The Hollow Men: A Novel

by Rob McCarthy

  ‘What is it? Harry. Half eleven? That’s not. Late for. You?’

  Harry said nothing, just looked over his shoulder before he turned onto Borough Road.

  ‘What have. You been. Up to?’

  ‘On Lahiri’s boat. We were catching up.’

  Tammas’s ventilator cycled a few times.

  ‘And how. Was that. For you?’

  ‘Alright, I guess,’ said Harry. ‘He didn’t kill me. We were talking about the kid, you know, the one I saw last night. Lahiri was his GP. But we ended up talking about Alice. He thanked me, can you believe that? He thanked me for giving him a good enough reason to leave her.’

  ‘Oh what. A tangled. Web we. Weave when. First. We practise. To deceive.’

  Tammas lacked the cadences, but the quote still resonated in Harry’s mind.

  ‘Shakespeare?’ he guessed.

  ‘No, you. Bastard. It’s Scottish. Don’t know who. But it’s. Scottish.’

  Harry laughed.

  ‘How involved. Are you. With this kid?’

  ‘The police are dragging their heels,’ Harry said. ‘Today I found out that he’s likely infected his girlfriend with HIV, and she threw herself under a train in November. There’s more than one reason this guy could have snapped. He’s seventeen, boss. I remember how shit I felt when I was seventeen. I just—’

  A deliveryman on a blue-and-silver motorcycle passed Harry and turned off ahead of him, into the same alley that led to his block of flats. Tammas interrupted him.

  ‘You’re doing. It again,’ Tammas said. ‘Distracting yourself. Deal with. You and James. That matters. That really. Matters. Let the police. Handle the rest.’

  Harry headed up to the door, ready to punch in the code. The deliveryman was dismounting from his bike, walking up to the same door as Harry.

  ‘What do you mean, doing it agai—’

  The first punch came straight into the side of his face, sending him staggering towards the front door of his apartment block. The next blow, a kick to the soft of his abdomen, put him down. Hands on his hand, going for the phone. Harry let it go. The deliveryman grasped the phone with his leather glove, and stepped over him. He relaxed his muscles, waiting for another blow, but it didn’t come. He arched his back, scrabbled backwards across the ice-covered tarmac.

  Doesn’t feel right, Harry thought as he rolled onto his back. This isn’t worth it. Bringing the bike, turning in ahead of him to mug him for a phone. The man behind the motorcycle helmet wanted Harry, wanted him specifically. His phone. There was nothing on his phone worth having, not to anyone.

  ‘HELP!’ Harry roared, his voice cracking. Not out of fear, but because he wanted to take control back. Nobody would come, not at this time of night. The deliveryman was out of range, by his bike. If he came closer for another kick, then Harry could go for him. Being on the floor didn’t put him out. If he tried to get on his bike, then Harry could jump him, but that was riskier. The motor was still running, and all he’d have to do was gun the engine and run him down.

  Harry pulled himself to his feet, and the deliveryman responded. Reached for a pouch on his belt and pulled out a kitchen knife, serrations in the blade. Held it at arm’s length. Harry’s eyes darted from the knife to the deliveryman’s other hand, where the phone was open, emanating blue light. The deliveryman’s fingers were tapping something out, and after a few seconds the arm came back. Harry braced himself for a fight. If the deliveryman rushed him now with the knife, with his back against the wall, Harry’s chances weren’t good. He’d have to hurt him, and the motorcycle helmet and leathers were good defences against that.

  But the rush didn’t come. The phone came spiralling through the air, and Harry caught it with both hands, before immediately dropping it onto the pavement. He needed his hands to be free.

  The distraction of the phone had given the deliveryman time, enough time to mount the bike, rev the engine, and sail past Harry before he could reach him. Harry turned to watch the bike veer right, towards St George’s Circus, the number plate covered with mud, unreadable.

  His jaw stinging, Harry knelt on his doorstep to pick up his phone and punched in the code to the front door. In the communal hallway, he sat up against the wall and let out hard, quick breaths. In the moment, there had just been adrenaline. Now there was fear, and the pain that started behind his sternum, and spread through his chest, and eventually seeped out of the scars.

