Mo Hayder - Ritual

In the distance, above the sun-tipped buildings of Bristol, dusty old flocks of birds rose in the blue. Caffery watched them thoughtfully. 'You mean,' he said, 'there's someone out there? Someone walking around with no hands?'

The CSM snorted. 'Now, I didn't say he'd be walking around , did I? But I didn't say he'd be a corpse either. Anyway…' He caught up the elastic and shovelled it back into his case. '… I'm only here to release this bloody thing to Southmeads. I'm not the pathologist and I'm certainly not the detective. In fact, you know what?'

'What?'

'The detective part? There's a rumour going round that's you , Mr Caffery.'

7 May

Mossy's heard about a programme over in Glastonbury that'll get you off the gear in a weekend — herbal and non-addictive, you don't remember a thing — and he supposes he should use the money Skinny gives him to get clean. But willpower's hard to come by in Mossy's world, and it's not long before the idea is a memory and his money's back out on the streets, in the Bag Man's pocket.

Day after day goes by, the winter comes and goes, Mossy gets an infected sore on his leg and spends a week in hospital going through a meth programme that does absolutely fuck-all, just leaves him thirstier for the real gear when he gets out. Spring is coming and times on the street get a bit easier because the sad divorcees and old poofter farmers from Gloucestershire get the sun on their heads and decide they can't think straight till they've driven down to Bristol and had their dicks sucked. On the days when business is slow Mossy sometimes meanders back — back to the place Skinny picked him up. He mopes around a bit, hoping to see him again because, as he told BM, they're going to need more where he came from. There's someone in that place's got an appetite for the bad stuff and it's not like they're asking for a quick tug-off. This is a bit more and a bit less. Selling his body but not selling his soul, in a way.

But it's early May by the time he sees Skinny again. It's like before — one minute Mossy's shuffling along, kicking at the butts on the pavement, wondering if there's enough here to put together a ciggy, next thing he knows Skinny's next to him, doing that oiled-walk thing, hands in his pockets. This time Mossy stops and looks at him. He's forgotten that this man is pretty . Really pretty, with long dark eyelashes and hair that curls down his elegant neck. And he's cleaner somehow, like the dust of Africa's been washed off him.

'Hey,' goes Mossy, taking him in slowly, from his trainers to his brown leather jacket that's too big because they don't make things to fit someone this small. The clothes are almost smart — neat straight jeans and a sweater under the jacket — but hanging off him, the sleeves and trouser cuffs rolled up. 'It's been a while.'

Skinny doesn't answer. He puts a hand on Mossy's wrist, holding it with his thumb and forefinger, and squeezes gently, reassuringly. That rush of tenderness comes back into Mossy and he gets an ache somewhere that he can't bear. He pulls his hand away.

'He wants some more, don't he? Wants to hurt me some more?'

'Him wants more.'

But this time Mossy has a plan. It's a good plan and a brave one too. He takes Skinny to the herbal clinic to find out how much the cure will cost. The clinic's upmarket, and they both feel a bit out of place — especially when they hear how much it's going to cost. But this is Mossy's plan. He says he'll go with Skinny, give them what they want, if they pay him enough to cover the treatment. Skinny goes outside and makes some phonecalls. He's secretive about them, a bit anxious, but something he says must work somewhere up the line, because eventually they head back to Bristol and end up in the car park again. It's nightfall when they get there and the filthy old Peugeot is waiting.

To start with, the routine's the same — a hit in the back of the car, then the blindfold and the bumpy drive. The doors opening and closing and the crackling, salty feel of the old sofa as he sits down, a broken spring in it now, digging into the back of his legs until he shifts a little. But when he takes off his blindfold he sees Skinny is crying.

'What?' Mossy gets a little knot of anxiety in his voice. 'What's the matter?'

Skinny averts his eyes. He runs his thumb and forefinger up the long column of his throat and Mossy remembers the way he could feel the muscle moving in that throat last time. A pulse starts in his belly.

'What?' he goes again. 'Come on, man, what is it? What do they want this time?'

Skinny turns his watering eyes to him. 'I'm sorry,' he says, in a small voice. 'I am very, very sorry.'

14 May

That afternoon, as she and the team unloaded the DUC — the durable utility craft — jetwashed the equipment and pulled in the Alpha flag boards, Flea noticed that every time she turned DI Jack Caffery seemed to be somewhere in her vision. For a few minutes she thought someone was playing a joke on her, that Caffery and Dundas had struck up some strange friendship and were messing her around. Then she wondered whether the mushrooms were still in her system, flashing images at her. The truth, when it came to her, was worse: that part of her had unexpectedly, and completely involuntarily, become hypertuned to someone she didn't know, someone who had no understanding of her, or any connection in her life, except that he happened to be the deputy SIO on one of her jobs.

The moment she realized what was happening she walked away from the harbour, opened the doors of the van, pushed all the cylinders in, headed back across the car park and clambered into her car. She slammed the door, pulled out her phone and scrolled up the day's texts: a 'hi' from Thom, a list of shift changes from the resource department, an upgrade notice from the mobile company, until she found another text from Tig. She sat with her head in her hand and read it again.

Txtd u yesterday. Need 2 talk.

Just 4 a catch up. Things shite

here as per. Got time? I'm @

home all night. Call amp; I'll come

out amp; meet u if OK? Tig x

She deleted it, then sat for a bit more, thinking about how different she felt from the days when she would fuck freely and happily. Before the accident, when she had her own flat and only went home at weekends, she'd liked the things she could do with sex — the way a man's face would change when he saw her in her underwear, the way his voice was different when he said her name. But since the accident all she'd had for company was lonely masturbation and vague fantasies about some or other film actor. She told herself it was because she would never take her shoes off in front of anyone, but there was more to it than that. She knew she'd never again speak openly about life and death, and she'd never find a way to talk about the other things that had come into her life. Now the only men she was close to were either much older, like Kaiser or Dundas, or gay. Like Tig.

She pushed the key into the ignition and dialled his number. The answerphone was on, so she started the car and drove out into the street. She shouldn't be close to Tig, it was another of those unprofessional things she did, but tonight only Tig would understand what was happening to her.

Tig, then. She was going to see Tig.

The photo was the only framed thing Caffery possessed, and he supposed that after two months in the little rented cottage it was time he made a token effort to call the place home and hang the damn thing up. The walls in the old part of the house were porous and uneven, probably made of ancient lime and horsehair or something, so he chose one in the extension where they were modern and should have easily held a little frame like this. But somehow the photo wouldn't stay on the wall. It kept pulling the tacks out even though it wasn't heavy.