Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  It worked. The gunman fired wildly, blinded, then backed out towards the road. Belsey aimed a kick at his kidneys and he went down but held on to the gun, desperately trying to wipe the foam off the visor. He got to his feet and raised the gun again. Belsey kicked it out of his hand. The man still wouldn’t run. He had the rifle, so what did he want? Belsey stood between him and the ambulance bike. He wants the bike, Belsey thought.

  Sirens approached. The gunman stiffened for a fraction of a second. He listened to the directions of the sirens and then ran in the opposite one, tearing his helmet off, but too late for Belsey to see his face.

  Belsey walked over to the bike. He’d stolen it with the key in because the ignition box was intact. The key wasn’t there now. The tail box was locked. Belsey found the assassin’s handgun by the kerb, a Browning BDM that had seen some action. He picked it up using a scrap of newspaper, aimed it at the lock on the bike’s tail box and fired. The box blew open. Belsey looked in the compartment and saw why the gunman was getting anxious. It contained a shirt and suit, spare ammunition, a conference badge on a length of ribbon and a swipe card for the Royal National Hotel.

  He checked Charlotte was OK. She was pale, but with enough fury remaining that she’d pull through. If the shots had attracted any attention, no one yet dared show their face. They would soon. Belsey returned to the bike and emptied the tail box. He stripped and wiped the blood off his face and hands with his shirt, then squeezed into the gunman’s clothes. He waited until he was sure the approaching sirens were real. But he didn’t want to be around when they arrived.

  “Do me a favour, Charlotte,” he said. “Don’t mention I was here.”

  She rolled her eyes. He gave her a kiss.

  53

  The Royal National was a sixteen-hundred-room hotel off Russell Square, a concrete maze of restaurants, corridors and migrant workers. It was a perfect hotel for an assassin. The gunman’s conference pass said “Ninth International HIV Research Conference” and gave the name Dr. Antoine Pelletier. Belsey hung it around his neck and turned it so the name was hidden. The hotel was musty, all 1970s wood and 1980s fabrics in a jaundiced, subterranean light. He walked past the reception to the lifts. You needed a swipe to work the lifts. The gunman’s hotel swipe card worked. The lift contained information about breakfast options and West End shows. Belsey took it to the first floor and back down to reception.

  The receptionist’s badge said “Tasha.”

  “Tasha, hello.”

  “Hello, sir. How can I help?”

  “There’s another delegate here, from the HIV conference,” Belsey said. “Dr. Pelletier. Could you tell him Dr. Steel is here?”

  “Hang on.” She spent twenty seconds scrolling down her computer screen, then lifted a receiver. Belsey watched her fingers. They dialled 561. She waited a moment.

  “I’m not getting an answer,” she said, without hanging up. Belsey checked his watch.

  “Maybe he’s gone already.”

  “Would you like me to keep trying?”

  “No, that’s fine. Is there a bathroom I can use?”

  She directed him past the lifts to the toilets. He walked past the lifts to the stairs and took the stairs to the fifth floor.

  Belsey found room 561 and knocked. No answer. He swiped the assassin’s hotel card in the lock and got a green light. Belsey kicked the door.

  The room was empty, bed made, three suit bags draped over a single chair. It smelt of stale smoke. There was a hotel ashtray and a box of surgical gloves beside the bed. The ashtray was the only object that looked used, although no butts had been left. The gloves suggested Belsey wasn’t going to find any prints very easily. He kicked the bathroom door open. It was spotless, with a cleaner’s seal on the toilet and the soaps still wrapped. Belsey searched the place. He turned the mattress, lifted the cistern. He lay down on the bed and stared at a very fine line on the ceiling, like a crack in the plaster, only it covered the edge of the ventilation grille. A hair. He stood on the bed and punched the grille and it fell out.

  In the metal duct above it was a telescopic sight, rifle cleaning kit, harness, a shopping bag containing tactical grips and a scope mount, and a key for the hotel safe deposit.

