The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

  ‘How would you even tell?’

  ‘I meant on you, hot stuff.’

  8

  I parked up and crossed the grounds of Owens Park. I had the same transient feeling as the day before. Like I was stepping back in time, somehow. Like the lights might hit my face on the other side and make me young again, able to live my life over. I went to Sophie’s building and buzzed her flat, thinking about what Parrs had said, to forget about Cartwright.

  I’d forgotten so many things for him, already.

  No doubt he’d go Fukushima if he knew where I was now, but there was something else, beyond Parrs’ wrath, that pulled at me. Stromer’s antipathy? That had been expected. The dustbin fires? Just background noise. My mind went all the way back to that morning. That first phone call. A few seconds of silence, some breathing and then the dial tone. Calls to my landline were rare, and anyway, the breaths hadn’t been incidental. They’d been the point of the call. Expelled directly into the mouthpiece for no reason other than menace. I thought about the day preceding the call. Guy Russell, Ollie Cartwright and the smiling man.

  All new enemies.

  I buzzed the first-floor flat again and, after a few seconds, the bolt on the door thunked open. I went up the stairs. The only part of the day that made sense to me was the disturbed man on Ali’s ward, screaming in fear and confusion at the world.

  When I reached the first-floor flat, I could hear young voices, music, fun. I turned off the hallway and into the communal space where I’d waited for Sophie the night before and saw Earl, on duty, making four cocktails at once. He noticed me and stopped. He was the focal point of the room, and a few heads turned in my direction. He lowered the bottle he was pouring from and his friends booed.

  ‘Patience,’ he said, holding the S sound. He walked towards me, widening his eyes to propel me back into the hallway. I stepped out and he drew the door closed behind him. ‘What was your name again? Heavy?’

  ‘Waits,’ I said. ‘Is Sophie around?’

  ‘You can’t just walk in here.’

  ‘Sophie, is she in?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said, leaning into the wall and blocking my way.

  ‘Her bike’s in the hall.’

  ‘Well, she’s not here.’

  ‘Is her room open?’

  ‘No.’

  I knew he had a problem with the police so I tried not to push it. ‘I’ve got her jacket,’ I said, holding it up.

  ‘Oh.’ He was surprised. ‘Well, I can give it to her?’

  ‘OK. She shouldn’t have any more problems with this guy, but she’s got my number if she needs it.’ I could see that he wanted me to expand on what had happened but I handed over the jacket and turned to leave.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, to my back.

  ‘You’re a friend worth having, Earl. Keep an eye on her.’

  I went down the stairs, through the pressure cooker hallway, passing through ambient sounds of conversation, laughter and music.

  ‘Hey, Heavy,’ said Earl, following me down the stairs. ‘You dropped this …’ He handed me a folded slip of paper and I opened it.

  Oliver Cartwright. Ollie. Mid-thirties.

  Thinning red-brown hair, some paunch. Incognito. 7 p.m.

  The note must have fallen out of Sophie’s jacket, which I’d had folded over my arm before passing it to Earl.

  He scowled at the sheet. ‘You know that prick?’

  ‘Cartwright? No, do you?’

  ‘Just the name. Runs that alt-right site, Lolitics. We went to a protest outside their offices once.’ Something occurred to Earl. ‘Hang on. He’s not the guy who Sophie got with?’

  I was shaking my head. ‘No, this is another case I’m working on.’

  ‘Your lot should pull the fucking flush on him,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing he doesn’t hate.’ He turned and went back up the stairs, disappearing into the communal space, meeting a cheer from his thirsty friends. I left the building and crossed the block with the note still in my hand. Sophie’s handwritten description of Cartwright implied she’d known who he was before she set out for the club, perhaps even that she’d targeted him. If that was the case, she’d been lying to me about how they’d met, and why.

  9

  I drove back into town and decided to check in with Sutty. He was assisting the stompers, the force’s tactical response unit, in bringing a violent bar fight to a close. If I knew him, he’d probably started it as well. I felt restless with new, unfamiliar energy. Like my brain had been reactivated after too many months dormant.