  Not a mugging. Not even close.

  Harry turned his phone and saw the screen was cracked. But he could still read what was on it: a text, no recipient, all in capitals.

  IF YOU WANT TO FUCKING LIVE, FORGET SOLOMON.

  Harry flicked the phone back onto his recent calls, found Noble, and dialled.

  The pain was fading as he held the bag of frozen chips to his face, the towel they were wrapped in starting to get damp. The chair he’d chosen to recover in was in the middle of his living room, pointing towards the window, facing north. The door was locked and bolted. He would hear anyone who came in that way. He’d have time to get a knife from the kitchen drawer before they made it out of the hallway.

  His phone began to vibrate, drilling against the glass table.

  ‘Frankie,’ he said.

  ‘I’m outside your building,’ said Noble.

  ‘Nine four six eight,’ said Harry. ‘Come up to the sixth floor.’

  He stood up, took a sip of whiskey from the tumbler on the table. Went to the door and stared at it until he heard the chime of the arriving lift, when he released the chain and bolt and opened it.

  Noble was on the landing, her hair damp, wet patches on her leather jacket. Harry glanced around to make sure there was no one else waiting, before letting out the breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding.

  ‘Jesus, are you alright?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

  ‘You’ve been cut,’ Noble said.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He’d rung her and given her a brief description of what had happened. He’d said he’d been attacked outside his home, and that he was OK. That whoever had done it had got away on a blue and silver motorcycle with a dirty number plate, heading towards Waterloo. She’d asked for his address and told him she’d be twenty minutes.

  ‘It’s my jaw that hurts,’ Harry said as they walked into his living room. Noble stopped in the doorway, before heading to the window and staring out.

  ‘You’ve got one hell of a view,’ she said.

  ‘Not bad, eh?’ said Harry. He put the frozen chips back against his jaw.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’ said Noble. ‘You don’t want it checked in A&E?’

  ‘It’s just a bruise.’

  Noble picked up the bottle of Jameson’s.

  ‘Decent,’ she said. ‘Have to say I prefer scotch, though. I’d deprive you of some, but I’m driving.’

  She pointed down at the tumbler.

  ‘Is that one your first?’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘I had a few glasses of wine earlier this evening.’

  ‘Didn’t have you down as much of a wine drinker.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Harry. ‘James Lahiri is, though.’

  Noble turned and leant against the glass window, looking down at Harry in the chair.

  ‘You get anything out of him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harry said. He kept quiet about the money and the flat in Nottingham, though. If Idris had told Lahiri, his doctor, about those things in confidence, he wasn’t sure he should disclose them to the police.

  ‘You think what happened has something to do with this?’ Noble said.

  Harry looked over at her, slowly, took a sip of the whiskey, felt it burn into a cut on the inside of his bottom lip, and pulled his phone from his pocket. Unlocked it through the cracked screen and held it up for Noble to see.

  ‘He took the phone off me, typed that, and then threw it back.’

  ‘Jesus,’
said Noble. ‘What happened, again?’

  Harry told the story, starting with when he first noticed the motorbike pull in towards his apartment block, and ending with him on his knees, crawling towards the front door. By the time he was done the tumbler was empty, and the adrenaline was beginning to give way to a haze.

  ‘You can’t remember anything about this guy?’

  ‘He was in leathers,’ said Harry. ‘I remember the bike.’

  ‘Height?’

  Harry closed his eyes, and the feeling behind his sternum came back. He could feel the tension in his body. What he was going through was normal – psychiatrists called it an acute stress reaction, and the usual course was reasonable. Looking over your shoulder for a few days, anxiety when you left the house. This time next week, he’d be fine. But the feelings, and what they reminded him of, were unwelcome.

  ‘I’m five eleven,’ said Harry. ‘And he maybe had a couple of inches on me. So six one, six two?’

  ‘Right,’ said Noble. ‘Skin colour?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘And you couldn’t see the plate on the bike?’

  ‘It was covered in shit, Frankie. So there was no way I could ID it, but if he got stopped then he could just say it needed a clean.’

  ‘If you saw that bike again, would you recognise it?’

