The Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  Belsey admired the car. He was expecting Starr to say that guns popped out of the indicators. Starr spent ten minutes detailing the specs, then squeezed Belsey’s shoulder and pressed a business card into his hand. PS Security.

  “What’s the PS?” Belsey said.

  “Private Security.”

  “Private Security Security?”

  “You’re sharp,” he said. “I’ve heard good things about you, Nick Belsey. If you ever fancy a change of scene, give me a call.”

  Belsey always fancied a change of scene. He went into the office the next week, in a flash new block between Baker Street and the Edgware Road, and was taken around and told about pay packages and given a cigar. Starr showed off a room of gadgets: hidden microphones, bugs and location devices. He was proud of these and they were far superior to anything the police used. But the investigator was too smooth. The job, it seemed to Belsey, was panty-sniffing: divorce work and insurance claims; Starr himself was a bully and an egotist. A few months later PS were investigated for links with an Essex property developer wanted for attempted murder. Starr was providing him with protection and countersurveillance, and happened to be slipping lucrative work to the very police detectives investigating the developer in the first place. It was a tangled web. Eventually the case against Starr was dropped with a lot of winks and drinks all round, but then the case against the property developer was also dropped, so everyone must have had a smile on their face.

  Belsey played the message again, wiped it and called Starr back.

  “Chris, it’s Nick Belsey.”

  “Nick, how’s tricks?”

  “Tricky. How’s yours?”

  “Getting by. You hear my message?”

  “Charlotte Kelson.”

  “It’s a journalist, Nick. Works on the Mail, lives up near Archway. Just wondering if you had anything on her.”

  “I don’t think so. What’s it about?”

  “She’s been getting nosy. But I think we’re getting something anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Paying her a visit this afternoon. You might want to tell Hampstead police not to get involved, just in case someone sees the break-in and reports it.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Belsey called Charlotte’s mobile. No answer. He called her work extension and they said she was working from home. He ran downstairs and jumped into the station’s fast-response car, trying to catch his breath. He made Archway in seven minutes: lights, sirens and leaning on the horn. He killed the sirens a block away, double-parked.

  All the curtains had been drawn in Charlotte’s home. The front door was a fraction open. That seemed a bad combination. Belsey stepped inside, slow and silent.

  A corridor ran from the front door to a kitchen at the back. Halfway down was a beige-carpeted staircase. Charlotte lay at the top of the stairs. Her feet and hands had been bound behind her back and a strip of fabric stuffed into her mouth, but she was inching along the carpet to the top stair. She was struggling to breathe.

  Belsey stepped silently up the stairs. Charlotte’s eyes widened. Belsey put a finger to his lips and undid the binds and took the fabric out of her mouth. Through a door at the end of the corridor he could see a man in a white balaclava going through filing cabinets.

  Charlotte gasped for breath.

  The intruder turned. Belsey launched himself towards him, landing a fist in his face. The man fell backwards into the study. He slipped a retractable baton from his pocket and swung. It glanced off Belsey’s shoulder. He swiped at Belsey’s arms and Belsey brought his right fist up, the impact snapping the man’s head back. He brought his forehead crashing into the bridge of the intruder’s nose. The man staggered. Belsey tried to get a grip on him but his right arm had gone numb. He threw a straight-arm punch with his left and caught the side of the intruder’s mouth. There was blood now, a streak across the front of the silk balaclava. Belsey tried to tear it off him but the man turned. Belsey grabbed his wrist and forced him halfway into a police hold, gripping him from the back, but the intruder knew police holds and wasn’t ready to give up the fight. He slammed Belsey repeatedly against the wall, knocking vases and ornaments off a shelf to the floor. Charlotte grabbed an award that had fallen, a lead fountain pen set into a heavy block of wood. She smashed it against the intruder’s head. He didn’t like that. He swore and turned, flailing. Belsey sensed he didn’t enjoy being outnumbered. Charlotte aimed another swing in the direction of his face. The intruder lost his footing and almost fell, before stumbling down the stairs towards the door.

  “Let him go,” Belsey said.

  “Let him go?”

  Belsey watched the intruder jump into a blue Renault and drive off, still masked, grinding the gears.

  “What the fuck was that?” Charlotte said.

  “That was us winning. Are you OK?”

  “Better than three minutes ago.”

  They returned to the room where he’d interrupted the man. It was a study with a desk and shelves of files and reference books. Charlotte sat at the desk, still shaking. Belsey took her hands and checked her wrists where they’d been tied. Blood was returning. He released them.

  “Should I call the police?” she said. Charlotte picked up her mobile, stared at it blankly, then put it down again on the desk. She ran her hands over her face and shut her eyes, then opened them.

  “No,” Belsey said. “He’ll be on first-name terms with whoever turns up.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a private investigator.”

  Belsey went over to the filing cabinet the investigator had been so busy with.

  “It’s not where many people keep their jewellery,” he said. He slid a cabinet drawer out. “What have you been doing to get them interested?”

