Ritual jc-3 Page 4

  She wasn't methodical by nature — it was how she'd got her nickname, jumping at things — but her training in the job had helped and when she began to search Dad's study she did it as she'd do a forensic retrieval with the unit: systematically, in silence, cross-legged on the floor as the grandfather clock ticked in the hallway outside and the neighbours' horses whickered from the fields. In every corner of the room there were boxes crammed with journals, notes and projector slides, faculty photographs of Dad, owlish in a corduroy jacket; four sealed boxes of books marked with his best friend Kaiser Nduka's name. When she'd finished searching, almost everything she'd found was exactly what she'd have expected of Dad.

  Almost everything.

  Because among the detritus and dust there were two things she hadn't expected. Two things she couldn't explain.

  The first was a small safe. Pushed under the desk so it was hard up against the wall, it was the old-fashioned sort with a brass Yale dial lock. Unopenable. She tried every number sequence she could think of — Mum's birthday, Dad's birthday, her birthday, Thom's, her parents' wedding anniversary. She even got an old mathematical book down from the shelves and leafed her way through integer sequences, trying them at random: the Wythoff Array, the Para-Fibonacci sequence. But the safe wouldn't budge, so in the end she pushed it aside and turned back to the other thing she'd found: a purple brocade jewellery roll of her mother's pushed into the back of the desk drawer.

  Inside, there was a ziplock freezer bag, and the second she unwrapped it she knew what it contained — she recognized them from the drugs warrants she'd executed over the years. Mushrooms, wispy shrivelled things huddled together like tiny dry ghosts. There must have been hundreds — enough to give real weight to the jewellery roll. She opened the bag and tipped them out into her skirt. They came with a scattering of small fibres, spreading across the fabric, and as they did a memory lifted into her head.

  It was a picture of Dad, lying on his back on the sofa, his hands resting on his chest, a cushion on his face to shut out the light. He'd lie like that for hours on end, not speaking or moving, as if he was sleeping. Except he wasn't sleeping. There was something too unsettled about him for sleep. It was something else. Now, poking the mushrooms, she wondered if she was beginning to understand. So, Dad, she thought, was this what it was for you all that time? And I never guessed.

  She sat looking at the mushrooms for a long time. Then, when the grandfather clock struck eleven, something big locked into place in the back of her head. She got to her feet and shovelled them back into the ziplock bag, put it into the velvet jewellery roll and got to her feet. Picking up the safe she went to the kitchen, put everything on the shelf, then stood for a few moments at the window, staring out. Her mouth was dry, her head was thudding, because she knew, as sure as she knew the smell of her own father, that she was going to take the mushrooms too.

  Now, standing next to the underwater recovery unit's Mercedes van at the head of the slip, the arclights fizzing and popping as the team wandered around, Flea could still feel the sickly psilocybin moving through her system. Even when, at eight, they called a halt because everyone was too knackered and the Health and Safety lot would tap her on the shoulder if they got wind she'd worked the men these hours, even then she found it difficult to turn away from the harbour — from the mesmerizing pull of the water and the eerie sense that something nasty was going to come out of it.

  The team had gathered at the van and were coiling the yellow and blue umbilicals, packing up the surface supply panel. DI Caffery stood a few feet away, just inside the shadows, arguing on his mobile: she could hear most of the conversation — he was speaking with the SIO who was already pissed off that he'd taken all this extra dive unit time without waiting for the pathologist to confirm that the hand had been cut off.

  She turned away tiredly, a bit irritated. Her team had knocked themselves out. They'd searched the whole of Welshback: under the houseboats, even into the vaulted foundations of the bonded warehouses opposite, finding everything down there from mobile phones, pairs of knickers, tables and chairs from the bars on the front to a decommissioned gun. Four divers had clocked up ninety minutes each; they'd covered a sixty-metre section of the harbour. But, and she knew she was the only one who noticed this, it wasn't enough for DI Caffery. She could tell he was disappointed in her, let down that she couldn't work a miracle when it was her unit who'd set him out on this wild-goose chase. When at last she'd closed the doors of the Mercedes and seen the team on their way, she couldn't help it — she couldn't let him go away thinking she'd failed: she caught up with him as he made his way back to the car.

