Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  They got a table at the back of the Coffee Cup cafe. Belsey ordered eggs and toast and a double espresso on her company card. Miller ordered orange juice. She launched straight into interview mode.

  “Can you confirm it’s gang-related?”

  “No. But it’s going to impact on property prices.”

  “Come on, Nick. I heard the girl who got shot was eighteen.”

  “That’s why I like you, Miranda. You tell me news.”

  “And I’ve got a leak from the chief super himself that they’re searching for three teenagers.”

  “He leaked that?”

  “Straight to me. A robbery gone wrong.”

  “It’s not a robbery.” Belsey sipped coffee and when the food arrived he set about it hungrily.

  “It’s a robbery according to Northwood,” Miller said.

  “Northwood doesn’t know how to work this sort of investigation. He’s in line for assistant commissioner and thinks this is going to be open and shut and get his face on TV.”

  “And it’s not?”

  “It’ll get him on TV. There’s nothing straightforward about it, as far as I can tell. The whole thing’s crazy. Have you heard anything else about the girl?”

  “The victim? Nothing yet. Why are you so sure it wasn’t a robbery?”

  “There was no attempt to take anything.”

  “What information do you have on that?”

  “I don’t have information, Miranda. I’ve got a hunch. It says you’re being fed desperation and guesswork. It says there were two buses parked at the stand in front of the coffee shop and no one in front of them with a gun. But I don’t have evidence and I haven’t been asked to find any. Do you want another juice?”

  “I’ve got a live two-way in ten.” Miller flicked open a compact. She checked her face and teeth. “Do me a favour: pass the usual message to the parents. Put them in touch with me if there’s going to be any interviews or appeals.”

  “What are you starting at these days?” Belsey said.

  “Two grand.”

  “For their grief?”

  “For an interview. Everyone gets the grief. And a photograph of her would be wonderful.”

  “And what do I see?”

  Miller snapped the mirror closed. She fished a fifty-pound note from her suit jacket and placed it on the table with a business card, drank the juice down and wiped her mouth.

  “Did you know, Starbucks have requested we don’t refer to it as the Starbucks shooting?” She grinned humourlessly. “No ‘Starbucks Killer’ or ‘Starbucks Victim.’ ”

  “They’re quick. Didn’t you once say you’d speak to your producer about getting me a show?”

  “I know a guy who does police-chase videos. I can talk to him.”

  “It’ll be like that,” Belsey said, taking the money. “High speed: but thought, not cars. But all the violence, all the crashes.”

  “Promise you’ll call me if you get a suspect. Even a wrong one.”

  “OK.”

  “A police source cast doubt on the gang-related leads. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a story.”

  “Give me a call soon, Nick. You’re making me curious.”

  Emergency Incident Room: St. John’s Church, Downshire Hill.

  The street was one of Hampstead’s most charismatic, with overgrown gardens behind high brick walls. Its sash windows now reflected back a stream of homicide detectives heading to the whitewashed church at its centre.

  The temporary incident room had overwhelmed St. John’s. Belsey saw officers from Serious and Organised filing in, which meant someone somewhere had twigged it might be a hit. There were also reps from the specialist gang units, press officers, heads of forensic departments. He stepped in, showing his badge. The usually airy, classical-style church was a trading floor of investigation. One large whiteboard at the front carried lists of the officers visiting every Starbucks in the area, questioning every local jogger, dog walker, milkman and rough sleeper who might have caught a glimpse of anything suspect.

  “Nick, what are you doing here?” Detective Sergeant Karl Munroe, an expert on evasion, walked past clutching two phones and a notepad: Munroe knew where people went when they wanted to vanish, how they got money, what modes of transport they used. He was short, with tinted glasses and a stubble-shadowed face.

  “Karl. Long time. Where’s he gone?”

  “It won’t be far.”

  “Do they have an address for the girl?”

  “Lived with her parents on Lymington Road. Number 18. That’s all at the moment.”

  Belsey knew the road. He’d never visited that address.

  “What are people saying?”

  “It’s a mess, Nick, I’ll be honest with you. The best we’ve got is this report of a red motorbike heading north along Willow Road.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “All shaky. One saw two men enter the Starbucks. Another thought there were three. One said the gunman was black or Asian, and came out of a back room shouting in Arabic, maybe praying.”

  “Nice to have a choice.”

  Munroe smiled wanly. Belsey walked towards the back of the church hall, where they had the pictures up. They’d set up a pigpen with banks of phones manned by civilian workers. The phones were ringing. Dead girls did that. Beyond the phones were boards with photographs of the Starbucks. To one side were photographs of the girl on the floor where she’d fallen. Jessica Holden, Belsey thought. He looked closer. Then he knew where he’d seen her before, and the world lurched.

  He caught the Northern Line to Bank, surfaced at Monument and walked past St. Clement’s Church to the office of AD Development.

