Ritual (2 page)

'Oh, nothing,' she said, trying to keep it light. 'Nothing, really. The usual – I just can't sleep.'

'Still crap, then?'

She smiled at him, feeling the light catch at the raindrops in her eyes. As the unit leader she was a trainer too, and that meant sometimes putting herself in the water, at the bottom of the chain of command, giving the others a chance to be dive supervisor. In her heart she didn't like it. In her heart she was only really happy on days like today when she'd put Dundas in as dive supervisor. He had a son – Jonah – a grown-up son who stole money from him and his ex-wife to feed a drug habit, yet gave his father all the feelings of guilt that Flea's brother Thom gave her, always. She and Dundas had a lot in common.

'Yeah,' she said eventually. 'It's still crap. Even after all this time.'

'Two years,' he said, putting a hand under her arm and helping her to stand up, 'is not a long time. But I can tell you one thing that'd help.'

'What?'

'
Eating
something for a change. Stupid thought, I know, but maybe it'd help you sleep.'

She gave him a weak smile and put a hand on his shoulder, letting him pick her up. 'You're right.

I'd better eat. Is there anything in the van?'

The Station had been the police boathouse before it was sold and renovated, and because of that the new owner said it'd be all wrong if he couldn't return the favour now and let the police use it in their hour of need. He'd given them a room at the back of the restaurant, next to the kitchens, and it was warmer in there than in the van. It used to be the police locker room; now it was the staff's changing area. Their street clothes hung on hooks, outdoor boots and bags tucked underneath the bench that ran all the way round.

While Dundas went off to ferret in the kitchens, Flea slung down her black holdall and began to get undressed. She peeled the dry suit and the force-issue navy thermals down to her waist. Keeping the thermals on, she rolled the dry suit down to her ankles, kicking off the dive boots. She paused and stared at her feet because she was alone and could afford to. She flexed them and inspected the little part between her toes, rubbing at the flaps of skin, making them go red. Webs. Webbing on her feet like a frog. 'Frog girl', they should call her. She took the piece of skin between the big toe and the next one and dug in her nails. Pain bolted up her body and lit her brain white, but she held on. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, letting the heat move round her veins. The force counsellor at their six-month meeting had told Flea she needed to show someone her feet and talk about the way this problem had developed – and just remind me now? When did this skin appear? Was it about the time of the accident?

But she hadn't shown anyone. Not the counsellor, not the doctor. One day she'd need an operation, she supposed. She'd wait, though, until there was pain, or loss of movement, or something that might stop her diving.

A sound behind her, and she fumbled her socks out of her holdall and pulled them on quickly. Dundas came in holding a ciabatta wrapped in a flower-sprigged paper napkin, raising an eyebrow when he saw her sitting in her bra and rolled-down thermals, her hands wrapped protectively round her feet.

'Uh – maybe get some clothes on? The deputy SIO's coming down to tie things up. Told him where to find us.'

She pulled on a T-shirt, picked up a towel and began to rub her hair vigorously. 'Where's the SIO, then?'

'Got a meeting about Operation Atrium – not interested in us lollygagging around with a hand on the harbour front. Doesn't think the Major Crime Unit should be bothering with us. He was off twenty minutes ago.'

'I'm glad. Don't like him,' she said, thinking about the briefing earlier on. The on-call senior investigating officer had been okayish, but she'd never forgotten the look on his face when he'd first seen her at a dive briefing three years ago: just like all the other SIOs, sort of depressed because there he was, waiting for someone with a bit of authority, someone who'd answer the questions about the water, and what he got instead of reassurance was Flea – twenty-six and skinny, with lots of hair and these blue child's eyes that were so wide spaced she looked as if she wouldn't be able to open a bank account, let alone pull a dead body out of the mud under four metres of water. But they mostly did that to her, the senior ranks. At first it had been a challenge. Now it just pissed her off.

'Well?' She dropped the towel. 'Who's his deputy, then? Someone out of Kingswood?'

'Someone new. No one I've heard of.'

'What's his name?'

'Can't remember. One of those who sounds like a wasted old Irish soak. Old-school – beer and takeways. High blood pressure. Type who every year sends someone younger with a snide ID to do his bleep test for him.'

