Ritual

by Ryan Casey

  “Want me to let Marlow know?” Annie asked.

  Brian shook his head. “Think I should be the one to tell him. Maybe he’ll be able to give us a bit of a character profile on his old friend Harry Galbraith.”

  He turned away, dizzy from the tastes and the fumes, ears ringing. He just wanted to get away. Just wanted to get out.

  “You know what this means right?” Annie said, as Brian walked past her.

  “That we’re dealing with a very fucked up case.”

  “That,” Annie said. “And it’s occult.”

  “Occult?”

  Annie raised her hand. “Look around, man. Look in that bathroom and tell me there’s not something cultish going on.”

  Brian didn’t want to look back into the bathroom. But he brought himself to anyway. The rats right up to the cages, squeaking and nibbling at the rusty metal doors. The cats lying dead at the bottom of the bath, bony with malnutrition.

  The pained eyes of the ginger cat pinned to the wall by its paws; ripped open down the middle.

  “And you know what it means if it’s occult,” Annie said.

  “What?”

  Annie looked at him, fear in her bloodshot eyes.

  “Let’s ... Let’s just say it means we’re in for a rough case and leave it at that for now.”

  Brian let her words sink in. Reached for his phone and tapped Marlow’s name.

  Marlow answered almost immediately.

  “Yeah, Detective,” Brian said, looking back into the terrified eyes of the cat on the wall. “I ... I think there’s more to this case than we first thought.”

  Sixteen

  “Terrible shame, really. Always seemed lovely. But got the feelin’ all along there was summat up with ’em.”

  Brian stood at the door of a neighbouring apartment. He held a pen to paper but so far, in the two hours of questioning he’d done, he hadn’t needed to use it. This was why he never saw the point of all this technology and that. iPads, tablets, whatever. If he wasn’t getting his use out of a bloody pen and paper in an enquiry then he didn’t see much point spending five hundred quid on a tablet.

  Or maybe he was just bitter that his old iPad he used strictly for fun had gone and broken.

  Yeah. Probably just bitter.

  “What exactly gave you the impression something was wrong with Harry and Carly?” Brian asked. Opposite him, a chocolate haired woman in a pink hoodie and jogging bottoms called Candice. He could see the fake tan encrusted on her palms, could smell the greasiness of it in the air. She twirled her dark hair around with a plump finger and looked down at the other apartment blocks, where Annie and a few of the other detectives were doing their questioning.

  From the looks on their faces, they didn’t seem to be having much fun either.

  “Just, y’know. He was a lot older ’n’ all that.”

  Brian’s stomach sank. “That’s ... That’s all you mean? When you say there was something wrong?”

  “Well it is a bit weird,” Candice said. “You read in the paper about all these nonces and that—”

  “Carly Mahone is ... was thirty-three, miss. She was hardly a child.”

  “But when he was ’er age she was only thirteen!” she said, smile on her face like she’d landed on a gem of a revelation. “Now go on. Tell me that ’int weird.”

  Brian offered a smile in return. It was all he could do. He’d spoken to everyone in this apartment block and in the houses immediately surrounding but he still hadn’t managed to get even the smallest morsel of information. Everyone had pretty much the same thing to say about Harry and Carly. They were nice people. Always smiled. Always happy to lend a bit of milk for a brew if a neighbour ran out. Just decidedly nice and normal.

  Nothing that matched the emptiness of their apartment.

  And nothing that matched the scene in the bathroom.

  “Thanks for your time, Candice,” Brian said. “Really appreciate it.”

  “Any time officer,” she said, looking him up and down from head to toe. Shit, if he was pissed, he might just’ve considered it once upon a time. But he wasn’t pissed, so he wouldn’t be touching her with a bargepole. “I think that’s all we’ll be needing.”

  He was about to turn around when a little boy stepped out from behind the door. Short, curly blond locks. Wearing a full PNE kit. Bruises on his elbow, like all kids had. Snot dribbling down his nose onto his chapped top lip.

