Ritual Read Free

body and lit her brain white, but she held on. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, letting the heat move round her veins. The force counsellor at their six-month meeting had told Flea she needed to show someone her feet and talk about the way this problem had developed – and just remind me now? When did this skin appear? Was it about the time of the accident?

But she hadn't shown anyone. Not the counsellor, not the doctor. One day she'd need an operation, she supposed. She'd wait, though, until there was pain, or loss of movement, or something that might stop her diving.

A sound behind her, and she fumbled her socks out of her holdall and pulled them on quickly. Dundas came in holding a ciabatta wrapped in a flower-sprigged paper napkin, raising an eyebrow when he saw her sitting in her bra and rolled-down thermals, her hands wrapped protectively round her feet.

'Uh – maybe get some clothes on? The deputy SIO's coming down to tie things up. Told him where to find us.'

She pulled on a T-shirt, picked up a towel and began to rub her hair vigorously. 'Where's the SIO, then?'

'Got a meeting about Operation Atrium – not interested in us lollygagging around with a hand on the harbour front. Doesn't think the Major Crime Unit should be bothering with us. He was off twenty minutes ago.'

'I'm glad. Don't like him,' she said, thinking about the briefing earlier on. The on-call senior investigating officer had been okayish, but she'd never forgotten the look on his face when he'd first seen her at a dive briefing three years ago: just like all the other SIOs, sort of depressed because there he was, waiting for someone with a bit of authority, someone who'd answer the questions about the water, and what he got instead of reassurance was Flea – twenty-six and skinny, with lots of hair and these blue child's eyes that were so wide spaced she looked as if she wouldn't be able to open a bank account, let alone pull a dead body out of the mud under four metres of water. But they mostly did that to her, the senior ranks. At first it had been a challenge. Now it just pissed her off.

'Well?' She dropped the towel. 'Who's his deputy, then? Someone out of Kingswood?'

'Someone new. No one I've heard of.'

'What's his name?'

'Can't remember. One of those who sounds like a wasted old Irish soak. Old-school – beer and takeways. High blood pressure. Type who every year sends someone younger with a snide ID to do his bleep test for him.'

She smiled and peered down at her arms, flexing her biceps. 'Don't say the bleep word. Annual medical in two weeks' time.'

'Up to Napier Miles, is it, Sarge? Need to start eating, then.' He pushed the ciabatta at her. 'Protein drinks. Ice-cream. McDonald's. Look at you. Underweight is the new overweight – didn't you know?'

She took the sandwich and began to eat. Dundas watched her. It was funny the way he seemed protective of her when she was his boss. Dundas never wasted time lecturing his son. Instead he saved it for Flea. She chewed, thinking he was someone she could tell – explain what was really going on, explain what had happened last night.

She was trying to sort out the words, get them into a line, when behind them the door opened and a voice said, 'You the divers? The ones pulled the hand up?'

A man in his mid-thirties, medium height, wearing a grey suit, stood in the doorway holding a cup of machine coffee. He had a determined sort of face and lots of dark hair cut short. 'Where is it, then?' he said, leaning inwards, one hand on the doorframe, looking round the changing room. 'There's no one on the quayside except your team.'

Neither of them spoke.

'Hello?'

Flea came back to herself with a jolt. She swallowed her mouthful and hastily wiped crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. 'Yeah, sorry. You are?'

'DI Jack Caffery. Deputy SIO. Who are you?'

'She's Flea,' Dundas said. 'Sergeant Flea Marley.'

Caffery gave him a strange look. Then he studied her, and she