The bathroom was more like a generous-sized shower cabinet, used but tidy: shaving kit, one toothbrush in a drinking glass. One discordant note: tangled knots of Sellotape filled the bin. Off the removal boxes?
Belsey sat down on the living-room sofa and, staring around the room, considered all this. According to the paperwork, Harper had been paying just over three hundred a week for this shoebox. As if to make up for lack of space, whoever designed the flats had installed a lot of plug sockets. Two were in use, side by side in the corner. They contained identical black charger plugs, leads trailing on the faux-wood floorboards. Not a type of charger he’d seen before. He went over to them. No phone insignia on the plug.
Belsey returned to the bathroom, took the Sellotape from the bin and untangled it. It was opaque. Not Sellotape at all, in fact. Surgical tape: breathable, rough in texture, made for use on skin. Maybe two metres of the stuff. He stuck it to the mirror, turned the shaving light on. There were hairs on it. Body hairs. He took a length of tape and wrapped it around his chest.
It had a property attached. A recording. A picture or a video or something.
Belsey went back to the chargers and wondered what kind of device they charged. The only time he’d used a concealed recorder was on an undercover drugs score. He had sworn never again; the police devices were huge and heavy. Most undercover officers forked out for their own equipment – preferable to being shot when it fell down a trouser leg. There was much better stuff on the market.
You wouldn’t wear two, though.
He looked around, saw the Slazenger bag. It was in good condition. The style didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the flat. He lifted it to the light and peered through a small hole bored into one end. Just big enough for a peephole camera.
Now Belsey sifted the bankruptcy paperwork more attentively. Ten days ago a significant chunk of Harper’s arrears became the responsibility of a professional debt-collection agency. Not friendly people in Belsey’s experience. But good at prompting money-making schemes.
£750k for exclusive world rights.
He thought of the receipt he’d pulled from Harper’s trouser pocket in Epping. A whisky at the Comfort Hotel, Friday – the night Mark and Amber turn up. Harper’s ready to get his £750k scoop. But he’s going to have to film something without taking his clothes off. Maybe just the pair of them entering and departing. You could build a story out of that. You could also just rip it off the security cameras. And it wasn’t worth £750k. Not to anybody.
Belsey tweaked the living-room blind. The narrow balcony outside granted you a view of the next wave of construction. It also gave a view of two cars parked close to his borrowed Bentley. One was a black Ford Mondeo. Belsey felt sure it was the car that had swung by Mark’s last night. Sitting in the driver’s seat was the young man he’d seen across the road from Price’s office. Same goatee, same Oakley sunglasses. He had a sightline on the entrance to Waterside Heights.
Paparazzi would get out of the car to take a photo. They wouldn’t have binoculars on the dashboard. They wouldn’t have been tailing him for twenty-four hours.
Belsey let the blind fall and turned on the TV. News of foreign wars, then more local matters: Harper’s demise arrived right on schedule. ‘Police are appealing for assistance today as they struggle to identify the body of a man found in Epping Forest last night. The body is described as that of a white male between thirty and fifty years old . . .’ They’d reconstructed the outfit Harper was wearing. They’d tried a reconstruction of his face. Belsey picked up the family photo and compared them. Not bad. Not great. £750k. Someone with £750k of footage who goes missing – that’s going to be noticed. Certainly by the people trying to profit out of him. The story went to the Sun on Sunday, Baker had said. Via a broker: Shaun White.
Belsey took his phone out and searched online for the Shaun White Agency. White, it turned out, was quite a character, dominating the market in sleaze: self-styled ‘Mr Showbiz’, a clearing house for every titbit with market value, a companion for those who’d fallen into fame and needed a guide. He got his clients deals, fed the papers scandal, and found himself fabulously rich. The wealth was part of the sales pitch, it seemed. His fat, shaven head sweated in photo ops with disgraced soap stars, teenage singers, kidnap victims. All looked delighted; most were one or two feet taller than him. It was hard to find White’s name without the words ‘six-figure deal’ hovering nearby. But then publicity was his job.
I’m surprised he’s not been in touch with you, Baker had said. Belsey was a little surprised too.
No answer from the Shaun White Agency when he called. He left a message saying he was fucking Amber Knight and needed representation. He sent an email and got an auto-reply: ‘Due to an exceptionally high workload the Shaun White Agency will not be taking on any more clients until further notice.’ All enquiries were directed to a mobile number. Belsey called the number and it went to voicemail.
Not what you’d expect from the market leaders.
The agency listed an address in east London. Belsey found a number for the building’s main reception and called. A woman said the agency was temporarily closed for holidays.
