Read Online Ritual by Mo Hayder - Free Book Online

cooked us anything Dad always used to nudge you? Remember? Nudge you and say, "Kaiser, old man, you sure there's nothing in this cake we should know about?" '

Kaiser smiled. He dipped his chin, half laughing at the memory.

'Except,' she said seriously, 'this time it's not a joke.'

His smile faded. 'I beg your pardon?'

'This time, Kaiser, it's not anywhere near as funny as I used to think it was.' She gave him a long, level look. His eyes were pus-coloured, a bit bloodshot. Something about his big-boned face had always made her think of a hairless goat. 'See, now I realize it wasn't ever really a joke. Not to the people who mattered.'

'What on earth do you mean?'

She turned to the cupboards in the recesses on either side of the fireplace. They were locked and, now she thought about it, there had always been things in Kaiser's house that were locked away, places she and Thom weren't allowed. People were always contacting Kaiser to ask about his shamanic skills and it made him laugh: 'I'm hardly a shaman. Just a dusty old lecturer.' But there was something hidden about Kaiser, something in the sinewy body, quite strong in spite of his age, something in the way he would stare fixedly at a person. Dad said Kaiser knew 'whereof he spoke' and that the cupboards were where he kept the ritual drugs. Flea'd always thought it was one of Dad's jokes. She wasn't sure she'd ever believed it or given it much thought. Until now.

'Phoebe? I asked you a question.'

She sighed. Picking up a piece of date loaf she sank back into the chair, sticking her feet out in front of her, her hands on her stomach, looking morosely at the cake between her fingers. 'I went into Dad's study, Kaiser. The place he keeps all his books. Some of your things are in there.'

'Yes?'

'Yes, and there's a safe too – I couldn't open it.

The code's not in the study.' She fiddled with the cake, not giving in to the temptation to look at him. 'I searched everywhere but I couldn't find it so I wondered if you'd know what it is. Or if you know where he might keep it.'

'Is that what you came here to talk to me about?'

'Do you know where he'd keep it?'

Kaiser took in a deep impatient breath, and let the air out slowly through his nose. 'I don't know anything about a safe or a code. And I repeat, is that what you came here to ask?'

Flea put the cake back on the plate, and rotated her head, as if she had a crick in her neck. 'Kaiser,' she said, after a while. 'Kaiser, do you know why Dad used to lock himself in the study for days on end?'

Kaiser levered the footrest down with a clunk so he was sitting forward. There were a few moments' silence. 'Let me ask you, Phoebe. Do you know why? Do you know why your father did it?'

'I think so. Yes. I think I probably do.'

'Your father's drive to understand was greater than anyone's I've known. He must have talked to you about Secondary Attention.'

'The places in our heads – places we can't always get to except if we're dreaming or fainting. Or maybe hypnotized. That's what he used to talk about. A place that holds keys to things we've buried. And his way of getting there . . .' She lifted her eyes and met his. 'Was with drugs?'

'Your father had many different routes. Sometimes it was meditation, but, yes, often it was drugs.'

'I knew it.'

'Don't judge him too quickly. David always had the need to uncover, to strip down his head – pull things out.'

Flea let a moment pass. Then she took the bag of mushrooms out of her fleece pocket and dropped it on the floor between their feet. 'Psilocybin,' she said. 'I looked it up. It means "baldhead". The Aztecs called them teonancatls – flesh of the gods.' She was silent for a while, looking down at them. 'They could lose me my job.'

Kaiser made a clicking sound in his throat. It was a sound she remembered him making years ago and had always thought you might hear it on the plateaus of Nigeria, a herdsman calling the shorthorn cattle to his side. But now she understood it