  Parking up near the Palace, where Oxford Road intersects with Great Bridgewater, I saw lights coming from The Temple. In a past life, The Temple had been a public toilet. It had also been a notorious cottaging spot in Victorian times, taking the city’s gay history back far before Canal Street. Now it was a small, subterranean bar. The owner was the frontman of a local band who’d blown up, and their biggest hit, ‘Grounds for Divorce’, obliquely mentioned the place.

  It felt like I was being nudged back towards some old thoughts, old feelings, and I decided to go along with it. One benefit of quitting speed, cocaine and ecstasy was that it made drinking feel like a health choice. I walked down the steps and tried the door. It was locked but I could hear voices from inside. The jukebox still going at gone 11 p.m. I knocked, heard movement and stepped back so they could get a look at me.

  ‘Who is it?’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Waits?’ The bolt was drawn back and the door opened. I felt the warmth from inside, the simple thrill of communal drinking. Sian, the barmaid, looked out at me without expression.

  I felt that too.

  Sian had dark hair, pale skin and freckles. She wore black clothes and hipster glasses, and had a sleeve of delicate tattoos down one arm. ‘We’d started to think you were a reformed character …’

  ‘Relapsing,’ I said. ‘It’s good to see you.’ I took a step forward but she didn’t move, just stood in the doorway looking up at me. I remembered seeing her for the first time, also in that doorway. It had felt like a sheer drop.

  ‘Is it?’ she said.

  A moment passed and she turned, walked back through the bar. I bolted the door behind me and followed. It was one narrow room, about the length of two saloon cars. There were four or five small tables alongside each wall, with just enough space to walk down the middle. I passed a few groups but no more than ten people. The Sunday-night lock-in crowd, all wrapped up in tall tales and heated debates. Conversations that seemed like life or death in the moment, but would probably be forgotten by the next day. The jukebox was blasting out ‘Brand New Cadillac’ by The Clash. No one gave me a second thought.

  ‘Guinness?’ I said, sitting at the bar.

  Sian looked at me. ‘I might be out of glasses …’

  ‘I’d drink it from a hot-water bottle tonight.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said, kicking opening the dishwasher, pouring steam into the air. She filled a glass in silence and slid it towards me. It was warm from the machine. I started to look for my wallet but she held up a hand. ‘It’s on the house, Aid.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I looked at her. Watched the pulse moving in her neck and knew that she felt it too, whatever it was. ‘How’ve you been?’ I asked.

  ‘Did I die of heartbreak, you mean? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Forgetting how to be a detective.’

  ‘At least it won’t take long, then. Seriously,’ she said. ‘Back after all this time …’

  ‘A lot of the local places have requested my absence.’

  She leaned on the bar. ‘I didn’t know it was that easy, is there a form I can fill in?’

  ‘Tonight I was just working up the road.’

  ‘You’re always just working up the road. You’re the only person I know who keeps worse hours than me.’ She shrugged. ‘You look well on it …’

  ‘I’ve been running.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘A man needs a vice
…’

  ‘You weren’t lacking in that department, as I recall.’

  ‘I’m clean now,’ I said, wondering if I’d come here to tell her that.

  She let her guard down and smiled sincerely. So sincerely that I wondered how bad I’d been the last time we met. ‘That’s good, Aidan. That’s so good.’ She poked my arm. ‘What are all those speed dealers gonna do for a living now, though?’

  I laughed. ‘I think they’re recession-proof.’

  ‘And what, you quit girls at the same time? Or just me?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘I usually get a goodbye at least.’

  ‘I thought I was coming back.’

  ‘You never did, though. You’re not even back now, really, are you?’

  A man appeared at the bar and began ordering a large round. Sian served him brusquely, giving a small, tight smile as he began ferrying drinks back to his table. I realized I’d made a mistake in coming here. Worse, that I’d executed another flawless act of self-sabotage in disappearing from Sian’s life. I drank up and turned to leave.

