The Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  Gower looked up. His face bore the grey tension of someone who’d been woken by his bosses at 3 a.m. and wasn’t going to get back to bed any time soon.

  “City Police want you to go into Wood Street,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “This shooting yesterday. Have you heard about it?”

  “Just the headlines.”

  “It’s an individual called Pierce Buckingham. He’s been associated with a man who died recently in Hampstead called Alexei Devereux. I believe you dealt with the body.”

  “That’s right.”

  Gower glanced up, then continued sifting.

  “Well, I’m told this is going to explode in the next few hours, and they want to speak to you.”

  “OK.”

  “And there’s some balls-up with the IPCC thing—I’ve not had anything from them in the internal.”

  “I got a call from Nigel Herring. He said they sympathised with my position and were doing everything possible to keep me in my job.”

  “OK.” Gower barely seemed to hear this. “Wood Street want you to take any relevant paperwork in with you.” He shifted a pile of papers back into Belsey’s drawer and sat back, wiping his brow. “Nick?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Did we overlook anything? Was there cause for suspicion?”

  “It was a straightforward suicide. I’m sure the coroner agreed. I’ll check.”

  Belsey took a squad car and drove by The Bishops Avenue. Two police cars and a forensics van sat outside Devereux’s home. He sped up and continued down to East Finchley. He still had almost forty pounds of Cassidy’s payment left. Forty pounds didn’t seem the foundation for the new life he had anticipated. He imagined Kovar waiting for his call, with a million pounds in a case by the phone. Belsey just needed to know what Devereux had been selling. That was all the speculator wanted to hear.

  He called Wood Street from East Finchley tube station.

  “This is Nick Belsey. I believe you wanted to speak to me.”

  “Yes. You know something about Alexei Devereux.”

  “Very little. I found the body, that’s all.”

  “Can you come in?”

  It was a male officer. He sounded reasonable, not suspicious; intelligent even. If they had something on Belsey they would jump him in the street, not play games. But it wouldn’t be long now.

  “You want me in today?” Belsey said.

  “Immediately. We believe your suicide case connects to something called Project Boudicca.”

  “Boudicca?”

  “So does the man who got shot last night.”

  “Oh,” Belsey said.

  “We’ve found quite a few interesting things about Boudicca.”

  “What are they?”

  “When can you come in? Shall we send a car?”

  Belsey drove himself to Wood Street, through the silent City, its gleaming monoliths abandoned to security guards and the occasional tourist. Twice he thought he saw a motorbike following; twice it disappeared. He concentrated on the immediate threat, and formulated a story to give the City detectives. It was that of a police officer who found a body; who felt something might not be right but didn’t chase it. He hoped none of the men and women present at Wood Street last night would still be around to recognise him. If it came to it, he was ready to sprint.

  In the event there were only five people in the Specialist Investigations office. None were survivors from the previous night’s excitement. The man Belsey had spoken to, DCI Malcolm Gray, was in his thirties. He appeared alert and upwardly mobile. His colleague, DI Deborah Mullins, was short and fiery in executive pinstripes.

  “Thanks for coming in,” they said. They shook his hand and ushered him into the conference room that had been so impregnable a few hours ago. It had been cleaned and aired. A varnished oval table occupied the centre of the room, crowded with overlapping copies of files. One dirty double-glazed window looked down over the City.

  They had a map of EC4 up on a flip chart, with an X for the body. Beside it was a whiteboard with a name: Pierce Buckingham, caught in a web of individuals and corporations associated with the Hong Kong Gaming Consortium. On the right-hand side was a list of times from 2 a.m. the previous morning to the hour of his death—with known locations, calls, addresses, including sightings by Hampstead police station and one close to All Hallow’s Church. Belsey felt the touch of Buckingham’s hand.

  On a separate board they had written the name Alexei Devereux.

  Around it, they’d filled in some of his business interests—TGT, Polsky—but it was a work in progress. Finally, at the far end of the room, they had taped sheets with lists of flight details—times, countries of origin—and then hotels in London—Sheraton, Park Lane Hilton, Grosvenor. Everything converged on Saturday 7 February, where they’d written “Location of London Meeting” and then a big, red question mark.

  Gray opened a notebook.

  “Talk me through what you know about Alexei Devereux.”

  Belsey started with the missing person report. He talked about having an initial look at the property, getting called back, finding the safe room. He gave them a bit on his Internet research and the Ham & High article so as not to seem wilfully ignorant. He left out Ridpath’s SAR, the faked petition, Milton Granby.

  “What did you find in the home?” Gray said.

  Belsey thought his way through. He told them. He talked about conspicuous wealth and the odd undertone of transience. He didn’t say “a vision of myself as someone better,” or “a way out of the insolvent cul-de-sac my life had become.”

  “Anything make you suspicious?”

  “The fact he’d hidden himself away, the note. There were some papers about a project.” He felt them freeze, their eyes on him. “The name. You mentioned it on the phone.” He glanced around the flip chart and whiteboards.

