The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

  The door was open.

  The light was off.

  I looked about me, trying to see something, anything, that was out of place. I heard footsteps coming down the corridor, Ali, breathing hard. Because the light was on in the hallway he was just a silhouette.

  ‘Sir …’ he said, trying to get his breath back. ‘I told you, no light. No one else is here. I must ask you to leave …’

  We stood like that for a moment, looking, but unable to see each other. Then I dragged a chair to the centre of the room, watching his enormous shadow filling the doorway as I did. I stood on the chair and reached up to the lightbulb.

  It was hot.

  The boy was running through the trees, his legs were wet from the stream and the strap of the bag was biting into his shoulder. His ears were ringing and there were sunspots roaring past his eyes. He started to lift up. At first his feet were still skimming the ground, then he rose above it, up and up, until he was soaring over the woods.

  I woke up panting for breath.

  The phone was ringing in the next room.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, picking it up. It was early. Seven or eight in the morning, I thought.

  ‘You’re out?’

  I gripped the receiver. ‘Bateman, this has got to stop.’

  He breathed in and out for a few seconds. ‘Can’t stop, Wally. Can’t stop.’

  ‘My name’s Aidan, and there’s nothing I can do for you.’

  ‘Drive,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Drive with me.’

  ‘There’s nothing out there.’

  ‘Hurt sister,’ he said. ‘Love sister, kiss sister, fuck sister—’

  I closed my eyes and hung up the phone. When it started to ring again I ripped the cord out of the wall.

  X

  Demon in Profile

  1

  I was waiting outside Stromer’s office. She looked up from a clipboard when she saw me and opened the door.

  ‘You know, it’s unlocked …’ she said.

  I followed her in. ‘It’s you I needed to talk to.’

  ‘I’m very busy, Detective Constable. Perhaps you could adhere to procedure and arrange a meeting through your senior officer.’

  I shook my head and sat down. ‘Sutty couldn’t arrange his own funeral.’

  ‘Pity,’ she said, perching on the desk and looking at me. ‘Yours looks more likely from where I’m sitting. You’ve been in the wars again …’

  ‘Tell me about the poison that killed the man from the Palace Hotel.’

  She was staring at me like I’d risen from the dead. ‘Smiley Face, you mean?’

  ‘Sutty’s nickname, not mine.’

  ‘A carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom,’ she said. ‘Cyanide, a classic. I was under the impression that this case was closed?’

  ‘Do you know how it was administered?’

  ‘It was mixed into his drink.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘A blended whisky. Jameson’s, if I had to hazard a guess …’

  ‘You can tell that from the stomach contents?’

  ‘Nothing so advanced,’ she said, tapping her nose. ‘There was also an empty bottle found in the room …’

  ‘So someone could have easily spiked it without his knowledge?’

  ‘Of course. He’d have started to feel symptoms soon after.’

  ‘So he’d have known?’

  ‘That something was wrong, certainly. The ensuing muscle-paralysis probably accounts for the grimace on his face.’

  ‘Either that or he died happy. How long would he have had from ingestion to death?’

  ‘Perhaps twenty to thirty minutes. Why?’

  ‘What about Cherry,’ I said. ‘The sex worker from the canal …’

  ‘Real name Christopher Jordan. His larynx was crushed.’

  ‘Cherry chose to live as a woman, Doctor. Was it a professional killing?’

  She bristled. ‘Quite the opposite. Someone trying to silence or strangle the poor thing, and doing a good deal more damage than was necessary.’

  ‘Could a woman have done it?’

  ‘With the proper motivation.’

  ‘Sutty wants to clear it as a random sex-crime.’

  ‘He has an enviable clearance rate.’

  ‘Were you able to tell if she’d had sex on the day she died?’

  ‘Was there something between you and this Cherry?’

  ‘Were you able to tell if she’d had sex on the day she died?’ I repeated.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘There was no evidence of sexual activity from the day she died. Was there something between you and this girl?’

  ‘What about the blood from the Midland Hotel?’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘Anthony Blick, yes.’

  ‘It’s definitely his?’

  ‘Ninety-eight per cent probability.’

  ‘How much blood was there?’

  ‘Over six pints soaked into the carpet.’

  ‘Was there any human matter recovered from the toilet?’ She didn’t answer. ‘That is the working hypothesis? That he was cut up in the bathtub and flushed down the toilet?’

  ‘It’s one hypothesis,’ she said. ‘We may never know what became of Mr Blick’s remains because neither you nor Detective Inspector Sutcliffe thought to have those first two dustbin fires forensically analysed. He could just as easily have been dissected and disposed of in them.’ I waited. ‘No. Currently no human matter, but SOCO are still filtering the drains at the Midland. It pains me to ask this, Detective Constable, but are you quite all right?’

  ‘Never better,’ I said, getting up to leave.

  ‘I feel like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.’

  ‘I feel like neither have you. Thanks for your help, Karen.’

  2

  I knew something was off about Amy Burroughs’ house before I even got to the door. I knocked, waited a minute and rang the bell. There was no answer. I went to the window, made a visor of my hands and looked into the living room. The pictures of her son that I’d seen on the wall had been taken down, but the nail gun’s damage was done. I could see a series of holes in the plasterwork, like five or six full-stops in a row. The bookcase was empty.

