Little Face (3 page)

Friday October 3, 2003, 11.50 AM (One week later)

CHARLIE WAS WAITING for Simon on the steps of the police station
when he arrived for the start of his shift at midday. He noticed that for
the first time this year she was wearing her full-length black wool coat
with fake fur collar and cuffs. Her bony ankles were no longer visible
under thin transparent tights as they had been all summer. As one season succeeded another, Charlie's legs turned from transparent to
opaque and back again. Today they were opaque. Yesterday they'd
been transparent. It was a sure sign that winter was on the way.

At least it was October. Charlie was so skinny that she normally
started to feel the cold when most people were still wearing sandals.
Today her face was pale and, behind her gold-rimmed glasses, her eyes
were anxious. In her right hand was a half-smoked cigarette. Charlie
was addicted to holding them and allowing them to burn themselves
out. Simon hardly ever saw her take a puff. He could see her red lipstick on the filter as he got closer. There was more colour on the fag
end than there was on her mouth. She exhaled a small cloud which
might have been either smoke or breath.

A flick of her other hand, waving him over impatiently. So she was
waiting for him. It must be serious if she was meeting him on the
bloody steps. Simon cursed quietly, sensing the imminent presence of
trouble, angry with himself for being surprised. He should have known
it was on the way. He wished he could say that he had been expecting, any day now, to turn a corner and see the ominous face of somebody
who had bad news for him. Charlie, this time.

Simon would have liked to meet whatever fate intended to throw at
him with the confidence of the entirely blameless. Ironically, he felt he
would be better able to bear his punishment if it were undeserved.
Something about the concept of martyrdom appealed to him.

He found he could hardly swallow. This time it would be more
serious than a Reg 9. He'd been a fool to forget-however briefly,
however understandably-that he was not the sort of person who got
away with things. Those creepy bastards from the Internal Discipline
Unit had probably already emptied his locker.

He felt a churning in his gut. Half of his mind was busy rehearsing
his defence while the other half fought to suppress the urge to run, to
take off. In Simon's fantasy it would not be a cowardly flight. It
would be slow, dignified, disappointed. He pictured himself becoming
smaller and smaller until he was a line, a dot, nothing. The allure of
the grand gesture, the silent departure. Charlie would be left wondering how, precisely, she'd let him down and then, once she'd worked it
out, wishing she'd listened to him.

Some hope. Simon's departures from all his previous jobs had been
frenzied, chaotic, with a soundtrack of shouted threats, of fists and feet
smashing against doors and desks. He wondered how many new
starts a person was entitled to, how many times one could say it was
the other person's fault and truly believe it.

`What? What is it?' he asked Charlie, skipping the pleasantries. He
felt hollow, as if someone had taken a large scoop out of him.

`Have a fag.' She opened her packet of Marlboro Lights and thrust
it at his face.

`Just tell me.'

`I will, if you'll keep calm.'

`For fuck's sake! What's happened?' Simon knew he couldn't hide
his panic from Charlie, which made him even angrier.

`Would you care to amend your tone, detective?' She pulled rank whenever it suited her. One minute she was Simon's friend and confidante, the next she was reminding him of her superior status. Warmth
and coldness were modes she could switch on or off at a second's
notice. Simon felt like a creature squirming on a small glass slide. He
was the matter upon which Charlie was conducting a long-term experiment, trying radically different approaches in quick succession: caring, flirty, distant. Result of experiment: subject permanently confused
and uncomfortable.

It would be easier to work for a man. For two years, Simon had
armed himself, privately, with the idea that he could request a transfer to another sergeant's team. He had never got as far as doing it,
needing the thought that he could make the change at any time more
than he needed the change itself. Charlie was an efficient skipper. She
looked after his interests. Simon knew why, and was determined not
to feel guilty; her reasons were her business and should be no concern
of his. Was it superstitious to believe that the minute he no longer had
her protection, he would urgently need it?

`I'm sorry,' he said. `Sorry. Please, just tell me.'

`David Fancourt is in interview room 2 with Proust.'