  'Look,' she said, in a voice more apologetic-sounding than she'd meant it to be, 'I suppose there's a chance the rest of the body could have shifted.'

  'Yeah?' he said. She had to walk fast to keep up with him, splashing through foul-smelling puddles at the front of the restaurant because he didn't break step. 'Meaning?'

  'Uh, meaning there was flow-through here today — they had the sluices open — so I suppose theoretically it could have shifted down into the upper harbour.' As she said it she knew it was bullshit. She'd never in her six years in the unit known a body to do that. It was pretty much physically impossible. 'It's a big jump to make, I grant you, but if you really want to keep at it we could be back here in the morning.'

  'Sure,' he said, without even taking time to think about it. He swung into a junky old car, badly parked across the entrance to the restaurant and put the key into the ignition. 'That's good,' he said, through the open window. 'See you at first light, then.'

  He started the engine and he was off. No goodbye, just a quick swerve out into the deserted road. The headlights disappeared and then she was alone on the quayside, except for the two uniforms out of Broadbury patrolling the sealedoff area in the distance. She stood for a moment, in the silence, realizing that her feet were wet and greasy from the puddle, that she was shivering and tired, but most of all realizing how totally pissed off she was. Not so much pissed off with DI Caffery as with herself. A body shifting along the harbour floor? Yeah, right. Christ, what a sap.

  The hallucinations the day before had come on like an electrical storm. At first there had been nothing. Not even the elevated pulse she'd expected. Flea had taken the mushrooms at eleven thirty. A full hour had gone by and she was about to get up from her father's sofa and go into the kitchen to make toast, when something made her start. She'd had the impression of a firework exploding outside the window, somewhere in the blue sky high over the spires of Bath.

  She sat up and turned to the window, and as she did, she spotted something else, a movement behind her in the shadow: a vague smear of colour, as if something in the study was reaching out a hand for the back of her neck. When she turned there was nothing, only the patches of sunlight dancing on the wall. For a while she sat looking stupidly at it. And then, suddenly, she was laughing. She leaned back, the laughter huge in her mouth, bigger than her tongue, bigger than her throat. And that was how it started.

  She couldn't have said when the hallucinations reached their peak, how long into the trip it was, but at one point she knew who she was and where she was and that she'd taken a drug and that things were happening, and the next moment her face was hard against the sofa, and the fabric, so close to her eyes, was magnified a hundred times, the weave like the trunks of trees. She could smell mothballs and see a small dot of white, probably a stray thread in the sofa, but suddenly it was big and she could see it wasn't a thread, it was her mother in the trees, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a floral scarf round her head, squatting down to inspect a patch of dog violet.

  Flea's mouth moved against the rough fabric, a word coming out: 'Mum?' It sounded so far off, her own voice — as if it was coming from a distant hill — but Jill Marley heard it. She turned, looking into the trees questioningly, not quite seeing her daughter. Her expression was unmistakably sad — Flea could tell from the straight set to her mouth, the reflection in
her eyes.

  'Oh, Mum.' Her throat tightened. She reached up a hand to touch the image. 'Mum? What is it?'

  Jill stared into the trees. Then, slowly, cautiously, because still she couldn't see her daughter, she began to speak. Flea knew what she was saying was very important, and she strained forward to listen, but at that moment the image faded and Flea was back where she remembered being before, on the sofa, the fabric against her cheek and nothing left of the hallucination but the notion, so clear it was like the wind or the swell of the sea, that the words Mum had been about to say were: 'You looked in the wrong place. We went the other way.'

  We went the other way.

  Lying on the sofa, the late sun streaming through the gaps in the shutters on to her red eyelids, she knew, without having to question it, that her mother could only have been talking about one thing.

  She was talking about the accident.

  6

  25 November

  Turns out not to be a blow-job that Skinny's after. Turns out he's got other things on his mind.

