The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

  That kind of escalation was bad for everyone and actively discouraged from within the ranks of the criminal fraternity. Even dealers need to put their kids to bed at night. A hitman shouldn’t know I had a sister at all. If he did, she should be off-limits. So what had I walked into? If it wasn’t my past and it wasn’t my job and it wasn’t the hit, what was it? My relationship with Superintendent Parrs was at an all-time low, but I knew I had to tell him.

  My mind was churning while I watched CCTV, and I traced the cyclist back to the start of his journey almost by accident. Studying the new footage, I saw him leave work and climb on to his bike a few hundred feet away from the Palace. He’d come from a florist on the other side of the theatre.

  Pursuing leads in a case of dustbin vandalism was almost more humiliating than failing to do so. I picked up the phone anyway. It would be one less thing to apologize for when I next found the Superintendent in my car. I called and introduced myself. The man on the other end was disinterested until I mentioned the police. I asked if someone matching the description of my cyclist worked at the florist.

  ‘Erm, yeah,’ he said. ‘Speaking …’

  ‘Would you mind if I came around?’

  ‘OK … Is it for a special occasion?’

  Just the crime of the century, I thought.

  When I arrived I found him serving a customer. I was certain he was the man from the footage and stopped to smell the flowers until we were alone. I explained that he may have been a witness to a criminal act on Oxford Road, two days previously, and that I’d noticed his cycle helmet had a camera. He was thrilled to help me, reeling off a series of offences and violations he’d caught on film.

  ‘It’s really just one thing in particular,’ I said. ‘I can give you the time and date?’ When I did he remembered the incident immediately, as he’d stayed late that night doing the books. He was able to plug the GoPro into his work computer and we scrolled through to the corresponding time-stamp. He’d turned his head, and therefore the camera, towards the dustbin just before the blaze started.

  ‘Guy was being really weird,’ he said.

  I watched the video with rising disbelief.

  ‘Light changed,’ he went on. ‘Sorry I didn’t get a good look at him. Is it any help? Detective?’

  ‘Play it again,’ I said.

  He clicked back and we watched for a second time.

  The man approached the dustbin carrying a plastic bag. He kept his head down so that no one passing would see his face. He removed a large object from the bag, which seemed to be wet cloth wrapped around something else, and dropped it into the bin. He struck a match and began to turn away. As he did so, his face looked directly at the cyclist for a split second.

  I knew the man.

  ‘If I give you an email address, would you be able to send me that file?’

  ‘Course,’ he smiled. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost …’

  I put my card on the counter, walked out of the shop and turned left, down Oxford Road, towards the burned-out dustbin. It was just a few hundred feet away from the florist’s but I had to see it, and I wondered if it would still be there when I arrived. If the council would have removed it already as they had the previous two. I was frustrated at the pace of the people in front of me, beaten into listlessness by the heat, and found myself walking around them, then jogging, then running. I ran the times through my head. The man had set the fire a little after eleven. The other two had also occurred in the late evening, either shortly before or after midnight. When I arrived, I was relieved to see that the dustbin hadn’t been destroyed or removed, but remained exactly where it had been. A melted cylinder of plastic which had folded in on itself.

  I called SOCO and asked to speak to the Chief Scene of Crime Officer.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. It sounded like she was doing three things at once.

  ‘The dustbin fires along Oxford Road …’

  ‘If you’re about to ask me what I think you’re about to ask me, then no, we didn’t. Neither you nor Detective Inspector Sutcliffe marked the crime scenes for collection, and nothing about them stuck out to me, either.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘But we need to trace the two dustbins that have been removed and we need SOCO on scene for the third.’

  ‘Didn’t this happen days ago? What could be of interest there now?’

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ I said, hanging up. I dialled Sutty with shaking fingers and got him on the third try.

  ‘Yeurgh.’

  ‘I know who set the dustbin fires.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said, leaking boredom. ‘Maybe we’ll meet the prime minister.’