`What? Why?' Simon's imagination wrestled with the jarring image
of Inspector Giles Proust face to face with a civilian. An actual person,
one who hadn't been reduced to a name in a sergeant's report, tidied
into a typeface. In Simon's experience, unusual meant bad. It could
mean very bad. Every nerve ending in his body was on full alert.

`You weren't here, I wasn't here-Proust was the only person in the
CID room at the time, so Proust got him.'

`Why's he come in?'

Charlie took a deep breath. `I wish you'd have a fag,' she said.

Simon took one to shut her up. `Just tell me-am I in trouble?'

`Well, now. . . 'Her eyes narrowed. `Isn't that an interesting question? Why would you be in trouble?'

`Charlie, stop jerking me around. Why's Fancourt here?'

`He came in to report his wife and daughter missing.'

`What?' The words stunned Simon, like a brick wall in the face.
Then the sense of what Charlie was telling him sunk in. Alice and the
baby were missing. No. They couldn't be.

`That's all I know. We'll have to wait for Proust to tell us the rest.
Fancourt's been here nearly an hour. Jack Zlosnik's on the desk. Fancourt told him that his wife and baby daughter disappeared last night.
There was no note, and he's heard nothing since. He's phoned everyone he can think of-nothing.'

Simon couldn't see straight. Everything had become a blur. He
tried to push past Charlie, but she grabbed his arm. `Hey, slow down.
Where are you going?'

`To find Fancourt, find out what the fuck's going on.' Rage bubbled
inside him. What had that bastard done to Alice? He had to know,
now. He would demand to know.

`So you're just going to storm in to Proust's interview, are you?'

`If I fucking have to!'

Charlie tightened her grip on him. `One day your temper's going to
lose you your job. I'm fed up of supervising your every move to make
sure you don't fuck up.' She'd care more than I did if they kicked me
out, Simon thought. It was one of his safety barriers. When Charlie
wanted something it happened. Usually.

Three bobbies kept their eyes down on their way into the station.
They couldn't get through the double doors fast enough. Simon shook
his arm free, mumbling an apology. He disliked the idea that he was
causing a scene. Charlie was right. It was about time he grew out of
this sort of behaviour.

She took the cigarette from his hand, put it in his mouth, lit it. She
doled out fags medicinally, the way other people did cups of tea. Even
to non-smokers like Simon. He needed this one, though. The first drag
was a relief. He held the nicotine in his lungs for as long as he could.

`Charlie, listen. . . '

`I will, but not here. Finish that, then we'll go and get a drink. And
calm down, for God's sake.'

Simon gritted his teeth and tried to breathe evenly. If he could get
through to anyone, Charlie was the one. At least she would give him
a fair hearing before telling him he was talking bollocks.

He took a few more drags, then stubbed out the cigarette and followed her into the building. Spilling Police Station used to be the public swimming baths. It still smelled of chlorine, haunted by the memory
of its former self. Aged eight, Simon had learned to swim here, tutored
by a maniac in a red tracksuit with a long wooden pole. Everyone else
in his class had already known how. Simon remembered how he'd felt
when this became apparent to him. He felt it now, at thirty-eight, when
he turned up for the beginning of each shift.

The weight of his anxiety pulled him down, dragging, sinking.
Again he felt the urge to run, though he wasn't sure if his legs would
take him further into the building or out of it. He had no plan, only a
need to shake himself up, dislodge his fear. He forced himself to stand
still behind Charlie while she had a trivial conversation with Jack Zlosnik, the rotund, grey fur-ball on the desk who leaned where grumpy
Morris had leaned all those years ago, grimly handing out green paper
tickets that said `Admit One'.

There was no reason to assume the worst-to state, even to himself,
what the worst might be. Alice couldn't have come to serious harm.
There was still time for Simon to make a difference. He would have
sensed it, somehow, if it were too late, would not be so aware of the
present trickling into the past, grain by grain. Still, this was hardly scientific proof. He could imagine Charlie's reaction.

After an age, Zlosnik was behind them, and Simon forced his feet
to mimic Charlie's, step by step, as they made their way to the canteen,
a big echo-chamber full of glaring strip-lights, the clash of voicesmainly male-and bad smells. Simon's mood made everything appear
grotesque, made him want to shield his eyes against the cheap wood
laminate floor, the piss-yellow walls.