  Harry shrugged.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Noble looked between Harry and the table.

  ‘You got another glass?’ she said.

  Harry got up, went to the kitchen and put the bag of frozen chips back in the freezer now that his jaw was sufficiently numb. He returned to the living room with an empty tumbler.

  ‘Fill it yourself,’ he said. ‘If you’re driving, that is.’

  Noble poured liquid into the tumbler and took a reticent sip. Harry was fairly sure that traffic cops who pulled over detective inspectors didn’t reach for the breathalyser once they saw the warrant card, but he kept silent.

  ‘Knife,’ Noble said. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Why’s it interesting?’ said Harry.

  ‘Well, we know that we’ve scared the shit out of them,’ said Noble. ‘But this – it’s a careless move. Before today we only had bullshit hunches to say that there was anything going on with Solomon Idris. Now they’re spooked. The logical conclusion is that this is the same person who let off a shot in the alleyway behind Wyndham Road.’

  Harry cut in before Noble could finish.

  ‘But the guy who jumped me used a knife,’ he said. ‘And if he had a gun, and he wanted to scare me, then why not use it?’

  Noble nodded.

  ‘Two different people?’ said Harry.

  ‘Fuck knows.’ She downed the whiskey and put the glass down on the table. ‘I’m gonna put my brain on this overnight. Are you still alright to go into the school tomorrow?’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘More than alright. I’m there.’

  ‘Great,’ said Noble. ‘I really need to get off. Will you be OK?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Harry.

  ‘You got a girlfriend? Friend who might be able to come over? Family?’

  He felt wounded by the question, and that surprised him. He’d been without a family for over a decade now, so he’d adapted to that. Of course he had friends, people he drank with after tough shifts, who he shared lunch with in the mess, but when it came down to moments like this, there were two names that he considered: Tammas and Lahiri. One bedridden, the other with all bridges burned.

  ‘It’s late,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Noble. ‘Good luck tomorrow.’

  Harry heard the front door shut as he settled back in the sofa, rocking his glass in his hand, rolling the liquid around. He was still feeling the effects of the adrenaline in his system. He’d not popped a pill since the morning, but now he knew he’d have to chase sleep around the caverns of his head, that it wouldn’t just come to him. His phone buzzed – three missed calls from Tammas. Through the smashed screen, Harry managed to type a text saying all was OK, and send it. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, to be told again how poor his life choices had been.

  He looked across at the bottle. About half of it left. Would have done the trick but he was working the following day. Harry had never worked drunk and he never would. He’d quit either working or drinking if it ever got to that. He got up from the chair, moving slowly, picked up his laptop, a Billy Joel album, just one more glass, help him sleep, back into the chair. Went through his emails, agreed to a half-arsed request to examine medical students in the spring. Lingered over an invitation to a new online dating website exclusively for doctors, nurses and emergency service workers. He couldn’t think of anything worse. But he signed up anyway, a month’s free trial.

  After an hour the tiredness began to descend, Billy finished singing, and he tried to track his thoughts away from Idris, covered in wires and tubes, or the image of a teenager staring at a train. Settled on a girl with fading pink hair, and moved to James Lahiri, khaki shirt, pistol on his belt. Tried to remember what Georgia Henderson looked like, but couldn’t. Mountains full of lavender, the smell of lavender, a purple sky. Alice in the green dress she liked to wear.

  He fell asleep in the chair just after midnight. The light would wake him up.

  Tuesday, 22 January

  He’d slept more than he’d expected to, but Harry was still tired as he changed in the locker room. Stress, withdrawal, it didn’t matter what he called it. He felt the warmth of freshly laundered scrubs against his skin, and the grit in his mouth from the large, strong coffee he’d washed down his morning aspirin with. He made it to the doctors’ office on the surgical ICU by 8.25, five minutes before the handover from the night team was scheduled to begin. He entered the room, recognising Aoife Kelly, Saltis, as well as Tammy Shelton, another of the senior registrars.

  ‘Oh, hi, Tammy,’ Harry said. ‘You on today as well?’

