Mo Hayder - Ritual

She sat back, her arms folded. Arranged across the walls were the locked cabinets, the ones Mum used to say Kaiser kept his drugs in. Beyond that was the doorway where he'd stood yesterday, in his white shirt, his face in ruins. She thought of a picture she'd seen in his witchcraft book, the one in Dad's study. It showed a shaman dressed in a beaded shift, on his headdress a goat's skull, the eyes picked out with silver foil. She massaged her arms, and glanced over her shoulder, feeling momentarily cold, as if a draught had come in from the window behind her. Kaiser's African masks stared back at her. She'd seen them a million times. No reason to feel strange. Just that everything was weird now, with the way she'd spoken to the dead, the way she'd known her parents would be found.

She went into the hallway and called up the stairs. 'Kaiser? Are you there?'

No answer. She looked down the hallway, at the tattered walls, the paper hanging off in strips, the metal stepladder with a discarded plasterer's float tipped on its side. For all Kaiser's labours this house didn't get any more like a home. She understood why Mum and Thom were uncomfortable here — with the draught coming down the hall they'd never wanted to go further in.

She wondered if she should search the other rooms, check Kaiser wasn't lying somewhere with a broken leg, or the victim of a stroke maybe, and then, when there was absolute silence, just the distant clack-clack-clack of a loose window moving in the wind, she went back into the living room.

A red standby light shone on the television set and the video-player was whirring, the green numbers clicking by. She watched the numbers, she let her thoughts roll, and then, because she'd never known Kaiser watch videos before — in fact, she'd never known him watch television — she got the remote control and idly switched on the TV. It crackled reluctantly, then burst into life.

The sound was down, but before she could reach out for the remote control to turn it up an image came up on the screen. Shot in the slightly brown-stained colour of old film, it showed a man lying on a bed. What he was doing made her grip the remote tightly.

He was young, black and very thin. There were sweat stains on the plain khaki shirt he wore and his face and body were contorted with pain, his torso sprung up in the air like a bow, his jaw clenched. She couldn't see where the pain was coming from but it was real: sweat ran down his face. He stayed in that position, his face locked in agony, his body distorted, for about five seconds. Then something changed. The tension in him went. His eyes flew open as if he'd come back to consciousness. There was a breathless pause in which he remained bent up, away from the bed, eyes flicking backwards and forwards, unable to believe the pain had stopped. Then, in one shudder, he collapsed into a foetal shape, holding his knees. The screen flickered, then went blank.

Flea stared disbelievingly at the screen, not sure of what she had seen. She kept as still as she could for as long as she could, and then, when she couldn't think what else to do, she got up and ejected the videotape, dropping it on the little table, pulling her hand away as if she'd been burned. Her heart was thudding. Torture. That was what she'd watched. Torture . What the hell was Kaiser doing with a tape of torture in his house?

A noise from behind made her spin round, her mouth dry. Kaiser was in the doorway. He was wearing the same grass-stained white shirt as yesterday and was holding a pair of long-handled shears.

'Kaiser?' she said, her voice slow and suspicious. 'Kaiser — I don't get it…'

He didn't answer. Instead he gave a sad smile. It was the sort of smile that said he'd always hoped the world would never have brought him to this moment. It was the sort of smile that said this was one of those nasty necessities in life.

'Phoebe,' he said slowly. 'Phoebe. I think it's time we had a talk.'

The sound of the car door slamming makes Mossy come to a little. He opens his eyes and blinks, turning his head painfully to one side. He uses his upper arms to rub his eyes, trying to clear his vision, wondering why he's suddenly alert. It isn't unusual to hear cars outside. But there's something in the sound of this one that's different. As if it's got a purpose that's connected directly with him. Maybe it's the Peugeot.

He cranks his head back so he can see the gate, expecting light to flood in, to see Skinny. And there is something in the corridor, but it isn't Skinny. Mossy's heart starts to beat hard and monotonously, a trickle of fear coming cold in his veins. He's sure he can see it — something moving out there in the dark — something small, close to the ground. Something that might have been a trick of the light, but might also have been a shape moving fast. A shape with eyes.

'Hey?' he whispers. 'Who's there?'

Silence. But — he feels cold as the thought comes to him — he knows who it is. The brother. The one who took the bottle of blood out of the fridge and drank it. So he hasn't been alone all this time after all. The brother's been there all along. His heart goes even faster. Somehow he's sure the smell of his stumps will bring the brother in, make him sniff around.

'You fucker,' he hisses, his head seesawing sickeningly, making him want to puke and cry at the same time. 'You try anything, you fucker, and I'll have you.'

The dark shape seems to hear him. There's a moment when it looks more like a shadow than ever, as if it might run straight up the wall, but then a tension comes into it, as if it's listening.

Jabbing his elbows into the arms of the sofa, Mossy struggles into a half-sitting position, head wobbling, teeth chattering. 'You arsehole,' he mutters. 'I'm ready for you.'

The shape reacts quickly to this. It coils itself into a ball. There's another pause, while Mossy hardly breathes, trying to get his body ready to fight. He raises his head and bares his teeth, ready to take a chunk out of the little bastard if he comes near. But nothing happens. The shape doesn't come towards him. Instead, after a moment or two, it slips silently away, leaving him staring at the space it left, his head pounding.

Mossy stays there for a long time, his eyes locked on the gate, his body tense, breathing hard. He wishes Skinny would hurry. If that was him in the car he wishes to Christ he'd come straight through. He fights the nausea he got from sitting up, wishing the little African was here, until at last he gives up and something pink and familiar and dark, like the insides of mouths and wounds, swims up inside his eyes and takes him back down.

In spite of all his instincts, he'd decided not to go to Kaiser Nduka's. For a moment, standing in the car park looking at Flea, Caffery'd had the feeling he was balanced on an edge, that a breath of air could send him one way or the other: to help her, or to keep going on his usual pattern of following the job regardless. In the old days he wouldn't have been swayed by what a woman said, so what did it tell him that with Flea he'd fallen effortlessly on to her side of the fence? He'd made a solemn promise to investigate the disappearance of a scag-head who was too busy whoring himself to turn up for one lousy meeting with his mother. Still, it had been a promise, and the choice he'd made — of doing something to help Flea — well, he had a feeling the Walking Man would say something about it. In fact, he had the weirdest feeling the Walking Man would approve.

And now here he was, looking at the bedroom in Jonah Dundas's tiny flat. It was small, just enough space for the single mattress and a large milk crate containing some balled-up T-shirts and a pair of trainers. The top pane of the metal-framed windows had been smashed through and carrier-bags from a supermarket — Eezy Pocket — had been taped over the hole. They sucked and blew, in and out, as the air currents fifteen storeys up moved and buffeted the building.