The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox

Author:Joseph Knox
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2018-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

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.

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.

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