Ritual (12 page)

He's never fought like this in his life. He's fought and fought, half killed himself, and still he can't get out. No matter how many times he's rammed himself into the locked iron gates, blundering like a darted animal at the walls, no matter how much he's bellowed and tugged at the grating on the window, in the end he can't find the strength and he gives up. He lies down on the sofa, face in his hands, and begins to sob. 'Please,' he cries, 'I've changed my mind. I don't want the fucking money.'

Skinny is sitting against the wall watching this. His knees are up and his eyes are wide. He looks scared. He looks as desperate as Mossy feels.

'Please, I mean, really fucking seriously
please
, let me out of this place. I swear I won't tell a soul – I swear.' He breaks off, tears running down his cheeks, his hands up in the air in front of his face, half ashamed of his fear. His hands. His fucking hands. It's his hands they want to take, and it's all too un-fucking-believable, this place, with the bars and the locks. This insanity. He goes on crying for a while. Then Skinny makes a strange noise. He gets to his feet and turns to the gate. He taps three times on the bars – a signal.

Mossy drops his hands. 'What you doing?' he yells. 'Where're you going? Don't fucking go.'

'Uncle,' he says quietly. His voice is thick, a little embarrassed. He doesn't turn to him. 'I'm going to speak to Uncle.'

'Who?' Mossy says. 'Who the fuck's . . .' There's a noise in the corridor. A shaft of light, a figure appears in silhouette and the words stick in Mossy's mouth. He goes really quiet. Moving very quietly, not taking his eyes off Skinny, he gets up and picks his way to the back of the sofa, squatting in the corner, sitting on his hands like that will protect him. It's too dark to see who this new person is but it looks like a man. The driver? There's a moment when he can see gloved hands unlocking the gate, then Skinny slips out. There's a clang as the gate is closed, locked, and Mossy is left on his own in the silence.

He doesn't move for a long time, just stares at the closed gate expecting someone to come back through it. But minutes tick by and nothing happens. After what seems like an hour, when no one reappears, he gets up cautiously and moves around, breathing fast, like an athlete, which is a joke for someone with a body like his, trying to keep his legs springy, half bent, facing the gate so he never has to take his eyes off it for more than a few seconds. He goes round the place checking every corner half by feel.

The room is perfectly square. It must have been a bedroom because there is girls' wallpaper in some places: a frieze of ballerinas. At one end there is a small corridor and at the end of that a bathroom. Briefly he takes his eyes off the gate to check it out. And then he wishes he hadn't.

There's some heavy-duty S&M equipment riveted to the walls – no doubt what's gone on in here in the past. Coiled on the floor is a yellow, industrial hose, the type used for cleaning factory equipment. The hose says more than anything: it says that what happens in here, or what's meant to happen, needs to be cleaned up after. There's a half-broken bog with a window above it. It's barred, the window, with SITEX again, no getting out of that, but back in the corridor there's another window, and on this one the grille, which is oversized and goes all the way down to the floor, is bent, just at the bottom, as if something has squeezed through it.

He gets down on the floor with his back to the wall and tries to push his head up into the gap. He gets his shoulders in – and if he turns his head he can see the grey daylight above. This must lead outside, but as he tries to push a little higher he realizes he's stuck. He can't go any further. He kicks a bit, tries to push it that last inch, but the grille is digging into his spine so hard it feels like it's going to break his back. Someone could be coming in through the gate any second and find him trapped here, so he shuffles himself down, pulling back into the room, inch by inch, the grille digging into his skin. He comes out with his T-shirt over his head and the skin scraped off his back.

He stands and pulls the T-shirt down, shivering now. He hates this room. Apart from the gate and the two windows there is only one other entrance. He remembers this from last time because then it reminded him of an animal's cage. It's a hole in the wall, hacked roughly into the breeze blocks, the shape and position of a fireplace. An iron gate is set into the sides so it's barred too, like the one Skinny's just gone through. You could imagine a lion in there, or a tiger. He squats and on the other side of the grille sees a pile of clothing. He's just about to reach for it when the gate to his right opens.

Mossy darts behind the sofa, cowering, starting to cry again in his fear, but it's only Skinny. There's a figure behind him, locking the gate, but now Skinny's standing on his own in the room. His eyes are bright, he isn't smiling, but he hasn't got that sad look on his face any more. The other person moves off down the little hallway and when they've gone Skinny comes forward and kneels on the sofa.

