Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  “What were Jessica Holden’s movements over the last few days?” Belsey said. “Where was she yesterday?”

  “Yesterday? She went to the gym. That was the last sighting before The Bishops Avenue. That’s all we know.” The inspector raised his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Which gym?” Belsey said.

  “The posh one off Belsize Avenue.”

  “Have you checked it?”

  “We spoke to them. They said she went two or three times a week. Kept to herself according to most of the other users.”

  “It’s a nice gym,” Belsey said.

  “It’s got some nice clientele.” The men laughed.

  “Which officers went in?”

  “To the gym? I don’t know. Why? You think this is health-related? You think she pushed someone off the treadmill?” The Murder boys laughed. Belsey laughed.

  27

  It wasn’t a gym, it was a health club—Belsize Health Club—and it made the distinction clear with a lot of high-maintenance greenery and screens showing every satellite channel you could hope to see. The building was on an expensive cul-de-sac. Vents spilled the smell of chlorine across cobblestones. Membership bought you the total absence of anyone without three grand a year to spend on Pilates. Those with the money were arriving thick and fast from a day of making it.

  “I’m thinking of becoming a member,” Belsey told the woman on reception.

  “Hang on.” She called out, “Mark.”

  A man emerged in gym-branded shorts and a T-shirt that let his biceps sell the benefits of membership. He shook Belsey’s hand.

  “Do you want to look around?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Follow me.” He patted Belsey’s shoulder and led him into the gym. “What’s your name?”

  “Nick.”

  “Nick, looks like you could do with some relaxation.”

  “Which machine’s good for that?”

  Mark laughed. “What are you hoping to work on?”

  “I want a six-pack.”

  He showed Belsey the new equipment, the swimming pool, a room of exercise bikes. Belsey admired a growing army of men and women pedalling endlessly towards their own reflections. The man was talking about payment plans.

  “And if there’s an au pair or anything, we can get her put on your account half-price.”

  “Perfect. Can I take a shower while I’m here? Maybe use the sauna?”

  “I can sort out a guest pass.”

  “That would be great. And I need a towel,” Belsey said.

  Belsey took the towel to the changing room, undressed and folded his clothes. Some members got their own permanent locker. These were larger than the others; they had gold numbers and a little tag that said “Premium.” Affiliates like himself had to put a pound in and he didn’t have a pound. He entered the sauna and breathed in the smell of pine, watching the lockers until someone opened one and he could see how large they were.

  He showered. The changing room was getting crowded. He helped himself to the free sprays and body lotion, dressed and went to reception.

  “What do you get with premium membership?”

  “It’s what we recommend if you’re serious about getting into shape. With premium you receive personal training, free classes, sunbeds, two towels and a locker of your own.”

  “Did Jessica Holden have premium membership?”

  It took them a moment to connect the name, then they looked uneasy.

  “What is this?”

  Belsey produced his police ID.

  “I think some police came in earlier. About Jessica Holden?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they ask to see her locker?”

  “No.”

  “I’d like to see Jessica Holden’s locker.” He put his badge away. They stared at him. Belsey walked into the ladies’ changing room.

  “It’s OK,” Belsey announced to the half-dressed women. “This is a murder investigation.” He turned to the staff. “Open Jessica’s locker, please.”

  They found a key, went to a locker and opened it. Inside were three suit bags and three Selfridges bags containing sets of office clothes, two basques, underwear from La Senza and Agent Provocateur, handcuffs, lube in sachets, six-inch heels, blindfolds in pink and blue, a new UK passport and a set of business cards that said her name was Emerald and she knew your “heart’s desire,” at least within the M25 area.

  It appeared the locker was spacious enough to fit a second life. And quite a life she seemed to have bought herself. Belsey looked at the business cards again, then told the staff that he needed to make a call.

  They let him use the phone in reception. He called the incident room.

  “Has any agency contacted you to say Jessica Holden was working for them as an escort?”

  “No. Is it true?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  The gym staff clustered close by, pretending not to listen. Belsey dialled the number given on Emerald’s business card.

  “Good evening, sir. You’re through to Sweetheart Companionship. Can I help?”

  “Whereabouts are you based?” Belsey asked.

  “Are you looking for some companionship?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can I take your name?”

  “I need to speak to the manager first. I have some unusual requests. Can you put me through?”

  “What does it concern?”

  “My request?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dead girls.”

  She hung up on him.

  Belsey thanked the gym for their assistance and walked out. He went to an Internet cafe on the Finchley Road and found the Sweetheart Companionship website. You could view girls by price or age or nationality; they advertised themselves with professional-quality shots, only partial nudity and vital statistics for those who wanted to imagine the rest. Half had their faces clouded. The home page kept the details of their work vague but advised that advance booking was necessary to avoid disappointment. All in all there were fifty-three girls of varying nationalities and price bands, all of whom may or may not have known his heart’s desire. There was no Jessica. No Emerald. Belsey checked the agency’s address and decided to visit in person.