  ‘It was the smiling man.’

  That got his attention.

  5

  While I waited, I spoke to the fire brigade shift manager from four nights ago. The third dustbin fire had been put out comparatively quickly because the call went in immediately after it was lit. I had a flash that, for some reason, the smiling man had called the authorities himself, that we’d have a record of his phone number, maybe even his voice, but the shift manager clarified.

  ‘Some kids over the road were meeting up for their mate’s midnight vigil, that lad who got knocked down. They called it in.’

  ‘Of course …’

  ‘I hope you crucify the prick who lit it. We had a house fire on the other side of town. Had to split the team.’

  I saw Sutty striding towards me. ‘Don’t worry, he got what was coming to him.’

  I ended the call.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ he said, examining the dustbin, trying to prise it open.

  ‘I’ve got SOCO on the way.’

  ‘Pretty quick work.’ He gave up on the bin and eyed me suspiciously. ‘How d’ya know it’s him?’

  ‘He’s on camera.’

  ‘Not on the CCTV I’ve seen …’

  ‘I traced a passing cyclist who had a camera on his helmet.’

  ‘A useful cyclist? This case is getting fucking weird.’ He eyed me. ‘What do you think’s in there?’

  ‘Whatever he dropped looked like fabric, wrapped around something else.’

  ‘Means those last two bins were probably the same thing …’

  ‘I’ve got SOCO tracing them now. Chances are they’re in a landfill somewhere but they might still be on the back of a van. Both of them burned for longer than this one, though.’

  ‘Hm,’ he said, and we lapsed into an uneasy silence. SOCO arrived quickly. The team had still been working at the site of the canal body-dump. They didn’t thank us for diverting them from a murder scene to an act of vandalism, but Sutty’s look of reproach effectively got them to work. I watched as they cut apart the melted, plastic shell of the dustbin, lifting it away from the steel mesh canister on the inside. It smelt like stale ash.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ said the Scene of Crime Officer, with awe in her voice. Sutty and I approached the can and looked down. It was filled with burned, shrivelled and soaking rubbish.

  ‘Good one,’ said Sutty.

  ‘This is what you called us away from Albion Street for?’

  ‘Not to hear the sound of your voice, darling. Bag it up.’

  The SOCO stared at Sutty for a second, decided it wasn’t worth the fight and shrugged. She and her partner began removing items, burnt cans, blistered crisp packets and shrivelled fast food wrappers, placing them in evidence bags. Sutty and I walked a little further away from them.

  ‘It was him,’ I said. Sutty watched me closely. ‘It was.’

  ‘Just funny …’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Parrs throws you off Smiley Face and on to the bins, and you manage to link them in the space of a few hours.’

  ‘I’ve been following up on this for days, and if they’re linked, they’re linked. What can I say?’

  ‘I just hope you’ve got the tape to prove it. Stromer’s tight with SOCO. When she hears you’ve got them taking out the trash, it’ll be in Parrs’ ear faster than
a finger in the fucking dyke.’ We were standing beyond hearing distance of the other officers and after the day I’d had, being removed from the case, being told to resign, having nameless threats made against me, I thought I didn’t have much to lose.

  I lowered my voice and looked him in the eye. ‘Do you know something, Peter?’

  He stood up to full height. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a shame that bleach you bathe in only ever touches your skin. Do us all a favour and neck a bottle of the stuff next time.’ I started to walk away but he grabbed my arm. I could feel his fingers digging into the bone. When I looked at him he was smiling, his eyes aglow, and I knew I’d given him what he wanted.

  ‘There it is,’ he hissed. ‘Just keep on thinking your sack’s inseparable from your body, gorgeous. Know why we’re still in a job? Cus one day they’ll need someone to take a fall. Which of us d’ya think it’ll be?’ He laughed. ‘We both know who Stromer’d choose, don’t we?’

