Kale opened the shutters on the first light of morning and looked out on the grey mist that hung over the city. He had his coat on already, his bag packed and sitting on the end of the bed.
It had been a bad night with little sleep. He had dreamt of the long, cold dormitory, the voices of little boys crying beneath their covers. The harsh discipline, the loneliness of the place; both had left their mark on him. But he had never cried as others had. He had never succumbed to the authority of the housemasters. Rather, it had strengthened in him that which set him apart. The boys had known it, and so had the masters. He sensed their fear of him. They did not know how to deal with his sullen, silent rebellion against their establishment. The beatings, the solitary confinement, the withdrawal of privileges. All had been met with the same mute acceptance that so baffled them. The dark eyes that blazed their hatred; a boy who was only nine. It had all left its mark, and none of it had been without pain. But they would never know it.
Kale turned away from the window and lifted his bag from the bed. He was unsettled, anxious now to be away. But there were still four hours to pass before he could collect the remainder of his money from the locker at the Gare du Midi. He left the room and got into a lift that hummed and clattered its way slowly down to reception. The desk clerk looked up as he swung the lift gate open.
‘Your bill, Monsieur?’
Kale nodded and laid his bag on the floor beside the desk. The clerk lifted the bill off a shelf behind him and pushed it across the counter.
‘Are you not having breakfast?’
Kale shook his head and the clerk shuffled uncomfortably as Kale counted out the notes from his wallet. The clerk had seen them come and go in an establishment like this, but this one was different. There was something dark and vaguely sinister about him. Nothing you could put your finger on. His wallet was amply filled, but his clothes did not suggest money. The clerk noticed these things. When there is so much time to pass in a day, you begin to look for them. The button missing from the coat, the slightly frayed cuff.
Kale lifted his bag and turned away, but stopped as he noticed a rack filled with the French-language Belgian daily, La Dernière Heure. ‘How much?’ he asked.
‘Fifteen francs, Monsieur.’
Kale lifted the top paper off the pile and felt a touch like icy fingers on the back of his neck. He stared numbly at the drawing that filled the top quarter of the front page across four columns. The doorway, the painting, the chair, the figure in the foreground. There was no face, but he recognized himself with a chilling sense of déjà vu. The bold headline across a further four columns read, L’HOMME SANS VISAGE – EST-IL L’ASSASSIN? He looked up to see the clerk watching him curiously. He dropped the paper on the desk. ‘Fifteen francs?’ The clerk nodded. Kale fished in his pocket for the money. He was loath to make conversation, but he had to know. ‘What’s the big story?’
The clerk seemed surprised. He glanced at the paper and shrugged. ‘Two men were shot dead here in Brussels yesterday. The police think the man in the drawing may have been involved. It was drawn by a child in the house where it happened. But she is – how can I say – not right in the head. The police won’t say whether they think it was murder or not. But the papers don’t have any doubts.’ He paused and asked casually, ‘What’s your interest?’
Kale glared at him and dropped the fifteen francs on the counter. ‘None,’ he said. He lifted the paper and crossed the lobby, pushing open the glass doors and vanishing out into the street.
The clerk watched him go and frowned as a tiny nagging thought entered his mind. He rounded the desk and lifted a copy of the paper, peering closely at the drawing. The figure was suddenly familiar. There was a button missing from the coat. The same button missing from the Englishman’s coat. But how could a child have noticed such a tiny detail? The clerk scratched his head and returned to his seat behind the counter, taking the paper with him. He looked at it some more, then looked at the card he had filled out with details of the Englishman’s passport. James Ross was the name he had written. A salesman. Again the clerk frowned and scratched his head. But then, he thought, it was none of his business.
*
The Gare du Midi was busy. Passengers stood around in knots in the big arrival hall watching the boards for arrivals and departures. A thin metallic voice made announcements alternately in French and Flemish. Neither meant anything to Kale. He was seated on a wooden bench at the foot of a wide pillar from where he could see through glass doors and along a short corridor to the left-luggage lockers. It was not yet eleven-thirty, but he had been here for nearly an hour in the hope of seeing whoever might leave his money, if the deed had not already been done. The time had dragged painfully, so that all the uncertainty about what exactly was in the newspaper had grown in his mind. Over and over again he had thought about the drawing, stared at it. How was it possible there had been a child in the house without him knowing? He remembered the cloakroom. She could have been in there. But why? Still, he felt certain that no one could recognize him from the drawing. Only the child could know what he looked like, and according to the hotel clerk she was somehow mentally impaired.
He had struggled through the story again and again, trying to make sense of it from what little French he knew. But all that he had gleaned from it was the girl’s name; the daughter of one of the men he had killed. He swore softly to himself. Things had not gone well. The sooner he got out of this damned country the better.
A stream of passengers emerged from platform six, partially obscuring his view of the glass doors. In that moment he saw a figure at the lockers. A figure he recognized. The white hair of a working man in city clothes. He jumped up and pushed his way through the passengers. Someone shouted at him and he stumbled and felt a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged himself free and ran towards the glass doors.
The figure had vanished.
Kale hurried down the corridor to the lockers. There was no sign of the man with the white hair. How the hell could he have got out of here without Kale seeing him? Kale looked back along the corridor towards the commuters milling beyond the other side of the glass.
Gone.
Breathlessly he took out his key and turned back to the lockers. Number thirty-nine. He fumbled at the lock and pulled open the door. The black case he had left there yesterday was gone. In its place a white envelope that was neither big enough nor fat enough to contain the money he was owed. He ripped it open with trembling fingers and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. There were three words printed across it in a tight, neat hand.
KILL THE CHILD.