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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

It was the uncertainty that trapped him here. He had thought he knew all the dark territory of his mind. Had no illusions about who or what he was. It was something he accepted, like life or death. But somewhere in that inner darkness he had stumbled on something unfamiliar, something he could not come to terms with. To kill a child with his secret locked somewhere in her head. A note in a locker, three words on a scrap of paper, and he had discovered in himself the seed of destruction that is in the souls of all men.

To kill the child would be to kill himself. He knew it with a dreadful clarity. You choose your own road to hell and you think you know every twist and turn in it. Then you discover that hell is not the end of the road. He was a human being, after all, and there was a point beyond which you could not go. It is no use, he thought. I will think about it whether I stand here punishing myself, or whether I lie awake in my room. The man whose head he had cracked, whose ribs he had kicked, would lead him eventually to the child. He was no longer in control of his own destiny. He was being drawn towards his own destruction as helplessly as the man being swept into the vortex of a whirlpool. For somewhere in all his lack of humanity, he had discovered a conscience.

He moved stiffly away from the wall against which he had sought some shelter and began walking along the Rue de Commerce. Somewhere he would find a bar to spend time in before he could face the room he had taken across town, and the long hours before morning.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I

People hurried by without even glancing at the solitary figure sitting at one of the red-painted metal tables under the awning. The market stalls were being removed. The early morning trade had been poor because of the weather. Piles of snow were dotted about where it had been swept up to make way for the stalls. Lines of cars stood at the far side of the square gleaming in the morning sunshine, and snow was melting on the black flagstones where great slabs of sunshine fell between the buildings. The sky was a clear, pale blue and reminded Bannerman of the sky in the painting over the mantelpiece back at the apartment. It was still cold, though, out of the sun.

He sat at one of the tables near the end of the awning, where the sunshine still splashed in beneath the yellow canvas, warming the air. The coffee, too, warmed him inside. He wasn’t thinking too much about anything, just watching the men and women moving the stalls.