Ritual

18

15 May

At seven a.m. the following day the big IDENT1 computer, having kicked up five comparisons, had whittled the prints from the severed hand down to one person: Ian Mallows. A twenty-two-year-old drug addict from the Knowle West housing estate. By the time the good residents of Knowle West had started breakfast and looked out of their windows the place was crawling with uniformed cops: nine of Avon and Somerset's finest, knocking on doors.

Caffery, feeling the effects of last night's scrumpy, was standing in the doorway of the Community Contact van in his shirtsleeves. He was tired and his back ached. But he knew the case was squeezing a little, a bit less ragged round the edges, and he had an idea that if he stepped on it they might even get the crucial evidence by the end of the day — the rest of Mallows's body. Or even Mallows alive, if the CSM was right. He had a DS interviewing Ian Mallows's probation officer, and some of the support unit had forced an entry into Mallows's flat, but it was empty and the CSM was doing a forensic search of that now. The other officers were crawling over the estate, each waving a picture of Ian Mallows, and the same comment had come up over and over. 'Ask BM. BM knows everyone round here. Ask BM.' And, from looking casually around the estate, from the squat brick buildings to the skanky bits of grass covered with dog shit, within five minutes Caffery could see exactly who 'BM' was.

He was standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs, his hands in his pockets, one foot up against the wall, dog-tags jangling round his neck. He was wearing a grey hoodie under a black blazer-type jacket and his face was white, sort of upper-class English, with a Roman nose and slightly pink cheeks that looked as if he might have got them on the rugby pitches at Harrow. But close up you could see he was a Knowle West boy right to the core: it was the way his eyes kept going from side to side, the way his body was already soft and spreading, the tops of his thighs rubbing together.

'Wha'?' said BM, when Caffery approached, warrant card extended between the thumb and fingers of his right hand. He pushed himself away from the wall and eyed it suspiciously. 'What's going on?'

'Got a minute, son?'

'No. No, I haven't.'

'Suit yourself.' Caffery put the card back into his pocket. He pulled up his collar and stood for a moment, contemplating the stairwell with graffiti and water running down the walls. BM glared at him, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him either to go or to start a row. But Caffery didn't. He coughed loudly, smiled at the lad, then went back to gazing up the stairwell, as if they were two people standing at a bus stop, waiting for the same thing. As if he had all the time in the world and could wait for ever if he wanted to, and maybe had the most patience of the two of them. Somewhere in his head he really didn't care if BM spoke to him or not.

Since last night all he'd been able to think about was what the Walking Man could tell him. Still, he thought, he had to concentrate: he still had a duty to the sorry drug-prowling drop-out who'd got his hands cut off.

BM took his own hands out of his pockets, sucked his teeth at Caffery, the way the Jamaicans used to in Deptford, and swung himself on to the stairs, heading up.

'BM,' Caffery said calmly. 'Used to know someone called BM in London. D'you know how he got that name?'

On the stairs BM hesitated. Caffery could see the dirty bottoms of his Ice Cream Reeboks. 'He got that name because he was someone's Bag Man. BM. Bag Man. Don't suppose that's how you got your name. Or should I be asking your probation officer?'

There was a silence. Somewhere a television was playing the theme to This Morning. After a moment or two BM crouched and put his face through the railings. 'Don't have a probation officer,' he hissed. 'Haven't got a record.'

'Do you want one?'

There was another long silence. Then BM sat down. There was the sound of him breathing, then of him surreptitiously taking a baggie from his pocket and squeezing it under someone's front door. Caffery heard it, noted where the door was, but didn't move. The thing was to let BM keep face. After a few moments his trainers squeaked as he came back down the stairs, hands in the pockets of his low-slung jeans.

'What?' he said sullenly. 'What you going to do?'

Caffery showed him the photograph. BM rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, stepping from side to side in his Reeboks. 'That's Mossy. Innit? Where's 'e to, then? Got himself in the nick, has he?'

'He's missing.'

'And you think maybe I took him?'

Caffery put the photograph back in his pocket. 'Someone cut his hands off. They used a hacksaw; sort of thing you could pick up in a hardware shop at the end of the road. Probably killed him, but we don't know for sure because his body never turned up.'

BM lost all the pink in his schoolboy cheeks. He sat down suddenly on the bottom step, his feet planted wide. For a moment his hand wavered, as if he was trying to reach the banister for some support, but Caffery was watching so he stopped himself and shakily rested his elbows on his knees. 'All right there, son?'

