The Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  “Are you done?” she asked.

  “Give me a moment.”

  Hawks went and sat on a stool by the side counter. “What are you thinking?”

  “What’s the mistake people make when trying to slit their own throat?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t know. What is it?”

  “They tilt their heads back.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “Tilt your head back.”

  She did. He came over and touched her throat, running a finger along the muscle.

  “That’s the platysma; it’s a fine muscle. It’s not easy to hack through.”

  “Maybe he didn’t.”

  “I found him with the head back,” Belsey said.

  “And?”

  “Could you see it being murder?”

  “I’m not a police detective. There’s nothing to make me think foul play—there are trial cuts, a tapering wound, no other injuries. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “What do you know about Project Boudicca?”

  The pathologist stared at him. “Is she involved?”

  “I think she may be.”

  “Queen of the Iceni. Burnt London down. You still find Roman coins that melted together in the heat.” She looked at the clock. “It’s quarter to nine, Nick. Why am I doing your history homework for you?”

  “I’m trying to broaden my education.”

  “Try the coroner tomorrow. Maybe he can broaden your education.”

  Belsey binned his gloves. They washed their hands together at the sink. Belsey said: “Did you know the first coroners were meant to go to shipwrecks to see how much treasure there was for the king? That’s what they were for.”

  “I didn’t know that. What do you want me to do with Mr. Devereux?”

  “Just get rid of him.” She dried her hands. Then she looked up at Belsey, wearily. “No. Hold on to him for the moment,” Belsey said.

  17

  He picked the car up and headed north, trying to outrun a growing sense of doom. No passport, no cash, a body begging for an investigation, a Porsche Cayenne filthy with Belsey’s prints. A seven-year-old would see that the whole thing stank.

  It started to rain, a malevolent rain that took its time with cold, heavy drops that streaked the windscreen. The world did not seem a good place for habitation. Judgement falls, and through the water that saves the occupants of the floating ark, the rest of life is destroyed. Belsey drove through Hampstead Village. For a moment he felt there was a car tailing him, then it disappeared. He thought: Tomorrow I’ll come clean. Maybe he could still take the suspension, do some sick time, move quietly to the Home Counties with a police flat and uniform duties and a voluntary arrangement to pay off his debts. For the rest of his life. He’d resign himself to debt, time measured in debt. To being police.

  Belsey turned off Heath Street onto Church Row to the Church of St. John. He needed a moment’s peace. And it was beautiful, in the darkness, with the rain easing. The church boasted a Hampstead graveyard out of a Gothic imagination, crooked and overgrown, with maze-like back ways and small districts of thick holly opening onto the occasional weather-softened bench.

  He sat on a bench beside a family tomb and knew he would not come clean. He intended to flee London; his first instinct had been right. And it would have to be soon. He felt it not as a plan but as fate. Whatever happened, he was out of London within the next forty-eight hours. He didn’t need more nonsense with numbered accounts and a suicide that didn’t feel right; not with obsessive-compulsive Yard cops interfering and God knows what other international agencies keeping watch. He would just sell a car and TV to Cassidy and buy the cheapest ticket he could find.

  And suddenly everything looked different. He was in the realm of last sights and last good-byes.

  A last night as a billionaire.

  Hampstead didn’t offer many pickup joints. Belsey wondered where to drive for a final roll of the dice, just one conclusive exploitation of his Hampstead mansion and its king-size beds. All the obvious destinations felt like a step backwards, the usual tired bars and clubs. And, he realised despondently, only eleven pounds of his assets were in disposable cash. He leaned back and thought maybe he’d spend the night in the cemetery. Then he became aware of a light seeping between the graves, coming from the windows of the church crypt.

  He walked over. Through the window he saw into what served, by day, as a nursery. The child-sized chairs were stacked in a corner and twenty adult ones had been arranged in a circle in the centre of the floor, sixteen filled with men and women, pensive beneath the nursery’s strip lights. The women outnumbered the men.

  Belsey stepped back. Then he smoothed his hair and reknotted his tie. He found the stone steps to the crypt and descended.

  A small, arched door led into the nursery. Children’s paintings decorated the walls. Jars of water along the window ledge held dirty brushes. Belsey went over to a table with a stainless-steel urn and a plate of biscuits. He made a cup of strong instant coffee. If it was going to taste like tar he might as well get a kick out of it. He found an empty chair, sat down and didn’t look around.

  The meeting started.

  “Welcome,” the leader said. “My name’s Aidan.”

  Aidan said hello to the old faces and welcome to the new. He wore heavy-framed glasses and held a folder of self-help literature. An estate agent with bad shakes was introduced by his wife. She was there to help him through it. “Whatever it takes,” she kept saying. She had brought fruit cake for the group, and offered it to Belsey. Belsey took some cake. Beside the estate agent sat a gaunt boy of eighteen or nineteen in the blue-and-orange uniform of a supermarket chain, then an older man with a tattoo of a tiger up one of his arms and a bomber jacket under his chair. Five or six people arrived as the meeting got going: Hampstead drunks—retired judges, an old actor, women of the Conservative Party. Belsey tried not to look too closely.

