Flea stopped rubbing her legs. She always believed Dundas. He had more integrity than anyone else she knew. If he said his son could be relied on, it was true. 'OK,' she said. 'Tell me what happened.'
'He owed Faith money. Nothing new there, she's soft as shit with him, he always owes her money, but he said he was going to pay her back this morning. He said he had a job that was different, that would pay back everything he owed.'
'What sort of job?'
'I don't think it was just another trick.' Dundas swallowed. He was an old copper. He knew the language of prostitution but it had taken him years to get used to using it for his son. 'If it was just another trick he was turning it must have been a spectacular one. He owes Faith nearly eight hundred quid, and you don't make that sort of money in Knowle West. And he'd've called if he was going to be late. He had his phone with him. She's been ringing him all morning but it's switched off. He'd've called if…' He let the word carry across the grass. 'If he could.'
They sat without speaking, looking out at the sky, at the long field leading away from them and the lake nestling in the grass like a silver coin. About five feet to their right there was a blackened area where someone had made a fire, recent because the smell lingered. No bottles or rubbish, so kids maybe, or someone on the run. There was a tramp in this area, an ex-con the public had monikered the Walking Man, and it made her think about all the people in the world who would have no one to notice if they vanished tomorrow. Lost souls. She turned to Dundas and hugged him. 'Don't worry. It'll be OK.'
'No,' he said. 'I don't think so. I don't think it will be OK.'
She stood up and gazed at him, at his big old face, at the way the skin on his neck was red and mottled, permanently sunburned from years of diving. She knew there was no replacing Dad, no such thing as a replacement father, but now she felt so tender towards Dundas she had to fight an overwhelming impulse to hug him again. 'Rich?' she said. 'We're going to do our best.'
'Yes,' he muttered thickly. 'Yes. Thank you.' There was a long pause, while he seemed to squirm a bit, as if something was coiling through his stomach. 'Thank you.'
42
11 May
Everything Mossy finds out about Skinny's brother is creepy. He never sees the little bastard but he knows he's there — he's seen his fucked-up shadow on the wall. He's smelled him, and heard him. But there's worse: from everything Skinny's said about the way he acts, the things he does, Mossy's come to the conclusion that the brother's deformity doesn't stop at his baboon body: it's got into his brain too.
It's Mossy's opinion that Skinny has the exact right attitude about the fucked-up business they're in: there's money in human parts. It's taken Mossy a long time to accept it, but now he understands it's the way Skinny has to survive. But his brother has totally the wrong attitude. The brother — and sometimes just thinking about it makes Mossy feel cold in the head — actually believes in the muti. He's never asked if the brother has actually swallowed human blood — or if he's eaten pieces of the skin the two of them trafficked — but he's made guesses.
Because the brother believes the muti can do more than just cure him. He thinks it can do more than just straighten his spine and unlatch his baboon hands. He thinks it can influence others around him. In the times he's out of the flat, doing whatever weird thing he does out there, the brother has fallen in love. Never slept with her, only seen her at a distance, but it's love. She's a street girl, one of the City Road girls, called Keelie. Mossy knows too well that, of all the bad people in the world you can fall in love with, a street person is the worst — but the brother's got it into his head, Skinny says, that the muti is going to work here, too. It'll stop the girlfriend shagging other men for money.
Skinny doesn't talk much about it. He tries to pretend it's not happening, but then something forces him to go past all that. One day something starts him sweating.
It must be the third or fourth day, Mossy's almost sure he's been here three days, and it starts with shouting. He sits up on the sofa and peers into the darkness. The noise seems to be coming from somewhere beyond the gate, maybe from somewhere nearer the cage, and from the echoes he gets a sense of what this place is like, of the labyrinth of rooms. There's the noise of something being thrown against the wall, more shouts, then silence. He waits what seems for ever. Then, just as he's lying back on the sofa, suddenly people are in the corridor jostling, adrenalin and violence in the air, Uncle, maybe someone else. The gate is opened and Skinny is pushed inside. When Uncle has gone and the corridor is dark Mossy leans over and hisses, 'What? What is it?'
There's a moment of silence, then Skinny skulks over, sits on the threadbare sofa, wraps his arms round his shoulders and gives him this look that says everything's gone wrong.
'What?'
Skinny shakes his head and his eyes turn away, staring at the barred cage. It's back to the nightmare, then.
'Your brother,' Mossy says. 'It's your brother?'
Skinny nods miserably and wipes his nose with the back of his hand.
'What then? What the fuck's he done now?'
He swallows hard as if there's a lump in his throat.
'What?'
Skinny puts his hand to his mouth, taps it a couple of times with his thumb. At first Mossy thinks he's doing it to stop himself crying, but then he sees it's a gesture. Skinny does it again and he understands.
'Drinking?'
He nods.
'He's drunk? Uncle caught him?'
Skinny screws up his face and rubs his fingers hard into his arms. The look on his face is making Mossy's skin crawl.
'What's he been drinking?'
And still Skinny can't answer. Mossy knows for sure now that something the brother has done has really chucked the shit at the fan. He can tell from Skinny's face and from the noises out there that Uncle has caught the freak doing something, drinking something he shouldn't. He's getting the words and the ideas straight in his head, and he's about to say it all, when the whole thing dawns on him. It's like having a snake go fast through his belly.
'Shit,' he says faintly. 'You're fucking joking. You're fucking joking.'
He gets up slowly, in a daze, because he can't sit here waiting for Jonah a minute longer. This is all too screwed up. He goes to the gate and rattles it.
'Hey,' he shouts into the little corridor, with the bare light fitting. 'Let me out.' There is silence out there now. The banging and shouting have stopped. He shakes the gate a little harder and the noise echoes through the building. 'Hey!' he yells. 'Come and let me out! I've had enough of you bunch of fucking freaks.'
'Don't,' Skinny says, from the sofa. 'Don't. You go make him angry.'
But Mossy doesn't care. He's trying to shake the gate out of its moorings. 'Let me out.' His voice is rising, louder and louder. 'Let me out, you shithead. Let me out.'
He's trembling because if there's one thing he knows it's that he's not staying in a place with an animal, because that's what Skinny's brother must be, to do what he's done. Drink his blood. There's no need to spell it out. The weird fucker has been into the fridge and drunk the blood, and now there is nothing Mossy won't risk to get out of this place into the sunlight.
'Come and let me the fuck out!' he screams, throwing himself at the gate. 'Let me out!'