'That's what he meant,' he muttered. 'That's what he meant.' A little line of perspiration beaded his lip. 'Ages ago he said something to me. He was in the agonies when he said it and I just thought it was him going crazy, you know, saying stupid shit.'

'What did he say?'

'Said he'd met someone. He'd been at one of those charity dry-out places, places that're supposed to get you off the gear but don't. Everyone just hangs around reckoning they're going to meet someone and score.'

'You remember which one?'

'Could have been any in about a hundred.

They're all over the place. The only one it wasn't was the Knowle West one. I can tell you that straight away, because no one on the estate who's still using would show their face there.'

'So, who did Mallows meet?'

'Dunno.' BM put his hands in his pockets and went to look out of the stairwell at the bleak estate, police everywhere, going along the alleys and balconies, from door to door. Then he came back into the stairwell, shrinking into the shadows, making sure no one was listening. When he turned to Caffery his face was drawn, none of the rosy-cheeked schoolboy left. 'He said something weird. He said people were going to get hurt. I remember him saying it now — said, "There are some sickos out there, BM, and I don't know who they'd go out and hurt if it wasn't for people like me, stupid fuckers who give it up without a fight." '

'OK,' Caffery said, taking BM's arm and lifting him to his feet. 'Your gear's not going anywhere for a minute or two. Nice and safe under that old lady's doormat. Let's have a little sit-down and get this on paper.'

The thing about Flea, Caffery thought, was get her out of the water and she always seemed a little on edge. Sort of guarded, as if she expected you to tell her some really bad news. It was the first thing he'd thought when he'd seen her in the car park at HQ that afternoon.

It had been a dry day for the investigation. In the statement BM hadn't been able to give them much more than he'd told Caffery in the first five minutes in the stairwell: Mossy, he said, was the kind to take up with anyone he met — an idiot, really. He'd go off with anyone who looked at him, and there wasn't any more to the conversation about the sickos than he'd already told Caffery. He gave them about forty names, about twenty locations he knew Mossy sometimes hung out, and the names of seventeen drugs-counselling sessions, but no, apart from that time a long time ago he was just guessing really. He didn't have any idea if Mossy had been to any of them recently, and actually, what he wanted to know was how the fuck had those people kept Mossy still long enough to cut his hands off? Not much to go on for Caffery, but the SIO wanted 'afternoon prayers' — the afternoon round-up of the day's events at HQ, where he'd got another meeting. So it was off to Portishead.

He had just parked the staff X5 and was heading for the chrome and glass atrium, batting out the creases in his suit jacket for his meeting with the SIO, when he saw her coming purposefully across the grass towards him. Her hair was wet and slicked off her face and she was dressed in civvies, old jeans and a grey tank top, with her arms bare.

'Inspector Caffery,' she called. 'How are you?' She looked on edge, from the way she was trying to catch up with him, the way she had her hands pushed into her jeans pockets, as if she didn't trust them not to wave around. Everything in the West Country was different, he thought. He didn't remember a patch of grass like this at Scotland Yard or anyone like her in the force. She fell into step next to him, as if she'd been invited to and they were on their way to the same meeting.

'Any news,' she said, 'about the case?'

'Yeah.' He watched her sideways as they walked, a little wary of her. 'We've got an ID. We know who owned the hands.'

'An ID?'

'From the dabs. Ian Mallows, a.k.a. Mossy. A smackhead from one of the estates.'

'Anything else?'

'Fibres under the nails. You must've bagged the hand well because they were still there. Purple fibres. Like a carpet.'

'Hey,' she said casually, glancing at the glass building they were heading towards, 'you don't — you don't know why someone cut off his hands?'

He stopped. 'No,' he said. 'I don't know why.'

'Such a weird thing to do.' She halted and looked at him in a way that made him stop too. It was as if there was something she wanted to say but was keeping back. She held his eyes seriously. 'I mean, why would someone do that?' She moved a little closer. 'Did you know he's African?'

'What?'

'The owner of the Moat. He's African. Do you think that might be something to look at?'

Caffery frowned, taking in the shock of blonde hair. There was nothing about her face, he thought, that suggested she could take all the hard knocks in the job. Except maybe her nose, which had a slight wideness that didn't quite fit, as if she might have broken it years ago. To him she had the look of something too fanciful, not quite real. A bit like the way she was talking now.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Do I think what might be something to look at?'

'Only that he's African and there might be a connection. Between him being African and there being hands buried so close to the entrance.'

Caffery laughed. He wondered if he was being had. 'This is a joke, yeah? I'm supposed to try to work out what you're saying.'