  “I’ve been told not to trust you.”

  “Sure. There’s been a lot of stuff thrown in your direction—do you know what I mean? I think trusting me might be your least worst option right now.” She turned to face him. “This is your decision, Charlotte. You trust me or you don’t. Tell me about the person who phoned you with so much to say about my financial situation.”

  “It was an anonymous call.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That you were bankrupt.”

  “The same person who told you to go to the casino?”

  “I think so.”

  “What does he sound like?”

  “Male, English. Middle-aged, or thereabouts.”

  Belsey pushed the cabinet drawer shut.

  “Listen, someone’s trying to tie us up in knots. The whole casino meeting was engineered to show us who was in control. They know we’re on to them. Me and you. We’re dangerous together because we’re close to figuring something out. So they’re playing games with us. I think they’re using us to block each other and to slow down the rest of the people they’ve pissed off. That’s not a very safe role for us. You might have to learn to trust me.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about them getting away with something. I think that something involves Milton Granby and the City of London. You said he was up to no good. What’s he doing?”

  “I haven’t got the details yet. It’s a scheme to bring money back into his accounts, that’s all I know. You’re bleeding,” she said.

  Charlotte led him to a bathroom. His lip was bleeding where the old cut had been reopened. He couldn’t lift his right arm very easily. He removed his shirt and inspected the damage. His right elbow had swollen. He cleaned himself up. He was more angry about the voice on the phone, fucking him over.

  Charlotte sat on the edge of the bath watching him.

  “Do you really think the Starbucks shooting is something to do with this?”

  “I know it is. Jessica Holden was in a relationship with Alexei Devereux
.”

  Charlotte looked incredulous. “A schoolgirl?”

  “Is that the surprising part?”

  She was silent as he put his shirt back on. He could see her thinking. Finally she said: “Are you really part of a Ghost Squad?”

  “Does it matter what I’m part of?” He splashed his face with water and leaned, dripping, over the sink. “We’re on to the same thing, and the same people are trying to get at us.” She passed him a towel. “What else have you found out about Devereux?” he said.

  “I’ve found out why certain Hampstead residents might not have wanted him moving in next door.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He was very into his gambling, his casinos and racetracks. Ran a lot of racetracks in Afghanistan and Russia. There was concern about animal welfare. The horses being run into the ground. There were races where the last one standing won. Big money, apparently. Not my scene.”

  “The petition was sent to the paper by Devereux himself.”

  Charlotte frowned. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He made it all up.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither. Maybe he did it to let people know he’d arrived. Maybe he liked trouble. Something else you might be interested in: Guess who sponsored Devereux’s visa application.”

  “Who?”

  “Granby himself. Devereux was meant to be at a party thrown by him last night—a get-together for compassionate industrialists and financiers. Devereux made a donation to the City Children’s Fund. Then, a few weeks before he died, he had a UK visa sponsored by Granby. The two might be connected. Granby denies ever meeting him, but he’s not shy about wanting his investment.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “Briefly. It all concerns something called Project Boudicca. That’s all I know. That’s why Devereux was in London. Are you going to be OK here?” She seemed fully recovered. Her hair was still mussed from the encounter.

  “I’m going into the office,” Charlotte said. “It seems I’ve got quite a story on my hands now.”

  Belsey walked her to Archway tube station. You never knew when another investigative thug was going to jump out. At the tube she kissed Belsey on the mouth, which took him by surprise. She kissed hard and he kissed back, ignoring the pain in his lip.

  “Was that trust?” he said when they parted.

  “No. That was me being stupid.” But she didn’t say it like someone who thought they were being stupid.

  “Charlotte, do you have any holiday time left?”

  “Why?”

  “I thought maybe we could go on holiday. When all this is over.”

  “Maybe. Where would we be going?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere with no extradition treaties, relaxed banking laws, a long, porous border.”

  “Sounds nice,” she said.

  The Archway Tower caught them in its winds, wrapping shopping bags and old pages of newspaper around their legs. He was being stupid, toying with the possibility of continuing to know her. But it had been a while since he’d let himself feel like that. At least this relationship he’d destroyed in advance.

  “I want to find out what’s going on first,” Charlotte said. “Do you think our escape can wait?”

  “Sure it can,” he said.

  37

  PS Security had gone big-time in the last eighteen months. Belsey walked into their office between silently sliding doors and saw they’d refurbished. Now there was a front desk with a logo behind it and a coffee table with copies of the FT and The Economist. The logo was a stylised take on Justice as she appears on top of the Old Bailey, with her blade out. There are PI agencies that play it very bland and there are ones that like to dazzle the client with gadgetry and framed black-and-white photos of European capitals. Starr had gone for the latter. In some ways it was a better front. It suggested espionage depended on sleek professionalism rather than the goodwill of a few crooked contacts.

  “I’m here for Chris,” Belsey said.

