The exception: a stretch about ten houses long where blue-and-white tape made a cordon. Inside it, police vehicles clustered, and an ambulance, the back doors open, the paramedics packing up as they prepared to move off. And halfway along the cordoned-off bit of street, a hastily erected tent hiding the doorway of the house that was my crime scene.
A stocky figure emerged from the tent, yanked down a mask and pushed back the hood of her paper overalls. Una Burt. Detective Chief Inspector Una Burt, acting up as our superintendent. The guv’nor. Ma’am. My boss. Her hair was flattened against her head: rain or sweat, I guessed. My skin was clammy already, the shirt sticking to my back, and I hadn’t done anything more energetic than drive across London on a wet Sunday afternoon. It was warm still, despite the rain.
Beside me, Georgia Shaw shifted in her seat. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So let’s get going.’ She had her hand on the door handle already.
‘We are murder detectives. By the time we turn up at a crime scene, by definition, nothing can be done to save anyone. So what’s the rush?’
She cleared her throat, because when you’re a detective constable you don’t say bullshit to a detective sergeant. Not unless you know them very well indeed. Even if the detective sergeant is so newly promoted she keeps forgetting about it herself.
‘We’re not going to find the murderer by sitting in the car, though, are we?’
‘I once caught a murderer while I was sitting in a car,’ I said idly, more interested in the crime scene in front of me than in talking to the newest member of the murder team.
‘Who was that?’ Georgia narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. She had read up on me, she told me on her first day, and made the mistake of saying it in front of most of the team. If we’d been alone, I might have been able to be nice about it. As it was, I had turned on my heel and walked away, too mortified to say anything. I didn’t need to. I knew my colleagues would say plenty once I was out of earshot.
Some of what they said would even be true.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said now. Be nice. ‘Ancient history. The thing to remember is that it’s not a waste of time to take your time.’
Georgia smiled, but in an irritable stop-telling-me-what-I-already-know way. She was strikingly self-possessed for someone who’d been a member of the team for two weeks. Maybe it was just that I expected everyone else to be as diffident as I had been. Self-confidence had never really been my strong point but it was irrational to dislike Georgia simply because she was assertive.
It was a lot more rational to dislike her because she was absolutely useless. A graduate, she was on a fast-track scheme and had been moved to my team straight after her probation. She was young, she was pretty, she was articulate and confident and ambitious and not all that interested in hard work, it seemed to me. She was a filled quota, a ticked box, and I didn’t think she deserved to be on a murder investigation team.
Then again, that was exactly how the other members of the team had felt about me when I joined.
So I disliked her, but I sincerely tried not to.
Kev Cox emerged from the house, his face shiny red. He scraped back his hood and said something to Una Burt that made her smile.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Kev Cox. Crime scene manager. The best in the business.’
Georgia nodded, making a note. I’d already noticed that her closest attention was reserved for senior police officers – the sort of people who might be able to advance her career.
And a glance in my rear-view mirror told me that one of her prime targets had arrived, though the best thing she could do for her career was probably to stay far away from him. He inserted his car into a space I thought was slightly too small, edging it back and forth with limited patience and a scowl on his face. Not happy to be back from his holidays, I deduced. He had sunglasses on, despite the rain, and he was on his own, which meant he had no one to distract him.
And I suddenly had a reason to go inside. The last thing I wanted was a touching reunion with Detective Inspector Josh Derwent in front of Georgia. There was no way to know what he would say, or what he might do. He would have to behave himself at the crime scene.
At least, I hoped he would.
‘Let’s get going.’ I grabbed my bag and slid out of the car in the same movement. It took Georgia a minute to catch up with me as I strode across the road and nodded to Una Burt.
‘Ma’am.’
‘Maeve.’ Limited enthusiasm, but that was nothing new. I had been disappointing Una Burt for years now. Georgia got an actual smile. ‘Get changed before you even think about going into the house. We need to preserve every inch of the forensics.’
As opposed to obliterating the evidence as I usually do.
‘Of course,’ I said politely.
‘This is a strange one. Come on.’ She led the way into the tiny tent where there were folded paper suits like the one she wore. It was second nature to me now to put them on, to snap on shoe covers, to tuck my hair under the close-fitting hood and work my hands into thin blue gloves and settle the mask over my face. There was a rhythm to it, a routine. Georgia wasn’t quite as practised and I remembered finding it awkward when I was new. I slowed down, making it easier for her without showing her I’d noticed she was fumbling with her suit.
‘What’s strange about this one, guv?’
‘You’ll see.’
I looked down instead of rolling my eyes as I wanted to. Just tell me … But Una believed in the value of first impressions.
My first impression of 27 Valerian Road was that it was the kind of house I’d always wanted to own. It was a classic Victorian terraced house inside as well as out, long and dark and narrow, with coloured encaustic tiles on the hall floor and stained glass in the front door. I could have done without the blood streaks that skated down the hall, swirled on the walls, splotched the stairs and – I tilted my head back to look – dotted the ceiling. It was enough to take a hundred grand off the value of the property, but that still wouldn’t bring it into my price range.
‘Cast-off.’ The words came from behind me, and I’d have known Derwent’s voice anywhere, even if I hadn’t been expecting him, but I still jumped. Georgia gave a stagey gasp.
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ I said. And hello to you too, DI Derwent. ‘Was it a knife, Kev?’
‘Possibly. We’re still looking for the weapon,’ he called from his position at the back.
I could picture it: a knife swinging through the air, wet with blood after the first contact with the victim, shedding droplets as it carved through space and skin. And those droplets would tell us a multitude about the person who’d held the weapon: how they’d stood, where they’d stood, which hand they’d used, how tall they were – everything, in short, but their name.
So I understood why Una Burt was particularly determined to preserve the finer details of this crime scene, and if possible I walked a little more carefully as I moved through the hall, stepping from one mat to another to avoid touching the floor. It wasn’t a large space and there were five of us standing in it, rustling gently in our paper suits.