Ritual

52

Flea followed Caffery in his beat-up car. He drove it fast through the country lanes, brushing through the lush hedgerows, as the smells of horses and pollen came through her window. She had to concentrate to keep up. Along the A38 to the city and into the side roads near the Easton area, through neighbourhoods with graffitied walls where men sat outside newspaper shops playing chess on trestle tables, under flyovers and past warehouses, until at last Caffery slowed, checking out of the window and eventually stopping at the corner of a residential road.

She parked her car, locked it and went to him, opening the door and getting into the passenger seat. 'What're we doing here?' she said. Across the road a church, a bookie's and a supermarket were squeezed into one block.

'The supermarket,' he said.

She leaned forward and peered at it. 'Eezy Pocket,' said the red and yellow sign. There were grilles on the windows, a newspaper hoarding with local headlines at the entrance, and one or two kids hanging around outside, looking shiftily up and down the street as if they were waiting for someone. 'What about it?'

'I don't know.' Caffery tapped the steering-wheel thoughtfully. There was a long silence. His shirt was very white against his skin, his dark hair clean but half wild. And she noticed he'd got back that look — the one that made her think he was working hard to hold something in.

Just when she was about to say it — Christ, I know how you feel — he held up his mobile phone. There was a picture on the screen of a small, ratty-looking black guy with a slopy head wearing a white shirt and a tatty brown corduroy jacket.

'The multimedia unit scanned it from the CCTV footage at TIDARA. He was with Mossy the last time he was seen alive.'

'Do you know who he is?'

'Nope. Never seen him before.' He put away the phone and shifted a little in the seat. 'Something else you didn't know,' he said, 'is what I found at a mate of Mabuza's. Guy called Kwanele Dlamini had a bowl of blood in his living room.'

'Nice.'

'Yeah — turned out to be human.'

'Even nicer.'

'Turned out, in fact, to belong to Mossy.'

Flea sucked in a breath. Jonah's face came to her. She'd met him only once, at a Christmas party at Dundas's place. He'd shown her his PlayStation and told her that one day he wanted to write video games. Of course, she hadn't had a clue what was in his future.

Caffery turned his eyes to hers. 'Remember Kaiser said something — he said giving a Tokoloshe blood, that it's a superstition from the East.'

'You were listening to him, then?'

He gave a wry smile. 'I called someone in Immigration — they've got an officer attached to Operation Atrium, nice guy. Helpful. He gave me the heads up on Mabuza and Dlamini's status last week.' Caffery patted his pockets, took out a tobacco pouch and put it on the dashboard. 'But I wanted to know more about them-'

'Like what?'

'Like did Immigration know if they were from the east of the country? Where the Zulu tribes are.'

'Because of the thing with the blood?'

'Because of the thing with the blood. Only problem with that is he can't answer me — not straight off — so he says he's going to ask around. But then he mentions that most black South Africans who come from Zulu territory to Bristol sooner or later end up right over there.' He dug a finger in the direction of the supermarket. 'The guy who owns it is from a Durban slum. He's been running rings round Immigration for years, and his place is where people go when they first hit the streets round here. He does the lot — gets them work, gets them drugs, gets them boyfriends or girlfriends, depending on what they want, the works. Immigration would like nothing better than to get something on him, so they were well up for me having a look.'

Caffery broke off as a group of schoolkids ambled past, boys of about ten years old, socks gathered round skinny ankles, schoolbags dragging along the floor. Some bent to peer into the car, one grinned at Caffery, threw him the West- Side salute, then strolled off, casual and already as slink-hipped as the older boys.

'That's the Hopewell estate where Jonah lives,' Caffery said, when they'd gone. He put a finger on the windscreen to indicate the high-rise looming above them a few streets away. 'Not that far, but I can guarantee there are at least twenty of these convenience stores between here and there — so why did he come to this place?'

'How do you know he did?'

'Bags. In his bedroom. Unless it's a chain, which it doesn't look like. So he must have been here. And that means someone here knows him, and that means-'

He was staring at something. Flea followed the direction of his eyes. The boys had crossed the road, passed the supermarket and some parked cars, and were turning into a side-street.

'What?' she said. Caffery's eyes had narrowed, and she could see from the way his jaw had hardened that he was clenching his teeth. 'What is it?'

He unclicked his seat-belt, opened the door and swung out on to the pavement. 'There's always someone in a place like this who knows everything. And,' he said, bending to give her a smile, 'I know just who that someone is.'

He got out his warrant card, took off his jacket and threw it on to the back seat. Ignoring Flea's puzzled frown, he closed the door and crossed the road to the supermarket. The car he was interested in, a blue Nissan, was parked about twenty feet along next to a postbox, the driver — a fat guy in an England T-shirt — sitting kerbside with his window open.

Caffery approached obliquely, going casually but keeping himself tucked into the sides of the cars behind so the driver wouldn't notice until he was on top of him. Then he opened the car door and, before the driver could do anything, grabbed the keys from the ignition, pocketed them and slammed the door.

'Hey — what the fuck do you think you're-'

The driver scrabbled with the door, opening it as Caffery crossed in front of the car and jumped into the passenger seat. The driver followed him round, as fast as his weight would allow, his chunky arms pumping him along.

'Hey,' he said, tugging futilely at the passenger door. 'Get out, you cunt. Get out of my car.' He hammered on the window. 'Get out or I'll get the fucking police on you.'

In the car Caffery took the warrant card from his trouser pocket and slapped it, face out, against the glass. The driver stopped mid-sentence. He didn't have to get close to know what the card was — Caffery knew he'd have seen one enough times. He stopped hammering. His shoulders drooped in defeat and he rested his hands on the car roof. He turned and looked around the street, as if he was thinking of running. Then, as if he'd thought better of it, he trudged wearily to the front of the car and got in, not speaking.

There was a bad smell in the car, of sweat and food and old clothes. When the man got in, the car creaked and shifted — it took him some time to get comfortable in the small seat, and by the time he had settled the sweat was running down his face.

'Well?' he said. 'You can't get me on anything. I'm not on a warning or probation or anything. I'm clean. I can sit where I want when I want.'

Caffery didn't answer. The gang of schoolkids were trailing away in the distance. He knew it was them the man was trying not to look at. He knew it because he'd got the measure of this guy just from watching him across the road. Maybe it was his curse to recognize a paedophile from a hundred yards. When he didn't answer the man sighed and sat back, crossing his arms. He was wearing shorts, and his fat, sparsely haired legs were jammed up against the steering-wheel.

'The thing is, I keep telling you guys, we're all the same. On the inside, us men are the same — in our thoughts, in our…' he nodded in the direction of the schoolboys '… in our desires.'