The Grin of the Dark

THIRTY-THREE - SOLEMN TRIO

Might they have let me go if I hadn't tried to insist on making a phone call? They kept saying they weren't the police, to which I could only retort that they shouldn't act as if they were. Once I'd had enough of that routine I was reduced to peering at my watch until the mime attracted the attention of one of the uniformed men. At least, I thought it did, although he homed in on my other wrist. 'Show me that, please, sir.'

No doubt I shouldn't have attempted to joke. 'Haven't you seen enough of me?' I said, since they'd taken my clothes as well as the suitcase.

He frowned at the remark and then at my wrist. His even bulkier colleague joined in as a preamble to asking 'What's your explanation for this, sir?'

'I hurt it on the handle of my case before some bloody fool broke it. Maybe it's infected. I'd better see a doctor.'

'That isn't an infection, sir. We've seen things like it before.'

The reddened remnants of a circle with a gleeful face inside it did indeed resemble something else – a brand? I was about to ask what they thought it recalled when the lesser but more sharply voiced man said 'Is that your explanation, sir?'

'If you mean the clown, all right, I know you do, I got it here.'

Both men seemed to grow instantly heavier, and so did the larger one's voice. 'Here.'

'Not here as in here here. Up the road. In London.'

'Where exactly, sir?'

Perhaps my jet lag was doing some of the talking. 'They called it St Pancreas,' I said.

The men's frowns stiffened almost imperceptibly, and the lesser hulk glanced at the sheet he'd filled in. 'Are you sure you've given us your correct address, sir?'

'Of course I'm sure,' I declared, not far short of an undefined panic until I grasped the point. 'Yes, I live near there. I know it isn't really called that. It may have been a joke. Not mine.'

'Perhaps you can tell us whose,' the man with the document said.

'At a fair. A memorabilia fair, that's to say. What's supposed to be sinister about it? It's just a stamp everyone got when they went in. It must have got under my skin, that's all.'

'We've seen something very similar on drugs.'

For an insane second I was tempted to enquire which drugs the two of them were on. 'You can see clown faces all over the show. I don't mean you,' I probably shouldn't have added, and then there seemed to be nothing more to say.

Despite the hardness of the chair, I must have nodded off. No doubt that increased my resemblance to a drug fiend. I flee the company of Tubby's face, which shines as white as his teeth, to find myself once again in a windowless boxy place. Beyond it amplified voices continue to announce delays, though not mine. I feel as if I'm imprisoned behind the scenes. There are three unformed men in the room now – no, uniformed – and I have to blink hard to establish that they don't have Tubby's face. The third is the officer who took away my belongings, and he's murmuring to his colleague who wrote my details down. 'Just traces of activity on the clothing. No evidence of importation.'

His associate notices I'm awake. His expression grows officially neutral as he turns to say 'You can leave whenever you're ready.'

'I've been that for hours.'

The three men stare at me but don't otherwise respond. The one with the document adds some lines to it while I dress. I've grabbed my suitcase and am lugging it towards the door when he says 'You'll need to sign this.'

The sheet states I was detained on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance, but it's the last phrase that makes my eyes feel even rawer with fury than with jet lag: 'insufficient reason for action'. By Christ there wasn't, and only my unwillingness to linger prevents me from saying as much if not more. I take hold of the ballpoint, though the weight of the suitcase has left my fingers clumsy, and scrawl my name. Before I can retrieve the case the man responsible for the document says 'May I see your passport again, sir?'

'Good God, what's the problem now?' While it seems advisable to hand over the passport without uttering the question, I barely succeed. His colleagues gather round to help him gaze at it and at the incident report. Eventually the bulkiest man says 'These aren't the same signature.'

'You try signing after you've had to drag a heavy case about after some bloody useless incompetent buggered it up,' I snarl and grab the ballpoint, which my crippled fingers almost fling at him. I rest my other hand on top of them in case this steadies them while I cross out my signature and rewrite it at half the speed. 'There, that's the real thing,' I say with only some of my anger. 'Anyway, that's my picture, isn't it? You can see it's me.'

The three of them scrutinise the photograph until I have the deranged notion that they're preparing to deny that too. After a pause long enough for yet another delay to be announced, the keeper of the documents hands my passport back. 'Please follow me, sir.'

'Where? For Christ's sake, what's the nonsense now?'

The three adopt pained frowns that look unsettlingly identical. 'I'll walk you through Customs so you aren't held up any further,' he says.

'I'm sorry.' Mortifyingly, I am.

As I follow him out of the interrogation room and through the green exit at Customs I struggle to steer the case ahead of me, almost catching his heels more than once. Beyond a barrier in the arrivals hall, people brandish placards with the names of passengers. I glance along the line, but of course I can't see my name. Above them a clock magnifies my realisation that Mark's play starts in less than an hour, and I turn my frustration on my escort. 'Did it really have to take that long when I'd done absolutely nothing at all?'

'I wouldn't quite say that, sir.'

'I'd done nothing illegal. Nothing that's against the law where I was, at any rate.'

'Behaviour we'd call paedophilia is tolerated in some countries. That doesn't mean you can avoid prosecution when you return to ours. Now if you'll excuse me...'

I will. I wish I had sooner. Bystanders are staring at me over the barrier as if they've overheard the comments I would least have liked anyone to hear. I'm trundling the case ahead of me – I feel capable of using it to ram anyone who looks at me wrong – when I see that my humiliation hasn't been observed just by strangers. Pacing me behind the silent chorus line, their faces set for a confrontation, are Warren and Bebe Halloran.