  The lights were off. The door was locked. The brass plaque had been unscrewed, leaving four small holes and some unpainted wood. A broken estate agent’s “To Let” board sat propped against the front door. It hadn’t been there before, but didn’t look new either, suggesting someone had removed it and temporarily hidden it away. Belsey climbed up on the churchyard wall and peered over the curtain into the office. He tried to understand what he was seeing. The office was empty; not just of people but of furniture. He got down, fetched a piece of stone from the adjacent churchyard and smashed the office window. An alarm went off. He reached in, opened the window and climbed through, landing heavily among flaked plaster and broken glass.

  All the cabinets and drawers had disappeared, along with the hat stand, desks and chairs. Even the carpet had gone, revealing old flagstones.

  Belsey let himself out of the front door in time to see a couple of City constables turn into the lane, speaking on their radios. He pulled his badge out.

  “I didn’t see them. I just heard the alarm and took a look—the window’s smashed. Can’t see that there’s much to take anyway.” The constables went over and shone a flashlight through the broken pane. “Has this been empty long?” Belsey asked.

  “Months. Like most of the empty offices around here.”

  “The landlords should get some better security,” Belsey said.

  He found Devereux’s business card and called the London number from a phone box at the end of the alleyway. A young woman said: “AD Development.”

  “Can I speak to Mr. Devereux?” Belsey said.

  “I’m afraid he’s not in the office. Can I take a message?” The voice was bright, scripted, Scouse.

  “Is this a call-forwarding service?”

  “This is AD Development. I can pass a message on to Mr. Devereux.”

  “Is Sophie there?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Jessica?”

  “If I can take a message we will make sure someone gets back to you as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll speak to anyone in the office.”

  “I’m afraid they’re in a meeting.”

  “This is RingCentral, isn’t it?” Belsey said.

  “This is the line for AD Development. Can I help any further?”


  Belsey hung up and called the number on the estate agent’s board.

  “Yes, we’re sole agents for that property.”

  “How long has it been unoccupied?”

  “Six months. The previous tenants needed somewhere with more space, but it’s a one-off property. Very distinguished history. Would you like to take a look?”

  21

  Lymington Road led away from Hampstead Village, down from the grittier side of the Finchley Road to West End Lane. The street separated a low-rise, red-brick estate to the south from Hampstead Cricket Club to the north. Finally, as it curved towards West Hampstead, a few of the original pre-war houses remained backing onto the tracks of the North London Line.

  Belsey had no difficulty finding the victim’s home. Number 18 was made conspicuous by a ragged front garden and the fluorescent constable on its doorstep.

  “DC Belsey. Hampstead station.” Belsey pulled his badge out. “Are the parents in?”

  “They’re in.”

  “I was there earlier. I’ve been asked to speak to them.”

  The doorman looked sceptical. “OK,” he said. “But we can’t have everyone tramping through.”

  Belsey stepped into a harsh, surreal scene. The mother was on the sofa, moaning something incoherent. The father sat in an armchair staring into space. They didn’t look up when Belsey entered. A family liaison officer stood on the patio, smoking.

  The house was crowded with dusty ornaments and books with broken spines. Belsey smelt it as soon as he set foot inside: a kind of poverty which eats away from within, an erosion fought against with the accumulation of valueless objects, artworks, papers, as if to stop the whole facade imploding. The wallpaper was starting to peel. Resentment had crept into the fabric of the furnishings. Belsey had lost count of the number of times he’d attended a supposed burglary and smelt the place, then moved a magazine and seen the unopened envelopes, always the unopened envelopes. And he’d wait to see the kind of insurance claim they put in and have to decide whether to report the burglary or the fraud or neither.

  Belsey turned from the lounge. He trod silently up the stairs.

  Police and thieves: both could find their way around a home with their eyes closed. Domestic lives fall into only so many patterns, as if there were some unseen magnetic field commanding the detritus of a family.

  He walked into the dead girl’s bedroom and it was all wrong.

  Pop stars on the wall. Teen magazines. He checked the dates: two years old, three years old. A kid’s notepad, school files. He ran a finger over the bedside table and watched a line form in the dust. Belsey looked through the cupboard and the drawers and found a lot of old supermarket-brand clothes and not much else.

  He went back downstairs to the living room thinking about the glamorous young woman he’d seen that morning. The mother had worn herself into exhaustion. The father hadn’t moved. There were photographs of Jessica on display: riding a horse, at a theme park, with grandparents. She was an only child, it seemed. Belsey picked up a framed school photograph. Now he was sure: Jessica had been Sophie, Alexei Devereux’s assistant. He put it back.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Holden,” Belsey said. The husband looked up, blankly. “My name’s Nick Belsey. I’m a detective from Hampstead station.”

  It took them a moment to process this. Feeling awkward, Belsey poured them all whisky from a bottle on the sideboard. He put their drinks on the table. The mother was shaking. Had he originally had it in mind to say something? The peace of her last moments; she spoke of you; she felt no pain. He downed the whisky, a cheap, sweet Scotch. Then he made his address.

  “I want you to know Jessica passed away quickly. I was there and I think she suffered very little. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. My job is to help bring whoever did this to justice and there’s not a moment to waste. So forgive me if this seems intrusive.”