  “Ey up, what you doin ’ere, little man?” Candice said. She grabbed the boy and squeezed him playfully. “This is our Brooklyn. Say hi to t’ policeman.”

  Brooklyn stared at Brian gormlessly. Shit. Brooklyn. Poor fucking kid. What was it with scrotes giving their kids celebrity names? Just because your daughter’s called Apple doesn’t make you Chris fucking Martin all of a sudden.

  “Hello kid,” Brian said. “Hope you’re behaving.”

  “Oh he’s always behavin’, my Brooklyn,” Candice said, still squeezing and fussing over him. “Not like them other kids. The ones who nick dusties off cars and that. Are you, Brook?”

  Again, Brooklyn just stared on in a way that suggested he wasn’t as angelic as his mother billed him to be.

  “Right, well, I’ll be off,” Brian said, pretending to check his watch and stepping away from the door.

  “The man in the window.”

  Brian stopped. Turned around. Looked back at Brooklyn.

  “What you say, Brook?” Candice asked. “What you say?”

  He looked up at Brian, cheeks reddening. Then he lowered his head. Shook it.

  “Brook, you’d better not do yer quiet thing now. Not now.”

  “It’s okay, kid,” Brian said, crouching opposite him. Old trick he’d learned. Make kids feel like they’re as tall as you. Look into their eyes, not down at them, and they might just respect you some more.

  Brooklyn lifted his head slowly. Little green eyes glanced into Brian’s. “He ... they told me not to—”

  “Who told you?” Candice asked, still talking down to her son. “Told you not to what? ’Cause if anyone told my son not to do summat, I’ll ’ave to—”

  “The man in the window.”

  Brian’s stomach tingled every time Brooklyn said those words. “Which window?”

  Brooklyn looked to his right.

  And then he lifted his hand.

  Pointed down the corridor.

  Brian looked where Brooklyn was pointing. He saw the door to the apartment block. Saw it swinging in the breeze.

  Outside, beyond the door, he saw a house. Curtains closed. Right across the road.

  “Who lives there?” Brian asked.

  Candice leaned out of her apartment. “That place? Oh, no one. Well, someone did live there. Joe, I think he was called. In his thirties. Lived on his own. Used to watch the kids playin’ on their bikes sometimes. But he seemed ’armless enough. Not, like, noncey, y’know.”

  Brian bit his tongue. Nobody thought to mention this guy before now? “How long’s he been moved out?”

  “Oh, he didn’t move out,” Candice said. “Not properly anyway. Just doesn’t stay round ’ere much now. Think he goes to his mum’s or summat. She’s old. Needs ’elp round the ’ouse and stuff. But he still comes back sometimes.”

  The man in the window.

  Brian looked right into Brooklyn’s tired, crusty eyes. Smiled at him. “Is Joe the man in the window?”

  Brooklyn opened his mouth. Like he wanted to say something he’d been dying to say all along, something bottled up inside.

  And then he closed his mouth, looked to the ground, and he nodded. “He told me not to say anything.”

  “Say anything about what?”

  Another quick glance up. Then back down at the floor.

  “About what, son?”

  “About the mouse.”

  Brian opened his mouth. Stopped. Images of that bathroom flooded back to him. The mice. The rats. The cats. “What about the mouse?” Brian asked.

  Brook
lyn went completely red. Started shaking.

  “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you. I’m a policeman.”

  “What he did to the ... to the mouse,” Brooklyn said.

  “What did Joe do to the mouse?”

  When Brooklyn told him what the Man in the Window did to the mouse, Brian felt the first cogs of the case click into place in a stomach-turning way.

  Seventeen

  Joe Kershaw peeked out through his curtains and felt the sickness in his chest.

  He’d done a bad. He hadn’t meant to do a bad but he’d done one and—

  Oh God what was Mum going to say when she found out?

  What was Mum going to say when she found out he’d done a bad? Because she loved him so much and she needed him. Yes, she needed him to care for her. ’Cause since Dad went away, she didn’t have nobody else.