She smiled and peered down at her arms, flexing her biceps. 'Don't say the bleep word. Annual medical in two weeks' time.'

'Up to Napier Miles, is it, Sarge? Need to start eating, then.' He pushed the ciabatta at her. 'Protein drinks. Ice-cream. McDonald's. Look at you. Underweight is the new overweight – didn't you know?'

She took the sandwich and began to eat. Dundas watched her. It was funny the way he seemed protective of her when she was his boss. Dundas never wasted time lecturing his son. Instead he saved it for Flea. She chewed, thinking he was someone she could tell – explain what was really going on, explain what had happened last night.

She was trying to sort out the words, get them into a line, when behind them the door opened and a voice said, 'You the divers? The ones pulled the hand up?'

A man in his mid-thirties, medium height, wearing a grey suit, stood in the doorway holding a cup of machine coffee. He had a determined sort of face and lots of dark hair cut short. 'Where is it, then?' he said, leaning inwards, one hand on the doorframe, looking round the changing room. 'There's no one on the quayside except your team.'

Neither of them spoke.

'Hello?'

Flea came back to herself with a jolt. She swallowed her mouthful and hastily wiped crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. 'Yeah, sorry. You are?'

'DI Jack Caffery. Deputy SIO. Who are you?'

'She's Flea,' Dundas said. 'Sergeant Flea Marley.'

Caffery gave him a strange look. Then he studied her, and she could see right away he was holding something in under his expression. She thought she knew what. Men didn't like working alongside a girl who just squeaked in at under five five in her diving boots. Either that or she had crumbs on her T-shirt.

'Flea?' he said. '
Flea?
'

'It's a nickname.' She got to her feet, holding out her hand to shake. 'The name's Phoebe Marley. Unit Sergeant Phoebe Marley.'

He looked down at her hand, as if it was something alien. Then, as if he'd remembered where he was, he shook it firmly. He released it quickly, and the moment he did Flea stepped away, out of his space. She sat down and self-consciously brushed the front of her T-shirt, off balance again. That was something else that pissed her off. She wasn't very good around men.

At least, not this sort of man. They made her think about things she'd put behind her.

'So?' he said. '
Flea
. Where's this hand you pulled out of the water?'

'Coroner's let it go,' said Dundas. 'Didn't anyone say?'

'No.'

'Well, he did. The CSM sent someone to Southmeads with it. But it won't be done till tomorrow.'

'Pull a lot of hands out of the water round here, then?'

'Yup,' said Dundas. 'Got a collection up at Southmeads. Feet, hands, a leg or two.'

'And where are they coming from?'

'Suicides, mostly. Down in the Avon nine times out of ten. She's got a tidal race on her like you've never seen – things get bashed around a bit, hit with trees, debris. Get pieces turning up round here, right, left and arsenal.'

Caffery shot his hand out from his suit sleeve and checked his watch. 'OK, then. I'm done here.'

He had the door open and was halfway out when he went a little still, his back to them, his hand on the door, facing out into the kitchen corridor, maybe feeling the two of them watching him silently.

He took a few beats, then turned back.

'What?' he said, looking from Dundas to Flea and back again. 'It's a suicide. What do you usually do with a suicide?'

'If we haven't got a hotspot? If we haven't got a witness?'

'Yeah?'

'We, uh, wait for it to float.' Flea went softly on the word 'float': in the team they used it so often they'd got easy with it, forgot sometimes what it meant: that a corpse had to get so full of decomposition gases it rose to the surface. 'We let it float, then do a surface snatch. In this weather that'd be in a couple of weeks' time.'

'That's what I thought. It's what they do in London.' He started to go again, but this time he must have seen Dundas throw a glance across at Flea, because he paused. He closed the door and came back into the room. 'OK,' he said slowly. 'You're trying to explain something to me. Only problem is, I haven't a clue what.'

Flea took a breath. She turned her chair, put her elbows on her knees and sat canted forward, meeting his eye. 'Didn't the CSM tell you? Didn't he say we don't think it's a suicide?'