  No one spoke. Neither of them had taken their whisky. He sat down.

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  After a moment there came the slightest shake of the head from the woman.

  Belsey said: “The job Jessica was doing, how long had she been working there?”

  “She didn’t have a job.” The mother’s voice was hoarse.

  “Did she work at all?” he said. “Part-time? Anything like that?”

  “No.” The mother shook her head. “She was at school,” she said. “Just school.”

  Belsey took a moment to consider this. People have secret jobs to go with secret needs for money. They have secret names to go with secret jobs. Teenagers find school insufficiently lucrative and skive into employment. Or maybe the mother was right: Jessica wasn’t working. Then what was she doing?

  “Was there a boyfriend?”

  The mother started crying again. The father found his voice.

  “Not that we knew of.”

  “When was she last seeing someone?”

  “She was too young for boys,” the father said. “There was nothing serious.”

  “But she went out sometimes, maybe to parties.”

  “Of course.”

  Belsey refilled his glass. He’d almost forgotten his promise to Miranda Miller.

  “Have you spoken to any reporters?” he asked.

  “We don’t want anything to do with reporters,” the father said.

  “Good. Because it’s important you get it right. If you need to speak to anyone, this is the woman the police recommend.” He passed Miller’s card. “A public statement can help the investigation; it jogs memories, witnesses come forward. This will get you through to Miranda Miller from Channel Five. She wants to help.”

  The mother examined the card as if it was meant to explain more than it did. Belsey stood up. He couldn’t bring himself to procure photographs. He’d tainted the purity of their grief and could leave now. There was still dust on his fingers.

  “She can help financially,” he said, nodding at the card. They heard him, but didn’t look up. Belsey continued to the door. But he wasn’t done.

  “What was Jessica like?” he said, turning. They looked straight at him now.

  “What do you mean?” the mother said.

  “Was she outgoing?”

  “She was a thoughtful girl. Always thinking.”

  “Friends?”

  “Yes, a few.”

  But the mother was looking up at the corner of the ceiling; you saw it in interview rooms a lot. It meant she was struggling to remember.

  “She hasn’t been here much recently, has she?” Belsey said.

  A silence. The husband looked to his wife.

  “She came and went,” the wife said.

  “Difficult girl? Lots of rows?” They couldn’t bring themselves to nod. “When was she last here?”

  “A few weeks ago.” The mother’s voice cracked. It was all about to get teary again.

  “Have you told the other officers?”

  “She knew there was always a bed for her,” the mother said. She covered her face with her hands. Grief is always guilt, Belsey thought.

  “She was a young woman. There was nothing we could do to keep track of where she went,” the father said.

  “But did you tell anyone she’d run off?”

  “She hadn’t run off.”

  Belsey turned again and this time began to leave.

  “Will you?” the mother said.

  “Will I what?”

  “Tell them.”

  “If I get the chance.”

  “Do you think it means something?” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Was the shooting something to do with Jessica?”

  “I don’t think so,” Belsey said. And it was a lie.

  22

  The solid Victorian brickwork of South Hampstead High School nestled behind the Finchley Road at the end of a residential street now thronging with TV crews. They stood just outside the school gates, grabbing sound bites from any girl who would stop. There were plenty of th
em, crying, fixing makeup, going out on their lunch breaks to smoke. It meant everyone was distracted and Belsey could walk in unchallenged.

  The echoing corridors were crowded with girls who stared as he passed. Did he look in a fit state to wander a school? He hoped he looked less strung-out than he felt. He remembered this sense of drive from the back-to-back shifts on other murder cases, body moving beyond fatigue, day and night taking on one shade of stress.

  Belsey made his way through the school, asking directions until he found the headmistress’s office. The door was open. The study looked unthreatening, bright with GCSE artwork and a lot of well-tended plants. In the background, a radio on the window ledge droned news of the shooting. The headmistress nodded to Belsey and continued to speak on the phone; she was younger than he expected, but with an authority that was hard to miss, in a well-cut suit and with blow-dried hair.

  “No . . . Yes . . . No, we’re not treating this as a threat to the school . . . Yes, we’ll be letting parents know as soon as we can. Thank you.”

  She hung up, gave an exasperated sigh. The phone started ringing and she unplugged it. Belsey showed his badge and she nodded wearily and beckoned him in.

  “We’re under siege here,” she said.

  “I’ll keep this brief.”

  A woman’s voice from the radio said: “. . . a straight-A pupil with everything before her . . .”

  The headmistress paused a second beside the radio.

  “Where do they get these ideas?” She shook her head then turned it off.

  “From you?” Belsey said.

  “Not me. Not from my staff. I feel terrible about what happened, and I’m sure she was perfectly pleasant if you got to know her, but she wasn’t a straight-A pupil. Not recently.”

  Belsey helped himself to a seat. He wondered what to make of this.

  “Do you have a moment? I have a few questions.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “She was on financial aid,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Her parents ran into financial difficulties about eighteen months ago, couldn’t meet the fees.”

  “Yes. How do you know?”

  “Because I’m a Hampstead detective. What else do you remember about her?”