  28

  Sweetheart lived on the top floor of a cramped Soho block on Poland Street, with narrow stairs leading past graphic designers and a TV production company. The door opened into a waiting area with a glass roof, a desk at the side and shots of 1950s film stars on the wall. It was turning 7 p.m., but then, Belsey guessed, it was a nocturnal kind of industry. A groomed middle-aged woman sat behind the desk, unfazed by his arrival.

  “I’m here to speak to the manager,” Belsey said. She smiled him towards a seat, and after a minute the office door opened and Belsey was invited in.

  The office contained a woman in a black trouser suit with a clipboard, and a man in an open-collared denim shirt with a tan and a greying goatee. The woman smiled at Belsey and left, shutting the door. The goatee gave a smile that was half a wink. Men here. Between you and me.

  “Freddie Garth.” He shook Belsey’s hand. “Drink?”

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  He buzzed through for some beers and water. The office had a view over the jumbled Soho rooftops towards Greek Street. There were framed prints of racing cars, a photographer’s white backdrop and a height chart. The desk was black, the chairs leather.

  “So I’m in London for a while,” Belsey began.

  “Of course.”

  “And I wanted some company.”

  “It can be a lonely city.”

  “The thing is, I wanted someone young enough to be my daughter,” Belsey said.

  The man nodded. “Why not?”

  “How young does it go?”

  “You’ll find all our girls are very fresh.”

  “What do they do?”

  “You pay for their company. Anything beyond that is between you
and the girl. We don’t involve ourselves. But I think you’ll find most are very willing. In two years we’ve never had any complaints.”

  “Let’s say I wanted a girl called Emerald.”

  Garth’s jaw tightened. “Let’s say.”

  “Any girls working under that name?”

  “Not here.”

  “Not anymore, right?”

  “Never.”

  “So when did she start?” Belsey said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Belsey pulled his badge. “Try and think really hard what I might be talking about.”

  Garth shut his eyes, then opened them again. He was irritated. It was irritating, finding yourself involved in crime when all you were doing was being a pimp.

  “Early last year,” he said, making himself comfortable in a way that said this was now a waste of his time.

  “Well, she turned eighteen in September.”

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  “Do you?”

  “We’re all in order.”

  “Not for selling seventeen-year-olds you’re not.”

  “I’m not talking to you until you show me a warrant. It’s nothing to do with us.”

  “The funny thing is, it’s nothing to do with me either. So why would I have a warrant?” Belsey laughed. “It’s nothing to do with me and it’s nothing to do with you.” He wondered where the beers were.

  “Then perhaps you could leave.”

  “And yet you took her off the books quickly enough.”

  The woman came in with a tray of drinks and saw the expressions on their faces. She shot a puzzled look at Garth and he waved her out of the room.

  “We took her off five weeks ago.”

  “I could have done with that beer.”

  “Let’s make this quick. It’s awful, what happened. But it’s nothing to do with us and you don’t need to be wasting your time here.”

  “Why did you take her off?”

  “She was fired.”

  “Why?”

  “She said she fell in love.” Garth’s eyes gleamed.

  “Is that bad?”

  “We knew what it meant.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means someone thinks they’re getting it for free.”

  Belsey considered this.

  “Maybe she was in love,” he said.

  “It means she’s turning tricks on her own. Sure, maybe she was loving it too. We see more of that than you’d think. It doesn’t make it any better for business.”

  “How did you know she was in love?”

  “She became unreliable. I heard talk. She wouldn’t turn up for jobs.” He shrugged. Belsey thought: Poor Jessica. Didn’t turn up for school and didn’t turn up for work. A girl after his own heart.

  “Did she do any secretarial stuff?”

  Garth frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Dress up in a blouse. Type letters.”

  “She’d dress up as Mickey Mouse if it got your wallet open. This isn’t a convent.”

  Belsey nodded. He stood up and got some water from the cooler.

  “She was seeing a man called Alexei Devereux. Tell me about him.” He stood beside the cooler so Garth had to twist to see him.

  “We don’t keep client records.”

  “Bullshit,” Belsey said. “Do you keep payment records?”

  “Not lying about.” Now Garth spread his plump hands, suddenly placatory. “I’m a simple man. I make a simple living.”

  “It doesn’t get much simpler.”

  “All we sell is a chance to unwind. Most people just want someone on their arm, someone to have a nice meal with, go to a bar.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “Anything else is between them and the girls.”

  Freddie Garth looked very drained now. Drained of willpower and drained of useful information. Belsey could have told Freddie Garth more than Garth could tell him. The next detectives who turned up at Sweetheart’s offices would find his revelations more startling. Then they would be just a step away from Devereux, and two steps away from Belsey himself.

  Girl gets mixed up with crooked businessman. Girl dies. He could spend a lot of time trying to join those dots or he could solve the more pressing mystery of how to remove himself from their mess before the Murder Squad arrived.

  Belsey left the Sweetheart office and headed back out.

