The Hollow Men: A Novel

by Rob McCarthy

  Harry shrugged. From his experience, people like Solomon Idris didn’t trust anybody.

  ‘I guess some of them won’t be helped,’ said Harry. ‘You never win them all.’

  ‘They’ve got to want to help themselves,’ Ambrose said. ‘Galatians 6:7. A man reaps what he sows.’

  Harry thought about that. He didn’t like it much, the idea that because Solomon Idris had chosen a life of violence at one point, maybe he deserved what had happened to him. Harry had had few friends at his secondary school, and wasn’t in touch with any of them any more, but during his time in sixth form one or two had ended up in prison, and he didn’t feel that they’d been inherently bad kids. No worse than him, or the other two kids in his class of forty who’d made it to university. Idris had made mistakes, of course, he’d stabbed a kid, but that didn’t mean he’d brought on what had happened to him. But then Harry thought, if that kid had died, and if it had been his son, or his brother, he might feel like Idris had got what he’d earned.

  ‘We’re here,’ Ambrose said.

  They got out and paid for the cab, Harry hefting both of the boxes as they started towards the school. The Albany Road Academy was an imposing structure: two huge slate-grey monoliths linked by a series of covered walkways, all standing behind high wire fences. No barbs on the top, but still it looked more like a Scandinavian prison than a school.

  ‘Let me take that off you,’ said a voice from behind him. Harry turned and handed one of the boxes to an athletic-looking, red-headed woman in a short skirt and cardigan.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Harry. ‘You one of the teachers here?’

  ‘No,’ the woman said, laughing. ‘DC Gardner. I’m with Trident. But today, I’m a youth worker, aren’t I?’

  She didn’t look like a copper, with frizzy red hair that came halfway down her back, which was probably why DS Wilson had sent her. They headed towards the school, where one of the teachers was holding the door open. Standing in the door frame was the familiar, patriarchal figure of Duncan Whitacre.

  ‘Hi, Harry.’ Whitacre smiled. He’d trimmed the beard from yesterday, but it still covered most of his face.

  ‘Hey. Thank you so much for putting this together at such short notice. Honestly, we really appreciate it.’

  He realised he’d said ‘we’ again without meaning to.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Whitacre. ‘As I said, anything I can do to help.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said Harry. They kept talking as they entered the school, the box of materials in Harry’s arms an awkward barrier.

  ‘That said,’ Whitacre continued, ‘I appreciate that you have this agenda, which I totally support, but this is just a normal assembly for us. Many of the kids that we’ll speak to today really do need our help, OK? I’d appreciate it if we try to disrupt that as little as possible.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Great,’ said Whitacre. ‘The assembly hall’s through this way. We’re on in ten, so let’s get ourselves set up.’

  The security guards allowed them through the airport-style metal detectors, the usual wall displays of various projects and subject areas bringing some colour to the building’s interior, which Harry hadn’t expected from its grey façade. He tried to picture Solomon Idris walking along this corridor. He was assuming that Idris had attended school the previous Friday, two days before he’d walked into the Chicken Hut. The thought sent the cold through his bones.

  ‘You alright there?’

  Charlie Ambrose had bumped into the back of him. Everyone was moving at a near-run, frantically setting up.

  ‘Fine,’ said Harry. ‘Where does this stuff need to go?’

  The assembly took about half an hour. Harry watched it leaning against the side of the hall next to Gardner, the undercover cop. Whitacre had the crowd in the palm of his hand, and Harry ventured it was probably the longest that this group of young men and women had ever paid attention to anything at school. He’d started with a video, a clip from a documentary that had been filmed in the Ruskin’s A&E department the previous year and shown on Channel 4. It showed the team trying to revive a sixteen-year-old kid who’d been stabbed during a gang fight outside his school. The clip ended with a close-up of the kid’s mother falling to her knees and being comforted by two nurses.

