Excerpt from The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"What's on the radio?" I said, nodding at the scanner, the reason he'd waved me back over the road.

He turned a page, sniffed. "The Hamburglar's struck again." I waited and he sighed, folded the paper. "It was sexual harassment, or assault, or something . . ." 

"Sexual harassment or something?"

Sutcliffe's face, neck and body were swollen in odd, ever-shifting places, and his skin was deathly pale. He looked like he'd survived an embalming. We never used his full name, just called him Sutty to avoid distressing the public any further. 

"Jesus Christ, this heat." He ran a hand through his glistening, thinning hair. "Feels like I've had a blood transfusion from Freddie fucking Mercury." He looked up, remembered I was there and gave me a yellow smile. "You know me, Aid, I zone out as soon as I hear anything 'sexual.' We're going to Owens Park, though, if you wanna crack on . . ." 

Sexual harassment or something.

The only thing Sutty hated more than young women was me. I watched him as he began applying the alcoholic skin sanitizer that he used compulsively, whenever I got in or out of the car. It made him look like he was rubbing his hands together with glee. I gave him a smile to keep things interesting. Then I indicated and pulled out into the road.

2

It was almost midnight when we arrived at Owens Park. The largest halls of residence in the city and home to more than two thousand students, most of them first years. Set in spacious, leafy grounds, the campus comprises five main blocks, including one tower which can be seen from the street, glowering out over the trees. Gray buildings clash hard with green surroundings. The baby boomer wet dream. It had been built to last in the sixties but was looking its age now. There was talk of tearing the lot down and starting from scratch but it would be a shame when they finally got around to it. So much of the city already looked like a building site. 

I parked up and looked at Sutty.

"You coming?"

"That's a personal question. Just give us a call if her knicker-drawer needs searching." He returned to his paper. "You're always so good with the little girls . . ."

I got out of the car, ignoring his tone, frankly grateful not to be taking him with me. Sutty and I were two different kinds of bad cop. Our being partnered together was a sort of punishment for us both, and we each tried to make things as difficult as possible for the other. It was the only thing we had in common.

I walked through the gate. Followed the stark white lights, blazing in the darkness. I smelled the freshly cut grass and felt a flicker of excitement. I'd never lived here but had visited a few times when I was younger, crashing parties, seeing friends. It was strange to think that I wasn't in touch with any of them now, that dozens of people must have occupied their rooms, their beds, their lives, in the intervening years. For a moment I felt like I was walking into my past, going through a gateway into Neverland. I heard a scream of laughter and saw a teenage girl run by, being chased by a boy with a Super Soaker. Looking over my shoulder, I watched them melt into the darkness, still laughing. It reinforced a cruel, universal truth. I would age. Owens Park would always be eighteen. 

I consulted the campus map, found the block I was looking for, buzzed a first-floor flat and waited. The grounds were eerily quiet now and I turned to look around. Felt the latent power of a day's heat, humming up from the grass. Across the path stood another firm, gray block of buildings--lit windows glaring at me. I heard the bolt of the door click and turned to open it.

Excerpted from The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox. Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Knox. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.