The Man With No Face

by Peter May

  He could hear his own breathing, loudly, clearly, and he could feel the blood pulsing at his temples. Something told him that it would be a mistake to speak, and a little of his tension slipped away. Then, as though the child sensed it, she took two small steps forward and reached out to touch his face. The fingers of her hand were icy against his skin and he felt a trembling in them. At first they rested on his cheek and then after a few seconds they began to follow the contours of his face, running along the line of his cheekbone, his nose, his lips, his jaw. He raised his own hand and placed it over hers, stopping it, feeling the coldness of it, and he squeezed it gently. A tiny smile lit her face, dark eyes staring into his, and he found himself extraordinarily moved. Then the small hand slipped away and she turned and padded to the door, opening it and closing it behind her without looking back. Bannerman remained motionless for a minute, maybe more. His head swam with the strangest feelings, the sensation that he had experienced something inexplicably precious.

  A dog barked somewhere in the courtyards behind the apartment block and crashed into his thoughts. He dropped on to his back and stared up at the ceiling, and realized for the first time that he too was cold.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The blinds were drawn and the only light came from a desk lamp bent over on a goose neck, throwing a bright pool of light on to the scribbled blotter. Everything on the desk was laid out neatly. A large glass ashtray, empty and clean, a long brass letter opener, a wire tray tidily piled with dog-eared reports, a marble pen holder, a phone, two folders and a dish of paper clips. On the wall behind it, a large map of Brussels and a calendar pinned to a walk-in cupboard door. The high-backed leather armchair was set at an angle. A light came on in the next room and spilled more light into the study through open French windows and the glass in a wooden framework that partitioned the two rooms. Beyond, a further set of French windows opened out on to the back gardens. But they were shut against the rain and the dark.

  Gryffe came through to his study, an expensive camel coat hanging on his substantial frame. The two ends of a white silk scarf dropped to his waist. He was a large, heavy-set man, not fat, but powerfully built. He had a face that would be attractive to women. Smooth tanned skin below a head of dark, thick-growing hair, neatly cut and swept back. But now he was frowning and it did not suit him. The fine arches of his eyebrows were puckered in towards the bridge of his nose and his upper lip was curled in an expression that might have been distaste. He was agitated and made straight for his desk. But then he stopped, almost as though he had forgotten what it was he had come for. Outside the rain came down, striking and running down the glass behind the blinds. Gryffe stooped hesitantly over the desk, pulling open the left-hand drawer. He seemed satisfied with what he saw and pushed it shut again. He stretched across and took a bunch of keys out of the drawer on the other side, slipped them into his pocket, switched out the desk lamp and went back to the other room. There he switched off the ceiling light and went out into the hall. The front door slammed shut, leaving the place in darkness, the quiet broken only by the sound of falling rain, the scent of his aftershave lingering in the cold, still air.

  Kale saw him, from a doorway further along the Rue de Pavie, stepping into the street. He opened the door of his car, parked below one of the naked black trees set along the edge of the cobbled pavement, and slipped in. The exhaust roared and the car pulled away, heading toward the end of the street, then turning right into the Square Ambiorix, where the Saturday night traffic sped past the edge of a small deserted park. Across the street from Kale a florist’s shop was closing up for the night, and a workman with a red woollen hat slouched past with his hands in his pockets, not noticing Kale standing in the shadow of the doorway. He stood there, not feeling the cold, for another thirty minutes or more, just watching the street. A row of terraces, doors opening straight on to the pavement, stone and brickwork façades with tiny stone balustrades and wrought-iron Juliette balconies. A profusion of chimney pots leaning at odd angles on the slate roofs. It was a quiet street, most of the terraces converted to offices, a modern block of flats, Residence Ambiorix, casting light from the only lit windows, at the far end of the street. Beyond the square and the park, the boulevard ran down to the Berlaymont about half a mile away.

