Ritual Read online

  He had so much to answer for. He was responsible for so much.

  And Hannah saw that.

  “I’ll get my coat. I just need to …”

  Brian felt a vibration in his right pocket. He reached in and pulled out his iPhone.

  “Bloody he … sorry. Just hell.”

  “Who is it?” Hannah asked.

  “Work.”

  “But today’s your day—”

  “I know. I’ll just, er. I’ll just see what they want.”

  “Brian just leave it—”

  “Hello?”

  “McDone. Where the hell you at?”

  Brian’s stomach sank. DCI Marlow. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up is you were s’posed to be in my office ten bloody minutes ago, that’s what’s up.”

  His voice boomed down the phone so loud that the “bloody” made Hannah cringe. “I … It’s my day off.”

  “It was. Up until three days ago.”

  Brian scratched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what—”

  “Redeployment, remember? Retirement? Pension talks? Any … of this ringing any bells?”

  It didn’t. Not at first.

  And then it crashed down on Brian’s shoulders like a shit tonne of bricks. “Oh sh … sugar.”

  “Sugar indeed,” DCI Marlow said. “Hardly the icing on the cake of a glittering career.”

  Brian rushed around the kitchen. Passed Hannah. Passed Sam. “I—I can be down there in—”

  “Don’t care how long it’s gonna be as long as you get your arse down here fast. Knowing this government’s record, public services won’t even have a bloody job left for you by the time you get ’ere.”

  “I’ll be there,” Brian said.

  He cancelled the call. Let out a deep breath.

  “Who was that?” Hannah asked. She was wearing her denim jacket and black boots. Sam was all belted into his pram. He’d stopped wailing.

  “I, er … It was work. Marlow from work. Something’s come up.”

  “What? Now?”

  “Han I’m sorry.”

  “But today’s your day off.”

  “I know. I know it is. But I … I shouldn’t be out there long. Retirement meeting. Talking pensions and redeployment and all that. Making sure the government don’t get their grubby mitts on the money I’ve worked for. I forgot. I—I’ve been tired, y’know. With Sam and that. I’m sorry.”

  “Is this how it’s gonna be ’til the day you retire?”

  “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to. If it wasn’t important. You know that.”

  Hannah opened her mouth to argue then closed it when Sam started crying again. She lowered her head. “You think he cries because he doesn’t like you. I think he cries ’cause he never knows whether you’re sticking around or not. He doesn’t want to get too close. I dunno.”

  “I’m sorry. And you, little chap. I’ll make it up to you. Promise I will.”

  Hannah half-smiled and nodded. She didn’t say another word.

  Brian got his jacket and keys and kissed Han and Sam before leaving the house. And as he stepped outside into the crisp early summer air, as he felt the glow of the sun on his skin, listened to the tweeting of the birds and smelled the freshness of cut grass, he felt free.

  He felt free from Hannah. From Sam.

  From that reminder of his age.

  Reminder of his mortality.

  That reminder of all the things he’d missed out on in life.

  Because he loved Hannah. He loved Sam like no one else.

  But with that love came fear. Fear of looming retirement. Fear of getting old.

  And a sickening realisation that all his hopes and dreams as a bright young lad, all his ambitions to travel and see the world and live life to the full, all quashed by the juggernaut of age.

  He sighed and walked to his car.

  He still had his job.

  And while he still had his job, he could still kid himself he was young, that everything good was still ahead of him.

  He could distract himself from the painful, cold reality that life was ticking away and he wasn’t ever going to get it back.

  Until he didn’t have his job and then he was trapped in the inescapable purgatory of retirement.

  No. He couldn’t risk anything. He couldn’t break procedure. As much as he wanted to, he just had to behave now. Behave as the days and the weeks and the months ticked away. Because his future depended on it. Hannah’s future. Sam’s future.

  And although he was struggling, he cared.

  He cared so damned much.

  It was only when he’d driven a mile that he realised he hadn’t changed out of the puke covered grey fleece.

  His level of caring dipped a little.

  Three

  July 28, 1974

  When Julia Patricks felt the heavy crack across her left cheek, she knew she should’ve listened to Horace when he told her not to offer lifts to hitchhikers.

  She couldn’t see a thing in this pitch blackness. It’d been that way for a while now. Hours, perhaps. Or maybe it was just minutes. It seemed like forever. Seemed like forever ’cause of the—

  Crack.

  Another heavy blast against the side of her face.

  More ringing noises filling her ears.

  The taste of blood building up inside her mouth, dripping down her swollen lips.

  She could smell the man’s cologne as he beat the hell out of her. That musty smell, like aftershave that’d gone off years ago. The kind that a homeless person might find in a bin and start using to cover the smell of alcohol, of cigarettes.

  And it was that same cologne she’d smelled in the car when—

  Crack.

  —when she’d offered him a lift. Because it wasn’t like it was dark outside. Wasn’t like she was on a creepy road in the middle of the night or anything stereotypical like that. He was just standing there at the side of Garstang Road, thumb raised, black suitcase by his side.

  Smile on his face.

  Fluffy ginger hair.