  After that came the ministry. Whitacre had delivered his sermon with fraught passion, telling the assembled sixth form of the Albany Road Academy that however desperate a situation might seem, there was always a way out. He told them that he understood why they hated the police, because in London, the police were prejudiced against them. When he said that, Harry glanced at DC Gardner, who was nodding and smiling as if she agreed. Maybe she did. He explained how doctors were forbidden from telling the police things in all but exceptional circumstances, and how they could help.

  ‘Violence is an illness. Fear is an illness. If you live with violence, or you live in fear, speak to us. If you had a chest infection, you’d come and speak to us, because you don’t want it to get worse. You don’t want to end up in hospital. You don’t want to end up like the kid in that video.’

  Whitacre seemed to be wrapping up. Harry scanned the faces, each one still attentive. So he was a little surprised when the slide show flicked forward onto a slide entitled ‘First Aid on the Streets’.

  ‘If it all goes wrong,’ Whitacre said, ‘you can save your friends’ lives. Or anyone’s life.’

  He briefly talked about CPR, demonstrating it on a table in front of him. Then he talked about stab wounds and gunshots. How they should roll victims of chest wounds onto their injured sides so the blood would drain away from the good lung. Pressure and elevation to control serious bleeding.

  ‘If you can’t stop the bleeding by pushing on it, you need to use a tourniquet,’ Whitacre said. ‘Dr Kent, would you like to demonstrate?’

  Harry tried not to look surprised when he came onto the stage.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. He scanned the table for the bright orange fabric of a tourniquet, before he realised that the item he was meant to use was a black canvas belt.

  ‘You can use anything,’ Harry said, trying to look at the kids and not appear nervous. ‘A belt, a rolled-up shirt.’

  Whitacre had stepped aside and extended his right arm towards Harry. Harry smiled at him.

  ‘The important thing is to put the pressure on high up, and pull it tight. As tight as you can.’ As he spoke, Harry looped the belt around Whitacre’s bicep, pushed it up against his armpit, and fed it through the buckle. Whitacre gave a taciturn nod, still smirking, and Harry pulled the belt tight. Whitacre swore under his breath, the kids all laughed, and Harry noticed the head of sixth form at the back of the hall, shaking his head, while the other teachers smiled.

  ‘Any questions?’ said Whitacre, shaking the belt off his arm.

  A hand at the back of the room, a sunken, heavyset figure. Two seats away from the boy Harry recognised as Shaquille Dawson.

  ‘So where’s the safest place to stab someone?’

  A few laughs from the kids, the head of sixth form shaking his head again. Harry grinned, first thinking the teenager who’d asked had been joking, before he realised that he hadn’t been. Whitacre’s face was stony serious.

  ‘There is none. If you stab or shoot someone, they’re probably dead. Full stop. Arm, leg, chest, head. Makes no difference.’ Whitacre raised his voice a little. ‘If you make that choice, then it’s their life over, and your life over, too. Murder. That’s how the police see it and that’s how we see it too.’

  The words brought a reverent silence over the hall, which the head of sixth form broke by coming to the front and dividing the kids into groups for the one-to-one sessions. There were about fifty pupils, twelve each with Whitacre, Ambrose and two other youth workers who’d joined them for the assembly. Shaquille Dawson would be the last student in Gardner’s group, and she would step outside and allow Harry to speak to him.

  Harry sat in with Whitacre for the first few
. Almost all of the kids had some experience of gang life, either as victims or perpetrators, or had some friends who’d been involved. A few spoke about their fear of getting caught up in it. A Year 10 student had been killed the previous September, beaten to death in Burgess Park, just opposite the school, and a lot talked about that. How the boy had just been a normal kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, not someone they’d expect to be involved. More railed against the police for shooting Solomon Idris.

  Towards the end of the session, Harry sat in with Gardner, After she finished talking to the penultimate student, she got up and passed him a small black phone handset with a red button on it. He recognised it immediately. A panic button. Harry nodded, smiled, and took a seat. There were piles of leaflets from the Saviour Project spread out all over the table. Finding Work in London. Opportunities in Sport. Choose a Different Ending. Breaking the Circle of Violence.