  A woman arrived late, and took the seat opposite Belsey’s own. She was about his age. She smoothed a hand over auburn hair and crossed her legs. Her skirt was tiny and it was a long way down the legs to a pair of sleek black heels. But he looked at her because she had green eyes that might have been crying recently, and when she glanced up at him he felt a shiver. She looked professional, beautiful and awkward, like someone who’d found themselves alcoholic in the way you find something spilled on your shirt.

  “Hi,” she said in a low voice. “Sorry I’m late.”

  The room turned to her and then away, the men turning a little faster than the women. But the new arrival scanned the place, eyes bright and quick. Her gaze held Belsey’s a second too long. He checked his memory for recent victims, witnesses, suspects; fellow police and barristers. He’d never seen her before.

  When it came to her turn the woman said her name was Charlotte and she’d been dry twenty-two hours, then admitted it was actually five. Her voice was confident until it cracked. She’d fallen off the wagon, she said, but was determined to make it work this time. She knew she couldn’t do it alone. She was a fashion buyer for a popular high-street department store. She was thirty-two years old. Everyone clapped. Belsey watched her eyes and checked for clues: light makeup, plain silver-chain necklace. No wedding ring, he was pleased to see, although there was nothing a wedding ring ever stopped and sometimes it made the whole thing simpler.

  When it came to his turn Belsey said his name was Jack and he hadn’t drunk for ten years. He said he’d come that night because a friend had killed himself. He looked up a couple of times during the first half of the meeting and the woman was still watching him. She looked away each time.

  “What does a moral inventory imply?” the group leader asked. “Firstly, that we are thorough, that there is no corner of our soul that remains cluttered with excuses . . .”
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  Belsey walked up to Charlotte at the break, as she was standing beside the hot-water urn.

  “Welcome,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, then, “Ten years. I can’t imagine not doing anything for ten years.”

  “Well, it’s really not worth imagining.” Belsey smiled and she smiled. She measured some instant coffee into a plastic cup. “You’ve made the hardest step,” he said. “Coming here tonight.”

  “Is that right?”

  “No.”

  “I’m Charlotte.” She shook his hand. “I guess you heard me say that already.”

  “Jack.”

  She made a coffee and held it, standing with her hip against the edge of the table. Belsey wondered if five hours sober was an exaggeration as well. She blew gently through the steam and shot glances around the room.

  “Are you local?” she asked.

  “Local enough,” Belsey said.

  “Lucky you.”

  “I love this area.”

  “It’s encouraging hearing about people who’ve kept control for so long,” she said.

  “Sure,” Belsey said, and took a sip of coffee. “To be honest, I thought this was Sex Addicts Anonymous.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m kidding.”

  She laughed.

  “It must feel good, being sober so long.”

  “It feels rubbish. The coffee doesn’t taste any better either,” he said, and poured the rest down the sink.

  Charlotte sat next to him for the second half of the meeting. There were readings from the AA book and another discussion. But Belsey had lost concentration now. To finish off, the estate agent stood up and told the group about his experiences in care homes and how he had forgiven his abusers as God had forgiven him.

  “We think we are strong,” the man said, “and then, when we discover we are weak, we think we have failed . . .”

  Charlotte started to cry. Belsey put an arm around her shoulders. There was a lot of talk from the group about taking things slowly and attending as many meetings as possible. Then they all stood up and held hands to say a prayer. Belsey felt the small bones of her hand in his own.

  Afterwards a couple of the members came over to Charlotte and hugged her. There was a trading session of inspirational cards and leaflets. The estate agent’s wife insisted Charlotte keep the leftover cake. She said God was looking out for her. The next time Belsey looked round Charlotte had gone.

  He helped empty the urn and stack chairs and arrange the children’s ones. Belsey wondered if the daytime nursery was aware of the room’s nighttime function. He imagined the adult chairs stacked in the corner during the day, like a lesson they weren’t ready for. He left through the church itself. It had a painting he remembered from the only other time he had been inside, when the donations box was stolen. It showed Christ among shepherds. There was writing above and below him: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.” “Quiet waters” made him think of the reservoirs above Walthamstow marshes, which he had helped dredge once looking for a missing toddler.

  He left the church. There was a figure standing alone under a streetlamp, waiting.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Charlotte.”

  “What a bunch.”

  “Now you know why it’s anonymous.”

  She grinned. She shrugged inside her coat and looked around. Church Row was empty. It had stopped raining.

  “Are you driving?” he asked.

  “I probably shouldn’t.” She glanced at the keys in her hand. “Are you going to tell me not to?”

  “No.”

  “Did you say you lived around here?” Her eyes were wide and bright. She looked at the streetlights. Each had a halo and sprinkled its light across the wet stones.

  “Yes. A short drive away.” Belsey patted the Porsche. “This is my car. Would you like to come back for a while?”

