The Time

It surely hadn't always been this way, been this reflexive and natural. There had to have been a time when it wasn't easy, when there was sweat and fear and sleeplessness and whispers in the night. He steadied himself against a wall, feeling the rain course down the back of his jacket and the warm sour weight of the booze in his gut. There had to have been a time. But now there was the space between the action, and here – this shambling half existence of cigarettes and street lights. Maybe that was what had happened, that the uncertainty had turned to a numb dull apathy towards it all, aided of course by the barely lit backroom bars of whatever city the job was in.

He'd worked with professionals, worked with amateurs – even worked with clients on a few occasions, occasions which usually required twice as much as he'd needed to get him here. The solitary profession, the lonely career. He wasn't recognised anywhere, wouldn't be mourned when either it all got too much or one of the many constantly appearing potential usurpers finally decided they needed to get active about filling a dead man's shoes. At the mouth of the alley, an occasional car hurtled through the rain and the early morning. In the distance a clock tower sonorously sounded the hour, rolling out the morning as the undersides of the storm clouds blanched in the east.

He leant heavily against the lamp post, and breathed in heavily to clear his head. The rain had stirred up the dumpsters, which leaked oily unknown substance into the rainbow sheened puddles. The smell of the evening before, when the storm had come, the breaking of the heat and the almost audible exhalation of the baking streets in the downpour. The storm had been the cover, not ideal given the occasion but it had at least cleared the streets. The job wasn't a big one, but being able to get there and out afterwards without leaving a trace of memory, of a face, a strange figure in a strange part of town – well, the rain might as well have taken a cut of the earnings. Never mind now, it was over and the briefness of it compared to this – the screams and blurred movement, the sweat and the fear just compressed against the steady rainfall, the dripping and the rising silence. Turning into the street, with the first shutters being rattled up by the bleary eyed storekeepers, he dug a crumpled carton of cigarettes out of the detritus of coins, flyers and wrappers that recorded the black periods in his mind from the last twelve hours. Spilling the majority of it onto the street, the cigarette was lit with a sputtering lighter.

Moving off down the street, avoiding eye contact with the storekeepers and drivers of the passing cars the weight of the job, and the drinking after the job – the drinking which had become as much a part of the job as the personality, the solitary lifestyle, the mask of personality. The costume. God, the whole fashion element. And the props. The wave of disgust overcame him, and he grimaced as he trudged along the pavement, his fists clenching automatically. This wasn't the way things were supposed to be, this wasn't anything like an existence. He served those who didn't have the power to do the obvious, who had more respect than to lower themselves to the brief strenuous acts which made their lives just a little bit easier. He allowed himself a small smile and shook his head. Yes indeed, it was a tough life being a clown in this town.

"I think you'd better finish the bottle son", the barman said as he wiped down the formica with a beer soaked cloth, "we're closing now.

Knight looked at the bottle, as it wavered in and out of focus and nodded with the uncertainty of whether or not his head would stay on. The bottle had been full when the bar was and now was almost as empty as the backroom of this desolate haven for night drinkers. He poured the final measure, the bottle clunking against the glass, and downed it. Then, with absolutely no grace and poise whatsoever, he fell backwards off his stool and into the welcoming darkness.

Water. Drip. Cold. Drip. In. Drip. Drips. Drip. Awake. The alley behind the bar, maybe. It could have been any of the hundred alleys he'd woken up in. Eyes opened, but then tightly closed as a push of everything ran against his forehead. Something here. There was something here not right. Not the empty wallet, used lighter and distressing lack of something to smoke. Someone further out. Alley, dumpsters, rain - drip - no, something else. Something that, unlike Knight, definitely did not belong amongst the puddles and debris of city life.

Something that forty minutes later had Knight pulled in for questioning, roughly thrown into the back of a meatwagon and pushed firmly into a wooden chair. The officer smelt of cigarettes and coffee, although in his experience most of them did. It was either that or the unmistakeable perfume that could only be found on the women of South Street, and Knight doubted any of the men here's wives would even know about that particular part of time. Clark had always said the best test of a bent cop was the whiff of perfume. This officer smelt of cigarettes, coffee and the kind of trouble that only a truly law abiding man could bring.

"Look, we found you in the alley right next to her. You," he leant in a sniffed deep "you're drunker than a sailor on shore leave still, and god knows what state you were in. Now you say you don't know what happened, and I can believe that looking at you. So maybe, maybe you blacked out. Met the girl, knocked her around when she wasn't interested and went too far. It'd sure be easier on my for it to happen like that," He proffered a smoke, his eyes fixed on Knight. Knight stared back, unblinking and motionless.

"I want my phone call. I want my lawyer. I want a cup of coffee and a better cigarette than those sticks you're smoking. Then we can talk. Until then, you keep on talking, this is better than a radio play" He stretched in the chair, but was caught by the arm by one of the uniformed goons stood by the door. The blow was calculated, swift and hurt like the dentist without novocaine. Knight sagged as the officer walked past him, looking away.

"Boys, leave enough of him for another round later, we're going to need his hands to sign a confession. I'll be back in ten minutes"

Ah, thought Knight as the door slammed shut, must be lavender. It was a long ten minutes.

The body lay on a block of enamelled metal and was examined and dissected and sample by uncaring men in rubber gloves with shiny tools devoid of any life. It was cut and restored, and tagged and filed. Forms were filled, detectives filed in and out of the room their voices hushed but their cigarettes remained lit. Whatever life had been there before now, was extinguished entirely with the card in the slot on the front of the morgue drawer the body was placed in. What once had been life, was transformed, was now merely evidence.