Ritual

by Mo Hayder

  Skinny doesn't talk much about it. He tries to pretend it's not happening, but then something forces him to go past all that. One day something starts him sweating.

  It must be the third or fourth day, Mossy's almost sure he's been here three days, and it starts with shouting. He sits up on the sofa and peers into the darkness. The noise seems to be coming from somewhere beyond the gate, maybe from somewhere nearer the cage, and from the echoes he gets a sense of what this place is like, of the labyrinth of rooms. There's the noise of something being thrown against the wall, more shouts, then silence. He waits what seems for ever. Then, just as he's lying back on the sofa, suddenly people are in the corridor jostling, adrenalin and violence in the air, Uncle, maybe someone else. The gate is opened and Skinny is pushed inside. When Uncle has gone and the corridor is dark Mossy leans over and hisses, 'What? What is it?'

  There's a moment of silence, then Skinny skulks over, sits on the threadbare sofa, wraps his arms round his shoulders and gives him this look that says everything's gone wrong.

  'What?'

  Skinny shakes his head and his eyes turn away, staring at the barred cage. It's back to the nightmare, then.

  'Your brother,' Mossy says. 'It's your brother?'

  Skinny nods miserably and wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

  'What then? What the fuck's he done now?'

  He swallows hard as if there's a lump in his throat.

  'What?'

  Skinny puts his hand to his mouth, taps it a couple of times with his thumb. At first Mossy thinks he's doing it to stop himself crying, but then he sees it's a gesture. Skinny does it again and he understands.

  'Drinking?'

  He nods.

  'He's drunk? Uncle caught him?'

  Skinny screws up his face and rubs his fingers hard into his arms. The look on his face is making Mossy's skin crawl.

  'What's he been drinking?'

  And still Skinny can't answer. Mossy knows for sure now that something the brother has done has really chucked the shit at the fan. He can tell from Skinny's face and from the noises out there that Uncle has caught the freak doing something, drinking something he shouldn't. He's getting the words and the ideas straight in his head, and he's about to say it all, when the whole thing dawns on him. It's like having a snake go fast through his belly.

  'Shit,' he says faintly. 'You're fucking joking. You're fucking joking.'

  He gets up slowly, in a daze, because he can't sit here waiting for Jonah a minute longer. This is all too screwed up. He goes to the gate and rattles it.

  'Hey,' he shouts into the little corridor, with the bare light fitting. 'Let me out.' There is silence out there now. The banging and shouting have stopped. He shakes the gate a little harder and the noise echoes through the building. 'Hey!' he yells. 'Come and let me out! I've had enough of you bunch of fucking freaks.'

  'Don't,' Skinny says, from the sofa. 'Don't. You go make him angry.'

  But Mossy doesn't care. He's trying to shake the gate out of its moorings. 'Let me out.' His voice is rising, louder and louder. 'Let me out, you shithead. Let me out.'

  He's trembling because if there's one thing he knows it's that he's not staying in a place with an animal, because that's what Skinny's brother must be, to do what he's done. Drink his blood. There's no need to spell it out. The weird fucker has been into the fridge and drunk the blood, and now there is nothing Mossy won't risk to get out of this place into the sunlight.

  'Come and let me the fuck out!' he screams, throwing himself at the gate. 'Let me out!'

  He's been yelling and rattling the gate for ever when from the darkness at the end of the corridor there's a sound.

  At first Mossy doesn't notice it, but then he sees a crack of light and his voice dies. There's the sound of nails being pulled from wood. He freezes when a head appears as if from the wall, and suddenly in the corridor Uncle's coming towards him. He's dressed in a blue shirt and pale trousers and this is the closest Mossy has ever got to him. He's wearing black gloves, but the thing that really scares Mossy is that he can see why his head always looks so big. He's wearing a rubber S&M mask zipped over his face.

  Mossy lets go of the gate and backs away across the room. Skinny has curled up in the corner.

