By the time Anna reached Camberwell the neighbourhood was relatively quiet. The rioters had either moved on to other areas of South London or were lying in wait somewhere until darkness descended.
They had left a trail of destruction in their wake. Rows of shops had been damaged and looted, walls had been daubed with slogans, and bins had been emptied across roads and pavements.
Some people had begun to clean up while others stood around in groups looking shocked and bemused.
Anna was relieved to finally arrive at her destination – a street close to Camberwell bus station that was mostly residential.
Two police patrol cars and a forensics van were parked in front of the derelict building that used to be The Falconer’s Arms pub. It was set back from the road with a large forecourt that was littered with ash and puddles left by the firefighters.
Three uniformed officers in hi-vis jackets were standing beyond the crime scene tape that was stretched across the entrance.
Anna pulled up behind one of the patrol cars and climbed out of her Toyota. At once her nostrils were assaulted by the acrid smell of smoke and noxious fumes.
She paused on the pavement to look up at the building and assess the damage that had been done to it. The two-storey structure had clearly never been an architectural landmark. It was square and bland, with a painted brick facade and a pitched tiled roof that had been partly destroyed by the fire. The front double doors had been forced open, no doubt to allow the firefighters to get inside.
Anna was no stranger to Camberwell and she had a vague recollection of having visited the pub some years ago before it closed down. It was unlikely to have been a social visit, so she had probably come here on police business back when the area was a crime hot spot. It still was to some extent, with drug dealing a serious problem along with knife attacks. But in that respect it was no worse than most other parts of London.
She showed her warrant card to the uniforms and one of them went to get her a paper suit and shoe covers from the forensics van. As she slipped them on she was told that two detectives were already inside the pub along with crime scene investigators and the pathologist.
Anna ducked under the tape and trudged across the forecourt. As she approached the building, two figures wearing pale blue forensic suits stepped out through the doorway. She didn’t recognise them until they removed their face masks and lowered their hoods. Detective Inspector Max Walker and Detective Constable Megan Sweeny.
‘We saw you arrive, guv,’ Walker said. ‘Welcome back to duty. Did you have much trouble getting here?’
Anna shook her head. ‘There was a pitched battle going on in Kennington, but I managed to avoid it.’
‘You were lucky then. And so were we. Soon after we left headquarters a mob of rioters turned up outside and I just heard that it’s getting nasty there.’
‘Well I was expecting things to be a lot worse here,’ Anna said.
A muscle flexed in Walker’s jaw as he wiped a hand across the fine film of sweat that had gathered on his bald head.
‘They’ve moved on to Peckham,’ he said. ‘A few hours ago it was pretty bad here apparently. A group of about a hundred crazies tore along Camberwell New Road and spread out into neighbouring streets to cause havoc. Some stopped off at this place and a petrol bomb was lobbed through an upstairs window. So far we haven’t found any witnesses who saw who actually did it, and I’m not sure we’re going to. It took only minutes for the fire to spread, but most of the damage was to the roof and first floor. The brigade was quick off the mark and got here before the whole lot collapsed into the cellar. By then the rioters had cleared off.’
‘If it had there’s a good chance the boy’s body would never have been found,’ Sweeny added.
Anna could tell from the pained look on the detective’s face that she’d been affected by what she had encountered inside the building. But having joined MIT just over three months ago, at the age of thirty-five, Sweeny still sometimes struggled to cope with the harsh realities of the job. Anna was the first to admit that it did take some getting used to.
‘I gather the pathologist is here already,’ she said.
Walker nodded. ‘It’s Gayle Western. She arrived about half an hour ago. She’s already made arrangements for the body to be removed after you’ve seen it in situ.’
‘Then let’s get to it. Are you sure it’s Jacob Rossi?’
‘One hundred per cent. He’s wearing the school uniform Jacob had on when he disappeared on Monday. And there’s a name tag sewn into the inside of his blazer.’
DC Sweeny stayed outside so that she could make some calls, and Walker led the way into the building, warning Anna to tread carefully because it was structurally unsafe. ‘Just so you know we’ve had to ignore the advice from the fire brigade, which was not to come in here until they’ve carried out a full risk assessment,’ Walker said. ‘They’ve got so much on their plate with the riots that it could be days or even weeks before they get around to it.’
‘We’ll just have to do what has to be done as quickly as we can,’ Anna said.
The interior was a total mess, with wet, charred rubble everywhere. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and above it light shone through the damaged roof, revealing clouds of ash and smoke swirling in the air.
Walker stopped in the middle of what would have been one of the pub’s bars. He pointed to a crime scene investigator who was examining an open door at the rear of the building that hadn’t been touched by the fire.
‘There are two doors and five ground-floor windows that look out onto a small car park round the back,’ he said. ‘They’re all still intact because the fire didn’t reach them. So we’re able to see that the lock on one of the doors is broken and the boarding has been removed from two of the windows, along with the glass. It’s my guess that whoever brought the boy here gained access through one of them.’
‘So why wasn’t the building more secure?’ Anna asked.
Walker shrugged. ‘That’s a question for the estate agents who’ve got a for-sale sign out front. They’re bound to say that they thought they’d done enough to keep people out. But you and I both know that vandals and homeless people are breaking into derelict buildings all over London every day.’
‘That’s true,’ Anna said. ‘So where is the cellar?’
‘We’re standing on top of it.’ Walker gestured towards an interior door to their left that stood open. ‘That leads to the stairs. It was closed when the brigade entered the building after they’d put the blaze out. But there’s extensive damage to the floorboards next to it and the cellar was filled with smoke. The fire officers who went down there reckon it was so thick they didn’t spot the boy’s body until one of them almost tripped over it.’
Anna could feel the blood pounding in her ears as she followed Walker down the rickety stairs into the cellar. It was much larger than she’d expected it to be, stretching almost the entire length of the building. There was no electricity, but natural light came from above through the damaged ceiling.
A lead weight formed in Anna’s chest as she took in the scene. At one end of the room the parts of the ceiling that had come down were piled up on the soaked floor. There were no windows and the bare brick walls were festooned with fixtures that had once been attached to beer kegs.
Four forensic officers were present, and one of them was the pathologist, Gayle Western. She was crouched down next to a grey, inflatable mattress on which lay the body of the dead boy.
Anna experienced a cold shiver as she stepped forward and confronted a scene that she knew would haunt her forever.