'What?' hisses Mossy. 'What is it?'

'Do you have a friend?'

'A friend?'

'Someone who needs money too?'

'What're you talking about?'

'Uncle. He say maybe you have a friend who can come instead. And then you can go free.'

Mossy stares at him. '
What?
'

'Someone to come here in your place. Someone to have
his
hands cut off.'

'You mean if I do that he won't cut my hands off?'

'That's right.'

Mossy lets out his breath. He's having trouble keeping up with this. 'You mean,' he says, looking intently at Skinny, because now, more than ever, he needs the truth from this person, 'you mean the moment someone else turns up I can go?'

'Yes. You can go.'

Mossy eyes Skinny. His heart is thumping now. He's trying to think fast because he knows this is his chance. There are people all over Bristol he'd like to see with their hands cut off – some he'd cut off himself given half a chance – but none of them are stupid enough to get themselves into the position he's in right now.

But then he realizes there is one person: one person nasty
and
stupid. In fact, dopey as shit. Jonah. Jonah Dundas from the Hopewell estate. He raises his eyes to Skinny, a smile twitching at his mouth, because he's just about to save himself by sacrificing someone else.

And, to tell the truth, it feels good.

At seven a.m. the following day the big IDENT1 computer, having kicked up five comparisons, had whittled the prints from the severed hand down to one person: Ian Mallows. A twenty-two-year-old drug addict from the Knowle West housing estate. By the time the good residents of Knowle West had started breakfast and looked out of their windows the place was crawling with uniformed cops: nine of Avon and Somerset's finest, knocking on doors.

Caffery, feeling the effects of last night's scrumpy, was standing in the doorway of the Community Contact van in his shirtsleeves. He was tired and his back ached. But he knew the case was squeezing a little, a bit less ragged round the edges, and he had an idea that if he stepped on it they might even get the crucial evidence by the end of the day – the rest of Mallows's body. Or even Mallows alive, if the CSM was right. He had a DS interviewing Ian Mallows's probation officer, and some of the support unit had forced an entry into Mallows's flat, but it was empty and the CSM was doing a forensic search of that now. The other officers were crawling over the estate, each waving a picture of Ian Mallows, and the same comment had come up over and over. 'Ask BM. BM knows everyone round here. Ask BM.' And, from looking casually around the estate, from the squat brick buildings to the skanky bits of grass covered with dog shit, within five minutes Caffery could see exactly who 'BM' was.

He was standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs, his hands in his pockets, one foot up against the wall, dog-tags jangling round his neck. He was wearing a grey hoodie under a black blazer-type jacket and his face was white, sort of upper-class English, with a Roman nose and slightly pink cheeks that looked as if he might have got them on the rugby pitches at Harrow. But close up you could see he was a Knowle West boy right to the core: it was the way his eyes kept going from side to side, the way his body was already soft and spreading, the tops of his thighs rubbing together.

'Wha'?' said BM, when Caffery approached, warrant card extended between the thumb and fingers of his right hand. He pushed himself away from the wall and eyed it suspiciously. 'What's going on?'

'Got a minute, son?'

'No. No, I haven't.'

'Suit yourself.' Caffery put the card back into his pocket. He pulled up his collar and stood for a moment, contemplating the stairwell with graffiti and water running down the walls. BM glared at him, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him either to go or to start a row. But Caffery didn't. He coughed loudly, smiled at the lad, then went back to gazing up the stairwell, as if they were two people standing at a bus stop, waiting for the same thing. As if he had all the time in the world and could wait for ever if he wanted to, and maybe had the most patience of the two of them. Somewhere in his head he really didn't care if BM spoke to him or not.

Since last night all he'd been able to think about was what the Walking Man could tell him. Still, he thought, he had to concentrate: he still had a duty to the sorry drug-prowling drop-out who'd got his hands cut off.

BM took his own hands out of his pockets, sucked his teeth at Caffery, the way the Jamaicans used to in Deptford, and swung himself on to the stairs, heading up.

'BM,' Caffery said calmly. 'Used to know someone called BM in London. D'you know how he got that name?'