  'What?' Mossy yells at him. 'What're you looking like that for? What the fuck's he going to—'

  But the lock rattles, the gate opens and, before Mossy can do anything, Uncle is in the room. It all happens so quickly that afterwards Mossy won't remember much. He won't remember whether Skinny helped or what happened, because all he knows is that one minute he's running towards the bathroom and the next he's been thrown back on to the sofa, all the air coming out of his lungs, and someone's on top of him. It's like being picked up by a bull because Uncle is fast and sinewy, and so pissed off you'd think he could rip the walls apart with his bare hands.

  Mossy tries to struggle, but he's winded. He lies on the sofa, gulping air, trying to see, trying to scream. Someone straddles him – he can't see who because there's something across his eyes but he guesses it must be Uncle from the strength. His weight drops on to Mossy's chest and squeezes the air out. He can feel it – feel the sides of his lungs pressing together, and he knows he's gone from alive to nearly dead in a few short seconds.

  He can hear sounds coming from his own throat, strangled sounds, as he tries to suck in air, and above him the sound of Uncle breathing in the mask: hard and scratchy, like a horse. Then someone has grabbed his arm and although he tries to squirm away he can't. There's a cold, familiar feeling on his arm, a puncture. He tries to pull away but the needle is in and almost instantly, much faster than a hit of scag, his head goes silver, there's a long rush of energy up through his body, a sense of voices gathering in his head and then it's over. His head slumps back and he lies there, making weak movements with his arm as the rest of the liquid is forced into his shattered vein.

  Afterwards there is silence, while maybe Skinny and Uncle wait to see what he will do. Then, with a grunt, Uncle climbs off him. Mossy doesn't try to get up. He doesn't care any more. He lies on his back with his arm hanging limp over the side, fingers on the floor, and lets his eyes roam across the ceiling. He can see cities and mountains up there. He can see stars and clouds. He is floating, he is flying, and nothing else matters. It doesn't matter that somewhere in the corner of the room Uncle is plugging a piece of equipment into the wall. It doesn't matter when he hears the power saw start up. All that matters is staying in that flying feeling. The feeling that makes him believe he can reach the stars if he only wishes it enough.

  43

  18 May

  'It's for the insurance,' Tay said, as she crouched behind the reception desk and ran her manicured nails across the DVD cases neatly lined up and labelled. 'I get a big break on my premiums by having the place covered. I mean, some of the people we get in here are in very distressed states and you never know.'

  'Yeah,' Chloë echoed. 'You never know.'

  Caffery watched from a few paces away, wanting to avoid the withering look he was sure he'd get if Tay smelled the tobacco on him. 'You mentioned something earlier, Tay,' he said, as she examined each label, pulling one or two out and piling them on the counter. 'You said ibogaine was used in a ritual.'

  'The Bwiti tribe.' She pushed her glasses up her nose and crouched again to check the remaining disks. 'They use it to get in touch with their ancestors.'

  'A sort of shamanic ritual?'

  She glanced up at him.

  'A shaman,' he explained. 'Like a witch doctor.'

  'I don't really understand that side of it. My interest is the biochemical aspect, not the anthropological.'

  'Do you know if it's used any other way, in other types of African magic? Maybe as a remedy?'

  She shook her head and straightened up, putting three more disks on top of the pile. She fished a brown-paper bag out from under the desk and put it down next to them. 'It's not really my thing, Mr Caffery. We've had
an academic here who was interested in our work. He'd be able to tell you. I cooperated with him – for the publicity's sake – but I didn't get involved because it was in the early days when I was doing the preliminary treatments.'

  'He came and observed,' Chloë said importantly. 'You know, for his research.'

  'And what did he do with it all?'

  'Told us he was trying to get it published. I mean, that's what they do, isn't it? These academics?' Tay leaned across Chloë and clicked her way into a database. The printer under the counter whirred into life. 'We use his home address because he hardly ever goes into the university.' Paper shot into her hand and she passed it to him with a smile. 'He's very accommodating, will talk about ibogaine and ritual use ad infinitum.'