'You just said you get a million suicides out here.'

'Yes – in the Avon. If it was in the Avon we'd understand it. But it's not. This was in the harbour.'

She got up and stood, half holding the chair as if it would protect her. She didn't show it, but she was conscious of the way he was tall and sort of lean under his suit. She knew if she got closer she'd stare or something, because she'd already noticed a few things about him – like the point above his collar where his five o'clock shadow started. 'We're not the pathologists,' she said. 'We shouldn't be telling you anything. But something's not right.' She licked her lips and glanced sideways at Dundas. 'I mean, first off it's been in the water less than a day. A body's not ready to come to bits in rough water until a long, long time after it's floated. This one's way too fresh for that.'

Caffery put his head on one side, raised his eyebrows.

'Yes. And if it was wildlife chewed it off – fish, the harbour rats, maybe – there'd be bites all over it. There aren't any. The only injury is . . .' she held up her hand and circled a thumb and finger round her wrist '. . . is here. Right here where it came away from the arm. The CSM's with me on all of this.'

Caffery stood in front of her, looking at her hair and her thin arms in the thermals. She hated it. She never quite felt her skin was on properly when she was surface-side, where other people did sophisticated things with their relationships – and that was why she'd always be better under the water. Mum, she thought, Mum, you'd know how to do this. You'd know to look normal, not surly like me.

'Well?' he said, studying her thoughtfully. 'What could have made an injury like that?'

'Could have been a boating accident, maybe. But those happen further out – in the estuary. Then there's people coming off Clifton Bridge. Suicide Bridge, we call it. If someone takes a dive round here, nine times out of ten it's off there. They can get dragged up and down the river and sometimes,
sometimes
, if the tide's right, they'll get washed quite a long way upstream.' She shrugged. 'I suppose theoretically if they'd come off the bridge, got cut by a boat out in the river, a stray hand might've
just
got past the stop gates, ended up in the harbour. Or come up through the Cut.' She pushed her hair behind her ears. 'But no. That's impossible.'

'Impossible,' said Dundas. 'It's about a million to one. And even if it came from the Frome River or higher up the Avon, down through Netham lock and into the feeder canal . . .'

'. . . it would only have happened if there was flow in the harbour, which is usually when the sluice gates are open.'

'Which happened only once in the last two days. After the sighting was called in. We checked.'

'You're saying it was dumped?'

'We're not saying anything. Not our job.'

'But it was dumped?'

They exchanged a glance. 'It's not our job,' they said simultaneously.

Caffery looked from Flea to Dundas and back. 'OK,' he said. 'It was dumped.' He checked his watch again. 'Right – so what shifts are you two on today? What do I need to do to keep you in the water?'

'Oh, I shouldn't worry about that if I were you.' Dundas smiled, getting his all-weather gear off the hook and pulling it on. 'We haven't signed off with the harbour master yet. And, anyway, we're always interested in overtime. Aren't we, Sarge?'

All he's ever wanted to do is get off the gear. It'd sound crazy to anyone who's seen him spending 100 per cent of his time and energy on scoring to hear that actually what he wants, what he really wants more than anything, is to see a way through it all and get clean. It's November and he's standing with Bag Man, the one they call 'BM', in the shadow of the tower block, over by the waste disposals where most of the dealing is done. A grey autumn wind is whipping up the litter and the plastic bags. BM is wearing a grey hoodie with 'Malcolm X' written on the breast pocket, even though he's white, and Mossy is raging because BM's just told him there's no more credit.

'What?' Mossy says, because he and BM have serious history and there's no reason for him to go cold like this so suddenly. 'What the fuck're you talking about?'

'Sorry,' BM says, looking at him really straight. ' 'S all gone too far. Can't help you this time, man, not any more. This is the end of the line.' He pinches Mossy's arm and pulls him closer. 'It's time you got yourself into counselling.'

'Counselling? What d'you mean, counselling?'

'Don't push me, mate. Given you a tip. Don't push me more.'