  18

  They drove up Heath Street, past the private art galleries and Mediterranean restaurants to Whitestone Pond. It was a clear night now. The pond had frozen. The SUV hadn’t elicited much of a reaction from Charlotte. But then, Belsey thought, she was a classy young woman. How rich did he seem? They passed a burger van that served the night’s community of men looking for other men among the trees and turned onto Spaniards Road.

  “You live along here?” Charlotte said.

  It was a dark road. If she knew the area, she’d know there were only mansions ahead, and if she didn’t, it looked like wilderness.

  “Just a minute along here. But we can stop and I’ll pay for you to get a cab if you want.”

  “No, it’s fine. This is my direction anyway. It’s all so beautiful. I’d forgotten what Hampstead is like at night.”

  “This is Dick Turpin’s old haunt,” Belsey said, reaching for small talk. “The highway robber. They used to have what they called gibbet elms along the side of the road to display the bodies of executed criminals.”

  “Nice touch.”

  He sensed she was uneasy. But then it hadn’t been him waiting to pounce outside the meeting. He made a conscious effort to keep things lighthearted.

  “All these old streetlamps are listed,” he said. “I love them. You know there used to be ten thousand lamplighters in London, in the days of gas. Every night they’d come out.”

  Where had all the lamplighters gone? Belsey imagined them seeing the first electric light and knowing it was over, raising money to set sail; following the horizon of darkness.

  “Oh. They’re beautiful lamps.”

  “So if you’re not local what were you doing at the meeting?” he said.

  “I had some work locally.”

  “Fashion buying.”

  “Exactly,” she said, but without conviction.

  They passed the Spaniards Inn and he wondered which one of them was being played. A block later he turned left onto The Bishops Avenue.

  “Oh my God.” She laughed. “Who are you?”

  He parked a few houses up from 37 and they walked. He kept one eye on the security booths across the street, another on the parked cars, the bushes and the shadows that led up to Devereux’s. They reached the gates.

  “Here we are.”

  “What is this?”

  “Home.”

  He led her across the drive, up to the front door, and she was silent. Wealth had come between them. He opened the door.

  “Are you living here alone?” she said, when he turned the hall light on and the stairs and fountain appeared. It all struck him now as stiff, like a stage set.

  “At the moment.”

  “You don’t get lonely?”

  “I get very lonely. Would you wait here?”

  Belsey went to the bedroom and locked the safe room. It smelt fine now. He closed the window. What was he doing? It was reckless to the point of suicidal. Maybe it was a way of forcing an endgame. A lot of criminals commit crime to give them an excuse for running. He understood that. And it would make it easier giving up the wealth if he’d exhausted its potential. One way to defeat a vice is to exhaust it. He needed to exhaust the ghost of Devereux.

  He went to the living room and hid the empty bottles and slid the cognac behind the sofa. He picked up any envelopes or paperwork with Devereux’s name on. Devereux’s home would still carry traces of its previous occupier but he couldn’t sterilise the place. He had cover stories thought out. Rich uncles, absent bosses. More than that, he had the heady invulnerability of a man trying to get laid twenty-four hours before leaving the country.

  “Come in,” he called.

  Charlotte stepped tentatively into the room and gasped, looking at the shelves and the carpet and the books.

  “All these books. And art.”

  “Where shall we sit?” Bels
ey said.

  She sat down on the sofa. She didn’t seem too upset anymore. She slipped her coat off and Belsey admired her neck.

  “Do you have a dog?” she said.

  “No. I don’t think so. Why?”

  “There’s dog hair on the sofa. I’m allergic.”

  “Can I see it?”

  She pointed at the hair. He took it to the free-standing lamp and studied it. She was right.

  “There’s no dog,” he said. “I don’t know where this came from.”

  “Can I get a drink? I mean water, coffee,” she added hurriedly.

  He went to the kitchen and made coffee, thinking about dog hair. Man’s Best Friends. Customer present transaction, Golders Green. Would that make sense? He thought about the suspiciously perceptive fashion buyer who’d invited herself into his home. His borrowed home. When he took the coffees through, Charlotte was browsing the shelves.

  “How did you get so rich?” she asked with a child’s frankness.

  “Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Please.”

  Belsey sat down and sipped his coffee. He watched her heels denting the thick carpet.

  “I used to have nothing. Less than nothing. I drank—that’s all I did. And one day I told myself I was going to stop drinking. And at the same time I told myself—for every drink I didn’t have, I’d do some business. I’d make an extra penny. An extra pound. Every time I wanted to destroy myself I’d become rich instead.”

  “Really? That’s so impressive.”

  “Yes.” He took another sip. He had always wanted to be a self-made man. “And I found, if you do something because you want to, because you know there is a purpose, it changes you. If you do it with all your heart.”

  She sat back on the sofa beside him and took her mug.

  “Thanks.”

  “I was in the army. It taught me a lot about what’s valuable. Now most of what I do is with disadvantaged children.”

  “You were in the army?”

  “Forward operations. Like a scout. I’d radio positions for the planes.”

  “Are you religious?”