  I crossed the road to the home of the neighbour I’d spoken with the previous day. I needed a curtain twitcher. She answered the door in the same tired dressing gown.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Amy Burroughs.’

  She yawned without covering her mouth. ‘Left like shit through a goose in the middle of the night …’

  ‘Did she say anything before she went?’

  ‘If she’d come to my door I’d have slammed it in her face. From what I saw, she just rammed some stuff in the back of her car and tore out.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Three or four in the morning. We used to have real families here—’

  ‘Was she alone?’ I said, already walking backwards to the car.

  ‘Had her boy with her.’ She drew her gown tight around her. ‘It’s about that prowler I saw looking through her windows, isn’t it? Will he be coming back?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ I said, grateful that she’d asked the one question I could answer with any certainty. Amy Burroughs had been polite to me, even courteous the first time we’d met, on Ali’s hospital ward. But as soon as I’d arrived at her home with questions she’d become stand-offish, a closed book. Her reaction to the smiling man had been emotional, though.

  He was the last person she thought she’d ever see again.

  I went to St Mary’s, straight to the front desk. The woman there glanced up and winced at me.

  ‘That looks nasty …’

  ‘I’m actually here to speak to someone, Amy Burroughs. She’s a nurse practitioner.’

  ‘May I ask what it’s regarding?’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ I said, digging out my badge. ‘I’ve got reason to believe that Ms Burroughs might be in
danger.’ I was hoping to inject some life into her but the news barely registered. She told me where I could find Amy then craned her neck to look at the next person in line. I had a second thought and stopped. ‘Actually, can you tell me which department I can find her husband in?’

  3

  I found Amy’s office on the Accident and Emergency ward. The waiting room was packed out with people, all sitting round fanning themselves, stupefied by the heat. I stood outside her office and waited for someone to leave. My phone started ringing and I looked at the screen. An unknown number.

  ‘Waits,’ I said, picking it up.

  Bateman, breathing. He sounded drunk. Exhausted and at the end of his rope. I thought about his time in jail. Two decades, disfigured and ageing, with no friends or family outside. With just the imagined contents of a stolen bag to sustain him. The breathing this time was different. More incidental than menacing. It sounded like he’d worn himself out.

  Somehow that felt more dangerous.

  ‘Can’t stop, Aidan. Can’t stop …’

  I held the phone away from my ear and quietly ended the call. I realized I was scowling when an elderly man on a Zimmer frame laboriously changed course to avoid me.

  A few minutes later the office door opened and a man with an eye-patch emerged. I stepped past him, inside, and closed the door. Amy Burroughs was standing by the far wall, craning her neck to smoke out of a small window. When she saw me she took a final drag and dropped the cigarette outside. She looked pale and blotchy. I realized she was wearing no make-up, exposing deep lines beneath her eyes. Her hair was unwashed. Greasy and flat. I wondered if she’d slept in her car. I wondered where her boy was.

  ‘Oh, you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re moving house, I see.’

  Her eyes didn’t move from mine. ‘Well, it’s not safe there, is it? I’ve got a boy to think about …’

  ‘You declined protection, though.’

  ‘That’s my way of protecting him. That and staying away from the police. No one was breaking into my house and nailing my hands into walls before all this.’

  ‘Bolting in the night won’t solve anything.’

  ‘Oh? What will, then?’ she said, dropping into a chair. She sounded absolutely exhausted. I’d noticed her bandaged hand, but it was the other one that caught my eye. Her arm was flat on the table and her sleeve had ridden up. Without the thick, overlapping bracelets she wore off-duty I could see healed, intersecting scars on her wrist.

  ‘Just tell me what’s going on,’ I said. She was silent. ‘Has running from it really worked?’

  ‘Until you turned up …’

  But her resolve was broken.

  I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Who was the man with the nail gun, Amy?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘The problem is you’ve lied about so many other things that it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘I didn’t know him,’ she said, looking right at me. ‘I didn’t know his shape, or his voice, or his smell, or his anything.’

  ‘What did he say?’ She looked away again. ‘Did he tell you not to talk to me? Are you going to let someone like that intimidate you?’

  ‘Right. I should only let someone like you intimidate me. By the way, you’ve gone softly-softly for a minute now so it’s probably time to start up the threats again.’

  ‘Well, it’s true that you’re not safe.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Your son’s not safe, either.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said, this time with more heat.

  We were silent for a moment.

  ‘What does your husband think?’ When her eyes moved on to mine again they were so altered from the ones I recognized that I almost sat back. They were sharp and cruel. The calculating side-look of a mugger. I thought she might throw herself at me. ‘Can I meet him, Amy?’

  ‘No, you can’t meet him.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  She folded her arms. Gave me a smile about as comforting as thin ice. ‘Because I’m not married, Detective.’

  ‘Who’s the man from the picture? The one on your mantle, you, your boy and another guy …’

  ‘Fuck knows.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s fake. I don’t know, I never even met him.’