On the stairs BM hesitated. Caffery could see the dirty bottoms of his Ice Cream Reeboks. 'He got that name because he was someone's Bag Man. BM. Bag Man. Don't suppose that's how you got your name. Or should I be asking your probation officer?'

There was a silence. Somewhere a television was playing the theme to
This Morning
. After a moment or two BM crouched and put his face through the railings. 'Don't have a probation officer,' he hissed. 'Haven't got a record.'

'Do you want one?'

There was another long silence. Then BM sat down. There was the sound of him breathing, then of him surreptitiously taking a baggie from his pocket and squeezing it under someone's front door. Caffery heard it, noted where the door was, but didn't move. The thing was to let BM keep face. After a few moments his trainers squeaked as he came back down the stairs, hands in the pockets of his low-slung jeans.

'What?' he said sullenly. 'What you going to do?'

Caffery showed him the photograph. BM rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, stepping from side to side in his Reeboks. 'That's Mossy. Innit? Where's 'e to, then? Got himself in the nick, has he?'

'He's missing.'

'And you think maybe I took him?'

Caffery put the photograph back in his pocket. 'Someone cut his hands off. They used a hacksaw; sort of thing you could pick up in a hardware shop at the end of the road. Probably killed him, but we don't know for sure because his body never turned up.'

BM lost all the pink in his schoolboy cheeks. He sat down suddenly on the bottom step, his feet planted wide. For a moment his hand wavered, as if he was trying to reach the banister for some support, but Caffery was watching so he stopped himself and shakily rested his elbows on his knees. 'All right there, son?'

'That's what he meant,' he muttered. 'That's what he meant.' A little line of perspiration beaded his lip. 'Ages ago he said something to me. He was in the agonies when he said it and I just thought it was him going crazy, you know, saying stupid shit.'

'What did he say?'

'Said he'd met someone. He'd been at one of those charity dry-out places, places that're supposed to get you off the gear but don't. Everyone just hangs around reckoning they're going to meet someone and score.'

'You remember which one?'

'Could have been any in about a hundred.

They're all over the place. The only one it wasn't was the Knowle West one. I can tell you that straight away, because no one on the estate who's still using would show their face there.'

'So, who did Mallows meet?'

'Dunno.' BM put his hands in his pockets and went to look out of the stairwell at the bleak estate, police everywhere, going along the alleys and balconies, from door to door. Then he came back into the stairwell, shrinking into the shadows, making sure no one was listening. When he turned to Caffery his face was drawn, none of the rosy-cheeked schoolboy left. 'He said something weird. He said people were going to get hurt. I remember him saying it now – said, "There are some sickos out there, BM, and I don't know who they'd go out and hurt if it wasn't for people like me, stupid fuckers who give it up without a fight." '

'OK,' Caffery said, taking BM's arm and lifting him to his feet. 'Your gear's not going anywhere for a minute or two. Nice and safe under that old lady's doormat. Let's have a little sit-down and get this on paper.'

The thing about Flea, Caffery thought, was get her out of the water and she always seemed a little on edge. Sort of guarded, as if she expected you to tell her some really bad news. It was the first thing he'd thought when he'd seen her in the car park at HQ that afternoon.

It had been a dry day for the investigation. In the statement BM hadn't been able to give them much more than he'd told Caffery in the first five minutes in the stairwell: Mossy, he said, was the kind to take up with anyone he met – an idiot, really. He'd go off with anyone who looked at him, and there wasn't any more to the conversation about the sickos than he'd already told Caffery. He gave them about forty names, about twenty locations he knew Mossy sometimes hung out, and the names of seventeen drugs-counselling sessions, but no, apart from that time a long time ago he was just guessing really. He didn't have any idea if Mossy had been to any of them recently, and actually, what he wanted to know was how the fuck had those people kept Mossy still long enough to cut his hands off? Not much to go on for Caffery, but the SIO wanted 'afternoon prayers' – the afternoon round-up of the day's events at HQ, where he'd got another meeting. So it was off to Portishead.

He had just parked the staff X5 and was heading for the chrome and glass atrium, batting out the creases in his suit jacket for his meeting with the SIO, when he saw her coming purposefully across the grass towards him. Her hair was wet and slicked off her face and she was dressed in civvies, old jeans and a grey tank top, with her arms bare.

