Mo Hayder - Ritual

… a water sprite, he makes his home in a riverbank . Caffery read it again, his head thumping. He was thinking about the waitress at the Station — about the kid she'd seen exposing himself. And then, inexplicably, he thought about a wisp of shadow in an alleyway, the red of Keelie's lipstick, the sense that a foot had walked across the bonnet of the car. He got to his feet, pulling his jacket off the back of the chair. On screen, the Tokoloshe grinned back at him.

'Fuck off,' he muttered, hitting the button on the monitor rather than closing the file. 'Fuck you.'

It was time to go back and see Rochelle. Time to ask her a few more questions.

She was pleased to see him. He could see that right off. In a pink zip-up hooded top, her hair held off her face by a white headband, she looked as if she might have been getting ready for a workout in spite of the full make-up. She put her hands behind her back and leaned her bottom against the wall so her breasts were pushed towards him. 'Hello,' she said. 'Changed your mind about the beer?'

'Can I come in?'

She inclined her head and stood back to let him pass. He went through the kitchen into the living room. The two girls were watching America's Next Top Model . They were in exactly the same position as they'd been yesterday. If it wasn't for the fact they'd changed their clothes he'd have thought they'd been there all night. He stepped over their legs and went into the conservatory at the back.

'Can I get you a drink?' said Rochelle, coming in behind him, bending to plump up the cushions. 'I've got a smoothie-maker. Me and the girls had strawberry and peach this morning.'

'That's OK. Just had some coffee.' He reached inside his folder, feeling for the plastic wallet he'd brought. The Dobermann was on the floor in the sun, eyeing at him with vague interest. 'I won't be long.' He found the picture. It had been taken at a Chamber of Commerce event and it showed Mabuza clutching a glass of red wine, talking intently to a councillor. He was wearing a suit and a traditional mokorotlo hat over his greying hair. Caffery slid it out of the wallet and held it out to her. 'This guy. Ever seen him before?'

Rochelle glanced at the photograph, then back at Caffery's face. 'Yeah — it's Gift, Kwanele's mate.'

Caffery closed his eyes briefly.

'What?' said Rochelle. 'What've I said?'

'Nothing,' he said, putting the photo back into his jacket. What a fucking idiot he'd been not to ask her yesterday. He put down the folder and sat on the sofa, looking around the room, at the knick-knacks, the little vases and the framed photos of the kids. There was a picture of a cat — a kitten, actually — washing its face in a splash of sunshine.

'Rochelle,' he said, 'do you remember you told me Kwanele was scared of a devil?'

'A devil? Ain't likely to effing forget, am I? The Tokoloshe. Spent his whole time thinking about the bloody thing.'

'Yes,' he said, watching her face. 'The Tokoloshe. And what did he tell you about it?'

'Well, that's just it. He never told me about it exactly. It was Teesh he used to talk to.' She called into the living room, 'Hey, Letitia?'

'Wha'?'

'Come in here a second, beautiful.'

There was a pause, then one of the girls appeared sullenly in the doorway, chin down.

'Wha'?'

'Say hello to Mr Caffery.'

' 'Lo,' she said.

'Sometimes I think they liked Kwanele more than I did. Didn't you, Teesh, beautiful? Liked Kwanele?'

'Yeah. Suppose.'

'Bought you a Wii, didn't he?'

'Yeah. He was cool.'

'Now, baby,' Rochelle said. 'Remember the Tokoloshe? I want you to tell Mr Caffery about it.'

Letitia peered over her shoulder at the skirting-board behind her — as if that was what really interested her and not Caffery. 'Really short. Lives in the river. Looks black.'

'Speak up.'

'I said . I said it's short. It's black. It's deformed. It lives in a river and it's always naked, OK?'

'Letitia,' Caffery said slowly, 'how do you know about it? Did Kwanele talk to you about it?'

'Yea-ah.' She made the one word go up and down so it sounded like a sentence: Yes, my God, didn't you know that? Where've you been all your life, you muppet? 'He only talked about it like all the time.'

'What did he tell you?'

'Just lo- oads . It eats people. I seen it once too.'

'Teesh,' Rochelle said warningly, 'Mr Caffery's a policeman. You tell the truth now. Not what Kwanele told you to say.'

Letitia looked at her mother, then at Caffery. 'I did see it,' she said. 'It was like totally weird. Mum just doesn't never believe nothink I ever say.'

'Oh, here we go again.'

Caffery held up his hand to pacify them. 'Letitia, where did you see it?'

'Down by the river. Where Kwanele's warehouse used to be.'

'And did anyone else see it?'

'Just him and me. It was night. He took me there to do some — what d'you call it, Mum?'

'Stocktaking.'

'Stocktaking. And it was late and when we was coming out of the warehouse there's this sound in the bushes, like a bird or something, and there's this thing sort of half bent over. And water running off it. Which makes us both think it was coming out of the river.'

'OK,' Caffery said, his head full of the dwarf in Marilyn's slide presentation, of the pontoon outside the Moat late at night. 'So you're saying Kwanele saw it too?'

'Yeah — and he's like so scared. He starts going like this.' She put a hand on her chest and breathed in and out rapidly, hyperventilating. It was creepy, Caffery thought, sitting in the sunlight and watching this little girl acting it out. 'And then he puts his hand over my eyes and makes me get in the car, and he jumps in after me. And we was coming home and he keeps shaking and crying, and speaking African, and saying how he was going to do something about it. I mean, how scary is that?'

'But he knew it was the Tokoloshe?'

'Oh, yeah. He reckoned he was lucky him and his friend had someone who knew what to do about it.'

Caffery sat forward. 'What did he mean by that?'

She shrugged. 'Someone who could get rid of the Tokoloshe — y'know, stop it coming too near him at his work and stuff.'

'Did he say who his friend was?'

'Nah, never said all that much.'

Caffery turned to Rochelle. 'Was this the same time he bought the bowl? The one I took yesterday?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'That's when it all kicked off.' Caffery put his elbow on the sofa arm and rested his chin on his hand, one finger under the tip of his nose, thinking hard. Someone had helped Kwanele Dlamini. The friend — it had to be Mabuza.

'Letitia,' he said, after a while, 'you're sure you really saw the Tokoloshe?'

' 'Course I am. Just told you, didn't I?'

'Teesh,' Rochelle hissed. 'Remember? The truth.'

'It is the truth, I've told yer.'

'It's what Kwanele told you to say.'

'No,' the little girl insisted, a slow wash of colour coming up her face as she met her mother's eyes. 'It's not what he told me to say. It's what happened. I'm telling you the truth.' She let out a long, impatient breath. 'How comes you never fucking listen to me?'

Before Rochelle could answer Letitia turned on her heels, her fists balled, and went into the sitting room. She said something to her sister, who got up, shooting her mother a pointed look. Then there was the sound of their feet on the stairs and a door banging.

After a few moments Rochelle breathed out. She looked despairingly at Caffery. 'You got kids, Mr Caffery? Any little ones?'

He shook his head. He was thinking about what Letitia had said: He reckoned he was lucky him and his friend had someone who knew what to do about it . It was making him think about things he hadn't thought about until now.