  And she was old now. So old she was nearly dead. And sometimes she asked Joe to make her dead so he wouldn’t have to work hard to keep her happy anymore but he didn’t want Mum to be dead ’cause he loved her.

  He stepped away from the window when he saw the pretty woman police officer look right over at his house. Thought for a minute she looked into his eyes. And the sickness got stronger. He felt his muscles get tighter like they always used to when Dad came home before he was dead. When he smelled the sour booze on his breath.

  Before he kicked him and kicked him in his ribs, his ass, his face.

  But that was okay now ’cause Dad was dead.

  Dad was gone.

  Dad couldn’t hurt anyone.

  Joe had made sure of that.

  He swallowed a big gooey lump in his throat and backed away from the window. He could still see light peeking through the blue curtains, which were covered in holes. He liked the holes. He liked the way the light shone in through them from outside. Especially at night.

  He liked looking out the holes at night.

  Looking for movement outside.

  He licked his lips.

  But no. He couldn’t get carried away. Not now. Not now the police were on his street. ’Cause they were talking to the boy. The friendly little boy who kicked his football around outside. The boy who’d seen him.

  The boy who knew.

  But no. What did he know? What did he really know? He’d seen something, sure. But he wouldn’t really know what he’d seen. ’Cause he was only a kid. He was only a boy.

  And kids and boys didn’t see things for what they really were.

  Which was a good thing.

  He listened to the footsteps outside. Heard doors slamming shut. Heard people speaking to one another. The police. He couldn’t let the police find him. It’d kill Mum if the police did anything to him.

  And he didn’t want Mum dead.

  No. He had to get away. He had to get away because he couldn’t let the police get him.

  He’d done a bad but Mum couldn’t know about it. She wouldn’t know about it. He wouldn’t let her.

  He turned around and walked away from the window.

  Coughed on some of the dust in the air, some of the smell. He didn’t mind the smell. It reminded him of being on the farm with his Uncle Bill when he was a boy before Uncle Bill did the thing that made him go to prison. He liked being on Uncle Bill’s farm when he was a boy. He liked the cows and the sheep. He liked the smells.

  But now he had to go away.

  Because he’d done a bad.

  And nobody could know about it.

  Nobody.

  He walked over to the door and grabbed the handle.

  He didn’t have time to take his Friends with him.

  Eighteen

  “Come on, Annie. We can’t wait around all day here.”

  Annie punched Brian in his right arm, which was already sore from sleeping funny on it last night. Muscle and joint pains. The pains of getting old.

  Shit. He moaned too much about getting old these days. You’d think he didn’t want to retire or something.

  “We can and we will,” Annie said. She lifted her fist and banged on the crusty wooden door where “Joe”—or The Man in the Window as Brooklyn had called him—spent much of his time. “Gonna find that sick bastard. Still not got the smell of that animal shit out my nostrils.”

  Annie was right. Even though a strong evening breeze blew over Fulwood, Brian couldn’t smell a thing but the decaying odour of the tonnes of animals over in the bathroom of Harry Galbraith and Carly Mahone’s old home. People were over there now, fortunately, removing the corpses and the shit, taking those who’d survived to animal centres to get their strength back up. Poor things. Put so much faith and trust in humanity only for us to turn around and punish them for it. Consciousness was a cruel thing. Sometimes Brian wondered if we’d be better off without it altogether.

  “It might not be him,” Brian said, eager to get back to Hannah as the evening stretched on. He’d cancelled on Hannah and Sam to be here. Cancelled just like he always used to cancel on Vanessa, on Davey. That was how it started. His afternoons at work turning into evenings. Not sudden, but a gradual process. Finishing half an hour later. Then half an hour after that. And before he knew it, going for a drink after work to ease his thoughts before bedtime. Then going for another drink.

  Then the razor blades …

  No. That was his past. All in his past. Done. Over. A closed door of his life he never wanted to see inside again.

  “Might not be stalker guy who watches kids?” Annie said. “Stalker guy who picks mice up off the street? Who collects road kill? ’Cause you heard Brooklyn. You heard what that kid said. Sounds to me like our window friend here might have more to do with Harry and Carly than first thought.”