Three grey-haired middle-aged women in white aprons stood at the
serving hatch, dispensing grey and brown slop to tired, hungry bob bies. One of them slid two cups of tea towards Charlie without moving her features. Simon stood back. His hands wouldn't have been
steady enough to carry anything. A table had to be chosen, chairs
pulled out, pulled back in: mundane tasks that made him impatient to
the point of fury.

`You look like you're in shock.'

He shook his head, though he suspected Charlie was right. He
couldn't shift the image of Alice's face from his mind. An abyss had
opened in front of him and he struggled to stop himself falling in. `I've
got a bad feeling about this, Charlie. Really bad. Fancourt's behind it
all, somehow. Whatever he's telling Proust, it's a fucking lie.'

`You're not exactly the most objective judge, are you? You've got a
thing about Alice Fancourt. Don't bother to deny it. I saw how flustered you were when she came in last week, just from being in the same
room as her. And you look secretive whenever you mention her name.'

Simon stared purposefully at his tea. Objective? No. Never. He
distrusted David Fancourt in the same way he had two other men in
recent weeks, both of whom had turned out to be guilty. When Simon
proved as much, unequivocally, his fellow officers praised him loudly,
bought him drinks and claimed they'd known he was right all along.
Including Charlie. She'd had no complaints about his lack of objectivity then. Though, in both cases, when he'd first voiced his suspicions
the rest of the team had laughed and called him a nutter.

Most people rewrote history when it suited them, even those whose
job it was to stick to the facts, unearth the truth. Simon didn't know
how they managed it; he wished he had the knack. He remembered, in
precise detail, the convenient and the inconvenient, knew exactly
who'd said what when. His mind would let go of nothing, not one single thing. It didn't make for an easy or comfortable life, but it was useful for work purposes. If Charlie couldn't see that Simon's occasional
rages were a direct result of being constantly underestimated by everybody he worked with, even after he'd proved himself time and time
again, how good a detective could she be, objective or otherwise?

`I hope I don't need to remind you how much trouble you'll be in if
you've been seeing Alice Fancourt in your own time, after I told you
to have nothing more to do with her,' said Charlie. That lectern voice
again, that podium tone. Simon couldn't stand it. Couldn't she see the
state he was in? Did she have any idea what it felt like to be so
trapped in your own preoccupations that the disapproval of others
rolled off you, like rain off the waxy bonnet of a car? `Her case, such
as it was, was closed.' Charlie watched him carefully. `If she really is
missing, you could be suspended, or worse, arrested. You'll be a suspect, you bloody idiot. Even I can't protect you from something as serious as this. So you'd better hope she turns up.' She laughed bitterly and
muttered, `Like you don't already.'

Simon's mouth was full of tea he couldn't swallow. The neon lights
were giving him a headache. A smell of stewed meat wafted over
from the next table, making him want to retch.

`You suspect David Fancourt of what, exactly?'

`I don't know.' Such an effort, to keep his voice steady, to stay in his
seat and go through the ritual of a civilised conversation. He felt his
right knee twitch, a sign that his whole body was aching to bolt. `But
this is too much of a coincidence, after what happened to his first wife.'
Simon was unwilling to draw his long history of suspecting the right
people to Charlie's attention. If she wanted to focus on his weaknesses,
let her. It wasn't as if he could deny their existence. Yes, he was incapable of thinking clearly where Alice Fancourt was concerned. Yes, he
sometimes steamed in and fucked things up, usually when the obtuseness of his colleagues made him so angry that he lost all sense of
proportion.

`Forget about me,' he told Charlie sharply, placing a heavy emphasis on the last word, `and start looking at David Fancourt. Or rather
at the picture that's taking shape around him. Then maybe you'll see
what's staring you in the fucking face.'

Charlie's eyes slid away from him. She fiddled with her hair, picking at stray strands. When she next spoke, her voice was light and flip pant, and Simon knew his point had struck home. `Some famous
bod, can't remember who, said "To lose one wife is unfortunate. To
lose two looks a bit careless." Something like that, anyway.'