  29

  Hampstead was having one of its nervous spells. The population had retreated and the dark peace of the Heath rolled out through the narrow streets like a fog. There was a sense of quarantine. Sometimes, as he walked through the village at night, its wealth seemed to Belsey like a kind of disease. He felt the isolation it imposed, the undercurrent of fear, the surgery. A breeze scraped dead leaves across the spotless pavements. The only humans he saw were teenagers in parked sports cars, releasing the cloying scent of skunk weed into the night.

  Belsey made his way to The Bishops Avenue. He wondered about Jessica’s fresh passport, then the letter in the handbag: I can’t do it. Sorry. She was meeting someone, he thought. Meeting Devereux, he tried to imagine. Had they been planning to flee together? Only Jessica got cold feet—and Devereux had already decided on a more absolute escape.

  Then there was the shooting.

  Maybe he was wrong about it all connecting. But he didn’t think so. And the collapse of business empires could make people angry. Go now, he thought. He was too entangled with a man who connected to a fresh murder victim. The police could well be looking for him already. Get out. But getting out meant getting money. Cassidy was expecting his delivery—all he needed were the goods to deliver.

  An empty beat car sat at the very top of The Bishops Avenue, close to the Heath. He could see a pair of detective constables moving house to house on their inquiries. They had passed Devereux’s. Belsey crossed the road, away from them, and approached number 37 from the far side. When he was sure they were well away from the house he crossed back, and walked swiftly up the path to the front door.

  He unlocked the door and went to the safe room, sat in the chair for a few minutes and shivered. He walked to the living room, turned on the TV and heard the headline: CONFUSION OVER COFFEE SHOP SHOOTING. Sky were devoting a lot of airtime to it. Initial reports of a robbery had been questioned. Someone had paid Jessica’s parents a visit and cleared out the photo albums: they had pictures of the girl at the front of a small stage in a satin dress, in a school line-up, one with friends in a Pizza Hut. But they’d failed to find the money shot, the heart-tug smile. Belsey crouched close to the screen. They seemed to favour the one of Jessica with friends. It wasn’t a good picture. She looked like she’d been caught off guard.

  He turned it off and finished loading Devereux’s possessions into the Porsche, squeezing shirts and suits into the remaining space and choosing which household appliances would be most profitable. There was more than he could take in one load so he made a separate pile of spoils in a corner of the garage for later use. Finally he stood in the study. The Persian rug looked like it was worth something. He could tie it to the roof. After five minutes of pushing and pulling he had moved the billiards table clear and was able to roll it up. He stared at the carpet beneath.

  A dark stain stretched towards his feet. Belsey crouched down and rubbed the carpet fibres between his fingers. Then he went and got a bottle of bleach from the utility room.

  He put the bleach on the stained carpet and watched it bubble. An old Murder Squad trick: The peroxide was reacting with an enzyme called catalase and breaking down into water and oxygen. Which meant it was blood. He stood there, staring at it with part weariness and part wonder. He felt the pull of investigation and the pull of escape, and swore with frustration. Eventually he took some cotton balls and went to the safe room. He stood on the chair and swabbed the dried blood on the ceiling with the cotton balls. Then he took scissors and two freezer bags from the kitchen and cut hims
elf a sample of bloodstained carpet. He sealed each sample separately and labelled the bags “Blood: Safe Room” and “Blood: Study.” He would sell Devereux’s possessions first. But then he needed to pay a visit to Forensic Command. For the sake of his conscience and his curiosity.

  After Hampstead’s well-heeled menace he was glad for the more open threat of south London. Belsey drove through the estates, wondering how he’d explain the arrest of John Cassidy to his anxious father.

  The Wishing Well was already Friday-night messy, brittle with an air of cocaine snorted off burnt cisterns. Men in bright shirts slapped one another’s backs and a few tough-looking women laughed beside the bar. Belsey found the regulars in one corner, eyeing the fair-weather criminals.

  “Where’s Niall?” Belsey said.

  “He’s not here. Try the office. He said he’d be waiting for you. He’s not happy.”

  It had taken Belsey three years of favours and lock-ins to see the “office,” a derelict brick shed behind the Old Kent Road that had once been a Dairy Crest milk depot. It crumbled slowly behind high fences in a corner of wasteland. The brownfield site had been abandoned for years and was now meant to be turning into shops and key-worker housing, except the private backers had backed out leaving only barbed wire and a trashed Portakabin. It all lived behind huge dented gates that carried warnings about nonexistent dogs; pitch black, away from the road, away from streetlights.

  Belsey banged on the gates. Chains slid through metal and they opened. Cassidy was on his own, a single red point of cigarette in the darkness. Belsey drove in, across compacted mud, into the depot.

  Niall’s “office” housed an old backhoe, a flatbed truck draped in tarpaulin and a lot of scrap metal. A meagre light dripped through its roof of translucent, cobweb-encrusted plastic, revealing a stained concrete floor and charging points along one wall for the milk floats. It had been the gathering point after many crimes, a perfect slaughter. The years of metal theft had left a chaotic jumble of scrap. Objects scattered about included magnets, manhole covers, roofing, parts of bus shelters. There was even fencing and decorative ironwork from cemeteries. The sour smell of old milk remained very faint.