  ‘I don’t care what her opinion of me is. Now get your fucking hand off my arm.’ He didn’t move it. ‘I’ve got less to lose from a fistfight in public than you have, Sutty.’ He must have seen that I meant it, because he smiled again, let go of my arm and backed off.

  ‘Detectives,’ said the SOCO. We both turned. She was holding an evidence bag containing two fat, singed wads of cash. We exchanged a look and walked back to the dustbin. With the trash removed, the fabric object that our man had dropped inside was visible. It had simply been a blanket, mostly burned away now, wrapped around wads of cash.

  ‘One man’s rubbish,’ said Sutty.

  No one laughed.

  6

  We watched SOCO removing currency in varying states of distress from the dustbin. Some of it was unrecognizable, some of it looked fresher than the cash in my wallet. No doubt there’d be bills somewhere which were completely untouched by fire. So far all the visible notes had been in twenties, in stacks of what looked like thousands.

  I looked at Sutty. ‘Still think I put it there?’

  My phone started to vibrate as he gave me an evil look, and I used it as an excuse to walk down the road. It was the Chief Scene of Crime Officer returning my earlier call.

  It wasn’t the news I’d been hoping for.

  ‘The two other dustbins have been landfilled already,’ I told Sutty when I returned. ‘They spoke to one of the refuse guys and he said they were basically ashes anyway.’

  ‘I’d say the same thing if I found a few grand in the back of my truck, but I guess that’s that.’ Even Sutty sounded disappointed. It was galling to know we’d been standing so close to answers on the smiling man in each instance, and that we’d let them slip through our fingers. Even if the contents had been incinerated, a forensic examination might have told us something about him.

  ‘How much longer?’ Sutty barked at SOCO.

  ‘We’ll be here a while,’ said the officer. ‘But there’s no chance we’ll run these serial numbers today, if that’s what you mean.’

  Sutty exhaled through his nose for what seemed like an impossible amount of time, but when he spoke he sounded almost calm, nearly rational. I realized he might be afraid.

  ‘Given that both your team and mine have let crucial evidence slip through our fingers, I suggest we all get a move on.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more. I’m doing my job. You breathing down my neck won’t make it any quicker.’

  I was surprised when Sutty pursed his lips, swallowed an insult and nodded.

  ‘Collier,’ he said, turning, moving like a black cloud towards the car.

  I followed at a distance.

  7

  ‘There’s been a development,’ said Sutty, slamming the door of the box, and leaning against it. I sat at the table, opposite Collier.

  He smiled. ‘So I’m free to go?’

  ‘Be still, my beating fists,’ said Sutty. ‘A development in the case. Not medical science. You’re still halitosis on legs.’

  ‘What’s halitosis?’

  ‘It means your breath could take that door off its hinges. Might be your quickest way out of here.’ Collier looked at the table. ‘Thought not. There’s been a development in the suspicious death at the Palace. The short version is that there’s money involved. Now, that suggests a few things to me. One of them being organized crime. So it just got a lot more important and you just got a lot more fucked. If it’s nothing to do with you, tell me how your key card ended up in room 413 at the foot of a dead body.’

  ‘What?’ He looked between us. ‘I left it at work, on the desk.’

  Sutty watched him closely. ‘What about this hooker? This Cherry …’

  ‘I don’t know her real name,’ said Collier. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘How’d you meet?’

  ‘That bar over the road from the Palace, after a shift, the rock club.’

  ‘Grand Central?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sutty pushed himself off the door. ‘She a rocker, Marcus?’

  ‘Y’know, bit alternative, maybe a bit gothic. Anyway, she started talkin’ to me. I could tell she was on the clock so I offered her a deal. Told her I worked in an empty hotel. Maybe she could use a room there to trick out of?’

  ‘And what,’ I said. ‘You take a cut?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘No,’ Sutty gurgled. ‘Not a cut. You wanted to make a friend. Forensics from 305 was interesting. That is the room you had her tricking out of, isn’t it, Marcus? Your DNA profile was one of seventeen found in that bed.’