  Heavens, he was quite attractive.

  Was that what made Julia pull over?

  Was that what made Julia—

  Crack!

  She felt something split this time. She felt it split and tasted warmth in her mouth. She knew what’d happened right away. A tooth. He’d knocked one or more of her teeth out. She remembered being at the dentist when she was twelve. Remembered the way the dentist gave her that gas to make it easier, told her she wouldn’t feel a thing as he moved into her mouth, reached in with his pliers …

  She remembered the warmth of the blood. The agony, feeling like her whole cheek was being ripped out through her mouth as he wrapped those pliers around the tooth, pulled.

  She remembered the struggle, the fight to pull her tooth away from its socket, its rightful home.

  And then the sudden flood of hot, slimy blood, right down the back of her throat.

  She felt that sensation again now, and the worst thing was she couldn’t even call out for her mum to tell her to hold her hand. Not even if she wanted to, because she wasn’t a little girl anymore and her mum was long dead.

  She couldn’t call out to Horace, scream out at him to stop this man from—

  Crack.

  —to stop him from beating her, hurting her.

  She couldn’t call out to anyone.

  Because she was all alone with a psychopath in the darkness.

  “P-please,” she said, but just talking was a struggle, such was the pain in her mouth. “I—please. I don’t mean to—”

  Another crack.

  A crack that confirmed her pleas were worthless, that they were falling on deaf ears.

  She tried once more to move her hands, but they were tied behind the back of the uncomfortable chair she was sitting on. Cold and wooden by the feel of things, freezing against her bare thighs. Her ankles tied to the legs.

  Another crack.

  Vision—what
she had of her vision in the darkness, anyway—fading, drifting.

  She felt herself falling into a deeper darkness. A more comfortable darkness. And she figured maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe she’d pass out and when she woke, this man would’ve stopped, he’d’ve been caught, Horace would be here for her and she could climb into his warm arms while he stroked her hair and kissed her neck and …

  Cr …

  No. Not a crack.

  Something else.

  Something cold.

  Something cold resting on the tip of Julia’s right eye.

  And before she could blink it away, a sharpness split through her eye.

  A sharpness that made her understand where she was.

  What this was about.

  She screamed out as hot pain split through her skull. As sharpness cut through her eye, pushed right into it, the pressure building and building and building …

  She heard a pop, felt it too.

  She didn’t realise it was her eyeball bursting.

  And she never would.

  Even as warm, thin fluid dripped down her cheeks, onto her lips, the taste not dissimilar to the fat Horace insisted she left on his beef whenever she cooked it.

  She screamed and cried but both hurt—the screaming from the crack and the crying from the eye, even though she didn’t quite understand that her right eye was gone, sending agony right through her body from head to toe.

  “Please!” she cried. “I—I’m sorry. Please let me—let me—”

  “In the light of the sun, I give thee to the moon,” a cold voice said.

  Not the voice Julia expected. Not the voice of the hitchhiker.

  But a voice she recognised.

  Words she—

  She didn’t have time to process the source of the voice because someone covered her mouth.

  Pulled out her left ear.

  And from the top, from the very flap of skin where the ear joined with the head, they sliced.

  Four

  “Fucking liability sometimes, Brian. You do know that don’t you?”

  Brian sat in the rickety wooden chair at DCI Marlow’s desk. DCI Marlow liked to give his guests a shitty chair. Must give him some kind of ego trip or something, sitting there in his tall leather chair while his “minions” shuffled around with ass-aching discomfort.

  Hell, he was getting more like Price by the day.

  “Sorry, Detective,” Brian said. “Got here as quick as I could.”

  “Not quick enough,” Marlow said, shaking his head. He reached for his transparent kettle and topped up his cup—World’s Best Cop written on it in cheesy big blue letters. He didn’t bother asking Brian if he wanted any.

  He gasped when he’d finished sipping, cringing a little. “Always tell Marrion I’ve given up sugar. Still she chucks that shit in there. Think she’s tryin’ to give me a heart attack or something. No offence.”

  Brian nodded. Weird thing to say to a man who’d suffered a heart attack really. No offence. How was reference to a heart attack supposed to offend him just ’cause he’d once had one?

  Still, he didn’t bother confronting Marlow. Marlow didn’t seem to be in the mood for confrontation.

  He never seemed to be in the mood for confrontation these days.

  Marlow took another sip of his tea irrespective of the sugar inside it. He leaned forward, picked up an iPad and jabbed at the screen with his chunky fingers. His thick, grey eyebrows curled like he was some kind of recently defrosted caveman who was laying his eyes on technology for the very first time.

  “Can’t get this bloody thing on,” Marlow said.

  Brian cleared his throat. Leaned forward a little, the chair creaking. “You’ve, erm—”

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying you’ve got to press the um, the button. On the top.”

  “Do you think I don’t know how it works?” Marlow barked.

  Brian raised his hands. “I’m just saying.”

  “Well don’t.”

  Brian leaned back in the chair. His heart was beating fast. The temperature of Marlow’s office felt like it’d ramped up a notch in correlation with the reddening of his face.