  Shaquille Dawson came in, his school jumper completely ripped away beneath both armpits, his tie hanging around the level of his breastbone. He had two square zirconia earrings in his right ear, and a long scar that started at the angle of his jaw and ran down his neck, disappearing beneath his collar. It must have been a superficial wound, Harry thought, or he’d have bled to death.

  ‘Hi, there,’ said Harry.

  ‘S’up.’

  Dawson sat down, the restless look of a bored teenager.

  ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘I’m Harry Kent. I’m one of the Saviour Project doctors.’

  Dawson shook his head.

  ‘Allow this, i’s a waste of time. I’m already with Saviour Project. I see Dr Lisa.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Harry, pretending he was surprised. ‘How long you been with us, Shaquille?’

  ‘Shaq,’ Dawson said. He was politer than a lot of the teenagers Harry had seen so far. Looked him in the eye, at least. ‘Two years. Since I got shanked.’

  Dawson pointed to the scar on his neck.

  ‘I was in hospital for two weeks, yeah? The docs told my mum it was fifty-fifty.’

  ‘You were in a gang?’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Dawson. ‘Look, allow this. Like I say, yeah, I already see Dr Lisa for this shit. I’m stayin’ outta trouble. Aks Dr Duncan if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Harry. Then he took a deep breath, searching for the words to open up the line of conversation he needed. The worst he could do was freak the kid out, scare him off. And maybe lose the only chance we have to talk to someone who actually knew Idris, Harry told himself.

  ‘I wanna talk to you about something,’ Harry said. ‘One of my patients is Solomon Idris. You know him, right?’

  Dawson’s expression hardened, and he gripped the arms of the chair hard enough to make his knuckles go white.

  ‘Yeah, he’s fam.’

  ‘You know what happened to him, yeah?’

  ‘Feds gone done him. Motherfuckers.’

  ‘Do you know why Sol did that?’ Harry said. ‘Why he took that gun out?’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Dawson, the front giving way, moving towards upset. Tears. ‘Man’s off himself last few months, barely even talked to me. Like he was depressed or some shit. Maybe his doctor should’a keeped a better eye on him.’

  Dawson fixed Harry with an accusatory glare. Look at James Lahiri like that, not me, Harry wanted to say.

  ‘Depressed about what?’ said Harry. ‘Keisha?’

  ‘Course about Keisha, da fuck you think?’ said Dawson.

  Harry wanted to ask about the HIV, but he couldn’t let slip that Idris was positive if Dawson didn’t know.

  ‘Do you know if he has any medical problems?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Dawson. ‘E’s not been right, though. He’s wasted, I don’t think he’s been eatin’.’

  That fitted, the weight loss. Harry took another mental time-out. He had Dawson talking, and there was no reason to suggest that he didn’t believe that Harry had been Idris’s GP. That might change, of course, as his questions drifted.

  ‘How was he with Keisha, before she died? Were they OK?’

  Dawson shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘They was fucked up. He kept saying they was gonna get away, move some place outta London.’

  ‘Get away from what?’ Harry said. ‘What happened with her and Martin Santos?’

  ‘Nah, he was over that. That was one time, one’a those fucks spiked her drink, innit. Or that’s what she said, anyways.’

  ‘But he still wanted to move away,’ Harry said. ‘And that’s why he needed money?’

  Dawson looked confused now.

  ‘You po-lice?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘The police don’t give a shit. But I want to know who’s trying to kill him. I want to protect him. Can you help me?’

  Dawson said nothing.

  ‘You know that someone tried to kill Sol, don’t you? Somebody fired a gun behind the Chicken Hut. To get the police to shoot him.’

  Dawson shook his head and pulled his bag over his shoulder, moving to stand up.

  ‘Fuck this shit.’

  ‘I know someone was giving him money,’ Harry went on. ‘Do you know where he was getting it from?’

  Dawson’s face changed, and Harry knew that he knew about the money. More, that he was surprised that Harry knew. Perhaps he’d figured out that only the police could have got that information. Dawson slid back into the chair, his left hand scratching at the long scar on his neck.