  “Boudicca,” Gray said.

  “That’s the one. What is it?”

  The City officers hesitated, unsure whether to admit Belsey into their privileged circle. Gray gestured at the wall of flight details.

  “These are the clues we have. A9C-BI is the Bahrain registration for a Gulfstream 200 jet belonging to Prince Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, head of Saud International Holdings investment group; B-KZB is a Hong Kong-registered Learjet known to be used by Young-Jin Choi, billionaire casino magnate and occasional colleague of the prince. They were among eight private jets that landed in Farnborough on the morning of Saturday the seventh. Eight of the richest men in the world flying into south-east England. We believe they deliberately avoided the London airports so as not to draw attention to themselves: the travellers included two chief executives of Internet gambling sites and a lot of heavy security. They were personally met by Pierce Buckingham.”

  “What for?” Belsey said.

  “We don’t know. That’s what we were hoping you could help us with. A lot of these men connect to the Hong Kong Gaming Consortium. We believe they came in for a meeting.” He pointed at the question mark. “The meeting was held eight days ago, Saturday afternoon in central London. I don’t know what transpired, but two of the men present have died and a lot more have stopped answering their phones.”

  Belsey nodded, studying the names. “What’s your money on?” he asked.

  Mullins pitched in: “Something messed up. In the two days following the meeting there are three hundred calls from Pierce Buckingham’s mobile to numbers run by various call-forwarding services. It seems he couldn’t get through. He then calls a lot of men with no official job titles in private rooms in Riyadh and Beijing and Monaco, all waiting to hear about a project he’s putting their money into. I don’t think they were very happy with what he had to say.”

  “They were investors?”

  “Not according
to their lawyers. Let’s just say there’s a lot of people lying low, people who say they’ve never heard of Buckingham or Devereux. Half of them claiming they’ve never heard of themselves. Everything’s gone hush, so I think Pierce Buckingham was shipping a hell of a lot of backers through to this Project Boudicca, and no one wanted to know how naughty it was. Now it turns out it was crooked to the core, people are writing off big sums and going on holiday.”

  “And killing Buckingham.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are there witnesses for the shooting?”

  “No one saw anyone with a gun.”

  “What kind of bullet?”

  “A 7.62mm hollow tip.” There was another shared glance between the detectives.

  “It’s the same story as the Hampstead Starbucks,” Belsey said.

  Gray and Mullins nodded in unison. They made a nice couple for a policing nightmare. The book of unwritten rules told every detective: Don’t say sniper, don’t say gang war. Don’t introduce the spectre of lawlessness that can reduce a peaceful city to war footing in one headline.

  “Let’s return to Alexei Devereux,” Gray said firmly. “Buckingham called this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It seems to have got people excited. Is there anything you saw or heard about Devereux that might suggest what it was exactly?”

  “I’m not sure.” Belsey got to his feet and walked over to the chart. They didn’t stop him. “Can you tell what the project was from the people involved?”

  “The list includes the IT people who helped Hong Kong Gaming set up their Snake Eyes website. There are also figures from architecture and construction who worked with the consortium in Dubai and Pennsylvania. But we don’t know who was running the London project. The architect hasn’t broken cover.”

  “So Devereux was building something.”

  “Something big. Shares in HKGC rocketed in the last week. The head of its European strategy, Vincent de Groot, was on holiday in the Maldives. He flew in especially. According to Special Branch, he visits London on the seventh of February, stays at the Grosvenor, sleeps with three lap dancers, spends nine grand on golf clubs and meets Buckingham. He and several other individuals and twenty security personnel go for a walk on the Heath. He wants in on the project. No one knows what the project is.”

  “The Heath?”

  “Ten hours later one of the attendees is picked up on intercept arranging a contract for three thousand cubic feet of concrete and two hundred tonnes of glass.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I don’t know what Buckingham said but serious sums of money transferred in the hours afterwards.”

  “Transferred where?”

  “To Devereux.”

  “Where was this meeting?”

  “We don’t know. They used codes on the phone. It would be a help if we could find the venue. It would be a step in the right bloody direction.” Gray rubbed his face with his hands. Belsey tried to imagine where in London you’d take those people, if you wanted to impress them, people who had everything, expecting the best. What would dazzle? Deborah Mullins leaned forward.

  “Buckingham used the meeting to raise thirty-eight million. This was a meeting where he asked for thirty-eight mil of other people’s money just for a seat at the table. We need to know what they expected in return. This is where you come in. You looked into Alexei Devereux’s suicide—”

  She was interrupted by a sudden cacophony outside, as if metal objects were falling from the sky. The bells of St. Paul’s had begun to toll, endless and discordant. Gray and Mullins winced. Belsey sat back and listened. He was so close and so far. He tried to think of various tales he could spin to Kovar and none of them struck him as impressive as Boudicca must have been. He was insane for hanging about. Belsey gazed out of the window, towards the grey stone of St. Lawrence Jewry, just visible above the nearest rooftop. Were the bells of St. Lawrence ringing? Now they seemed to come from every church in the City, howling to one another like dogs. Belsey stared at the tower of St. Lawrence, peeking above the concrete.