  He takes Mossy to a small car park next to a row of garages and they get into a beat-up old Peugeot where Skinny gives him a hit of gear so good it makes him want to cry.

  'Let me put this on?' Skinny asks, after a while, when he can see the H is working on Mossy. He holds up an eye mask, the sort you see them wearing in ads for long-haul airlines. 'I'm going to take you somewhere — take you to meet someone who can help you. But him want you to wear this thing. Him not want you see where him live. What do you want? Do you want to wear it or not?'

  Mossy takes it from Skinny and dangles it from his finger, smiling at it. One thing everyone always says about Mossy is that he's not afraid to take a chance. 'Someone's going to «help» me?'

  'Yes. What you want? Money? Or more H? Plenty good H, eh?'

  Mossy has this picture suddenly, of being driven off to a wasteland and having a bullet in the back of his head. Then he thinks about money, and the suicidal part of him thinks, What the fuck? He snaps the mask round his head and lies back in the seat. 'Go on, then,' he says, still smiling. 'Start the show.'

  There's a few moments' silence, and he wonders whether to take the mask off, then the car shifts and the door opens and slams and the other door opens and he realizes Skinny has got out of the front and into the back with him. 'Hey? What're you doing?' But he feels Skinny's hands on his face, he can feel the calloused fingertips like they're made out of hemp rope, and the fingers smoothing the mask down, holding it tight. He doesn't reach up to stop Skinny. He just waits in the silence, and there they sit until he hears footsteps and someone else gets into the car. The chassis shifts and groans and someone's adjusting the front seat, but no one speaks. Then the car engine fires and Mossy licks his lips. The adventure is about to start.

  'Bring it on,' he goes, laughing. 'Bring it on.'

  It's like being in one of those gangsterland New York movies, the sort Ray Liotta'd be in, and Mossy wonders seriously once or twice if his number's up. Even with the smack his head is keen enough to feel out the little details. The scent of aftershave — that comes from the driver, not the little black guy who sits next to him holding the mask in place, and smells of something different, something bitter, like roots or soil.

  They bump along and he can hear other cars, buses, motorbikes passing them in both directions. He can hear the indicator clicking, but still no one speaks. He's lost track of where they're going and when they pull up and pitch him gently out on to cold ground his heart speeds up. This is it? The end?

  But it isn't. There's a bit of walking and a voice from somewhere: a bloke, but he can't really hear what he says because it's not a local accent. Then Mossy hears a key in a door and he's led into a building — he can feel the change of temperature. It's warm in here with carpet underfoot and it smells worse than the car. It smells like the old crackhouse that started up last year on the estate, a bastard of a place it was, with people in there half dead — once someone completely dead and in a weird shape, bent over a table with his drawers down and everyone whispered how he was being fucked when his heart suddenly decided to stop, and everyone bet there was some frightened old John somewhere out in the city waiting for the filth to knock on the door. Somewhere a TV's playing. Mossy's guided round furniture, and then there's a long corridor, and Skinny's still guiding him, with the driver walking in front. There's the sound of a door being opened, a curtain being pulled back and keys, heavy and metal like a gaoler's keys, and a rusty squeak of a gate opening. But this time Mossy balks.

  He pulls back, suddenly unsure. 'Nah. Don't like this.'

  'It's OK, son,' goes a voice he hasn't heard before. The driver? 'D'you want us to take you back?'

  Already Mossy can feel that the hit's got to its best. There's that faint sinking of something in the back of his neck that's telling him the turning-point isn't far. That in a few hours he'll be back in the agonies, wanting to die.

  'You've got something for me? There'd better be something for me.'

  'Come through,' goes the voice. 'You can see it. As soon as you step through.'

  There's a bitter taste in his mouth, but he steps through anyway. He has to lift his feet because the opening is smaller than a normal door and he wonders what the fuck sort of a place he's in. Behind him he hears the door being locked and again he pulls a little, but he can feel Skinny's small scratchy hands on his arms, leading him, pushing him forward. The air's better in here, just a faint smell of burning and damp, but better than it was in the other place.

  'Here,' goes Skinny. 'We's here.' And he pushes him down on to a seat.