  Belsey took the key and a bag for sanitary waste and went back to reception. The safe-deposit boxes were stacked to one side of the desk. He sat outside the hotel’s Big Ben Pub waiting for Tasha to leave her post. A screen above the bar announced: MURDERED FINANCIER WAS “PLAYBOY FIXER.” Then: PUBLIC WARNED TO AVOID SQUARE MILE. The mayor was saying something to an assembled crowd. Then a ticker started flashing BREAKING NEWS: NEW SHOOTING CENTRAL LONDON. They hadn’t got the cameras to the scene yet. Northwood appeared, and Belsey could just make out his words: “If these incidents are the work of one individual, and at the moment that’s a big if . . .”

  Tasha left her post, replaced by a tall man with a badge that said “Yakubu.” Belsey walked up.

  “Yakubu.”

  “Sir.”

  “Can I reset my morning call? I want it at nine tomorrow. Room 561.”

  “Of course.”

  “And breakfast in my room. The continental option.”

  “OK.” He made a note. “That’s done for you.”

  Belsey laid the safe-deposit key on the counter. “I’ll grab something from my box.”

  “Sure.”

  The only thing in the box was a Canadian passport in Dr. Pelletier’s name. Belsey took it by the edges and dropped it in the paper bag.

  54

  Every instinct, human and police, told him to put a name to the threat—the man who had killed Jessica, Buckingham, then tried to kill him and Charlotte. He was still surfing on adrenaline from his near-death experience. By his own estimation he had ten hours to put the bastard out of action one way or another. This was non-negotiable. Secondary, but only just: find seven hundred pounds for Duzgun and get a passport of his own. Book a flight. Then put the final touches to Kovar. That had to be done soon so that the speculator could get the money ready. He would say his good-byes to Charlotte, collect his winnings and take flight.

  The attacker’s passport gave the name Dr. Antoine Michel Pelletier, born 2 June 1976 in Quebec City. The face was that of a Caucasian male in his thirties, clean-shaven, pale skin, receding black hair and small eyes. Organised Crime Forensics took a clean print off the back and came up with another seven identities: seven men all with the same fingerprints, all with hits to their name.

  The Print Unit officer looked a little shaken when the results came through. He was young, not long out of training college.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “There’s nothing in the UK before, but I checked the Interpol database and there’s thirty-seven separate warrants.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Take your pick: Aleksander Boskovic, Niko Pacassi, Nathan Risboro, Carel Dupont. The first three pseudonyms come up in connection with a series of killings along the Amalfi coast between 1995 and 1997. Carel Dupont fits the same description, wanted for the murder of Swiss judge Carla Pinto in 1996. Never found. The Swiss think that Dupont is probably the pseudonym of someone of Croatian origin, connected with a number of killings while travelling on Belgian passports in the name of Christof Segers, Jens Thomas, Jean-Paul Claessens. Those were in Paris, Marseille and Stockholm. The Police Nationale call him le chasseur, the hunter.”

  “That’s cute of them,” Belsey said.

  “From the weapons and tactics favoured, Swiss and Italian investigators profiled him as military-trained, probably with experience in a sniper unit during the Bosnian War. They narrowed it down to Milan Balic, a crack shot who helped take several cities across Herzegovina before going private, mostly for the Mafia in Naples. More recently he’s murdered a Nigerian ambassador and an Egyptian banker who’d fallen foul of Prince Faisal bin Abdul Aziz.”

  And from there it looked like he was on the HKGC payroll. It was in the pa
y of the prince that he turned up as Christian Le Febvre in Macao, associated with a hit on two of the gaming consortium’s rival developers in a bathhouse on the southern edge of the autonomous zone.

  “Were the killings connected to the Dream City Casino?” Belsey said.

  “That’s right.”

  Belsey made some calls. There was no Ninth International HIV Research Conference, it was a cover story for a visa application. He called Emergency Services Central Command. Charlotte Kelson had been taken to St. Thomas’ Hospital.

