The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

  ‘I actually didn’t know that you had at all. You’re a solicitor?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a great firm, but I had to climb up the ladder elsewhere. Now, hang on. If you didn’t know I used to have dealings with the Palace, why would you imagine …’ The answer occurred to him before he finished the sentence. ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’m afraid that during the course of our investigation your affair with Frederick Coyle came to light …’

  He covered his face. ‘Affair. Christ …’ I gave him a moment and at length he looked at me again. ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘Can I ask how it started?’

  He shrugged but it was with an openness I’d yet to encounter from anyone else in the case. ‘The way I suspect these things usually do. Professionally, then less professionally, then what starts out as innuendo gets tested with too much drink. Finally, of course, it all ends in tears.’

  ‘Whose tears did it end in?’

  ‘Certainly Freddie’s. When I knew him he had no one but Natasha in his life …’

  ‘Now he doesn’t even have her.’

  ‘He was close to a total shut-in, then. Of course I was complicit, of course I was.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But he’d just realized he was gay. He pursued me and it was different. Exciting. All the old reasons.’

  ‘Can I ask how it came to an end?’ I wanted to move him on to the confrontation with Ms Reeve, but he went deeper than that.

  ‘I’d been slowly distancing myself, slowly breaking it off. Right from the word go, if truth be told. When I found a job at a new firm, I knew that was the right time. We’d had some fun and no one had got hurt.’

  ‘As far as you knew …’

  ‘As far as I knew. Jesus Christ, that day. I’d met Freddie at his apartment. I was telling him that I was moving on, re-committing myself to my marriage. He was upset. He kissed me and said it would be easier to take if we could pass one more afternoon together. And then the door opened …’

  ‘Natasha Reeve?’

  ‘She was furious – I mean, rightly so.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘That was the odd thing. She stepped inside, looked at us, did one circuit of the sofa we were sitting on and let herself out. It was like a cold fury. Like she knew already …’

  ‘I’m afraid she did.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Ms Reeve was receiving anonymous notes about your relationship.’

  Short went suddenly pale. ‘Notes …?’

  ‘You didn’t know anything about them?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Both she and Freddie Coyle believe that you sent them.’

  ‘What?’ He looked speechless.

  I sat back. ‘You didn’t send them?’

  ‘Of course not, I didn’t even know … First of all, I would never do that to someone. Secondly, it would wreck my life, my marriage. Why would I do that?’ He realized he’d raised his voice and, although the coffee shop was empty, went on more quietly. ‘I mean, I was ending it.’

  ‘Freddie says he told no one about your affair, do you think that’s true?’

  His shoulders slumped. ‘I expect it is. As I say. He was hardly a social butterfly …’

  ‘So that leaves someone from your end …’

  ‘But that’s impossible.’

  ‘You told no one?’

  ‘About cheating on the mother of my children with a man? No.’

  ‘You may have told someone without realizing it. What about your wife?’

  ‘What about her?’ he said, suddenly angry. He’d accepted my questioning his own character but drew the line at hers. It made me at least want to believe him.

  ‘Well, she could have worked out that something was happening between you and Coyle. Sent Natasha Reeve the notes as a means of stopping it.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ He saw the look on my face and answered it. ‘Well, that’s how I got into the whole mess to start with. She was working abroad. Lecturing in the US.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Natasha Reeve says that in the weeks before their relationship ended, Freddie Coyle had changed. Become distant …’

  ‘From her? No doubt.’

  ‘He wasn’t that way with you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Was he a big drinker back then?’

  He paused to consider this. ‘That would be something new …’

  I asked Short for his whereabouts on Monday morning. The day I’d interviewed Coyle in his apartment and heard someone in the next room. He’d been at work and seemed quite happy to prove it.

  I left him, wondering again who it had been.

  At the time I’d thought of Aneesa, but everything I’d learned about Coyle since implied that he was off women for good. Directionless, I wondered if I was just pulling at this thread because I didn’t have a lover of my own.

  3

  It was late afternoon and the heat was finally starting to ease. I went in the direction of The Temple. I wasn’t happy about my phone call with Sian earlier, someone I still thought of as a friend, and I wondered if I could improve on it. Selfishly, I wondered if I might arrive before Ricky, her new boyfriend, and make it easier for us to talk. She’d seemed surprised that I was happy to meet him, and I tried to think what she wanted to see me for. I tried not to imagine it was about us, our relationship, but that aside, what else was there to say?

  In the closing weeks of our living together I’d tried to get sober. To eliminate the pharmacy of uppers and downers I depended on. I had a few days of nerve-shredding withdrawals then started to feel better, physically and mentally. I looked at the beautiful, funny young woman in front of me and thought she was all I needed. My mind cleared and I started to really see Sian. The problem was that I started to see myself, too. Memories began to surface that felt like they belonged in another life, to another man. For years I’d remembered flashes of my sister, just her in isolation, but now I saw the people who’d surrounded us as children. After years of blank, medicated sleep I began to have living, vivid dreams. They grew darker, more disturbing, until one day I woke up to Sian watching me fearfully from the far side of the bed.