  ‘I might not be here the next time you come around,’ she said.

  I looked at her. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know, daylight? Above ground, at least. I’m seeing someone now.’

  ‘Nice guy?’

  She nodded. ‘And they’re fucking hard to find.’

  When Sian and I separated, more than a year before, we’d been in the unspoken stages of moving in together. Neither one of us quite ready to declare it, or give up their own flat, but taking it as read that we’d walk on to my place or hers when our respective night shifts ended. I’d been slowly meeting her friends, her family, and avoiding the fact that I had no one for her to meet in return. We’d been happy for a time, though. I remembered hastily prepared meals, eaten off plates that we balanced on our knees, so we could talk while we ate. Or getting on to the roof of her old building through the fire escape in the summer. Watching the stars with a bottle of wine and singing ‘Drunk on the Moon’. It had been a good time in my life but I’d ended things badly, gotten into trouble at work. Derailed my life. She was right, I hadn’t really come back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  We began talking, a little more comfortably, about old times. When some regulars joined in I relaxed a little, letting the events of the last two days turn over in my mind. Arson, revenge porn and death. A varied caseload stretching all the way from bad to worse. I started on my second drink. Thought about Ollie Cartwright. Rousting him was exactly the kind of behaviour that had put me on to the night shift. On to my very last chance. It had been worth the riot act from Superintendent Parrs, though. I’d liked Sophie. She reminded me of someone I used to know.

  Mostly, I thought of the smiling man.

  Someone started banging at the door and Sian walked round the bar for it. Between songs I heard a gruff voice, hard and low, and turned to see a man, a shadow, trying to talk his way inside. The music kicked in again, and I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. There was a short back-and-forth before the figure in the doorway held up his hands and backed away. Sian bolted the door and called time.

  I finished my drink and left to the sound of ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’, knowing it couldn’t get any better than that, wondering if Sian had put it on the jukebox for old times’ sake. I climbed the stairs feeling loose, absent-minded even, and emerged on to the street still humming the tune. Double-decker buses roared by like bright, empty boxes of light. I’d started to walk back into town when I heard a movement behind me. I turned and saw someone, the shape of a man, standing by the entrance of The Temple. He was in shadow but I must have been back-lit by the street, and I could feel his eyes on me. Neither of us moved for a moment, then I turned and walked away.

  * * *

  It started again with another knock on a door.

  It was a Sunday night, after ten, and the boy waited a minute first. Even though they were a long way from the city, even though it was dark, there were no stars this time. The boy thought about going back down the lane to the car, where his mother and sister were waiting. He could shrug and say there was no one home. But he knew that Bateman was watching, somewhere over his shoulder, ready to detach himself from the shadows and step in. Bateman already knew there was someone inside the house.

  He already knew they were alone.

  So when the boy knocked he wasn’t surprised to hear movement behind the door. He wasn’t surprised by the young woman’s voice.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. It sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure. ‘Bates, is that you?’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t think you should come here any more …’

  The boy took a final look over his shoulder into the shadows, where he knew Bateman was waiting. ‘I’m lost,’ he said, sounding convincing. He heard the lock being turned from inside. The door opened and a concerned-looking young woman stared out at him. It was Holly, the same girl he’d seen in the market square, but this time she wore pyjamas, a dressing gown.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, crouching down to him. Her eyes went wide with recognition. ‘Wally?’ For a second she didn’t know what it meant and, too late, looked over his shoulder. She got up and tried to close the door but Bateman swung his steel-toe boot into the gap. The door stopped short and he shoulder-barged it back open, sending the girl sprawling on to the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’ It took the boy a moment to register that she was talking to him. Bateman stepped past, into the hallway. He was carrying a claw-hammer in one hand and a large holdall bag in the other. He dropped the bag and took a fistful of Holly’s hair, dragging her across the floor and into the next room.