Unfortunate time to close, given the current workload. He’d tried that tactic in his own career and it proved a temporary solution at best. He checked the window. The Ford was still there. He left Harper’s flat, got in the Bentley and began the drive towards Old Street. The Mondeo stuck close to him. Belsey stopped a couple of times and checked his mirrors. There they were. He drove in a couple of circles, around a few blocks, one direction then another, and wondered if they felt as foolish as they looked.
26
SHAUN WHITE OPERATED FROM A warehouse conversion close to the Old Street roundabout. Bare bricks, unpainted concrete and some of the most expensive office space outside of the Square Mile. A young woman sat at the building’s front desk, disgruntled simultaneously by two couriers and a maintenance man.
Belsey walked through to the stairs, past offices for music labels and online clothes stores to a door on the fourth floor with a sign for the Shaun White Agency. A notice had been stuck to a frosted-glass panel above it: ‘Closed due to bereavement.’
The door was locked. Through the frosted panel you could see lights were on. Belsey felt the glass. It was cold. He felt the handle. Freezing. The air con was audible through the door.
He went back down to the front desk. The little crowd remained. The receptionist was trying to convince one of the motorbike couriers they were in the wrong building.
‘Shaun White—’
‘I’m dealing with someone,’ the woman said.
‘I’m waiting too, mate,’ the maintenance man pointed out.
The receptionist got up, led the biker to the front of the building and flapped her hand towards the end of the road. Belsey walked behind her desk, opened all the drawers and found a bunch of master keys. He went back up to the office, waited for a group to clear the landing, tried a couple of keys and opened the door.
Shaun was in after all. He sat at his desk, looking at Belsey. His head was tilted, purple and swollen. Air con had forestalled most of the decomposition, but there was nothing to stop the bloating and the livid blotches. His wrists were duct-taped to the arms of his swivel chair. His feet didn’t reach the floor.
It was a nice office. New Macs, translucent furniture. Around the walls were framed pictures of Shaun himself, smiling triumphantly at his corpse. There were two desks close to the door and one for Shaun in the centre, plus a small meeting room behind a clear glass wall. The ice-cold air con rippled the leaves of plants and the pages of open magazines. On his desk, the little finger of White’s left hand sat detached in a small pool of congealed blood.
Belsey turned the desk light on. The finger was pinkish-blue, childlike. The mutilated hand remained taped to the arm of the chair, the floor beneath it black with blood. But not enough to have killed him. Belsey considered the victim’s age and BMI and read the caus
e of death as a heart attack brought on minutes after the enhanced interrogation began. He pressed the skin on White’s forearm and it stayed discoloured. Over twelve hours dead. Rigor mortis worn off. Clouded lenses, but the eyes weren’t bulging with gases yet. Maximum two days dead.
He angled the light and checked the skin around the mouth. There were no signs it had been taped. Suggesting Shaun hadn’t had much time to scream. Also suggesting his attacker had wanted him to speak.
The door of the meeting room was open. A long glass table, more framed pictures on the wall, one of them on the ground. Set into the wall where the picture had hung was a black cabinet safe with combination lock. It was open.
Belsey approached the safe. Inside was a mess of incriminating material in every medium: Polaroids, paperwork, flash drives and a couple of video cassettes. Some items had been thrown to the floor. Belsey took an armful, dropped them onto the table. A minor royal in lingerie, blurred people with rolled twenties up their noses, a burnt spoon on a hotel bureau, a man and a woman holding hands on a secluded beach. Decades of shame. Envelopes of grainy black-and-white prints, rolls of Kodak, three floppy disks and a VHS labelled ‘Christmas oral 1988’.
He searched the rest of the safe. Whatever Shaun had on Amber Knight had flown.
Belsey returned to Shaun White at his desk, switched the computer on, tried a few passwords. Then he nudged the corpse aside and searched for an address book. He opened the top desk drawer and removed a bulging Filofax. Shaun was old school. He checked D for the journalist who made the offer for Harper’s property – Damian Drummond. Not there. Belsey tried S and found Drummond amongst a whole page of Sun contacts. Belsey took his mobile out, then put it back and picked up the desk phone instead. Drummond answered on the first ring.
‘Shaun, where’ve you been?’
‘It’s Hugo,’ Belsey said. ‘Shaun’s assistant.’ There was a pause.
‘Is Shaun there?’
‘Yes. He says he’s sorry he’s been busy. He wants you to come in. He’s got what you need.’
‘He’s got it?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘It’s OK? There’s no problem?’
‘Plenty of problems. That’s how we make our money, isn’t it?’
Drummond laughed uncertainly. ‘I’ll bring my chequebook.’ It sounded like he was moving already.
‘Bring the big one. Shaun can’t wait to see you.’