  ‘I am now,’ said Shelton. ‘Rashid called me late last night, said that you were away and would I mind covering. Please don’t tell me that I’ve come in for nothing.’

  Harry was about to answer when Rashid came in, his chest hair bursting out of the V in his scrubs, which were far too tight.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Rashid said. ‘We’ve got twenty bloody operating theatres but no extra-large scrubs, I keep telling them.’

  ‘What’s with the registrar rota today?’ Shelton said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Rashid, sitting down and turning to Harry. ‘Harry emailed me last night, about this assembly thing. I mean, we’re busy, so I asked Tam if she wouldn’t mind coming in for the day. I’m sure you can cover one of her shifts next month. Work it out between yourselves.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Harry, a bit pissed that he’d come in when he wasn’t needed, but then again it gave him a free morning, and the unit was busy. An extra pair of hands was always useful, especially if there was another slip-up with Idris’s allergies.

  ‘That said,’ Rashid continued. ‘Solomon Idris’s mother is coming in again at about a quarter to nine. You could speak to her, if you’re around. You’ve already built a rapport.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Harry.

  It would be a chance to find out more about Idris, Harry thought, before chastising himself.

  ‘I’ll go see how he is, then.’

  Rashid nodded, and Harry left. He walked into the unit, the familiar smell of disinfectant hitting his nose. There was a different police officer keeping vigil in Idris’s side room, a young face, weapon on his belt. Harry nodded to him as he entered, putting on an apron and gloves, muttering a greeting.

  ‘S’cuse me, sir, could I take your name?’ said the PC.

  ‘Harry Kent. I’m one of the ICU doctors.’

  ‘Can I see your trust ID please?’ the copper continued. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been instructed to security-check and keep a record of everyone who visits this patient.’

  ‘Good,’ Harry said, pu
lling his lanyard from inside his scrubs and showing the copper his ID. ‘Who do you report to?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Noble, sir,’ the PC said. ‘She’s with Southwark CID.’

  Harry nodded. It was nice to know that at least someone was doing their job properly. If the deletion of the allergy from Idris’s record had been done internally, and not by an outside hacker, then he was at risk every moment he was in hospital.

  He was about to ask where Idris’s nurse was, but then Gladys Lane walked into the sink room, carrying a new catheter bag.

  ‘Mornin’, Dr Kent.’

  ‘Hi, Gladys. How’s he doing?’

  ‘Better. His urine output’s good, he’s stable, and he’s been off the vasopressors. Still needs his oxygen, but I think his chest’s sounding better.’

  Harry grabbed a stethoscope from the wall and took a listen for himself. It still sounded crap. PCP infection was a treatable disease, but it took time to clear, especially when the patient’s body was as weak as Idris’s. Everything else was promising, though: he was producing urine, which meant that the kidneys were recovering, there were no signs of heart failure, and while there was little chance of him breathing unassisted any time soon, he was having no issues with the ventilator. Luckily it appeared the allergic reaction he’d suffered hadn’t caused any lasting damage.

  ‘Know anything about the plan for later?’ Harry said.

  ‘They’ll be over in the ward round soon,’ said Lane. ‘But the night nurse said something about an angiogram. And the HIV team are up to see him.’

  Harry nodded. It all sounded about right. As with so many of his patients, once the acute phase was over, and they were stable, it was about waiting for things to clear up, and managing the issues which would emerge as a result of being in a medically induced coma for so long. In cases like this, the recovery could be weeks, even months.

  Harry wandered over to the central nurses’ station and waited around for Idris’s family. One of Tammas’s favourite phrases went something like: Think about what you know, and think about what you need to know.

  I know he’s an ex-gang member with a few grudges still going. I know he loved a girl who killed herself in November. I know he told Lahiri that he was working but he probably wasn’t, so he was getting money from somewhere else. I know he had something he wanted to tell the world, or at least he thought he did. At the start, Harry had thought that might have been paranoia, mental illness, too much skunk, but now he was convinced. Because his girlfriend was twenty weeks pregnant, and lost it maybe days before she killed herself. That child, Harry thought. He needed to know about that. It was the child, and the loss of it, which had precipitated Keisha’s death, and which in turn had caused Idris to do what he had done.