  ‘What you tell me won’t go to the police,’ said Harry. ‘I just need to know.’

  Maybe it wasn’t that much of a lie. The Medical Defence Union could fight that if it went to the GMC. He could break confidentiality if someone was at risk of immediate harm, and he could claim that with regard to Solomon Idris.

  ‘Please, Shaq,’ said Harry. ‘You’ve got to help me. I don’t care where that money came from, if he was back involved with the crew or whatever, I just—’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ Dawson said, quietly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He wasn’t back hanging with Wooly,’ said Dawson. ‘None of us are. Not after what happened to Burke.’

  Dawson’s cousin, Harry remembered. Beaten to death with the others at the house party in Camberwell. The reason both of them had gone straight. He opened his mouth to speak again, before Dawson cut him off.

  ‘Sol was gettin cash off of someone,’ he said. ‘All he told me was it was peak, he knew some loaded doctor who was sortin’ him out with grass. That’s what Sol said.’

  Harry’s stomach began to clench. This was it. This was what they needed. Blackmail was one hell of a motive. A doctor who was supplying him with cannabis. Enough to get that doctor struck off.

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why he walked into that place with a gun,’ said Harry.

  Dawson stood up, and Harry’s muscles tensed, as if expecting an attack. But then Dawson calmed, turned around, reached into his Nike sports bag, and pulled out a USB flash drive, branded with the Albany Road Academy’s name and logo. He threw it onto the table.

  ‘Sol gave me that,’ Dawson said. ‘Said if he got done, give it to the feds.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ said Harry.

  ‘Cos it was the feds what done him, innit?’

  Harry nodded. Stared down at the USB stick. Maybe this was everything.

  ‘What’s on it?’ he said.

  Dawson shrugged.

  ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Password.’

  ‘Thanks for this,’ said Harry. ‘And you’ve got no idea who was giving him the money?’

  ‘I got ideas,’ said Dawson.

  ‘Do you want to share those with me?’

  Dawson shook his head.

  ‘I said enough,’ the teenager said, heading for the door. ‘I ain’t no snitch.’

  ‘Shaq!’

  Dawson turned around, one hand curled around the door handle, and Harry got up, realising how desperate he must look.

  ‘Keisha’s baby,’ Ha
rry said, whispering. ‘Was it Solomon’s?’

  ‘Don’t know nuffin bout no baby,’ Dawson said, before his eyes widened as he appreciated what Harry had told him. ‘Fuck.’

  The teenager walked out, his bag over his shoulder, and Harry watched him go, thinking about the scar on his neck. He looked down at the USB stick on the desk in front of him, filled with a nervous excitement. Briefly wondered whether he should have recorded the conversation, but that would have been totally wrong without Dawson’s consent, which he’d never have got without losing what little trust he had. Once Harry was sure Dawson would be gone, he got up and started looking for Gardner.

  He found Whitacre first.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘Good,’ said Harry. ‘I think we’re onto something. Did you see Hannah?’

  ‘She went out to see her colleague,’ said Whitacre. ‘He’s parked out on Mina Road, the other side of the school.’

  ‘Do you mind if I pop out to see them?’ Harry said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Whitacre said, grinning. ‘You want to follow this corridor to its end, go across the playground, then get one of the teachers to let you out the back gate. It’ll be shut now. They only keep it open for ten minutes at the end of the day.’

  ‘Cheers,’ said Harry. ‘And thanks again for all your help. I owe you a beer some time.’

  Whitacre’s humourless face again.

  ‘No, you don’t.’ But then the stare broke into a smile: ‘Though I won’t say no.’

  Harry turned and headed for the exit, locating it after about a minute, and found himself in the playground in the middle of an after-school sports club – about sixty kids, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, throwing basketballs towards each other. The playground had four hoops, and there were about ten kids around each one, trying to shoot. More often than not two of the balls collided in mid-flight. Harry could make out just two teachers, in high-visibility tabards, trying to keep order. Again, he was reminded of his own schooldays, fifty kids on a square of asphalt half the size of a tennis court, chasing a single football, more often fighting than playing.