  “Maybe so,” Brian said, as Annie banged against the door again. “But procedure is procedure. He’s not home. We don’t have the authority to—”

  “When the fuck have you ever cared about authority?”

  Brian wanted to bite back. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because Annie had a point. When had he ever given a shit about authority? Not when he stormed into BetterLives to take down Robert Luther. Not when he tried to sneak into African Connection to find out who’d killed Elise Brayfeather.

  Not when he stabbed Luke Delforth. Put him down.

  “Things change. When you get older. You grow more … more mature.”

  “Fuck mature,” Annie said, walking away from the door. And for a moment, Brian actually thought she was turning around, leaving Joe’s house for an official search warrant to be obtained.

  But then she lifted her finger and pointed down the driveway at the side of the house. “Window down there partly open. I might just squeeze through it. You might struggle.”

  “Annie don’t—”

  But it was already too late.

  Annie was running in the direction of the window.

  Brian put a hand behind his head and turned to look down the road. Quiet. Curtains twitching. No doubt food for their gossip—gossip about the lovely dead couple, about the strange man called Joe who always smiled at their children who’d put an end to their lives. But no. It wasn’t as simple as that. Something else was going on here. Something else was happening.

  And as much as Brian wanted to climb in through that window—laws of physics aside—he knew he couldn’t because it was his duty not to risk things anymore. It was his duty to follow orders.

  He wasn’t going to jeopardise his future in the hasty pursuit of answers. Not after coming so far.

  He felt his phone vibrate and almost jumped out of his skin. He pulled it out of his pocket, saw Marlow’s number and felt his stomach take a dive. He looked over his shoulder. Saw Annie halfway through Joe’s kitchen window. Shit. Marlow knew. He knew they were breaking procedure and being fucking unprofessional and—

  No. Course he didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

  Be calm, Brian.

  Grow some balls, Brian.

  He lifted the phone to his ear and answered the call. “Yeah?”

&nb
sp; “McDone,” Marlow said. “Just had the parents down here to formally identify the bodies. Not that we needed any confirmation but yeah. Harry Galbraith and Carly Mahone.”

  Brian nodded. Gulped as Annie disappeared through the window, inside the house. He had a question for Marlow. A question niggling at him but a question he didn’t want to ask because he feared what Marlow might say if he did.

  He didn’t have to. Marlow answered it for him as if he’d telepathically read his mind.

  “I didn’t have a fucking clue Harry was into any weird shit. Far as I’m concerned he was a cynic. More so than me.”

  “Find that hard to believe.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just—”

  Brian heard the creaking of a door behind him. Again, nearly jumped out of his skin.

  When he turned, he saw Annie standing by Joe’s door.

  She had a pale, wretched look on her face.

  Wide eyes.

  Like she’d seen something in there.

  “Marlow I’ll have to go.”

  “Forensics should be checking the bodies soon. We’ll get word from them ASAP. See if that sheds any light on all this. Meanwhile I’ll—”

  “Yeah. Right,” Brian said.

  He ended the call.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  Annie looked back at him and he saw right then her throat was wobbling. Not quite as bad as it was when they’d stepped into Harry and Carly’s bathroom, but still bad.

  “Annie, what’s—”

  “You need to see what’s in here,” she said.

  She turned. Stared back into Joe’s house.

  “But I’m warning you. You might want to cover your nose.”

  Nineteen

  Detective Constable Annie Sanders was right when she told Brian he might want to cover his nose.

  “I guess this makes it pretty decisive,” she said. “Right?”

  Brian stood beside Annie in Joe’s lounge. Or at least it looked like it might once have been a lounge. There were lounge-like traces to the place—an imitation fireplace smeared in dust; an old television set that looked like it’d been dragged through a time warp from the 1980s. Old purple carpet, upturned at the sides of the walls where the flowery cream wallpaper flaked away and revealed grey marks of damp and mould.