  55

  No one in or near Forensic Command knew where Belsey might find a travel agent’s. Eventually he found an independent package holiday firm on Kennington Road, with security grilles over the window and a sign that said “Victory Holidays.” Inside were pictures of white beaches and two staff with fake tans.

  “I need a flight tonight,” Belsey said. “The cheapest you’ve got. Late as possible.”

  “Anywhere?”

  “Within reason.”

  The girls laughed. There was a clatter of painted nails on computer keyboards.

  “Thessaloniki,” one of them said.

  She had a map inlaid on the desk and pointed with the end of a ballpoint to the south of Greece. It would work, he saw. Greece was EU, which meant there was no limit on the cash he could carry. It meant high-volume travel and low scrutiny; a low-suspicion destination, even for a wrecked man with no luggage.

  “When’s it going?”

  “Eleven-thirty tonight from Stansted. Air Berlin.”

  He could travel down into Turkey via Kipoi. The border police would be looking for drugs coming west, not individuals heading east. The E90 highway became the D110 in Turkey, and he could follow it to Istanbul. Easy to get lost there, sort visas, put his head down in a cheap room for a while. With luck he’d have the money to lie low. From there any transport could take him south to Ankara, and from Ankara he could bus it east, to the Habur border gate, into Nineveh. Nineveh, for Christ’s sake. “Good for resorts,” she said. “Might be a bit chilly at this time of year.”

  “What’s the total with tax?”

  “Will you be checking baggage?”

  “No.”

  “Thirty-two pounds.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  The flight was in just over ten hours. He took his ticket and said his mobile had died and asked if he could make a couple of calls on their phone. He offered the girls money, which they declined.

  He called Kovar.

  “Meet me at the House of Commons. St. Stephen’s Gate. Seven o’clock this evening.”

  “The House of Commons?”

  “Do you know it?”

  “I’ll be there,” Kovar said.

  Belsey booked a Prestige car on Devereux’s account for the same time. There was a serious risk that the booking drew unwanted attention. He had no idea how deep the police operation against Devereux was currently working. But he couldn’t cut corners. He needed to set the scene perfectly, right down to the last detail.

  “I want one of the limos,” he said. “Something with space. Pick me up on Millbank, by Victoria Tower Gardens, seven o’clock. Next to Parliament; as close as possible to the no-drive zone.”

  Belsey hung up. The travel agents stared at him. He thanked them again as he left.

  56

  Six hundred minutes to take-off.

  Belsey left the car at the top of Kennington Road and bought some flowers near the Imperial War Museum. He walked to St. Thomas’ Hospital. It was the end of weekend mop-up, casualties off the battlefield. He stepped through bleeding couples, crash victims, the glassed and the glassy. He avoided two reporters, quick off the mark, waiting for news from the ER.

  A uniformed constable sat outside Charlotte’s ward. He looked up at Belsey with business eyes. No one Belsey knew. Belsey got the scan: face, fingers, waist, and an uneasy glance at the bouquet.

  “Sorry, chap.” The constable raised a large hand.

  “I’m a friend.”

  “No visitors at all at the moment. She’s sleeping anyway.”

  “Is she OK?”

  “I can’t give any information.”

  “Can you give her these?” Belsey offered the flowers.

  “No.”

  Belsey looked past him, through a small window with a slat blind. He could see some bed linen—nothing else. He felt his fury return. He walked back down, gave the flowers to an old woman with tubes in her neck and called Met Central Operations.

  “This is Detective Constable Nick Belsey from Hampstead CID. I was present at the shooting on Cavendish Square. I have information about a suspect.”

  “OK.”

  “Which station is dealing with it?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Detective Constable Nick Belsey, from Hampstead police station. I have information about the shooting.”

  “Go into West End Central. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quick as possible.”