  Caffery took the paper and looked at the name. 'Kaiser Nduka,' he murmured. A German-sounding first name and an African-sounding surname. He'd seen it before – it had been on Marilyn's list of consultants. She'd highlighted it because he was so local. 'Right,' he said, sliding the DVDs off the counter and into the paper bag. 'I'm taking these up to the multimedia unit at HQ to get them analysed – and then I might stop by and speak to Mr Nduka.'

  'Say hi to him from us.' Chloë waved with her fingertips.

  'Yes,' said Tay, holding the door for him. She gave Caffery that cool, slightly contemptuous smile again. For a moment he thought she was going to sniff, wrinkle her nose at the smell of cigarettes, but she didn't. She inclined her head as he left. 'Please do. Please send him our regards.'

  Misty Kitson might have been a drug addict, like Jonah, but she was pretty and a famous one. And this made the difference. Flea and Dundas both knew that although he was a police officer's son Jonah was still a whore, and his disappearance would be swept under the carpet. They called the duty inspector at Trinity Road, the nearest police station to Faith's flat, and got him to start a missing- persons report. But there was something unconvincing about the way he promised to prioritize, and Flea decided she needed to speak to someone she knew personally.

  Caffery. She had the strangest feeling he was the sort who'd stick his neck out for someone like Jonah. She didn't know why, but she thought he was the only person who wouldn't stop until he'd found him. But he wasn't at Kingswood – the staff gave her his mobile number but it was switched off – and it took some digging to find someone who said they'd heard Caffery was heading to HQ to go through some CCTV footage with the multimedia unit and she might catch him there. Portishead was en route to Kaiser's anyway, so once she'd got the team sorted and a new supervisor on duty, once Dundas had left to drive to Faith's, Flea went back to her car parked on the road.

  She'd got the door closed and the key was in the ignition when a short man with stocky legs and an intense look in his eyes appeared at the window, tapping on the glass. She turned on the ignition and opened the window. 'Are you Sergeant Marley?'

  'What can I do for you?'

  'I'm the POLSA.'

  The police search adviser – the person who'd have set the parameters and put her team in the water in the first place. She'd never seen him before. His stripes told her he was a constable. 'Yeah, well,' she said flatly, pulling on her seatbelt. 'I'm on annual, so speak to someone else in the team.'

  'I would, but something's going on with your team today. For a minute there I thought they were going to stop searching altogether.'

  'We had a staffing problem,' she said, 'but we've put another officer in as supervisor and he's got everything in hand. We've lost an hour tops. OK?'

  She pressed the button to close the window, but the POLSA put his hand on the top of the glass, stopping her.

  'I'd like an extra person in there now,' he said. 'I'd be happier with that – if you could get someone in there. It might even cross your mind to cancel your day off for a case this important.'

  A tic was starting in her eye. 'No,' she said. 'It won't cross my mind. The team you've got there is perfectly capable of doing the job.' She raised her eyes to his face, to the bulbous nose, to the first sprinkle of burst capillaries on his cheeks, and then something in her slipped a little. It was to do with his face, with the way he had his hand on her window, and it was to do with a million other things. Something inside her just slipped off a hook. 'Tell you what, let's speak the truth here, save both of us some time, shall we?'

  'The truth?'

  'Yes,' she said, knowing she should stop, but enjoying the way the words were coming clear and clean. 'We both know you're not going to find her in there.'

  'Do we?'

  'Yes,' she said. 'We do.'

  His eyes were a washed-out blue, the rims red. 'It's funny, because if your unit hasn't even finished searching the lake yet, I don't see how you can be sure where she is. What makes you an expert on knowing where a body's going to end up?'

  Years of training? she thought. Years of knowing what water does? Oh, and a bit of premonition too – a little skill I didn't know I had until yesterday.

