'Set up an appointment, will you, with the victim and with the DI.'
In Brockwell Park the sun edged in increments up the sky behind that great druid tor, Arkaig Tower: its shadow raced down the park to collect at its feet. Two dog-handlers in blue shirts were climbing into forensic overalls next to the unit van. Caffery could see, on the passenger seat of the van, two SIRCHIE brand anti- putrefaction masks. The dogs in the back were not the same ones that had been there for the last two days. These dogs were trained to search for dead bodies.
'You do know if we find him the dogs might, uh, destroy some evidence, don't you?' The sergeant was embarrassed. 'We can't always stop them, they're hungry.' There were pork trotters in a Dewhurst carrier-bag three days overripe for the dogs to blunt their hunger on if they were unable to find dead Rory Peach.
'Yes.' Caffery rubbed his nose and looked across the trees. It was still there that draw he felt to the park. He just couldn't give up on it yet. 'Yes, I know.'
They started near the van, pounding the earth with heavy metal probes. This was familiar ritual to the dogs the noise told them why they were here. It opened the glands in their mouths and they moved in excited circles, blood-boltered, dripping saliva into the earth. Caffery's hope rose a little as the dogs pushed noses into the holes made by the probes, crawled under bushes, and sniffed around the soft black edges of the lakes. But it is not only a helicopter's thermal imaging equipment that is hampered by hot weather: heat decreases a dog's sensitivity too, and an hour into the search they had found nothing. The officers were sweating in their forensic overalls and beginning to look despondent, but Caffery didn't call a halt. He was watching Texas, the larger of the two German shepherds. From time to time the dog lifted his head, distracted, and turned in a small fidgety circle.
'Come on, boy.' The handler jerked the dog back to his task. 'Over here.'
But in the dog's odd lapses Caffery sensed something. Every square inch of the park had been searched there had to be an angle he was missing: a light was being shone dead into his eyes and still he couldn't see it.
You're the one who thinks that he knows, thinks he has a special tap into the mind of the killer, and yet you can't see what happened here.
'What's a troll, Danni?'
'A troll? A troll's just an old queer who likes gorgeous young meat. A tree jumper.'
He thought about Rebecca the other night, squatting in the tree like a leprechaun. Zeus was a baby in a tree. He thought about the little boy in the Clock Tower Grove Estate pretending to climb a drainpipe. And then suddenly he had it. He was right Rory was still in the park. And he thought he knew where.
At 12.30 p.m. Hal Church came home for lunch from his furniture-design studio in Coldharbour Lane. He was a largish man with his sleeves rolled up, sandy hair receding from a tanned forehead, he looked far more the broad-shouldered artisan than the designer.
Benedicte was in the kitchen unpacking Tesco's bags and Hal placed his hands on her hips, kissed the back of her neck then gently inched her sideways so that he could reach a bag of pretzels in the cupboard. Around their feet Josh jumped like a small cricket from bag to bag, opening them, pushing his nose in them.
'Mum, where's the Sunny Delight?'
'Sunny Delight.' Hal put a hand to his forehead. 'Oh, for Pete's sake. An orange kid. I'm going to have an orange kid.'
'Da-aad!' Josh spun round on his heel, his hands over his face. 'Don't mess wid my head.'
'Hey, was sup orange kid?'
Josh giggled, and came back at his father. 'You come diss me and you is in some serious trouble, man.'
'Josh,' from the bag Ben pulled a ball of mozzarella, moving in its whey, and placed it on the work top ready for the pizza she was going to make, 'will you stop talking like that? It's not funny.'
Josh dropped his head and made a face at his father.
'Josh. Come here.' Hal bent over until his head was close to his son's. 'You's pretty fly for a white boy,' he whispered.
'Word!' Josh gave his father the Brixton salute. 'Boyacasha.'
'For heaven's sake, you two, just can it.' Benedicte poked Hal in the belly. 'Go on, let him have some juice, his knuckles've been scraping the ground all afternoon.'
'Why don't you just get him a packet of Rothman's while you're at it? Josh? You will tell us when you want to go into detox, won't you, son?'
'Hey, Dad.' Josh put the Sunny Delight on the kitchen top and stood on tiptoe to get a glass. 'Mummy had to call the filth.'
'The police, Josh, not the filth. Where do you pick these things up?'
'The police?' Hal looked at Ben, concerned. 'How come?'
'We had to get the filth.' Josh put the glass on the counter and used his teeth to open the bottle. 'Because of someone tried to steal Smurf.'
'What?
'I'll tell you in a minute,' Benedicte murmured, sliding her eyes meaningfully in their son's direction. 'Josh, not your teeth, please. You never know when you might need your teeth.' She took it from him and used her own teeth to tear off the plastic strip. 'Now take your drink through, OK, peanut? If you're good we'll fill up the paddling-pool and get Tracy Island out.'
'Ye-es!' Josh saluted, excited, and zoomed into the other room, almost spilling his drink as he went. 'Virgil Tracy to control, launching Thunderbird Four pod now!' He threw himself at the sofa. 'F-A-B!'
When he was settled in the family room, still within earshot but absorbed with the TV, Hal opened the pretzels, found a bottle of Hoegarden and turned back to Benedicte. He worked with linseed oil and maple, and the oils had coloured his palms so that his heart line was deeply, permanently ingrained. As faithful as a beach donkey, his family was everything to him: any real or perceived threat to them he felt like gunfire. 'Well? What happened?'
'God, it was really creepy.' She put the kettle on and pushed the hair out of her eyes, keeping them on Josh to make sure he wasn't listening. The Simpsons was starting and she could see him sitting on the sofa with his knees up, clutching the glass of orange juice to his mouth, eyes pinned on the screen. 'Outside the ruddy camping shop on Brixton Hill, of all places. First thing this morning. I tied her outside because she was whingeing about being left in the car and I'm standing at the counter buying an icebox for Cornwall and I turn round and' she waved her hand in the air 'and there's this bloke. Molesting her.'
'Molesting her?' Hal chucked a handful of pretzels into his mouth. 'What do you mean molesting}'
She put a finger to her mouth. 'Sexually,' she hissed. 'He put his hand between her legs.'
'What?
'I know. I told you creepy. He had her tail in one hand, held up like this sort of like you'd hold up a… um, I don't know, like you'd hold up a cow's tail. You know, like the vets do. And he was bent over and staring, as if he was trying to, God, it's so disgusting, but like he was trying to smell her, or just sort of see up her, you know. So I well, I shouted, and everyone in the shop's staring at me, but I thought, Well, I'm not going to let him get away with that '
'Who was he?'
'He was a, uh, white guy, tall he'd been in the shop behind me when I was buying all the stuff for Cornwall. I noticed him 'cause he had a hood on, and he was standing in the corner like he didn't want to be seen or something. I thought he was staring at me then, but he went out and I forgot about it and the next I know he's got Smurf's tail up in the air'
'Bastard'
'and anyway, I thought, I'm not going to let him get away with that so I ran out of the shop and I'm shouting and screaming like some total nutter.' Benedicte opened the fridge and rummaged for the milk. 'But he went down Acre Lane and I'd let go of Josh so I had to go back and'
'Jesus '
'and I called the police and told them, I mean, poor Smurf, deaf as a post and there she was having her pounani looked at like some common tramp.'
'You're laughing.'
'I'm not laughing. I called the police. Like we haven't seen enough of the police in the last few days. I had to call them, not that there's anything they can do.' She stopped. She was frowning into the fridge.
'And?'