  ‘So what? She’s pretty,’ he said. ‘Colourful …’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it looks like someone’s toned her down a bit.’ Collier looked up. ‘We’re working on the assumption that this girl wedged open a fire door and went back to the Palace after your shift, when you thought you’d kicked her out. Same night someone brained the security guard and a dead body appeared on the top floor. She saw someone, or someone saw her, or both. Now, we’ve been to her address and she’s gone. Neighbour says the police dragged her away, but guess what? We didn’t.’

  Collier was sweating.

  I leaned forward. ‘You can do the right thing, here. This girl isn’t in any trouble, she’d be doing us a favour. There’s no reason not to help on this one.’ I looked at Sutty. He nodded. ‘It’ll work for you, too. Screwing a girl’s not the crime of the century, but this bloke in the Palace just might be. Help us out and we’ll put in a good word for you.’

  Collier looked at me. ‘I’ll talk to you,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want him in the room.’

  Sutty shrugged. Opened the door and stepped out. Once he did, Collier let out a sigh.

  He looked miserable.

  ‘It’s the truth I don’t know Cherry’s real name …’

  ‘But there’s got to be something. A regular she was seeing, a pimp she mentioned …’

  He looked at me. ‘I don’t know his real name.’

  ‘His?’ I said. ‘Cherry’s a cross-dresser? A man?’

  He nodded down at the table. I was already out of my seat and going for the door.

  8

  Sutty hung up the phone and started sanitizing his hands. ‘That canal body-dump,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Stromer says there’s no evidence of gender realignment or anything like that, but the guy was wearing a lot of make-up. Obviously that could make him anyone from your generation, but he did have a tattoo above his groin …’

  ‘Of?’

  ‘The three winning reels of a fruit machine. Cherries. So I think it’s safe to assume the queen is dead.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Crushed larynx, apparently. Stromer’s sending the report.’

  I hit the desk. ‘We must have been right behind them.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Sutty.

  ‘Cherry saw something in the Palace. We can be sure of that now.’

  ‘And someone must’ve seen her. So from the top …’

  ‘The smiling ma
n walks up and down Oxford Road for a few days, burning money in dustbins …’

  ‘We don’t know the others were money,’ said Sutty.

  ‘OK, burning something, personal effects. Then, for whatever reason, he breaks into the Palace and heads to the fourth floor.’

  ‘Where either he, or someone else, brains our security guard.’

  ‘Cherry sees whatever happens, and the smiling man ends up dead.’

  ‘Then someone traces her, him, whatever, crushes her throat and dumps her in the canal.’ He looked at me. ‘Fucking us in the process.’

  ‘If she was working out of there, and Marcus wasn’t with her, it stands to reason she had another client, someone who can tell us what happened.’

  We looked at each other for a second, then I got up and went down the hall looking for uniform. It took me a while to find the right person. I needed a young woman, someone the girls on the corners might talk to, and someone who knew their operation well enough not to be messed around.

  Constable Naomi Black came highly recommended.

  I found her in the canteen. She got points for sitting alone, even more for reading, and probably an extra few years on her life expectancy for bringing a packed lunch.

  I knew her face from the backgrounds of various crime scenes in the last few months, but as far as I could remember we’d never spoken. She was brand new to the job but already had a reputation for being organized, concise in her reports and completely off-limits in her private life. She’d probably be my boss in three years.

  ‘Constable Black,’ I said, sitting down opposite her. ‘How do you feel about some extra work?’

  She looked at me dubiously then smiled. ‘Sell it to me.’

  Having explained the situation, I left my informal meeting with her somewhat cheered. We were at the absolute beginnings of a lead, and I felt like she was a good fit for following it up. When I’d told her the potential reward for her canvassing the city’s streetwalkers was probably me buying her a drink, she’d smiled politely.

  ‘Can I just get the drink, or do you have to come with it?’