  His pulse quickened.

  He looked at the stump of spire, at its blackened bell tower and golden weathervane, and he saw the picture of Buckingham shaking hands with Prince Faisal. Beyond the tower he could just make out the turrets of the Guildhall.

  The Guildhall. What had the courier’s invoice described? Three vans, £295, last Saturday.

  “I wish I could help you more,” Belsey muttered, getting up quickly.

  “We have a few more questions.” Gray started to look suspicious. Belsey didn’t hear the rest.

  50

  An alleyway called Love Lane ran beside the police station, crowded with squad cars and riot vans. Belsey strode down it, into the courtyard of the Guildhall. He unfolded the scrap of Al-Hayat with Buckingham and the Saudi prince. He turned, comparing the view. They were here. He spun 360 degrees. The Guildhall’s doors were open, staff carrying last night’s tables and chairs outside.

  Belsey walked to the entrance and peered through the Gothic arch of the doorway into the banqueting hall beyond. It was immense. Stained-glass windows filled the walls. A rose-tinted light fell across men and women collapsing thirty tables beneath the soaring stone roof. Around the place stood monuments to Nelson, Wellington, Churchill, men who had hacked their names into history. It was a godless cathedral, consecrated to the City. To power. Of course he would, Belsey thought. Of course the bastard would bring them here.

  A man with thin hair combed over his skull was leading two other suits through the hall, between the activity. He walked stiffly, and they turned as he pointed out details, taking photos on camera phones.

  “The Great Hall hosts the Lord Mayor’s Banquet each year,” the man was explaining. “It’s where royalty and state visitors have been entertained down the centuries. It lends an entirely unique stature to any event, gentlemen.”

  “Excuse me,” Belsey called, walking towards him.

  The man glanced at Belsey, spoke to his guests, and approached with his hands clasped apologetically.

  “I’m afraid we’re closed.”

  “It’s urgent. Are you in charge here?”

  “I’m events manager.” His face had a bland pomposity that seemed to qualify him for the job. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I’ve got a few questions,” Belsey said.

  “Perhaps you could come back tomorrow.”

  “It concerns an outstanding payment.”

  “Payment’s conducted through the Remembrancer’s office.”

  “Is he around?”

  “Not in person.” The man smiled condescendingly. Belsey produced his badge.

  “I think you had some men in here last Saturday that I’d very much like to know more about. Why don’t you tell your friends to come back tomorrow?”

  Something about this registered with the manager.

  “Wait one moment.” He went to speak to one of his assistants. Belsey admired the statues and stone arches, the shields of the livery companies hanging down from brass flagpoles.

  What a place to steal thirty-eight million.

  An assistant took over the task of tour guide and the boss returned.

  “What is this?”

  “We’re going to try to find out,” Belsey said. “The hall was hired by an individual, for a small group of people, but he wanted the place to himself. You’re still waiting for the balance to be settled.”

  “How do you know about this?”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I know.”

  The man led Belsey into a quiet corner.

  “Who were they?” he asked.

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know anything more about it. Except that they were very important figures in the City and internationally.”

  Belsey couldn’t help smiling. “Wh
at gave you that idea?”

  “They were, weren’t they?”

  “Some of them, no doubt. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  “Who was working last Saturday?” Belsey said. “Any of these people?”

  “No.”

  “I want to speak to someone who was there, who saw the meeting.”

  “You have to understand, we get some very prestigious clients. We have to respect their confidentiality.”

  The man seemed torn. Belsey decided to make it easier for him.

  “Do you know what the sentence is for assisting terrorism?”

  “Terrorism?”

  “Has anyone reported ill in the last few days?” Belsey asked, a little louder. “Rashes? Breathing difficulties?” Some of the staff turned.

  “Follow me,” the man said. He ushered Belsey into a side office with wood panelling, a writing desk, an old clock. He spoke fast now. “We weren’t allowed to see. Men came in the day before, the Friday, to run a security check. They were armed. They covered the mirrors, sealed the windows, put up screens. We didn’t know anything like that was going to happen.”

  “Your caterers would have seen the meeting,” Belsey suggested.

  “They brought their own catering. They brought their own security and drivers. I never knew anything about how out of the ordinary it would be until last week, when they contacted me with these requests.”

  “But when was it booked?”

  “Three months ago.”

  “Under what name?”

  “The Boudicca Society.”

  Three months ago, Belsey thought. He had this pinned from the start—to the day, to the hour. Who exactly was weaving this elaborate con? To do it that fast, to know his targets inside out, to let it collapse around him as he walked away with thirty-eight million. “The Boudicca Society. Had you heard of them before?”

  “No. But—”