  The Temple, where she worked, was a favourite of mine beyond her rare, friendly face behind the bar. It was unaffiliated with any gang or drugs franchise in the city, it was too small and dark to represent a club alternative to party-goers, and it had a carefully curated jukebox. Best of all, Sutty was banned, creating a sanctuary for those days when he became unbearable. After our conversation earlier, this was one of them.

  When I descended the steps I saw that the bar was quiet. Sian was serving a couple, chatting happily, and I waited until she was alone.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ she said, pleasantly surprised. ‘I didn’t think you’d actually come.’ She was wearing her customary black with stark red lipstick. Her thick-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose.

  She looked wonderful.

  ‘You said we needed to talk.’

  ‘I know, what was I thinking? Asking Aidan Waits to talk. When I hung up I thought you’d block my number as well as delete it.’ I didn’t say anything and she let me off the hook. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘It’s late for me. I haven’t been to bed yet.’ It was true. The night shift with Sutty, followed by my stake-out and break-in of Cartwright’s flat had made for a long day.

  ‘You’re not up to your old tricks again?’

  I thought of the night before. If Cartwright hadn’t been arrested at departures, on his outbound flight, he’d be in the air by now. ‘All new tricks,’ I said.

  She smiled but it faded from her face as she remembered what she wanted to talk to me about.

  I sat at the bar. ‘So what’s up?’

  She started to pour a beer. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you or not …’ I looked into her eyes and she made up her mind. ‘Well, there was some guy in here looking for you last night.’

  I was surprised. ‘Looking for me?’

  She watched me closely, like I
must know what she was talking about. ‘Or, I guess, looking to find out stuff about you …’ She slid the beer across the bar.

  ‘Stuff like what?’

  ‘How often you come in, if we’re friends. He did it all in a roundabout way but he just seemed to be …’ she searched for the word, ‘fishing.’

  ‘Did you get his name?’

  ‘He didn’t give it. When I asked if he was a friend of yours he said you probably wouldn’t remember him, but that he thought he’d seen you in here the other day. Wondered if that was the Aidan Waits …’

  I took a drink, thought about it. ‘Maybe that’s the truth? Even I had some friends once.’

  ‘You’ve still got friends,’ she said, with a flash of indignation. ‘Anyway, you’d remember this one …’

  I waited.

  ‘… I would’ve felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been so weird about it. But there was something wrong with his face,’ she said. ‘The right-hand side. He had all these thick, overlapping scars and scabs. His mouth was all dry and chapped, and the eye socket … there wasn’t anything there.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘He can’t help what he looks like, but he can help being a creep. I had this feeling he was proud of it, y’know? Or, like, knew the effect it had on people. The whole time we were talking, he kept that side of his face pointed at me, leaning right over the bar until we were almost touching.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Older than us, in his fifties maybe. He looked like he was in the life.’

  ‘A criminal?’ She nodded. ‘Guess I’ve met a few of those.’

  ‘He was stacked as well. Like, seriously built, and a head taller than you. When he leaned on the bar I saw all these shitty, washed-out tattoos on his forearms. Like those prison ones they do with hot biros. He saw me notice them and started asking about mine. If they covered my whole body, if I had any naughty ones …’

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry.’

  ‘So was he, I poured his Guinness down the sink. Anyway, it’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘He doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve put away. Or anyone I was ever friends with, either.’

  ‘It’s the second time he’s been here. The first was Sunday night, when you came for the lock-in, remember? He was trying to push inside but when I saw I didn’t know him I just said it was a private party.’ I thought about leaving the bar that night. Someone had been standing in the shadows, watching me. ‘Yesterday he came back, drank eight pints, sitting at that table, following me with his fucking dead eye. After a bit he came up and started asking about you.’

  ‘Did he pay by card?’

  ‘Cash …’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well after the weirdness about whether he knew you or not, and then the tattoo stuff as well, I just said Sorry, shug, I don’t really know him.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Turns out that wasn’t exactly a lie, though. He asked me how that sister of yours was doing …’ I looked at the bar but Sian must have seen my jaw tighten. ‘Yeah, that’s what my face must’ve looked like as well, since you told me you had no family. You said you grew up in care.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Who lies about something like that?’

  When I looked at Sian again I could see a searching kind of pain in her eyes. I suddenly remembered it so well from our time together.

  ‘I did grow up in care,’ I said quietly. ‘That’s the truth. But I also had a sister, biologically. We were separated when we were very young.’

  ‘So why not tell me that?’

  ‘I don’t know, it didn’t seem worth saying.’

  ‘It wasn’t an omission, Aid. You lied. I really wish you hadn’t.’ I started to say something but she cut me off. ‘I really wish you hadn’t done it so well. I didn’t even guess. How old were you?’

  ‘I don’t know, eight or nine?’

  ‘So you had a sister for almost a third of your life and just forgot about her?’