There was a few moments' silence, then something in Flea's face cleared. 'It's none of my business,' she murmured, scratching her head distractedly. 'But I'm trying to work out how those hands came to be under the restaurant.'

'I don't think we're going to have to look much further than the nearest drug deal gone wrong. We're not going to be letting the location lead the investigation any more.'

'No?'

'No. The victim's where we're taking it from now. He had serious smack history, always trying to get clean, you know the story — DTTOs stacked up so high. The only witness statement we could pull out today has him being pretty bloody scared about something that happened to him at some drugs counsellor's. So that's being actioned even as we speak. About a hundred drugs charities to sift through and I think-' He broke off. Flea's expression had changed. Her eyes were suddenly hard and guarded, flashing something he wondered if he'd be stupid to mess with. 'And I think that's where we'll find the lead,' he finished thoughtfully. She was still staring at him. 'What? Why you looking at me like that?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'I should let you get on with it.' And she took a step backwards, still holding his eyes as if she expected him to jump her. Then she began to walk away, pulling her phone out of her pocket and banging out a text with her thumb.

Somewhere Caffery'd heard that teenagers were getting over-developed thumbs from all the texting they were doing — he'd've liked to say something to her about it.

'Flea?'

She stopped, pocketing the phone as if she'd been caught holding a bomb. 'Yes?'

'I'm new here. New to the area.'

'I know that.'

'I'm hoping someone could give me some pointers. To Bristol. You know.' And then, quickly, because it sounded as if he was asking for a date, he said, 'I want a nursery. Just wondering if you could tell me where to look for a good nursery.'

He wasn't sure but he thought her eyes flickered towards his hand, his ring finger. 'I could ask around,' she said. 'How old's your… son? Daughter?'

He smiled. Half at the absurdity of the mistake, and half because he felt stupid because he couldn't claim children when everyone else at his age could. 'No,' he said slowly. 'I didn't mean that. I meant plants. I want to buy some plants. Some bulbs. That's all.'

It was Tig she'd been texting. With this itch in her head about the picture in Kaiser's book, with the way that whatever she did she couldn't get away from the thought of those hands under the restaurant, she'd spent most of the day trying to talk Tig into introducing her to the owner of the Moat. Although at first he'd been appalled, had blustered for a while about professional ethics, 'Mine and yours, Flea, by the way,' in the end he said he'd see, grudgingly, what the owner said, and why didn't she come down to see him at work? Which would have been fine, until what Caffery had just told her about Mallows. Now she was worried.

If CID were looking at drugs charities, sooner or later Tig would come up on their radar — and what the hell were they going to make of his history, especially if it came out that he knew the owner of the Moat? Plus, if the suits went knocking on his door, no way was he going to believe she hadn't somehow set the ball rolling in his direction. It was going to be two-way nastiness. And if Mallows turned out to be a client of User Friendly, Tig's charity, well, then the shit was really going to hit the proverbial. Still, she thought, swinging into her car and firing off the text — Hi Tig, Be there in an hour — DI Caffery wasn't showing much sign of doing anything about what she'd said. Cryptic though she'd been, he could have shown some interest in the restaurant owner being African. Because, she was absolutely bloody certain, someone ought to be interested.

She drove quickly to the community centre where Tig took his Wednesday sessions. It was a Victorian schoolhouse, cleaned up and fitted with laminate flooring and disabled toilets with dangling alarm cords. By the time she arrived his group had finished and he was alone in the echoey building. He opened the door to her, wearing a black sweatshirt, camouflage combats tucked into his boots. He was carrying a stack of folders under one arm.

'Well?' she said, as he led her down the corridor to the little office that smelled of new carpets and cleaning fluid. She went fast, trying to keep up with him. 'Have you spoken to him — your friend? The owner?'

'I have.' He threw down the folders on the desk and dropped into a swivel chair, his hands linked on his stomach, spinning round to face at her. He gave her the sort of measured smile he'd give an interviewee.

'OK.' She dumped her holdall and her fleece and shoved her hands into her pockets. 'I'm going to have to beg you.'

Tig gave a dry laugh. 'He's been away,' he said, 'with his wife in Portugal — they've only been back since lunchtime. We can go for a cup of coffee, but it's not exactly open arms. I'm pretending I want to schmooze some more dosh from him for the charity. So for fuck's sake, girl, don't you be going in there and asking police questions, get it?

'I get it.'