  “He’s just with a client. He’ll be with you shortly.”

  Belsey took a seat and picked up a brochure. The cover had a picture of the globe being orbited by a laptop and a fingerprint. Inside it introduced PS.

  The premier private detective and investigation agency, based in the heart of London, operating throughout the centre of the capital for the past 25 years.

  A lie.

  Our private detectives and private investigators will undertake all manner of investigations, particularly in the financial, criminal, civil and commercial fields. We offer a confidential and sensitive telephone or office consultation, without obligation. You will find us understanding and professional.

  Services included: Matrimonial/Domestic, Electronic Security De-Bugging, Adoption/Birth Parents, IT Crime and Forensics. There was a wing of subsidiaries that did more muscular protection: escort convoys, bodyguards, babysitting for billionaires on a city break.

  Belsey put the brochure down and picked up The Economist. After five minutes a man in a beige suit came out of Starr’s office, flushed, followed a moment later by a stocky man in a grey suit carrying a see-through bag of shredded paper. The second man had a goatee and a shaven head exposing rolls of pink flesh that cushioned his skull from his spine. It was a police look. He read Belsey with a police officer’s undisguised suspicion. After another moment Starr appeared in the doorway with a grin and an outstretched hand.

  “Nick, come in.”

  Starr’s sparkle had turned seedy, the healthy glow a little too defiant. But he still had the air of a showman. He wore a blue suit, matching tie and pomade. He was everything a well-dressed private investigator ought to be and he gave Belsey the shivers.

  “What can I do for you?” Starr beckoned Belsey into his office and gestured to a seat. Belsey shut the door and sat down. Starr sat down. “Have you remembered something about our journalist friend?”

  “No. Actually I’m looking for my birth parents.”

  “Who isn’t? Mine owe me three grand.”

  “How’s business?”

  “Truly unbelievable.” Starr flashed his white teeth. There was a fine band of perspiration beneath his hairline. He glanced at his watch. “What can I really do for you?”

  “You can tell me how you’re involved with the Starbucks shooting.”

  Starr’s smile set like concrete. His fingers wove together on the desk as if to keep themselves from Belsey’s throat.

  “What makes you say we are?”

  “I got a call from you asking for leads on a perfectly innocent young lady called Charlotte Kelson. Why are you interested in her?”

  “Because she’s interested in us.”

  “She was looking at some business that I reckon ties to the assassination of Jessica Holden.”

  “What do you know, Nick?”

  “Still want to put me on the books? I’m cheap.”

  “If you have information I suggest you share it. It might put you in a very awkward situation if you don’t.”

  “I hate awkward situations,” Belsey said. “All I know is you’ve got very defensive all of a sudden. It was just a guess.”

  “We’ve got nothing to do with any assassin.” He let the word hiss between his teeth.

  “So what were you just shredding?”

  Starr leaned forward and pointed to the door. “Fuck off out of here, Nick. I don’t need you around.”

  Belsey stayed seated. He looked at the office and thought.

  “Let me put it to you that you’ve been supplying information to a client who then used that information to carry out a hit. You didn’t know they were going to hit someone, but it doesn’t look good for a man with as many friends as yourself. Doesn’t look good full stop.”

  Starr sat back again and waved this away.

&nbs
p; “Crap,” he said.

  “But you got details of the girl,” Belsey said. “Intercepted an arrangement to meet. Maybe you were bugging her phone.”

  “Who we got details of is our business. Between us and our client.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “I thought you were a clever guy, Nick. That’s why I asked you to work for us. I’m glad you didn’t have the balls to apply. So don’t push this one. It’s a mess, and it’s not one you’re going to sort out.”

  “Who was at Charlotte Kelson’s place?”

  “Why?”

  “Tell him he throws a lousy punch. Tell him to leave her alone.”

  “Why? Are you fucking her?”

  “You tell me.”

  Starr leaned forward again, face red. “Go fuck who you want, Nick. But don’t get caught up in this. It’s not something you need to care about or can handle.”

  Belsey considered his face, the tensed hands, the vein at the side of Starr’s neck, pulsing. On a card player they would be the tells of someone ready to crumble. It began to dawn on him that things were far worse than he realised.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I obviously know things that might help. I know things about Alexei Devereux.”

  The name had its usual effect. Starr went very quiet and thoughtful. Eventually he said: “Nick Belsey,” with a shake of his head and something like a groan, which could have been awe, Belsey thought, but was more likely frustration.

  “Why are you interested in him?”

  Starr sat back and took a deep breath. His eyes narrowed.

  “We were paid to be.”

  “And what’s gone wrong?”

  “We’ve lost one of our men,” he said.

  “Lost?”

  “Gone. I don’t know where. But he was working on Alexei Devereux.”

  “When was this?”

  “A few days ago.” He looked down at the carpet, furious and reluctant to concede this fury. “So, you see, it’s our business and it’s our business. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Are you done?”