Crows

Kim Ashburn stood in Regents Park with a grim look on her face. I couldn’t help admiring how good her auburn hair looked blowing in the late September wind. I stepped from the police car and drank the last drops of apple juice. Kim looked at me and tried to smile. “Dan thanks for coming.” I nodded, “it’s my job isn’t it?” I smiled and was given one in return. Kim was a great girl and a great cop, but that was one thing that she never did enough. Smile. She had a really sunny smile that anyone could admire, but in her line of work, there wasn’t much need for it.

Kim began to walk towards the far end of the park, I kept pace and we walked in silence. “Do you know who he was yet?” Kim looked at me and grimaced. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t tell you. It was a young woman; she looked to be in her late twenties.” Kim looked at me as I took in the information. I shook my head and walked forwards. Kim followed me and gripped my hand. That’s what friends do. We ducked under the police tape that separated civilised society from the ugly truth of the uncivilised. I loosened the button of my shirt and my tie a little. She had been a pretty girl, before she was left to die with syringes hanging out of her neck.

“Do you know who she was?” Kim shook her head. “Not yet, we’re waiting to get her to the morgue, and then she will have a post mortem. We’ll check her dental records later, and then we’ll know who our Jane Doe is.” She shook her head “What sick bastard would kill like this?” I sighed, “Someone who wants to send a message perhaps?” Kim closed her eyes, “there’s no forensic evidence here.” I couldn’t believe that.

Overnight hit had been raining; it was not possible for the killer not to leave footprints. “Come on, the killer would have left footprints, the grass is still wet now, we’re making them as we speak. Then the killer’s shoes will have the same kind of mud on them and we can get a match.”

She shook her head. “Dan, ordinarily that would work, but there’s no footprints.” I rubbed my eyes. “How, Kim? How did this guy kill this girl without leaving a trace?” Kim looked almost as pissed off as I did; she simply looked away from my stare and shook her head. I noticed a man from forensics and I walked over to him. The man was dressed in the forensics white overalls, so everything was covered. He wore latex gloves and carried a small forensic kit. “Hi, excuse me for the intrusion; I am private Detective Daniel Fisher, my colleague Detective Ashburn tells me that forensics pulled up nothing. Even on one of the wettest nights of the year, you didn’t pull up any footprints?”

The forensic scientist looked apologetic and embarrassed at the same time, I didn’t blame him. I tried not to be too hard on the guy but it was early. “Sorry man, if there’s no evidence, there’s no evidence. Perhaps she was dumped.” I considered this, “was there any tire treads?” The forensic scientist shook his head. This just keeps getting better and better. I turned to leave but he suddenly called me back. “I did find one thing out of the ordinary.” I turned back and nodded, “what’s that?” The scientist took out some Polaroid photos that had recently been developed. “I had almost forgotten about these, these would simply be dismissed as evidence.”

I looked at the Polaroid the scientist had handed me. The Polaroid was a picture of the muddy ground. Something had left small indentations in the ground and on a very big scale. Looking through the photographs the indentations covered a twenty meter radius. “These span for twenty metres? What made these marks?” The scientist smiled, “birds made those marks.” I sighed and almost threw the Polaroid away. “Jesus man, thousands of birds land in Regents park every day, why are these significant?” The scientist snatched the photos away patiently. “Because these birds all landed and left at the same time as each other. There must have been what, at a guess, over a thousand birds all down at once.”

“This still isn’t important, yeah, it doesn’t happen often, but I’m sure that amount of birds have landed somewhere before at the same time.” The scientist sighed; he showed me the Polaroid again and gestured to the prints. “The prints are all in line with each other, which means that the birds were all standing in line.” I looked at him with a shocked look on my face. “Like a trained army of birds, how the hell does that work?” He shrugged; it doesn’t; now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to work.” I nodded and let him past me. “Of course you do.”

Kim looked at me as if I were crazy when I told her. Then the realisation dawned on her and her expression changed to that of fear and excitement. “You aren’t taking the piss are you?” I smiled, “it’s what we saw, and the evidence is always there for us to look at.” Then it came to me. “We haven’t checked the cameras; Regents Park has more C.C.T.V than I have radiators.” Kim took a D.V.D disc out of her pocket in a C.D case and shook it.

Kim drove us back to the station so we could watch the disc. Kim owns one of those small family hatchbacks, but Kim doesn’t have a husband or kids. Kim is in love with her job. I don’t think she had had a boyfriend since she had dated me that one time. We pulled into the station and Kim made coffee for the both of us. The coffee was an immense relief, better than the juice anyhow. “We’re going to have to look at the body sometime Kim, we can’t shy away from it.” Kim sighed and nodded. “Yeah, we’ll take a closer look when they get the girl back the mortuary.”

Kim took the disc out of the casing and put it in the drive of a D.V.D player. The television flickered on and we were given a view of Regents Park yesterday morning, before the body had appeared there. The camera was up a height on the end of a large post and actually looked down to the place where the body was found, I was sure we would be lucky. Kim fast forwarded the disc so we got to the appropriate time. The park was empty for a second and then the woman who was now in a body bag walked into shot. She was alone and must have been walking through the park to get home. It was dark and I noticed she had wonderful legs. Don’t judge me, I’m observant.

It was at that moment when Kim and I jumped. A man who must have been about six foot walked into shot behind our Jane Doe. The woman looked behind her at the man and she screamed. I couldn’t hear her, the disc had no sound, but I knew that she was screaming at the top of her lungs. I couldn’t blame her for screaming, I would have too. The man was dressed in a black cloak that almost reached the floor. I noticed that he wore knee, shoulder and chest armour. Upon the man’s head was a Venetian plague doctor mask. The mask was styled on a bird, the beak curved downward and to a considerable length. The only other thing the mask had was eyeholes, the same kind that you would find on a gas mask. They looked haunting, I wanted to scream and run away.

The woman had frozen in place. The man walked slowly towards the woman. She couldn’t move, I wanted to help her, although I knew I couldn’t. She began to weep and the man waved his hand at the grass and then at where the camera was located. I could just see the killer pounce upon the woman before the camera was swarmed with thousands of birds. When the birds left all we had was a body. Our Jane Doe was becoming more interesting as the case progressed. Kim looked at me in shocked silence. “Dan, what the hell was that?” I sighed, “they were crows, bloody crows.”