  Finally Kale moved away from the shelter of the doorway and pulled up his collar against the rain. He crossed the street and walked down to Gryffe’s door. He pressed the bell-push and heard a buzzer somewhere in the stillness inside. No sound of footsteps came from behind the door, and there was no light around the edges of the blinds on the windows. He rang again and waited a further few minutes until he was satisfied there was no one at home. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight, and he turned and walked back, away from the lights of the Residence Ambiorix.

  This was a part of Brussels that was on the way down. A seedy tobacconist’s was still open on the corner of the Rue de Pavie and the Rue de Gravelines. Through the lit window Kale could see an old man with a face like a lost battle sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a magazine and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. A half-empty bottle of beer sat on the counter. The old man caught only a glimpse of the mean face peering in at him out of the darkness, and he stared back uneasily.

  It struck Kale as odd that a man like Gryffe should have chosen to buy a house in an area like this. He shrugged and took out a cigarette, cupping his hands around the end to light it. He dropped the spent match in the gutter and turned right beneath a covered stone arch that ran under the end terrace. The cobbles here were dry, and his footsteps echoed back off the wall, the light of the street receding behind him. Then he came to the end and back out into the rain, and he turned right again into a long narrow lane that ran along the back of the terraced houses, bounded by high brick walls on either side. Tall wooden gates opened off into back courts. Feeble streetlamps raised themselves above the wall every fifty metres along one side. Kale counted off the gates on his right, walking quickly over the asphalt, and stopped at the twelfth. He glanced either way and then opened it and moved into the back court behind Gryffe’s house.

  The yard was sunk deep in shadow, a short sodden lawn, a brick shelter for the bins, and an uneven path of cracked slabs leading to the back door. Kale eased the gate shut and then froze as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the lane. He pressed himself hard against the wall of the bin shelter and waited, tense, as the steps came nearer. They passed the gate without stopping and faded down the lane. A thin jet of air escaped Kale’s clenched teeth and he moved back out on to the path. Silently he crossed the yard to the French windows that opened into the back room. They were locked. A lever mechanism worked from a handle on the inside. He crouched down and drew a long thin steel rod from his raincoat, working it carefully in between the two doors, before sliding it up to where the centre bolt ran through the gap. He checked the length of the rod with the position of the handle inside. It would be possible, he decided, and withdrew the rod again.

  He worked quickly, shaping the end of the rod round his wrist, bending it back on itself so that it formed a hook about the size of a cupped hand. Then he gently curved the rod inwards towards the open end of the hook until it was almost a semicircle. He slipped it back again between the doors, but it stuck halfway where it had kinked slightly in the shaping. He cursed and pulled it out again and worked the rod minutely back and forth where it had kinked until it was as straight as he could make it. This time it slipped easily between the doors and he slid it up until the hook was above the handle inside, and then pulled it gently downwards. The hook slid neatly over the handle and there he stopped and let it hang. He stood up and took a pencil torch from his pocket and shone it quickly along the top of the door, standing on tiptoe. Two terminals in the cross-jamb gleamed in the light on either side of the centre gap where they made contact with metal strips at the top corners of each half of the door. Kale smiled to himself and checked his watch again.
Already it was after eight-thirty. It had taken longer than he thought, and he did not know how much time he had. But it was still important to do it right. He must leave no trace. If he had opened the door without checking, the contact would have been broken and an alarm would have sounded.

  He drew out a rolled black plastic bag from his inside pocket and unrolled it, searching quickly inside before taking out a small roll of metal tape, sticky on one side, a length of wire rolled tightly and tied round the middle, and a short pair of pincers. For this he slipped off his tight black gloves and worked with nimble, steady fingers, unravelling about a yard of wire, baring it at each end and attaching it to strips of tape about three inches in length. Using a nail-file, he attached one of the strips to the right-hand terminal on the cross-jamb and the other to the metal strip running along the top of the right-hand door. There was just enough space between the two to work the nail-file in and stick down the tape. The yard of wire hung in a loop down the door.