  'You're not trained on search parameters,' he said. 'I mean, let's face it, you're just a—'

  'A diver? Just a diver. Is that what you were going to say?'

  'There are established profiles for people in Kitson's condition. Nine times out of ten someone who wanders off from a clinic, like she has, will be found trying to score in the nearest town or climbing on the next bus out. But if they've topped themselves the body'll be within a two mile radius of the clinic.'

  For a moment or two Flea was silent. Then she looked down at the hand still resting on the window. 'New, are you?' she said. 'I've not seen you before.'

  'I've just completed my training. Yes.'

  'And what part of learning to find a bomb taught you how to find a body?'

  'Our training is more than just for improvised explosive devices, you know.'

  'I know. After the IEDs you sit up in North Wales for a couple of days, learning how to read a few profiles. You know how to use an electronic map, but you don't know how to—' She pictured Prody on her doorstep last night, the light on his face. 'You don't know how to think outside the box.'

  The POLSA straightened up. She could see up his nostrils, the little hairs and the red folds of skin up there – as if he had a cold and had been blowing his nose over and over. 'Well,' he said, with a sarcastic sniff, 'how about you teach me how to "think outside the box"? Tell me how you know there's no body in that lake.'

  Flea sighed, turning on the ignition and taking off the handbrake. 'Because,' she said patiently, 'she's a beautiful girl. A famous girl. And when famous beautiful girls kill themselves they make sure they leave a good-looking corpse. And that means not drowning themselves. And especially not drowning themselves in a shitty old lake like this one. Get it?'

  And without waiting for a reply, knowing the constable was going to run straight back to the DCI and tell tales, knowing that she should have stopped her mouth and her head slipping away from her like that, she put the car into gear and drove away, leaving the POLSA standing in a cloud of dust, fury on his face.

  44

  At HQ Flea saw Caffery's tatty car straight away. It stood at the edge of the car park, looking a little obstinate in the way it was so separate from the shiny Mondeos and BMWs.

  She pulled in next to it, switched off the engine and sat for a moment or two, looking at her hands resting on the steering-wheel, her fingernails a little pale. She had an image of a line being stretched very tight. Her body felt empty, her head light. If she didn't get to Kaiser's soon she thought something would crack open inside her.

  A familiar figure was coming out of the glass atrium. Caffery's jacket was open, his hands in his pockets, his stomach lean and hard against the white shirt. By the way he'd stopped at the head of the pathway and was looking from left to right across the neat lawns and fountains, she could tell he was preoccupied, as if he'd forgotten what he should be doing with himself, as if he'd like to get into his car but thought he might have left something behind in the building. She wondered what she was doing ther
e. Was it really that she thought he'd take her seriously about Jonah? To start on a wild-goose chase like this, a person would have to be either crazy or know at first hand the agony of someone close going missing. Stupid to think he'd listen. And maybe, she thought, pissed off with herself now, that wasn't the real reason she'd chosen him anyway.

  But just as she was about to start the car and leave, to head down to Trinity Road to speak to the inspector there, Caffery saw her. He didn't speak or change his expression but she knew it from the way he became very still, his shoulders back, his face pointing in her direction.

  She waited for him to cross the grass, then took off her sunglasses and got out of the car.

  'Hi,' he said.

  She gave him a bleak smile. 'You were in the multimedia unit?'

  'Had some footage to run through, but turns out it isn't something that happens overnight. I'm in their way, hanging over their shoulders.' He paused. 'What are you doing today?' he said. 'I'm going out of town to the countryside.'

  'Out of town?'

  'It's work,' he said. 'Nothing else. Just thought you might like the drive.'

  'No,' she said. 'I mean I'm going to – I've got to see a fr— Someone I've got to see.'

  He was looking at her in a thoughtful way, as if something about her made him curious or amused. A tiny shard of sky was reflected in his iris that made her want to close her eyes. It made an ache start in her lower belly that she hated. 'Why are you here?' he said. 'You look like you came to tell me something.'