  ‘I didn’t just forget—’

  ‘What happened to her? Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, my descent complete. ‘I never looked.’ Sian frowned and I found myself justifying my inaction. ‘She went to a well-off family, we had very different lives.’ It was a thought that had sustained me through some bad times. For each of my care-home low points, the undiagnosed personality disorders of roommates, the casual violence and cruelty of older boys, I’d awarded the sister of my imagination with a corresponding positive experience. An attentive mother, perhaps a protective older sister. Finding her now, with her own imperfect life, her own disappointments, would mean losing all that. ‘We’re just separate people,’ I said.

  ‘Do you hold it against her? That she went to a nice family?’

  ‘No,’ I said, thinking about it. ‘No, of course not. But she should be able to live her life.’ I swallowed. ‘We didn’t come from a very good place. Nine out of ten times she’d have stayed there. Her being placed with a family was the only thing I ever wished for in my life, and when it happened it was like a miracle to me. I was glad. That’s the truth.’

  Sian put her hand on mine, but when I looked at her I saw it was for emphasis more than affection. ‘She’s your family, Aidan. You’re hers …’

  I shook my head. ‘She has a family, and I’ve moved on. I’m sure she has too.’ We stood like that for a moment until someone approached the bar.

  ‘Hello-hello …’

  I looked up and saw a man in a smart chequered suit, watching us closely. He was slim and in good shape, with skin that radiated health at first glance but looked made-up at second.

  ‘Ricky,’ said Sian, removing her hand too late from mine.

  ‘Something I should know about?’ He was smiling.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said, moving around the bar to hug him. ‘Aidan was just leaving.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I managed to say, watching as I held out my hand.

  He shook it. His palm was cool and soft, and I noticed the clammy sweat on my own.

  ‘The famous Aidan Waits,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever met a detective before. Can you tell what I do for a living from the dust on my shoes?’

  ‘No, we’re just like normal people.’ I looked at Sian. ‘But less so …’

  ‘And has she been able to tempt you?’ He nodded at Sian, his partner. There was some challenge in his voice and I looked at her, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Aidan can’t make it,’ she said.

  ‘Oh come on, mate. You only get engaged once.’ In the silence that followed he almost certainly saw the truth of the situation but pressed on. ‘Well, twice in my case, but as far as I know Sian’s record’s clear.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, smiling. ‘And congratulations. You’re a lucky man. If you’ll excuse me.’ I put a hand on Sian’s shoulder as a goodbye and went up the steps, out of the bar and back into the blazing heat. I walked fast, feeling the sweat run down my back.

  Feeling like a criminal.

  I hoped that Sian wouldn’t be in trouble with Ricky. He’d caught us in what must have looked like an intimate moment and, for a second, I wondered if I should wait for him and explain. I had no right to feel hard done by. No right to feel anything but happy for them. So why did I risk my life crossing the road for a distraction?

  And as for my sister, Sian had been wrong.

  I saw her often, several times a day. Oxford Road was populated by young women, some with the same curled hair and serious expression I remembered from Annie’s face, from twenty-odd years before. Any one of them could have been her, so I thought of them all warmly. I felt proud when I saw them well dressed, on their way to important jobs, or happy, floating down the streets with their lovers, or weird, with piercings, tattoos, blue hair. I’d seen her marching in protest against fascists, and offering expert advice on the news. I’d lost ce
rtain things in life, but I gained all of this, these twenty smiles a day at strangers, because I’d been separated from my sister. Her brother was no kind of man anyway. A corrupt detective, a criminal. A user of women and drugs.

  My phone started to vibrate and I took it from my pocket. It was a withheld number.

  ‘Waits,’ I said, picking it up. ‘Hello?’

  There was no answer.

  Straining, I thought I could hear someone breathing on the other end, but it was buried beneath the crackle of a bad signal. Then they disconnected. I slowed. My mind turned back to the man who’d been asking about me, to the Superintendent’s warning of a hit. I thought about the anonymous phone call I’d received at home, and the ones since, to my mobile. I thought of the crushed piles of cigarettes I’d seen outside the flat.

  And then I stopped dead in the street.

  The man looking for me knew my name, my home and mobile number, and my address. He knew where I drank and who my ex was. He hadn’t been fishing for information at all, he’d been telling me something. He knew I had a sister.

  4

  I returned, distractedly, to the CCTV. I’d watched so much of it in the last few days that I could feel the wrinkles forming round my eyes. Even if I found the cyclist, even if he’d looked right at the perpetrator and caught him on camera, I’d most likely have a blurred image of a kid with his hood up. One more for the collection. And anyway, this assignment wasn’t about getting results. It was about sitting me in the naughty corner with a dunce’s hat on my head, and I was bored of it.

  I had a flash that I should walk out on my life. Leave a shit on Sutty’s desk as my resignation letter and accept the consequences of my accrued mistakes. I’d been telling Sian the truth. I didn’t know this scar-faced man. He didn’t sound like anyone I’d met or anyone I’d put away, and that set me on edge. Parrs had learned about the hit and quashed it months before. So why would another mechanic surface now? It was the mention of my sister that pushed things into uncharted territory, though.

  Threats against family members just didn’t happen.