloudy July evening, it was the crows that jarred him the most. They were there when he came out of the Peaches' house twenty or more of them standing in their hooded way on the lawn of the neighboring garden, oblivious to the police tape, the onlookers, the technicians. Some had their beaks open. Others appeared to be panting. All of them faced him directly, as if they knew what had happened in the house. As if they were having a sly laugh about the way he'd reacted to the scene. Later he would accept that the crows' behavior was a biological tic, that they couldn't see into his thoughts, couldn't have known what had happened to the Peach family, but even so the sight of them made the back of his neck tingle. He paused at the top of the garden path to strip off his overalls and hand them to a forensics officer, pulled on the shoes he'd left outside the police tape and waded out into the birds. They took to the air, rattling their petrolly feathers. Brockwell Park a huge, thrown-together isosceles of forest and grass with its apex at Herne Hill station--rambles for over a mile along the boundary of two very different parts of South London. On its western perimeter, the badlands of Brixton where some mornings council workers have to drop sand on the streets to soak up the blood and, to the east, Dulwich, with its flower-drenched almshouses and John Soane skylights. Donegal Crescent lay snug up against Brockwell Park anchored at one foot by a boarded-up pub, at the other by a Gujarati-owned corner shop. It was part of a quiet little council estate, rows of fifties terraced houses bare to the sky, no trees in the front gardens, window frames and doors painted chocolate brown. The houses looked on to a horseshoe-shaped piece of balding grass where kids skidded their bikes in the evening. Caffery could imagine the Peaches must have felt relatively safe here. Back in his shirt sleeves, grateful for the fresh air outside, he rolled a cigarette and crossed to the group of officers next to the Scientific Support Command Unit's van. They fell silent as he approached and he knew what they were thinking. He was only in his midthirties not a senior-rank warhorse but most officers in South London knew who he was. "One of the Met's Young Turks," the Police Review had called him. He knew he was respected in the force and he always found it a bit freaky. If they knew half of it. He hoped they wouldn't notice that his hands were trembling. "Well?" He lit the cigarette and looked at a sealed plastic evidence bag a junior forensics officer was holding. "What've you got?" "We found it just inside the park, sir, about twenty yards from the back of the Peaches'." Caffery took the bag and turned it over carefully. A Nike Air Server trainer, a child's shoe, slightly smaller than his hand. "Who found it?" "The dogs, sir." "And?" "They lost the trail. At first they had it they had it good, really good." A sergeant in the blue shirt of the dog handlers' unit stood on tiptoe and pointed over the roofs to where the park rose in the distance, blotting out the sky with its dark forests. "They took us round the path that scoots over the west of the park but after half a mile they just drew a blank." He looked dubiously at the evening sky. "And we've lost the light now." "Right. I think we need to speak to Air Support." Caffery passed the trainer back to the forensics officer. "It should be in an air-drying bag." "I'm sorry?" "There's blood on it. DidHayder, Mo is the author of 'Treatment' with ISBN 9780385496957 and ISBN 0385496958.