Mo Hayder - Ritual

'Throw the bones. I am sangoma .'

' San -what?'

' Sangoma . Diviner, guide, doctor. My bones are my guide — I can see into the future, I can find thieves. They give me the truth about many things, many problems of health and fortune.'

Mossy gives a hoarse laugh. 'You telling me you're a fucking witch doctor?'

'It's like witch doctor. Not the same, but almost the same.'

Mossy laughs again. 'No, you ain't. You ain't no fucking witch doctor. That was the worst acting I've ever seen.'

'Yes, I am.'

'No, you're not.'

Skinny looks at him for a long time. His eyes are sad. Then he goes to the gate. He peers through it, listens. Then, when he seems satisfied they're not being watched, he takes off the robes and puts them in a pile on the floor. Underneath it he's wearing old-fashioned Y-fronts and nothing else, and his slight body is dark and slick next to the saggy material. He comes to the sofa and eases himself on to it next to Mossy. He cups a hand round his ear and upper neck and presses his face close, as if he's going to kiss him. But he doesn't. Instead his hot cracked mouth comes up against Mossy's ear and he whispers, 'You don't tell Uncle, you don't tell him.'

'I ain't going to talk to him, am I?'

'Me and my brother. We is runners in Africa. The gang we worked for — we took they money to come here.'

'Runners?'

'Trafficking. You understand.'

'I know what fucking trafficking is. What did you traffic?'

'Skins. Carry them through borders. They is taken in Natal or in Mozambique and they is sold in Tanzania.'

Mossy pulls away from him and drops his chin to peer at Skinny's face. 'What kind of skins?'

'Of people.'

'Human skins, you mean.'

'Yes,' Skinny says, as if it's nothing. 'That is our business, me and my brother. People skins. They make very powerful medicine.'

Mossy feels the watery vomit come into his mouth. He has to lean his head back and swallow while his stomach heaves. He's heard of people selling their kidneys — a friend of his reckoned he'd sold a kidney in India to buy his airfare home, had everyone believing him. But all of that was supposed to belong to another world.

'Fuck,' he mutters, his body going hot and cold. 'Fucking shit. Is that what you did with my blood? Is that what — oh, Jesus — what you want to do with my hands ?' He pushes Skinny off the sofa. He's shaking now. 'It wasn't just someone wanted to watch me — it was you wanted to sell the fucking things?'

Skinny crouches next to him on the floor, his eyes bright. 'Not me. Uncle . Uncle is the man who makes the money. Me — I don't have no choice. I don't have no proper visa — you know? Uncle, him tell me all the time, him can send police to me any time him choose.'

Mossy closes his eyes, and gulps a few more times, getting himself under control. He's always thought that the world he inhabited meant he understood the sickest things people could do to each other. He thought he knew how bad people could get. But now he sees how dense he's been. Now he sees there's a whole universe out there, a universe he's ignorant about, a universe of horror and despair darker than he's ever dreamed possible.

16 May

The grandfather clock said twelve and at the back of the house the sun shone directly along the line of trees, casting their shadows on the gravel. Spring was here. Already the wisteria was hanging its long racemes at the windows, fingering the pane as if it'd like to get inside. The Marleys used to do the gardening together, but since the accident Flea had never had the time or the inclination and certainly couldn't afford a gardener, so now the gardens sprang up in the summer, jungly and throbbing with insect life. Two years on and you couldn't get down the terraces to the bottom of the valley without a hacksaw. There was a folly down there too, meant to look like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. It spanned a small ornamental lake, but the limestone mortar had weakened and last winter the stone had sunk into the lake until only the very top of the arch was visible. The sensible thing would be to sell the garden to the Oscars, but she couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear the thought of the Oscar children running up and down the lawns she and Thom had grown up on.

'Falling in around my ears, Mum,' she muttered, standing in the kitchen that lunchtime. She could see the solar panels Dad had fitted in a line outside the garage. They had broken months ago and there wasn't any money to repair them, and on top of everything moss was covering the tiles and grass was growing in the gutters. From a distance the roof looked like another lawn. 'I'm so sorry. I never meant it to get like this.'

She lifted the pasta off the stove, dumped it in a colander, and, squinting in the steam, set it on the counter next to Dad's safe. Kaiser had told her she was going to be hungry, that she would probably be on the trip for more than twenty-four hours and when it was over she would want carbohydrate and vitamins. Preparing food afterwards — or doing anything that needed concentration — would be difficult. Pasta was the thing, Mum's favourite. She could save it in Tupperware and microwave it tomorrow. She peeled the skin off the beef tomatoes she'd been scalding in boiling water, running her fingers under the tap when they got too hot. She took the skin to the bin and paused, her foot on the pedal, the lid open, looking at the slippery pile in her hands, the juice leaking down between her fingers. Into her head came the mound of human skin she'd shown Caffery that morning. It stayed for a moment or two, then she dropped the tomato peel into the bin, wiped her hands on a teatowel, and let the image go.

'Flea?'

She turned. Thom was in the doorway, standing in that nervous way of his with his feet placed at an odd angle, like a foal, not sure its legs would support its weight. 'I'm sorry,' he said apologetically. 'The door was open.'

'Oh, sweetpea. That's OK.' She came forward, reaching to touch his face. Her little brother. Poor, poor Thom. 'It's so nice to see you.' He smiled. His skin was still as pale and fragile as it had been when they were children, and the bags under his blue eyes, which always made him look as if he was too scared to sleep, were pronounced today. 'Here. Sit down,' she said, pulling out a chair and patting it.

He sat, his awkward hands resting on his knees.

'I'll put the kettle on — make you tea.'

'What are you doing?' he asked, gesturing at the things she'd been cooking with — the olive oil, the garlic, the jar of pasta.

She took the heavy frying pan from the stove and scraped the garlic and onions into the tomatoes. Then she set the pan in the sink, running water on it.

'Flea?'

'Yes,' she said. 'What?'

'What are you doing?'

'What does it look like?'

'Cooking. But you're acting strange.'

She paused, standing at the sink with one hand on her hip, the other on the tap, and watched the yellow circles of fat float to the top of the water. She could hear the crows cawing in the cedars along the edge of the garden, she could feel her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She thought about Mum staring at her from the path in the trees, whispering, We went the other way .

'Flea? What is it? You're scaring me.'

She turned. 'Thom, I know you don't like to talk about it.'

'About what?'

'About — about, you know, the way it all happened. The accident.'

There was a moment's silence, while they both stared at each other. Slowly Thom's cheeks went red. The rest of his face stayed pale.

'The accident,' she repeated, more softly this time. 'One day we're going to have to talk about it. About what you remember.'