  This next would be the telling move. He pulled his gloves back on and leaned his shoulder gently against the right-hand door, grasping the curve of rod that was still on the outside. It would have to be sharp and sudden to bring the handle down, but he could not afford to let the door swing in too sharply and pull the wire, or it would break the bridging contact. He felt warm and sticky and could not tell if the wetness on his face was rain or sweat. He braced himself and jerked the rod downwards. The handle on the inside came down with it and the pressure of his shoulder pushed the door in. He let the rod fall and grabbed quickly at the edge of the opening door. He caught it before the wire grew taut, and he took several seconds to regain his balance and be sure of it. Then he let go the door and retrieved the bent rod and bent it some more until it slipped into his pocket. He re-rolled the plastic bag and put it away, then brought out two plastic shoe covers. Quickly he pulled the first one over his right shoe and advanced his right leg just inside the door. He did the same with the left foot, so that now he was inside the house and there would be no tell-tale footsteps on the carpet, nothing that even the forensic people could find.

  He ducked under the wire and moved quickly across the room and into the hall. Light from the streetlamps outside seeped in around blinds and shutters, providing just enough light to see by. The hall was narrow, with a small cloakroom set to one side just before the front door. That was where he found what he was looking for. An electric meter mounted in a wooden casing on the wall. Kale opened it and shone his pencil torch inside and spotted the alarm switch. He turned it off and hurried through again to the back room, disconnecting the wire on the door and the cross-jamb. Then he locked the French windows as they had been, stuffed the wire back in his pocket and went to reset the alarm. He stood then for several seconds on the parquet flooring in the hall and listened to the silence in the house.

  Outside a car swept past in the direction of the Square Ambiorix. The sound of it broke into Kale’s thoughts, stirring him to action, and he climbed the stairs two at a time. Two-thirds of the way up a door led off to the bathroom from a small landing. Up another half-dozen steps and there was a small square landing with two doors leading off. The first one opened into Gryffe’s bedroom. A large, rectangular room, basic and tidy. A double bed, a tall walnut wardrobe, a matching dressing table with circular mirror against the window. On a single bedside table there was a brown-shaded lamp and a book by Ernest Hemingway with a marker about halfway through. The thin beam of Kale’s pencil torch picked them all out and then snapped off. He moved through to the second, smaller room. It was empty except for a single unmade bed pushed against one wall. The wallpaper was faded and old-fashioned, brittle at the seams where it was beginning to lift away from the wall. The room smelled fusty and unused. The whole house felt and smelled unlived-in.

  Downstairs, at the end of the hall, there was a small, stone-floored kitchen. A faint odour of stale cooking. The gas stove was black and caked with grease. A porcelain sink and washtub with a wooden draining board was cracked. In a wall cupboard he found a half-empty bottle of milk, a packet of cereal, tea, coffee, sugar, cups, saucers and three plates. A wooden door leading to the back yard was bolted shut. Kale guessed that Gryffe must eat out a lot.

  He moved into the back room and then through the interior set of French windows into Gryffe’s study. Everything in the house seemed functional, designed for convenience rather than comfort. Again Kale checked his watch. It was nine now. He pulled out the drawer that Gryffe had opened an hour earlier and found a .32 Colt automatic eight-shot handgun nestling in the dark. An old-fashioned gun. He lifted it out and felt its weight in his hand. He sniffed the barrel. It had not been fired recently. Gently, with a dexterous familiarity, he sprang the magazine out and counted the bullets through the small holes in the side of it. It was fully loaded. He snapped the magazine back in place and slipped the gun carefully into his right-hand coat pocket, allowing himself a tiny smile. Sometimes fortune favoured the bad. He had a plan.

  Swiftly he went through the other drawers and found only stationery and mail, a drawer filled with pipes and empty tobacco tins. Then he spotted the door behind the desk and tried the handle. It opened into a large walk-in cupboard. Empty wooden shelves ran along the far wall. A small, battered suitcase lay in the near corner. Three battleship-grey filing cabinets were pushed against the door wall. Also empty. Kale pulled the door shut behind him and felt darkness close around him. He shivered for the first time in the cold, and with his pencil torch picked his way round the filing cabinets and squatted in the corner, back pressed against the wall, thin legs pulled in close to his chest. He leaned his left arm on the battered suitcase, though strangely it never occurred to him to check inside. He should have.

