Ritual: A Novel by Mo Hayder

Author:Mo Hayder [Hayder, Mo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Psychological, Police Procedural, Horror
ISBN: 0871139928
Amazon: B002YX0IE4
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 2008-09-14T19:00:00+00:00

'You said you'd tell me.'

The Walking Man snorted. 'I said,

in my time. I need to think about you first.' He threw another log on to the fire, then brushed off his hands. 'Tell me, what do you see when you look into the faces of those girls? Those prostitutes you don't sleep with enough.'

Caffery frowned. He had to pick up his tobacco pouch and roll a cigarette before he answered. 'I don't look,' he said, lighting it. 'I try not to see. I mean, whatever happens, I don't want to see my own reflection.'

'Yes – because if you see it do you know what you're really seeing?'

'No.'

'You're seeing death.'

'Death?'

'Yes. Death. Oh, you've still got a choice. But at the moment the choice you're making is the same as mine.'

'The same

choice? I'm not making any of the same choices as you.'

The Walking Man smiled and tossed the last log on to the fire. 'Yes, you are. And for now you've chosen death. Yes. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for death.'

Caffery opened his mouth to say something, but the Walking Man's words stopped him. He sat there, his mouth still half open.

The Walking Man laughed at his face. 'I know. A shock, isn't it, when you first turn round and see the bridge you're crossing? A shock to realize you're giving up on life. That what you're really hoping for is death.'

Caffery closed his mouth. 'No. That's wrong. I'm not the same as you.'

'Yes, you are Jack Caffery, Policeman. You're exactly the same as I am. The only difference is that my eyes are open.' He used his filthy thumb and forefinger to open the lids, revealing the reddish tops and bottoms of the eyeballs. He was suddenly monstrous in the firelight, every night monster, every chimera. 'See? I'm not looking the other way. I

know I'm trying to die. And you?' He laughed. 'You don't even suspect it yet.'

31

17 May

Once, when Caffery had first started living with Rebecca in his family's three-bedroom terrace house in south-east London, after a particular bastard of an argument, she'd taken his face in her hands and said, in a voice that was tender, not angry: 'Jack, sometimes being with you isn't like being with someone who's still alive. It's like being with someone who's dying.'

For four years he'd kept those words contained somewhere in the back of his head, trying not to forget them but trying harder not to think about them too much, so they got like a memory of her perfume, or a half-remembered tune. Then, of course, along came the Walking Man and jumpstarted the memory.

It had opened something in him. It was as if a new channel had appeared in his head, making the back of his neck ache. Somehow, without understanding how, he knew the Walking Man would point to Keelie and the other girls on City Road and say they were about death, about him hoping for death. And then he'd point directly at Caffery's job. 'And as for that,' he'd say, 'more than anything else

that is about your death.

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