'No digging. You sit and keep schtum. Whatever you want to talk about you let him introduce the subject, and if he doesn't introduce it you just walk straight away from it, Flea. Straight away. I'm doing this as a major, major favour, OK? And if it goes tits up, if he gets wind tonight you're filth, then…' He swiped a hand across his throat. 'I'm finished. And it'll be your fault.'

'God, Tig.' She sat down, folding her arms. 'That'll be me, then, well and truly told, eh?'

'That's the way it is. And that's the deal. OK?'

She looked at him for a while, at his hard body and the grey-blue scalp where the hair was shaved. She was thinking about the photo in her bag — the photo of Ian Mallows she'd printed off back at Almondsbury.

She took a breath and was turning to get the photo from her bag when Tig said suddenly, 'So, tell me, how's the professor? Have you spoken to him again?'

'Kaiser, you mean? No. Why?'

'But you're still going there tomorrow?'

'Yes. In the afternoon.'

Tig gazed up at the ceiling, as if he was trying to remember something. 'Just remind me — what's his job again?'

'He's…' Flea paused. 'I don't know — comparative religion. The hallucinations — that's a corner of his job… Why?'

'Why?' Tig fiddled with the collar of his sweatshirt as if he was too hot. 'Just wonder who you hang out with sometimes. The lowlifes you know.'

'Lowlifes?'

'Just wondering if maybe it's time I paid a bit more attention to the men you see.'

'I don't «see» men, Tig. You know that.'

'Maybe you don't.' His face was suddenly serious. 'Maybe you don't. But maybe it's still time for me to pay some attention.'

'What?'

'I should have done it a long time ago, Flea. I should have always shown more of an interest in you.'

'Stop it, for Christ's sake. I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Don't you?' He held her eyes. 'Don't you know?'

Flea gave a tentative laugh. 'Tig?' she said woodenly. 'You're gay.'

There was a beat of shocked silence. Then Tig started to laugh. 'Gay?' he said. 'Oh, give me a fucking break. Gay?'

'Yes, I mean you…' She trailed off, suddenly seeing where this was going. 'Tig,' she said. 'Come on. Tell me you're not serious.'

'I am,' he said quietly. 'I'm very serious.'

She blinked. This was insane. Tig was gay. Had always been. Always would be. That was the only way they'd been able to be friends so long. Maybe she wasn't the most perceptive person in the world — she could find a nail in a lake blindfolded, but when it came to other people she was a blunt instrument — but this? This was weird and unbelievable.

'Well,' Tig said, 'what do you think?'

'What do I think? I think…' she shook her head '… that if you're saying what I think you're saying, which is pretty weird, to be honest, but if you mean it I've got to say no.'

'No?'

'Look, you know what it's been like for me, Tig. I'm just…' She searched for the word. 'I'm cut off. Since the accident I can't think like that. I'm just…' She sighed. Fuck. This was all so bloody clumsy. 'I mean, Tig, for God's sake, you're supposed to be gay.'

He pushed back his chair and held up his hands, giving a laugh, a sort of 'I knew this would happen and I'm laughing at how good I am at predicting things.' There was tension in his jaw, but his eyes weren't angry. 'Listen. Don't worry about it. I swear — you have a think about it.' His tongue moved around inside his mouth as if an object was in there, or a taste he was trying to push out. 'You think about it and when you're ready you tell me. OK?'

'OK,' she murmured, still staring, shell-shocked, at his weird offset eyes. 'OK. I will.'

And then, to cover her discomfort, she turned away, looking for something to do. She picked up her bag and shuffled through it, taking longer than she needed. After a few moments, when her face felt a bit cooler, she closed her fingers over the crumpled photo. For a moment she considered leaving it in her bag. Get the meeting with the restaurant owner over and tell Tig about Ian Mallows another day. But no. It had to be done. There was a world of trouble in it if she didn't. She placed the photo face down next to him on the desk, not meeting Tig's eyes.

He paused. 'What's this?'

She took a deep breath. She knew what he was going to say: 'That's one of my clients. Why're you showing me his photo — think I don't see the ugly bastard enough?' She turned the photo over.

Tig's face went blank. There was a long, long silence. Then he shrugged. 'What? What am I supposed to be saying? Show me a geezer's photo and what're you waiting for me to say?'

'You've never seen him before?'

'No. Am I supposed to have?'

'He's not one of your clients?'

'No.'

She let her breath out and gave a small laugh, feeling a bit better now. 'Thank fuck,' she muttered. 'At least something's going right today.' She zipped the photo back into the holdall and picked up her fleece. And that was when the community centre's doorbell began to echo round the building.