  ‘Door,’ he said over his shoulder. The boy pushed the front door until he heard it click shut. He stood with his back to it, trying to breathe, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. He could hear the rumble of footsteps from the next room. Raised voices. Furniture being thrown around. Glass breaking. Through it all he could hear Holly’s small voice, saying that she was sorry over and over again.

  ‘The bag, Wally,’ Bateman shouted. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

  The boy picked up the bag and walked into the room. He was surprised by its size, its opulence. Enormous bookcases lined the walls and there were expensive-looking pieces of furniture throughout. It was bigger than their entire flat. He followed the disarray, the overturned table, the dent in a wall, the shattered lamp, until he turned a corner and saw Holly, crying on the floor with Bateman standing over her. He was flexing his hand, gripping and re-gripping the claw-hammer.

  ‘Now, I need a favour,’ he said to the girl.

  ‘Sure,’ she nodded, wiping her eyes and trying a smile.

  ‘I need you to get in that bag for me.’ He nodded at the large holdall that the boy had dragged in.

  ‘What?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Need you to get in that bag for me,’ Bateman repeated, not looking at her.

  ‘But …’ She swallowed. ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘Can I ask why?’ he said. ‘Cus we’re not all born fucking rich, darling. Some of us have got work to do. I like peace and quiet, one way or the other.’ He raised the claw-hammer in illustration. Holly looked suddenly out of breath. She nodded, got up and, in a blur, made a break out of the room. The boy went out into the hall and watched her at the door, shaking as she undid the lock. Bateman materialized behind him, chuckling as she stumbled out into a blinding light.

  She threw both hands up in front of her face and stopped.

  ‘Back inside,’ the boy heard his mother say.

  Holly’s shoulders slumped, she went weak at the knees and had to lean into the door. Bateman went forward, lifted her up and carried her back into the other room. ‘Told you,’ he said. ‘I’ll have peace. One way or the other.’

  The boy stood in the hallway, trying to disappear into the wall. Trying not to look at his mother as she passed. She followed Bateman into
the next room and he closed his eyes, listening to their movements. All three of them grunting with effort.

  ‘Please,’ he heard Holly say. ‘Please …’

  Dizzily, the boy edged to the door. Bateman was pushing Holly down with his heel, folding her double so she’d fit inside the holdall. She started to say something as he drew the zip up but it was muted by the bag.

  The black holdall lay packed, bulging on the floor, shaking with quiet sobs.

  It was impossible to see which parts of the girl were where, but some strands of her long hair protruded through the zip. Bateman took a padlock, linked it through the hoops and punched it closed with his palm.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he said, touching the bag with his boot. ‘We’ve had bigger than you in there, darling.’ The boy felt the chill of his mother’s eyes on him and moved, too late, back out of the room.

  ‘Go and play with your sister,’ she said flatly.

  The girl inside the bag was screaming for help now but the boy kept on walking. His ears were ringing and his mouth had started to water. A haze of sunspots blistered in front of his eyes and he had the feeling that he was lifting, effortlessly, out of his body. When he got to the front door he heard Bateman lose patience with the girl.

  ‘Shut,’ he screamed. ‘The. Fuck. Up.’ Each word was punctuated with the sound of a steel-toe boot slamming into a person. By the time the boy was outside he couldn’t hear her any more. He was lifting, floating, rising up. First walking, then running, then flying away from the house.

  * * *

  III

  China Town

  1

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Freddie Coyle, re-emerging from the bedroom. When I’d arrived he hadn’t been ready to receive me. He’d asked that I wait in the reception room of his spacious, city-centre loft while he changed out of his dressing gown and pyjamas. The room wasn’t quite in disarray but somewhere near it. There were half-empty bowls of party food scattered around, as well as some dirty glasses still giving off a strong smell of alcohol. There was also a faint, fruity scent hanging over everything that I traced back to an e-cigarette, stuffed down the side of the sofa. While Coyle changed I paced the room and found a silver cocktail shaker, tucked behind a curtain.