Ritual (26 page)

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I'm going to have to do it by the book.'

'By the book? But I'm—'

'I've started a log now, see. At Control. They've got your index, they've got you down as driving without due care and attention. They're on standby now and if I go back and cancel it after all I've told them it's going to look pretty fucking sus.'

She sighed. She gazed up at the stars, thinking, there is no end to this. 'Shit,' she said, standing back and holding the door open. She unzipped her coat. 'OK. You'd better come in.'

Flea stood in the cluttered little kitchen, with the familiar things around her, and tried to quieten her thoughts. There was so much to think about. Why was Kaiser so bloody stupid about answering his phone?
Kaiser
, she thought,
I need to
speak to you
.

The kettle was boiling, and she poured the water into the teapot wondering how far Thom had wound Prody up. He was the type of cop who, when he'd decided to 'do it by the book', didn't know where to stop. If he was really pissed off he might even ask for a breathalyser. And there was the ibogaine. The fucking ibogaine. It might play a trick on her and make it come up positive. '
Stupid
,' she hissed. Breathalysers only tested for alcohol, but she didn't know the science, and what if – what if the ibogaine triggered something, a chemical reaction, maybe?

She filled the pot quickly, and moved round the kitchen, finding plates and cups, teaspoons and biscuits in Tupperware containers, trying to behave normally. But by the time the tea was ready and she had put a couple of ginger biscuits on one of her mother's lacy creamware plates, her hands were trembling. The biscuits slid around as she carried them into the living room.

'You really didn't see me?' In the living room Prody had cooled off a bit. His breathing was slower, his face normal in the pool of light from the table lamp at his elbow. 'It's just, you know, I had my lights on all the way from the Freshford traffic lights, and you still didn't see me?'

She put the biscuits and the tea down, sat in the armchair and rested her fingers over her eyes. For a few minutes the only noise was the carriage clock ticking on the mantelpiece. When her heart had slowed she dropped her hands, and forced her voice to stay low, level. 'You know, I think I'm going to have my six-monthly counselling session brought forward. I mean, this is getting crazy.' She looked at him. 'You don't have counselling in Traffic, do you?'

'No, but I know why you lot do. I heard what Thailand was like – all those bodies, all those people you knew you'd never find. I'm not surprised you need to speak to someone.' He finished the biscuit and leaned forward for another, his fluorescent tabard creaking. 'I suppose it's always the kids that are the worst, isn't it? Makes you wonder how the parents deal with it.'

'Yes. That's right.'

'A lot of children in Thailand, were there? A lot of little ones?'

'A fair few.'

'The injuries – on the kids – I bet they were awful. Awful for the parents to see.'

'Yes. They were.' She was quiet for a moment, then she said, 'You know we've pulled some hands out of the harbour recently, don't you?'

'Hands? No. We don't get much filtering through to us, these days.'

'Well, I did. A pair of hands was buried under one of those restaurants. And for some reason it's got to me – more than anything I've done before. You'd think with all the stuff I've seen, in Thailand and the rest, the kids and things—'

'Yeah, the kids . . .'

'You'd think it'd be easier bringing up a part of a body than the whole thing. Wouldn't you?'

'I would.'

'And so I have to ask myself, why was it this one, these hands, that tipped me over?' She rotated her head, making out she was trying to get a crick from her neck. 'Or maybe it all just built up and now it's coming out. Maybe it's nothing to do with the hands, and everything to do with the last few years. All I know is . . .' she put a hand on her head '. . . I've got this pressure in here. And when it comes on sometimes I can't even see my own face in the mirror.' She looked him in the eye, wondering if he was thawing. She thought she saw something in his face relax a little. 'Tell you the truth, you should arrest me. Throw me in overnight. It'd do me good.'