'Inspector Caffery,' she called. 'How are you?' She looked on edge, from the way she was trying to catch up with him, the way she had her hands pushed into her jeans pockets, as if she didn't trust them not to wave around. Everything in the West Country was different, he thought. He didn't remember a patch of grass like this at Scotland Yard or anyone like her in the force. She fell into step next to him, as if she'd been invited to and they were on their way to the same meeting.

'Any news,' she said, 'about the case?'

'Yeah.' He watched her sideways as they walked, a little wary of her. 'We've got an ID. We know who owned the hands.'

'An ID?'

'From the dabs. Ian Mallows, a.k.a. Mossy. A smackhead from one of the estates.'

'Anything else?'

'Fibres under the nails. You must've bagged the hand well because they were still there. Purple fibres. Like a carpet.'

'Hey,' she said casually, glancing at the glass building they were heading towards, 'you don't – you don't know
why
someone cut off his hands?'

He stopped. 'No,' he said. 'I don't know why.'

'Such a weird thing to do.' She halted and looked at him in a way that made him stop too. It was as if there was something she wanted to say but was keeping back. She held his eyes seriously. 'I mean, why would someone do that?' She moved a little closer. 'Did you know he's African?'

'What?'

'The owner of the Moat. He's African. Do you think that might be something to look at?'

Caffery frowned, taking in the shock of blonde hair. There was nothing about her face, he thought, that suggested she could take all the hard knocks in the job. Except maybe her nose, which had a slight wideness that didn't quite fit, as if she might have broken it years ago. To him she had the look of something too fanciful, not quite real. A bit like the way she was talking now.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Do I think
what
might be something to look at?'

'Only that he's African and there might be a connection. Between him being African and there being hands buried so close to the entrance.'

Caffery laughed. He wondered if he was being had. 'This is a joke, yeah? I'm supposed to try to work out what you're saying.'

There was a few moments' silence, then something in Flea's face cleared. 'It's none of my business,' she murmured, scratching her head distractedly. 'But I'm trying to work out how those hands came to be under the restaurant.'

'I don't think we're going to have to look much further than the nearest drug deal gone wrong. We're not going to be letting the location lead the investigation any more.'

'No?'

'No. The victim's where we're taking it from now. He had serious smack history, always trying to get clean, you know the story – DTTOs stacked up so high. The only witness statement we could pull out today has him being pretty bloody scared about something that happened to him at some drugs counsellor's. So that's being actioned even as we speak. About a hundred drugs charities to sift through and I think—' He broke off. Flea's expression had changed. Her eyes were suddenly hard and guarded, flashing something he wondered if he'd be stupid to mess with. 'And I think that's where we'll find the lead,' he finished thoughtfully. She was still staring at him. 'What? Why you looking at me like that?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'I should let you get on with it.' And she took a step backwards, still holding his eyes as if she expected him to jump her. Then she began to walk away, pulling her phone out of her pocket and banging out a text with her thumb.

Somewhere Caffery'd heard that teenagers were getting over-developed thumbs from all the texting they were doing – he'd've liked to say something to her about it.

'Flea?'

She stopped, pocketing the phone as if she'd been caught holding a bomb. 'Yes?'

'I'm new here. New to the area.'

'I know that.'

'I'm hoping someone could give me some pointers. To Bristol. You know.' And then, quickly, because it sounded as if he was asking for a date, he said, 'I want a nursery. Just wondering if you could tell me where to look for a good nursery.'

He wasn't sure but he thought her eyes flickered towards his hand, his ring finger. 'I could ask around,' she said. 'How old's your . . . son? Daughter?'

He smiled. Half at the absurdity of the mistake, and half because he felt stupid because he couldn't claim children when everyone else at his age could. 'No,' he said slowly. 'I didn't mean that. I meant plants. I want to buy some plants. Some bulbs. That's all.'

It was Tig she'd been texting. With this itch in her head about the picture in Kaiser's book, with the way that whatever she did she couldn't get away from the thought of those hands under the restaurant, she'd spent most of the day trying to talk Tig into introducing her to the owner of the Moat. Although at first he'd been appalled, had blustered for a while about professional ethics, 'Mine and
yours
, Flea, by the way,' in the end he said he'd see, grudgingly, what the owner said, and why didn't she come down to see him at work? Which would have been fine, until what Caffery had just told her about Mallows. Now she was worried.