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Chapters (45)
  1. The Man With No Face
  2. Also by
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Contents
  8. INTRODUCTION
  9. CHAPTER ONE
  10. CHAPTER TWO
  11. CHAPTER THREE
  12. CHAPTER FOUR
  13. CHAPTER FIVE
  14. CHAPTER SIX
  15. CHAPTER SEVEN
  16. CHAPTER EIGHT
  17. CHAPTER NINE
  18. CHAPTER TEN
  19. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  20. CHAPTER TWELVE
  21. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  23. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  25. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  26. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  27. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tania had stopped laughing and he saw that she was gazing up at him with a clear, bright light in her eyes. And his own happiness muddied a little as he wondered if he was capable of condemning her to life in an institution.

*

Two hundred yards away, across the snow and the gravel path beyond the trees, the figure of Kale, clad in a dark coat, stood watching. The skin of his face was taut and shiny in the cold, touched by yellow and blue, thin lips compressed in a hard line. It was a face without expression. Only the eyes betrayed his melancholy. The same dark eyes which had watched life pass them by, concealing more than they ever revealed. All the regrets of a life less lived.

At first Kale had shrunk away from his new reality, like a man coming out of a dark place into the light. He had been temporarily blinded. But awareness was returning, slow and painful. Things were clearer now, resentment replaced by sadness.

Everything had changed with those three words on a scrap of paper.

Through the trees he stood watching the figures in the snow. He heard them laughing, their voices raised in the still of the winter morning. He felt drawn to them, wanted to share their laughter. But he had long since passed out of their world into his own dark place. He could look back, but never return. A single tear ran from the corner of his eye.

He would not, could not, kill the child.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I

Platt battered out the final page of his copy, checked it, and called for a copy boy. A spotty youngster with a shock of red hair snatched it from his tray and headed for the news desk. Had there been a hint of contempt in the boy’s cold, green eyes?

The newsroom was buzzing with activity in the last minutes before copy deadlines for the final edition.

Platt lit a cigarette and puffed on it nervously. He was through for the day and felt badly in need of a drink. But there were still things to be done. He was both excited and a little edgy. It worried him that Bannerman should simply have disappeared for two days. Then last night there had been the phone call from Mademoiselle Ricain. Bannerman would phone him today. The call had not come. It had crossed his mind more than once that Bannerman would not keep his word, that when it came to the bit he would not share the story. Why should he? After all, Platt had contributed little or nothing so far. He also knew that his guilty fears about Bannerman’s intentions derived from the hatching of his own shabby plots. Still, he smiled at the thought of putting one over on the bastard.