  He took out Gryffe’s gun and laid it on the floor beside him, then took out another from an inside pocket and fitted its silencer. He laid it on the floor beside the Colt and let his head rest back against the wall, eyes closing, blood pulsing softly at his temples.

  This was the worst time now. The waiting. Twelve hours, perhaps more. But it was all so familiar. The loneliness, the dark room. It had been that way all his life. Even now he could hear his mother in the next room, half-drunk, laughing, entertaining another customer. They came night after night. Sometimes he would recognize a voice. Any one of them might have been his father, though later his more rational self doubted it. He had lain on the cot bed in the corner below faded grey curtains, watching the line of light under the door. He had been five, maybe six years old. He never saw the faces that came and went. But he heard them, grunting, cursing. And always his mother’s voice, the pretence of pleasure, the smell of the gin that fuelled her fake laughter. Then afterwards, she would come through, to stand over his bed, thinking him asleep, and bend to kiss his cheek with wet, loose lips, the smell of gin on her breath. How he loathed it. Her smell, her touch, the stink of men and sex. And how he despised her for her sobbing. Great long sobs of self-pity that he could hear through the wall when she had returned to her own room. What right had she to cry?

  Finally there had been the night, long silent hours after the raised voices and the scream, when he had gone through to find her naked body. It had almost been a relief. The twist of pain on the fleshy red lips, the wide, staring eyes, the whiteness of her flesh and the sagging of her breasts. An end to it all. No more strange men, no more wet kisses, no more sobbing through dark, lonely nights. But he had not known then, could not have known, that there were greater horrors in life.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I

  The house stood discreetly behind a long sweep of lawn, screened from the Avenue de la Grande Armée by a row of poplars. A broad driveway opened off the road and ran around the edge of the lawn, past the side of the house to a wide double garage. Floodlights were cleverly concealed among the evergreen bushes that bordered the drive and the far side of the lawn, picking out the house against the black of the sky behind it.

  It wa
s a long, two-storey white house with green shutters and a red-tiled roof. A place you might buy if you had money and wanted people to know it. Gleaming limousines lined the avenue for thirty metres along either side, and Slater pulled his car over just beyond the house. He stepped out into the light drizzle that was drifting gently across the lawns and opened the passenger door.

  Bannerman watched Marie-Ange climb out and wave aside Slater’s offer of help. She was tall and elegant, long tawny hair falling carelessly across the hand-embroidered silk shawl on her shoulders. She wore a full-length white dress that flared from a band at the waist below a daring neckline.

  When they had met earlier, at Slater’s flat, Bannerman had realized immediately how right he’d been to interpret Sally’s description of her as slumming it. She reeked of money. And breeding. And not in a good way. There was a brittleness about her, a standing on ceremony that remained a constant presence, even in her relationship with Slater. Bannerman had taken an immediate dislike to her. The condescending smile, the limp hand offered to be shaken that Bannerman had squeezed too tightly. Though if it had hurt just a little, she had not shown it. She was not a woman to reveal anything of herself.

  He had to admit, however, that she was very beautiful, at least on the outside. Large cobalt-blue eyes, a long aristocratic nose and wide, full lips. A smooth, lightly tanned skin, and a distant enigmatic smile. She had a long slender body, a sexual creature, and aware of it. Bannerman recalled Sally’s words – a strange couple. Her relationship with Slater seemed unlikely, even incongruous. And Slater himself appeared ill-at-ease in her company. Or was it just the presence of Bannerman that made him so awkward?

  Bannerman carried these thoughts with him across the street and up the driveway to the door of the white house. Slater and Marie-Ange walked ahead as though he were not with them. The door was opened by a white-jacketed butler and they were shown into a large brightly lit hall. At the far end of it a staircase rode up to a halfway landing where more stairs branched off to left and right. To their right, double doors stood open, leading to a crowded reception room. It was already thick with smoke and voices, the smell of drink and perfume. The butler took their coats and tiptoed away across thick-piled carpet.