  ‘Is the boy yours?’

  ‘What do you think all this is about?’

  ‘People keep asking me questions like that rather than telling me. You didn’t know the man who attacked you?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You’re not really married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were nervous when I came around asking about Ross Browne. Your husband was due home any minute, you said …’

  ‘I needed time to think, whether I should just run or not.’ She closed her eyes, toyed unconsciously with her wrist. ‘I thought about killing myself …’

  ‘Think about your boy.’

  ‘That’s all I do, I just wish …’ She swallowed. ‘I just wish I’d been born dead. I wish we both had.’

  I started to say something but saw the self-reproach already working its way through her. I changed the subject. ‘Who was the dead man at the identification? I’ve spoken to Ross Browne and he backed up what you were saying. The two of you dated, then broke up when he left town. So you had to have dedicated a different copy of The Rubáiyát to someone else. The way you reacted, it had to be someone you thought you’d never see again.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ She was scratching at her scarred wrist now. ‘What have I ever done to you?’

  ‘We’re way past that. At least two more people have died because of what they did or didn’t know about this case.’

  She put her hands over her eyes like a child hiding.

  ‘And I’m not adding you or your boy’s name to that list. If the only place I think you’re safe is in a cell, then that’s where you’re going. The dead man from the Palace Hotel,’ I said. ‘He’s the boy’s father, isn’t he?’ She heard me but she was still processing the fact of additional deaths. She stared at the hospital lime wall. She’d aged a decade since I walked through the door. After a minute or so, she started to speak, telling me what she’d run from and where it took her, finally arriving at her meeting with the unidentified man from the Palace Hotel. Her accent, which had always felt rigid, held in place by sheer will, started to slip, until it was recognizable as something from the southern hemisphere. Australia or New Zealand, I thought.

  4

  ‘By the time I got to Marseille I’d run out of money, and I was pretty low on everything else. If I think of it now I start itching all over, like all the lice and dirt and shit from that time in my life got inside me and kept on burrowing. I’d been sleeping in the same clothes for so long they were practically alive themselves, probably more than the rest of me by then. I’d had my birthday on board the trawler, in a sleeping bag with Seb, grinding my teeth and coming back down from whatever it was, just sweating it out and feeling awful, feeling like it’d never end.’

  She looked at me.

  ‘It never did, really. Life’s one big fucking come-down. I didn’t dare look in a mirror until we’d docked in the old port, gone into this tavern that was right on the water. I remember I burst out crying because my jaw was so swollen up, like, to twice its usual size. Seb and the rest were supposed to be getting us a lift into town but when I came out of the toilet they were all gone. I think they left me the sleeping bag.

  ‘I couldn’t speak a word of French so I started walking, further inland, towards the buildings. The men had told me all I needed to know was the name of the place where we were staying. They’d made me memorize it and say it back to them so many times. So I started saying that to people on the street. Sans Abri, Sans Abri. They’re probably still laughing about it now. I think I was laughing too by the time I got directed to the homeless shelter. You sort of st
art to see life for what it is from that angle.

  ‘They gave me a shower there, and some clothes, and something to eat. They gave me somewhere to be. I was there a few weeks, but it wasn’t hard. It was a relief to stop running, to be clean. I was the sanest person I met, which was really saying something. It was mainly all these wild-eyed boys with track-marks on their arms, plus a few dilapidated old Romeos who’d hunch up on their crutches to hold the doors open for girls. There were older women there as well, but I steered clear. They carried round photos and bits of old wedding dresses like artefacts, to prove their sob stories true. And that was it. The boys had to be tough, the men had to be gents and the women had to be tragic. I was a girl, but I was the only one, so I was sort of my own thing, somewhere in between all the rest of them. I suppose all that made me stick out.

  ‘There was only one guy who didn’t fit in with the rest. He wasn’t there all the time, and he never stayed either. He sort of held himself apart from the rest of us. He had this kind of natural gravity, this kind of power over the others. I never saw him laugh or relax. He watched people and then attached himself to them. He’d sit next to someone and start talking. This soft murmur, not even looking at them. Then they’d leave together or both disappear for a while. The man wouldn’t come back but when whoever he’d been speaking to did, it was like they’d borrowed his status, like they’d been chosen or something. Whenever I tried to talk to him he looked uncomfortable or embarrassed, he sort of winced himself out of the room, and I assumed he didn’t speak English, or didn’t like girls. I had all kinds of ideas about him, like, he was a secret millionaire or a drug dealer or a writer. He seemed above it all. Like he’d been out to the edge of life and now nothing could really surprise him.

  ‘I was maybe even a little bit sad when he did talk to me, a few weeks after I’d arrived. Those mysteries mean a lot to you when you’re lonely like that. He explained that he was a businessman but his trade wasn’t for everyone. If it wasn’t for me I should get up and go. His English was so good, better than the people I’d grown up with, better than mine. He was interested in buying personal documents. He said it was illegal, there were risks involved, but they mainly sat with him. I sold him my passport for 500 euros. When I looked at my real name for the last time I felt like it was me who was ripping him off.