Ritual

37

'The hardest part was keeping him still.' The Walking Man sat with his knees up, cupping a mug of hot cider in his filthy hands. The firelight played across his face, threw shadows up into the trees behind him. 'First I tried tying him to a chair, but that wasn't going to work. I could see that straight away.'

'So what did you do?'

'Tape.'

'Oh, yeah, the tape. I read that in the report. Parcel tape, wasn't it?' Caffery rolled on to one side and rested his head on his hand. 'Handle With Care parcel tape — that bit made it to the media. They loved that detail.'

The Walking Man grunted. 'I didn't choose it for how it would look. It was what was to hand.' 'So you taped him to the chair.'

'But that didn't work either — I couldn't get at him. Then I realized there was an ironing-board in the garage, leaning up against the wall, so I took off the legs and taped him to that. Had to knock him out again, of course.'

'But that worked?'

The Walking Man smiled. 'Oh, yes. That worked. I put it up on the bench and it went perfectly.'

Caffery had found the Walking Man's camp half by accident. It was late. He'd got a PC from Broadbury babysitting Mabuza at his house — told him it was for his own protection — and had gone straight from the office to one of the girls on City Road.

It hadn't taken long and he'd come away feeling worse rather than better. He kept thinking about what the Walking Man had said: You're looking for death. He wondered about that as he drove home while the sun went down, the first stars came out and Bristol faded to an orange haze in his rear-view mirror.

He wasn't consciously looking for the camp, but he knew he didn't want to go home where he'd be alone with nothing for company but late-night TV shows and shadows in the trees, so he drove, heading east, nearly into Wiltshire. He took roads he didn't know and was south of Bath on a small turn-off near the A36 when he noticed a small campfire in some trees just a hundred metres off the road. He stopped the car, got out and walked slowly across a rapeseed field to the wood. Usually the Walking Man would be asleep by now, but not tonight. Tonight he was awake, sitting in the middle of the field, looking over the fire in the direction of the Farleigh Park lake that lay at the bottom of the slope reflecting the moon. At first there seemed something troubled about him — he held up a hand to acknowledge Caffery but he wasn't looking at him. He was scratching his beard ruminatively and staring past him down the hill and across the field to the road where the car was parked. It was only when Caffery told him what he wanted, and handed him another bag of crocus bulbs, that the Walking Man responded. He added another litre of scrumpy to the mulled drink he was brewing in the Kelly kettle, and when they were both settled, with steaming mugs and lit cigarettes, he began to talk.

'When I made the first cut in his nose he bit me.' He held up a grimy hand closed into a fist, and turned it in the firelight. 'Don't know how but he got his head off the ironing-board and bit me. He clamped himself here, round the wrist, like a shark. For a moment I thought it was over.'

Lying on the ground, the cigarette between his teeth, Caffery closed his eyes and tried to picture it: Craig Evans taped to a board, blood pouring down his face. He knew what Evans had looked like before the attack because he'd seen the photos, but by screwing his eyes tight he could replace Evan's face with the one he wanted in his own fantasy. Ivan Penderecki's.

'I punched him in the side of the head and he almost went out again. He let go and that's when I got him by the hair and taped his head to the board. The only part of him you could see was his face, his hands and…' he paused '… his balls and cock. I got those out straight away. Unzipped him and out they came. They were hanging there the whole time — just to, you know, remind me.'

'Then what?' He focused on Penderecki's face in his head. 'What happened next?'

'Then I went back to cutting off his nose.'

'What was it like?'

'Have you ever carved a chicken for Sunday lunch? I used to all the time — before Evans. You know the way it feels when you cut a leg off to put on a plate? The tearing? It was like that.'

Caffery's hands were twitching. His teeth clenched tight, the enamel almost cracking with the pressure. He was seeing it all in his mind's eye: Penderecki screaming, the click and grind of cartilage as the knife went through his nose.

'His eyes were easier than I'd thought. I'd never thought I could dig my thumbs into someone's skull like that, but I did. He passed out again then.'

'And you waited?'

'I waited until he woke up. He was trying to move around — to thrash about — but he couldn't. He kept puking too — every ten minutes or so he'd puke.' There was a moment's silence. Then the Walking Man said, with a smile in his voice, 'But we haven't even got to the best bit yet.'

'No?'

'Oh, no.' And this time he chuckled. Caffery fought the urge to open his eyes. He could believe that if he did he'd find a grinning gnome cackling at him. 'No. The best bit was cutting off his dick. I got more pleasure from that part than anything.'

'Pleasure?'

'Yes, Jack Caffery, Policeman. Pleasure. Because that is what we are here to talk about. The pleasure I got. I am not going to cry about this — I am not ever ever ever going to show repentance, whatever you expect. I am here to tell you that the greatest pleasure I ever got in my life was hacking through that man's balls. I held them in my hands. I pulled them so they were as far out as they could stretch. And I slid the blade across the skin — it went through without me even pushing it — and it snapped back to his body like elastic and there I was, holding his testicles.'

Caffery swallowed. He tried to keep his voice steady. 'And then? What then?'

'And then his penis. I did that slowly. He kept passing out so I had to wait until he woke up each time.'

'What was that like?'

'That was like cutting through a steak. Not difficult. I tilted the board back and put a wooden block on his thighs to rest against. That way I got a better leverage. I had a serrated knife and I used that. The blood soaked into the wooden block.'

For a long time neither man spoke. There was no sound, only the distant rumble of the A36, and occasionally of a car going past on the road. Caffery lay as still as possible, letting the moonlight bathe his eyelids, seeing Penderecki taped down so only his face and groin were visible, the floor and board around him soaked in blood. He'd have done it in the back room, one of those that looked out over the railway cutting because that was the last place Ewan had been seen. He'd have been able to see his own home, the lights on, the places he and Ewan played as kids. Caffery thought, although he wasn't sure, that he would have recorded it on video too, the way the Walking Man had.

'Why did you crucify him?'

'Why did I crucify him?' He gave a hollow laugh. 'That, Mr Policeman, is between me and him.'

'It's a strange thing to do.'

'Yes,' the Walking Man said calmly. 'And it's a strange thing for a man to rape an eight-year-old child. To rape her four times in three hours and then, when he had finished, to kill her.'

Caffery opened his eyes. The Walking Man sat in the same position, clutching the cider, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. A taste of metal came into his mouth as he wondered whether the Walking Man could see the death of his only child without closing his eyes. He himself had always been able to see Ewan's death, so why should it be any different for the Walking Man?

'And?' he said, after a minute or two, when he was sure his voice would come out more or less even. 'What then?'

'Then I went and called the ambulance.'

'You were calm on the tape. The prosecution said you were talking as if nothing had happened.'

'That's right.'

'And Evans was screaming in the background.'

'Yes. He was screaming. Do you know what he was screaming? You couldn't hear it on the tape and it never came out in the trial — but do you know who he was screaming for?'

Caffery hesitated. He closed his eyes again and let himself sink deep, deep down inside, feeling a pull somewhere in his chest where he knew truths were. 'I don't know, but I think…'

'Yes? You think?'

'I think he was asking for his mother.'

In the darkness the Walking Man let out a long breath. 'You're right. He was screaming for his mother.'