The Treatment Read Online Free Page A

fibers from their clothing.
    While Souness made strong coffee, Caffery put his face under the tap to wake himself up and quickly checked his in tray. Among the circulars, the memos, the postmortem reports, someone had left this week's copy of
Time Out.
It was folded open at a page titled “The Artists Who Turn Crime into Art.” A photograph of Rebecca—eyes closed, head tilted back, a prison number painted on the center of her forehead where a bindi spot would go.
    Rebecca Morant, tabloid totty or the genuine
article? You have to be a long way out of the loop
not to have heard of Morant, sex-assault victim
turned art-world darling. Suspiciously beautiful, the
critics found it difficult to take lynx-eyed Morant
seriously, until a nomination for the ultracool
Vincent award and a shortlisting by Becks confirmed
her as a key player in the post YBA pack.…
    Caffery closed the magazine and placed it facedown in the in tray.
How much more publicity do you need, Becky?
    “Right, crew. Listen up.” He used an empty Sprite can to bang on the wall. “Come on, listen, everyone. I know you're all on short notice but let's get this bit done. We'll do it in the SIOs'.” Holding the videotape above his head he started toward the office he and Souness shared, beckoning the officers to follow. “Come on, it'll only take ten so you can have your piss breaks later.”
    The senior investigating officers' room was small—for all the team to cram in, the door had to be left open. Souness stood against the window, coffee mug cupped in both hands as Caffery plugged in the video and waited for everyone to gather. “Right. You all know the basics. DCI Souness is doing the search and house-to-house parameters, so whoever's on the knock come and see her after this. First light, we've got the search team meeting in Brockwell Park so I want everyone ready. SPECRIMs goout as usual, but bear in mind what I'm going to tell you now for hold-back on the press bureau. Exhibits, Family Liaison, organize yourselves. What else? We've got primacy but we'll appoint a liaison officer for, I'm sorry to say, the pedophile unit and the risk-management panel at Lambeth and, uh, someone better have a whisper with the child-protection lads at Belvedere, make sure Rory hasn't made an appearance there before. Now …” He gestured at the blank TV screen and took a deep breath. “When I show you this, the first place you're going to wonder about is the Maudsley.” He paused. At the mention of the Maudsley—the mental-health clinic on Denmark Hill— one or two of the civilian workers had sucked in a breath. He didn't want that: he wanted the team thinking and functioning and not overreacting to the nature of the crime.
    “Look,” he said, “I don't want you writing him off as a psycho just yet. I'm only saying that's how it looks.” He glanced around at the faces. “Maybe that's how it's meant to look. Maybe there's some trail-covering here—maybe he's your common or garden sicko who's trying to throw up a smoke screen, pave his way to an insanity plea if he gets caught. And keep in mind that he's been in play for three days. Three days. That's controlled, isn't it? Have a think about those three days and what they mean. Do they mean, for example, that he knows he's not going to get disturbed?”
    Or do they mean he was enjoying himself so much with Rory that he'd decided to stay on for the long weekend?
    He pointed the remote control at the video. Donegal Crescent appeared on screen. It was dusk. Beneath the time code a crowd jostled the cordons, trying to get a better glimpse at the little terraced house: blue ambulance lights flashed silently across their faces. Caffery, standing back against the wall now with his arms folded, watched the AMIT detectives out of the corner of his eye. This was the first they had seen of the crime scene and he knew they'd find something terrible about the Peaches' house. Something terrible about its normality.
    “This is