  He made West End Central in less than fifteen minutes. A constable greeted him and led Belsey through the station to an interview room in which three men had apparently been waiting. It was badly lit: one of the strip bulbs had gone and most of the light came from a desk lamp. Sitting at a table was a thick-necked, shaven-headed officer with a goatee and a stained shirt tight across his beer gut. With him were a thuggish ginger-haired constable and a man in a caramel-coloured suit. It took Belsey a second to recognise the suit as Nigel Herring, Northwood’s stooge.

  Now he took a better look at all their faces. He didn’t know the constable. The goatee was the man he’d seen leaving Chris Starr’s office with a bag of shredded paper. He didn’t look much friendlier now. A uniform jacket with sergeant’s stripes hung over the back of his chair.

  Belsey braced himself for the possibility that he had walked into a less than ideal situation. He could smell their sweat; they had been in the room for a while. But it wasn’t an investigations team. A copy of the Mail on Sunday lay on the desk, among stained paper plates, cartons of juice and cigarette packets, a story connecting PS Security and Chief Superintendent Northwood ominously to the fore.

  “What is this?” Belsey said.

  “Sit down.”

  “I’ve got a name,” he said. “For the shooting.”

  “A name.”

  They all looked blank. Then the sergeant laughed. The ginger constable shut the door.

  “You’ve got a name all right,” he muttered.

  “Let’s do this the easy way, Nick,” the sergeant suggested. He had cagey eyes. Belsey surveyed the mess on the table, the newspaper, their smirks. Then he surveyed Nigel Herring.

  “Sit down,” Herring said.

  The young constable put a hand on Belsey’s shoulder. He forced him into the plastic seat and tapped the paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Looks like someone talking crap.”

  “You’ll have to write them an angry letter then.”

  The sergeant leaned forward. “You’re not in a position to be a whistle-blower, Nick.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a guilty conscience.”

  “What about your conscience?”

  “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Herring threw a photo of Jessica Holden onto the table.

  “Know her?”

  “The face is familiar.”

  “Anything to tell us about her death?”

  “That the investigation’s a fuck-up.”

  There were glances between the three men.

  “Maybe it is,” Herring said. “When were you last on The Bishops Avenue?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Belsey said, as a deeply unpleasant scenario began to gain clarity. “Are you all PS Security boys? Is that what this is about? Have I fucked with your bonuses?” He wondered where it was all going. Now he studied the room more carefully, analysing his options: the layout, the three men, the
desk.

  “Answer the question.”

  “No comment.”

  “Had you ever spoken to this girl before the day she died?”

  “No comment.”

  “What about Charlotte Kelson?” Herring said.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She was investigating you, Nick.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” the constable added. They all laughed.

  “And now the poor woman’s in the hospital,” Herring said. “She was investigating you and how on earth you tie in to all of this. I can see why you’d be coy.”

  “Meet a young lady and don’t tell her your name,” the constable tutted. “Cheeky.”

  “Try to fleece a young reporter and then turn nasty on her,” Herring suggested.

  “Get her phone number and then lie to her network operator so you can access confidential data,” the sergeant said. “That’s love, Nick.”

  Belsey sighed. “And yet it’s not me in the papers this morning,” he said.

  “Oh, Nick. Why make enemies? Making enemies hurts.”

  Belsey looked up in time to see the fist. It belonged to the constable. It caught him square in the face and he lost vision for a second. There was a lot of laughter in the office now.

  “A present from friends.” The ginger one punched him again. Belsey gripped the chair to stop himself being lured into the trap of fighting back. That was what they wanted; then there’d be three men on him, no holds barred, and the cuffs would come out.

  “Fuck you,” Belsey said.

  “Oh no! Best tell Internal Affairs.”

  More laughter. Belsey tried to think. He could see this act going on for a while and didn’t imagine it would become more endearing.

  “She’s made a statement against you,” Herring said.

  “She wasn’t making many statements last time I looked,” Belsey said. He licked his lips and tasted blood.