The Treatment

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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 neighbouring 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. The unprofessional way he was taking it too personally.

Later he would accept that the crows' behaviour 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 pet rolly feathers.

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