  Brian watched Marlow fumble for the iPad’s power button.

  Saw his eyes glance over at him.

  Brian did his best not to look smug while Marlow opened up whatever he was opening on this iPad.

  I told you so, you grumpy old fuck.

  “Dunno why we bother with all this technology. Waste of money if you ask me.”

  “It can be useful. HOLMES for example—”

  “Shut up, Brian.”

  “Sorry, Detective.”

  DCI Marlow cleared a frog from his throat and leaned forward on his dark-wood desk. On it, he had various reminders of his home life. Photos of his wife and two children from many years ago. A photo of him cradling his grandkid and looking fittingly miserable about it. Weirdly enough, all the photographs were facing Brian, turned away from Marlow himself. Either he wanted to give off the impression that he was an ardent family man right from the off, or he couldn’t even stand the sight of them.

  Knowing Marlow, probably the latter.

  “So, three years left,” Marlow said.

  Brian nodded, pleased to be onto the reason he was here in the first place. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “Obviously you’ll know about the restructuring going on in Lancashire policing.”

  Brian felt a twinge of nerves in the middle of his chest. “Cutting of frontline and community police. Nearly 30,000 police officers and 7,000 CSOs losing their jobs nationwide.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “I read the paper.”

  Marlow nodded. He jabbed at his iPad again, so hard that Brian worried he might just crack the screen with his beefy finger. Behind him, the metallic blinds rattled in the wind as rain patted against the bird shit smeared glass. “Obviously we’ve got to start thinking about redeployment. Interviewing for new positions, that sorta thing.”

  He put down his iPad. Looked Brian right in the eyes.

  “Gotta think about, y’know. Letting a few people go, too.”

  The nerves crept up a notch.

  “I thought this meeting was about my retirement?”

  “Oh, it is. There’s that too. Pensions and that. We’ve just got the new budget in. Looks like we’re taking a bit of a nosedive again thanks to our pals in government.”

  Nervousness turned into full-blown anxiety. “Are you saying our pensions are being cut again?”

  “Not as much as last time,” Marlow said. “Which is something, I guess. But hey. Don’t look at me like I’ve killed yer cat or something. I’m just the messenger. Affects me just as much as it does you.”

  Brian wanted to argue, but he knew Marlow was right. He’d be hit too, perhaps not as badly as Brian due to his higher rank, his better health, and his sparkling disciplinary record, but he’d be hit. “How much is it looking like?”

  “About £2,000 annually.”

  “Two fucking—”

  “Brian, please. Don’t spit your fucking guts out in my office. There’s people starving in parts of the world and you’re worrying about losing a few thousand a year. It’s just a fraction.”

  Brian leaned further back in the creaky chair and shook his head. Sure, it was just a fraction, but he was depending on a nice retirement sum to help bring Sam up. To take Hannah and his son on holidays to nice faraway places. To give Sam the best damned childhood he possibly could. Not just to make up for his failings with Davey, but because that’s what he wanted. To be there for his son. To be present. To be a dad, finally.

  “Obviously there’s a chance of further cuts down the line too,” Marlow said. “And there’s as much a chance they’ll ramp back up again when we get a better idea what’s going on. But for those who we let go of soon … ill-health, discipline, that sorta thing ... we’ll offer a decent early retirement package. Might
not be quite what you’d get in a few years, but it’s risk-free from extra cuts and all that.”

  Brian was about to respond then he noticed something.

  Something Marlow had said.

  “You said ‘you’,” Brian said.

  Marlow frowned. “What d’you mean?”

  “When you said you were offering early retirement. You … you said it might not be what you get in a few years. Does that mean what I think it means?”

  Marlow didn’t say anything. But his cheeks went redder and redder so he didn’t have to.

  “That’ll be all, Brian. I’ll let you be leaving.”

  Brian wanted to grill Marlow some more. But Marlow was right. He was the messenger. It was the people at the top he needed to grill. The people at the very top who had no fucking regard for the north and no fucking regard for public services full stop. Sat there in their posh suits and blue fucking ties, giving no shits about anything but figures, figures, figures.

  They were the people he needed to speak with.

  But they were the people who’d always evade him, people like him.

  Brian got out the chair and walked towards the door of Marlow’s office.

  “Brian, I wouldn’t worry,” DCI Marlow said.

  Brian stopped with a hand on the door. Turned around. Looked back at Marlow.

  Marlow looked just below Brian’s eyes. Not quite into them, just a fraction below them. “You just behave yourself. Don’t get into any more trouble. Do as you’re told. And you’ll be fine.”

  Brian wanted to tell the patronising git to fuck right off.

  But he couldn’t, because he knew what that would mean for him.

  An early retirement package; a glorified way of being sacked.

  Less money to live on. Which meant less time to spend with Sam, less of an opportunity to be a proper dad.

  He wanted to tell Marlow to piss right off, but instead, he walked out the office.

  From now on, he just had to behave.

  He just had to keep his cool. No more one-man missions. No more arrests on a whim. None of that.

  He just had to follow orders.

  He’d be okay.

  He had to be.