Ritual

'Where was it from?' Caffery whispered. He stood above her, hand out, the dust and sweat from the chase through the streets engrained on the underside of his shirt sleeve. 'Where did it come from?'

'I dunno,' Flea murmured. It wasn't coming from the flat… not exactly. It was coming from the back of the room where another flat would be.

She turned very slowly and looked at the bed, the cupboard. She was picturing Tig's mum last week, muttering to herself in the kitchen. Stop the blacks coming through the walls. Stop them putting their faces through the walls.

'The walls,' she whispered.

'The walls?'

'Check them.'

He gave her a strange look, but went to the wall anyway, sweeping his hands along it, feeling for anomalies, his expression saying he was humouring her. He pulled the bedspread away from the window, searching for an airbrick maybe, or a hole he hadn't noticed, while Flea got down on the dirty, gritty carpet to scan the wall under the bed. Nothing. It was only when Caffery went back to the wardrobe and opened it, kicking aside the junk on the floor, that she saw him react. She saw him half turn away, then stop.

'What?' She got up, came to stand next to him and saw what he was looking at. The back of the wardrobe wasn't plastered. A piece of plywood was propped upright behind the hanging clothes. He dropped to a squat and looped his fingers behind it, then pulled it away from the wall, setting loose a cloud of plaster dust. Immediately they could smell mould and ammonia.

'OK,' he muttered, dusting off his hands. 'I think we've found him.'

Behind the plasterboard a hole about five feet tall and three wide had been knocked into the wall. Plaster dust covered the floor, and a piece of ragged wallpaper hung in shreds. They bent their heads and peered through into a small corridor, with ruined walls, electric leads hanging from the ceiling. Light filtered from an opening to their left, blocked by a padlocked iron gate. Somewhere inside water dripped. Beyond the gate they could see the beginnings of another room. Only the floor was visible, threadbare bits of carpet glued to the flaking underlay, a newspaper lying folded with the sports page face up. But in front of them the corridor extended into darkness.

Caffery crawled through the opening, giving the gate to the left an experimental push with his foot. He checked the padlock — fastened — dropped it and turned the other way, into the darkness. 'That's what he's done, the little shit. Dug his way into another flat.'

'Jesus.' Flea shivered. The air was damp, stagnant, like a long-closed cave and now, as she imagined a rats' nest of corridors, a maze, her heart wouldn't stop thumping. Quickly she ran her hands along the walls at shoulder height, sweeping for a light switch. Nothing. Just the daylight from the left and ahead the darkness. 'He must have-'

A shuffling noise was coming from the dark ahead. She leaned forward, trying to see into the room, her eyes pricking with fear. She could see a red light flashing on and off in there — not big, no more than a pinpoint — the size of a human iris. Something electronic, maybe. The sound came again and beads of sweat broke out in her armpits.

'Fuck it,' she muttered, stepping back into the bedroom, fumbling for her airwaves radio. She hit the emergency button and blocked out all other traffic. 'Bravo Control, bravo Control,' she hissed. 'Location is Hopewell estate, North West Tower, status zero, urgent assistance required. Suggest any attending units bring support unit bags and method-of-entry tools. And, uh…' She squinted down the corridor, which seemed to stretch right into the centre of the building. It made her blood run cold to think of it — Tig burrowing into the walls of his flat like a fucking termite. 'Yeah, tell them to contain the building from all sides. It's Sitexed so bring a Scott pack too.'

She signed off and turned to Caffery, who was standing in the opening, his back to the wall. Beyond him the red light was flashing on and off, illuminating the edge of his face. He was shaking his head.

'What is it?' she mouthed.

'You're going to wait for them?' he whispered.

'Yes.' She shifted the vest so that it rested on her pelvic bones and her breasts were more comfortable. 'Risk assessment,' she murmured. 'I've done one, and that's my decision.'

'And how far into the fucking building do you think he's gone?'

She knew what Caffery was saying. She knew where he was going with this. 'I don't care how far he's gone.'

'But you care if he's getting out the other fucking side,' he hissed.

'I care about doing my job and about me coming out the other side. It's basic training, one oh one — no light, we don't know what's in there and I'm not putting my life at risk. You might be in a hurry to die, but I'm not.'

With her last sentence the light reflected in Caffery's eyes became a little harder. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind. He looked back down the corridor, then at her, and for a moment she thought he was going in on his own. But he didn't. Instead he took a step back into the room and reached for her. For the second time that day she flinched, as if he was about to hurt her. But he was reaching to unsnap a holder on her body armour, to pull out the grey canister of CS gas. Then he put his lips very close to her ear. The hairs across her neck were stirred by his breath. 'Now that,' he whispered, 'is the biggest lie I've ever heard come out of another human being's mouth.'

Flea went very still. She watched him step away from her into the corridor, the eerie on-off, on-off of the red light in the dark room sparking round his outline. She could feel the small muscles in her jaw moving as she pictured Bushman's Hole, remembered letting Thom go down. She thought about the dark water, of what he was thinking when he saw Mum and Dad heading into the blackness, and a sensation like air rushed through her, like something rising up from inside her and cracking. She slammed the mobile into the Velcro fastening on the vest and caught up with Caffery in the corridor, laying a hand on his shoulder.

'Listen,' she hissed, narrowing her eyes, straining to see into the dark room ahead. 'The gas. Only use it if you have to — this place is too enclosed. You use it and we'll all get some of it and then we really will be waiting for the cavalry.' She ran her left hand across the pockets, checking everything was there — the Quikcuffs, the radio. She yanked the knife from inside the back of her trousers and handed it to him. 'They'll be expecting us at head or chest height. So we go in low.'

She pushed past him and dropped to a squat in the doorway, side on. Caffery was close behind her. She heard him drop too, then the in and out of his breath near her neck, but in front there was only silence — the shuffling had stopped. She tried to stretch her eyes into the room, her head automatically reeling off everything she was supposed to think about — the shape of the room, the position of the target, what her objective was — knowing that none of it would make any sense, that here her training counted for nothing.

'You go left, I'll go right. On three.' She unsnapped the ASP — the heavy, neoprene-covered expandable steel tube — and squeezed it, the weight in her hand reassuring. Keep it unracked for now. It was just as effective and wouldn't get in the way at ground height. 'One, two, three.'

She went into the room in an undignified scramble, half rolling, half crab-running, one hand in front of her face. About four feet inside, her trainers slid on something, sending her skidding forward. Her knee made contact with a hard edge and she felt something brush her face as her elbow slammed into the floor. The tumble stopped. She'd hit a wall, was lying on her side with her back against it, her heart hammering in her chest. She took a moment or two to get her breath back then, with an effort, manoeuvred herself on to her side, pushing herself up.