  Mossy gropes for the mask and drags it off. He blinks. They're on their own, no driver, in a room with no daylight coming in — the only light is a lopsided standard lamp next to the sofa — and a three-bar electric fire plugged into an extension lead that trails off into the darkness. There's old wallpaper on the walls, but it's been scribbled on like this is where kids have been living and someone's pinned up teenagers' magazine posters of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, Brad Pitt in Troy — another one of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones wearing shades, the words Protecting the World From the Scum of the Universe blazing above them. Mossy shuffles his feet. The carpet is worn out, a sort of sickly purple colour, you can see the foam backing in places, and in the corner a ghetto-blaster, a kettle, a box of tea-bags and a packet of sugar.

  'Where's this place to, then?' He turns to look over his shoulder. There's a little corridor with a window behind them, but the glass is broken and it's covered with a grille, 'SITEX' stamped on it like the stuff the council used to cover up the ones in the crackhouse after the dead body on the table. It feels like someone's started to convert this place into something then got bored, because bare wires are poking out of the plaster in places and holes are bashed in walls and Mossy knows that the only way out is through the gate they just came through. 'This where you live then, is it?'

  'Yes'm,' goes Skinny. He's standing at a wooden unit that's been torn out of a nameless kitchen and stranded here in this fuck-awful place. 'I live here. This be my home.' He gets something out of the drawer and brings it to Mossy, whose heart jumps. He knows what's in it even before Skinny opens it. He can feel his legs and stomach go a bit fluid.

  'Well?' he says. 'What've I got to do for it?'

  Skinny doesn't answer. He rubs his brown finger over his top lip and doesn't meet Mossy's eyes. Mossy makes a grab for the bag, just misses. Skinny steps out of reach and stands a few feet away. Something in his eyes has closed off and gone all evasive.

  Mossy sits back in the sofa, breathing hard. 'Come on — spit it out. What do you want? No weird shit, OK, no «red» or anything. But fists is OK and you don't need to wear nothing.' He rubs his crotch a little, gives Skinny a sly look. 'And there's lots of me if it's you wants the fucking. I'd fill you up, little thing like you.'

  Skinny sits down on the sofa next to Mossy and gives him such a sad look that Mossy has another flash that they're ab
out to kill him.

  'What?' he goes, trying to make it sound light. 'What's that look for?'

  'Blood,' says Skinny. 'Just a little blood. A little blood and you get plenty H. Plenty money too.'

  'Blood? I just told you, I don't do no weird shit. No «red». You ain't going to knock me around, sweetheart, not for all the gear in the world.'

  'A needle.' Skinny taps the inside of Mossy's arm, just where the H went in. 'I is put little needle in here, and take a little of yours blood.'

  There's a long silence. Mossy stares at his arm, then looks up into Skinny's liquidy eyes. They meet his, and Mossy can see blood in the whites, like he's ill. But he's not being threatening and, anyway, there isn't enough of him to put up much of a fight — though he's wiry and doesn't look like he's a user so he'd have the edge if anything did kick off.

  'You a vampire, then?' He laughs hoarsely, a little nervous. But Skinny keeps on looking into his eyes, all serious. So Mossy stops. He swallows. This is so fucking freaky. He uncurls Skinny's fingers from his arm.

  'What're you going to do with my blood, then?' he asks tightly, because something about this is making him feel sick. 'What're you going to do with it? Drink it?'

  7

  13 May

  Caffery came quicker than he'd meant to. Maybe it was the stress of the day, maybe the long hours, or maybe something else, but almost as soon as he was inside Keelie, her legs hooked up over his shoulders, it was over. She was lying on the back seat of the car with her skirt hitched up, holding the back of his head in both hands and pulling his face down so it was pressed against hers, and maybe she didn't want it to have been that quick because it took him a minute or two to get her to loosen her grip on him, untangling her fingers from his hair and moving her shoulders back. He knelt up in the well of the car, moved her legs and fell sideways on to the seat, one hand loosening the collar of his shirt, the other resting on his chest.