Mossy does try, though, just a bit more, tries to convince BM to give him something, just a little something. But BM's determined and digs in his heels, and in the end the only avenue for Mossy is to slouch away, half thinking about killing BM and half thinking about what he's said about counselling. He surprises himself to find that by the afternoon he's in the West of the City, going into a counselling session in a weird little clinic with an old woman receptionist who is honestly totally scary. One day this action alone, the action of walking into that clinic, will be enough for Mossy to blame everything on BM.

The session's weird. Everyone dotted around the room – not meeting each other's eyes. One of them's got a two-litre bottle of spring water and keeps sucking it like it'll save his life. Mossy sits there with his elbows on his knees and pretends to be interested in them, talking in their monotones about how life isn't fair, because that's what he's noticed about people on H. They always feel self-pity and he hopes he doesn't sound like that. But all the time he's looking at them, what he's really wondering is whether one has some gear and which one'll feel sorry enough for him to share a bit. So he wheels out the story – like how he was abused by his uncle, how he learned to jack up when he was thirteen, and all the stuff with the drug treatment and testing orders he's served and the prostitution and how that came really early, when he wasn't even fifteen, and he rambles on, even though he can feel the moderator, a workedout guy who got clean years ago and owes something to society, staring at him, staring into his eyes, and Mossy thinks he's getting sympathy here, thinks he's maybe the only one here who has a really good reason to be this hooked. But then, when he's finished, the moderator goes: 'Mossy? Mossy? Where'd you get a name like that?'

He shrugs. 'Dunno. Mates made it up. Cos I'm skin and bones, me, like that model. Y'know, Kate Moss.'

There's a bit of a silence and no one looks at him, except the moderator, who stares a bit more.

'You don't think that could be considered offensive?' he goes, and there's sort of a note in his voice that Mossy knows is all wrong, like a warning. So it's time to get out, and he mumbles something about not meaning to offend no one, and waits for the subject to change. Then he gets up, quiet as he can, stashes the plastic chair against the wall, and goes outside. He walks away from the clinic, lights a roll-up and finds a place a little down the road where he can see the front of the clinic and everyone coming out of the doors, and he waits, feeling the cramps coming slowly through him from front to back. They're the worst of the agonies, the cramps, the first to come and the last to leave. He sits down and hugs his belly, wondering if there's a karsi round here. It's a warm day and that helps, and if he keeps humming it'll take his mind off it.

After a while the doors open. He can feel the moderator staring at him, but he's not going to be intimidated, so he waits while the others come out. He's like a hyena, picking off the softest-looking ones who go round the edge of the pack, the ones who'll fall for a story – you can spot them, something about the hope in their eyes: like they really believe people can be redeemed. Mossy waits till they pass, then falls into stride next to them, hands in his pockets, head down a little so he can sway it a little sideways and mutter, 'Got anything to help me, there? Hmm? Just a little? I'll pay you back. Can promise you that.' But they mutter and cross the road heads down, like they don't want to be seen with him, leaving him standing there, the sweats starting, and the itching, and when he walks back to his spot he can feel his kneebones rubbing each other raw. Is that because he's too thin or is it something else? Is it because of something weird his skin is doing?

When they've disappeared he tries to bum some money from a passer-by, but she walks past, eyes on the distance, so after a while he decides to go down the docks, see if there's anything happening down there. Maybe one of them from the Barton Hill estate'll be there in a good mood. If not, he'll think again.

He's just got up and is ambling along when it happens. One minute he's on his own thinking bad thoughts, next minute, walking next to him is this tiny, skinny black guy with his hair real tight against his skull and a bit of a moustache. He's wearing jeans that've been factory faded down the front of the legs and an olive-green Kappa jacket, the hood sort of draped round his head, and Mossy recognizes him from the counselling session – he was sitting in the corner. But the main thing Mossy notices is the way he walks: like he's oiled. Like he wasn't born here on the dry Bristol streets, but in a better place. Like he's used to walking the bush day after day after day.

'You looking for something?' he goes. 'You looking for something?'

Mossy stops. 'Yeah,' he goes, 'but I'm skint.'

And what's weird is that instead of the whack to the head he expects the skinny guy looks Mossy in the eyes and says, 'No worries about the money. No worries. I know someone who can help you.'

And that, of course, is how it all starts.