'Know the feeling, Sarge. Just a chance to check out for a day or two – it'd suit us all.' He smiled and she smiled back, feeling a little weight lift off her. She'd cracked him. She was about to lean over and offer him another biscuit when he shifted on the sofa, then pulled out a notepad and the breathalyser from his pocket. She stopped, half sitting forward, fixing her eyes on it.

'Tell you what we'll do.' He tapped his pen on his temple, thinking. 'There are no speeds on the log at Control, but they know I thought you were pissed – OK.' He cleared his throat and glanced at the decanters on the sideboard, the light twinkling in them like Christmas baubles. 'So, why don't we just do this and then it's all out of the way? I mean, you're not acting pissed – and you don't smell it either.'

'That's because I'm not.'

'It's just . . .' He seemed embarrassed as he switched on the breathalyser, waited for it to run its self-check routine and fitted the mouthpiece. 'I need to rule this out.'

'You're going to make me blow into that?'

'Someone has to.'

'This isn't the custody suite. There're no cameras.'

He smiled again, as if he didn't get her meaning. 'Just so it's out the way. I'm off duty in ten.'

She stared at him, heart pounding. 'You might look stupid cancelling the Control log, but you could breathe in that thing and no one would be any the wiser.'

Prody pretended not to hear her. 'I'm requiring you to provide me with a specimen of breath for a roadside breath test, which I'm empowered to require under—'

'It's OK,' she said, standing up and snatching it from him. 'I know the bloody drill.'

He opened his mouth to protest, his eyes on the breathalyser, but she stood in front of him and breathed steadily into it, keeping her eyes on him, counting in her head up to five until the unit made a little click and beeped twice. She took it out of her mouth and looked at the LCD screen. 'ANALYSING', it said.

'There,' she said tightly, handing it back to him and sitting on the sofa. She watched him study the gauge, hating him. A few seconds passed and the machine bleeped. His expression didn't change. He leaned across the table and showed her the readout.

'ZERO,' it said.

She gave a small smile. She'd have liked to say something. She'd have liked to say, 'It serves you right, you shit-for-brains bastard.' But she didn't. Best not to lose it with the traffic guys, motorway monkeys. Really best not. Instead she waited for him to finish his pocket book, then got up and held the door for him, politely extending her hand to lead him out.

Ten minutes had gone past and Caffery's body was so clenched and tense it had started to ache. He opened his eyes and, moving stiffly, sat up a little. He had to rub his eyes they'd been closed for so long. The moon had moved in the sky, but the Walking Man was sitting exactly where he'd been, on a rolled-up chunk of foam, staring vacantly into the fire as if he'd forgotten anyone else was there.

'I've been thinking.' Caffery cleared his throat. 'You know you told me I was looking for death?'

The Walking Man didn't nod or respond so he got painfully to his feet. He could feel the cold in his bones and now he remembered how tired he was. He looked down at the Walking Man, who still hadn't made a sign that he'd heard. He took his keys out of his pocket and jangled them a little, waiting for a response. The Walking Man wiped his eyes, as if tears had been there, but his face remained the same – stony and distant, as if he was off somewhere, fighting a war in a different universe.

'What did that mean?' Caffery asked, in a quieter voice. He stood next to the man. 'I can't get it out of my head – that I'm looking for death. What did that mean? You said you were the same, that you were looking for death.'

The Walking Man didn't move. He sat, the cup still in his hands, his dark, intelligent eyes reflecting the dying flames.

Caffery bent to place his own mug next to the fire. He had straightened and turned to go when a hand grabbed his ankle. He twisted, surprised, and there was the Walking Man splayed out on the ground like a snake, his face turned up to Caffery's, the sinews in his neck taut and shadowed, the moonlight glinting in his eyes.

'Death and I are best friends,' he hissed. 'I know death better than I know anything.'

'
What?
'

'Can't you see it in my eyes? Can you see how well acquainted I am with death?'

'Hey.' Caffery moved his leg, not liking the vicelike grip. He could feel the blackened nails digging into his skin. 'Let go now.'

But the Walking Man wasn't listening. He dug in his nails harder. 'I see death everywhere I go. I am the rod that attracts death. I bring it to me. I saw it tonight – over there.' He nodded in the direction of the road beyond the field. 'I saw death tonight – I looked it in the eye before you came. I was that close. And from that I know it will be my constant companion.'

Caffery wrenched his foot free and stood above the Walking Man, breathing hard, staring at his face, at the wild hair, the night sky reflected in his eyes. 'What is this bullshit? What shite've you started spouting now?'

The Walking Man rolled back his head and laughed, as if he'd never heard anything so funny. He got on to his knees and pushed himself to his feet, laughing even harder. 'Goodnight,' he said, holding up a hand. 'Goodnight, PO-LICE-MAN. Have a good night.'

And he turned away, pulled his sleeping-bag out from a waterproof bag, and began to get ready for the night. Caffery watched him for a minute or two, then headed wearily back across the field to the car.

There was a light on in the Oscars' – in one of the windows Katherine Oscar liked to use when she was watching the Marleys. Flea noticed it the moment she opened the door to let PC Prody out. She noticed a shape there too – something that might have been the curtain slightly out of kilter, but might have been a person. She ran through the possibilities of what Katherine had seen: Thom coming through in the car maybe, Prody at the door. She thought about it for a few seconds and then, because she would never allow the Oscars to upset her again, she put it out of her mind and forced a smile at Prody. 'Goodbye,' she said calmly. 'Goodnight.'

She held the door for him, but he seemed reluctant to leave. He took a step on to the gravel drive and looked up at the stars. Then he took in the lawns sweeping down to the lake, the row of pollarded poplars lining the garden and the steps leading down. She waited for him to say it. To say that she'd done well for herself, a twenty-nine year-old on a sergeant's salary, done well to have a spread like this. But he didn't.

'I didn't hear about the hands,' he said instead. 'I admit. But I did hear about the other thing.'

'What?'

'The car-jacker. Last year.'

'Oh,' she said. 'That.'

'Yeah. That. And, for what it's worth, I thought you got a raw deal. I mean, you were only trying to help.'

'You like your gossip, do you? Over in Traffic?'

He leaned his head back a little and scratched the underside of his chin. 'You know what they said in Traffic? In Traffic, they said you were on your way to joining the suits.'

She looked at him stonily. 'Why would they say that?'

'Because around these parts CID have got their heads up their arses, and what they need is people who think outside the box. You know, laterally. People like you – thinking about the car that guy took and about why he took it.'

Flea stared at him, not answering. It took PC Prody a moment or two to see from her face that the conversation was over. He gave a shy smile, took his keys out of his pocket and half turned towards the car. Then something seemed to change his mind.

'Just one last thing,' he said. 'You had your reasons for running away from me – but you need to be careful along there, the A36. Been three RTAs last month – remember that little girl thrown through a windscreen? No seat-belt. Did the last twenty feet on her face.' He shrugged and looked up at the cottage, then down, past the cooling Ford Focus, to where the lake glinted silver and black. 'Yes,' he said. 'If you ask me she was lucky it killed her. Wouldn't want the parents to see her like that.'

He got into his cruiser, touched his forehead, a mock-salute, and started the engine.

Flea watched him pull away. When his headlights had faded it was just her, the night and the shadow of an owl swooping past the distant city, by turns blotting out the church spires, the abbey, the hills beyond. She felt a cool presence envelop her, starting in her middle and moving up to her head, wrapping her like a second skin. She kept still, knowing, without understanding how, that Mum was touching her, telling her it was all right. Kaiser could wait until the morning. For now, deal with Thom.

She let a few minutes go by, breathing slowly, until the presence had melted and passed away, and the night was just the night again. The owl swooped away into the trees and disappeared into silence. She turned to go back into the house, registering, but not caring, that the light in the Oscars' window had been switched off.