Belsey hung up. He set up a third chair by the desk. He took a sheet of paper from the printer and wrote the chronology as he had it while he waited. A story had gone to the Sun on Sunday four days ago, Saturday, according to Terri Baker, from a member of the public via Shaun White. The receipt in the Epping corpse’s pocket suggested Ian Harper had been at the Comfort Hotel early Friday evening, same time Amber and Mark paid a visit. Say Harper approaches Shaun White on Saturday morning with whatever he’s recorded. By Saturday night, Mark Doughty’s on the run, Shaun’s taped to his chair and Harper’s an ecosystem.
Belsey looked at the corpse beside him. While his estimation of Amber was rising by the hour, he couldn’t see this as her handiwork. What about Mark Doughty, torturing Shaun for Amber’s sake? To close the story down.
But what story?
The door to the office opened at twenty past three. Drummond walked in, stopped, stepped back again. He froze on the threshold, professional curiosity counterbalancing disgust. The journalist was tall, stubble greying, tie loose. He stared at the corpse, then at Belsey.
‘Come in. Shut the door.’ Belsey gestured to the empty seat. ‘We’ve been waiting. I mean, I have. Shaun’s dead.’ He kicked the sliding chair towards the door, where it hit Drummond’s legs.
‘What is this?’
‘A corpse, an open safe, evidence of torture. Choose your headline.’
Drummond came over with his chair, staring at the space where Shaun White’s little finger should have been.
‘You killed him?’
‘No. Have another try.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Someone taped Shaun’s hands to the arms of his chair and cut his finger off. Shaun told them the code for the safe. Then he had a heart attack. They stole what they wanted. Everyone lived happily ever after. Apart from me and Shaun White and quite a few other people. I think they took a recording of Amber Knight that was being sold to you. So tell me about that.’
Drummond considered all this, aspects of the situation coming into focus.
‘We never got it. I don’t know what it was.’
‘You offered seven hundred and fifty k. I don’t believe you were taking a total punt.’
The journalist glanced around the office, the open safe, having another go at comprehension; then back to Belsey.
‘You’re Nick Belsey.’
‘No points for that.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Trying to establish why people are dying and how I can avoid being held responsible.’
‘I’m going to call the police now,’ Drummond said, taking his phone out.
‘I’m going to call Terri Baker, so fuck off out of here. I thought you were a journalist.’
Drummond relented, took a seat on his sliding chair. Belsey admired him for that. He was still wielding his phone though.
‘Are they about you?’ Drummond said. ‘The films.’
‘No. Shaun must have said something when he spoke to you.’
‘A man had come to him with a set of recordings. That’s all. We never found out what exactly he had.’
‘A set?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was that?’
‘Early last week. He said he could get us something special but needed operating money.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Five grand – to cover his expenses and recording equipment. The source said he was going to give us something special but would need to get away afterwards. That his life would be in danger. We promised up to eight hundred depending on what he brought us. Shaun was doing his usual, playing the papers off each other. But I don’t think it was entirely bluff. There was something special about this one.’
‘Maybe the life-endangering aspect was a giveaway.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who did the source think would be putting his life in danger?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you meet them?’
‘No.’
‘What made you invest?’
‘Shaun had pictures from him already – of Amber at home, no make-up, with a man. No one knew who the man was.’
‘How did he get these?’
‘I don’t know. This was just the start. He said he could get video that would blow our minds. He had access. Shaun said his client had detailed knowledge about her: her routine, her life. A secret life.’
‘Involving what?’
‘I’m telling you everything I know.’
‘Any idea how he had that knowledge?’
‘No. He wasn’t staff. We know all the staff through Karen. Do you know?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I got a call on Saturday morning saying they’d got the footage. Shaun had seen it and said it was crazy.’
‘Crazy like what?’
‘Different from anything I’d have ever seen before – that’s what he said. I had to come in to his office to see it. He wouldn’t talk on the phone. Couldn’t say what it related to exactly. But it was definitely Amber, so you knew it was going to be huge. Then he stopped returning my calls.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
Drummond’s eyes cut to Shaun. He looked away again.
‘I thought we’d been outbid. It’s happened before with Shaun. I was waiting for Sunday. I expected to see it in the Mail.’
‘When exactly did you last speak to him?’
‘Saturday lunchtime.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said his client had delivered one tape and we should ho
ld tight.’
‘Well, someone found out about what his client was doing. In between whatever he got on Friday night and being dumped in Epping Forest twenty-four hours later. How many people on the paper knew about this?’
‘Just me, the deputy editor and the editor.’
‘Someone leaked.’
Drummond shook his head, more in wonder than denial.
‘I don’t see how.’
‘You know about the body found in Epping Forest last night, right?’ Belsey asked.
‘Yes.’
‘He was your source, a man called Ian Harper. He was killed on Saturday night – I don’t know where – and dumped in the woods. He was a bankrupt divorcee, former online advertising salesman. I believe Chloe Burlington was involved somehow and started panicking about all this. She’s dead two days later. And there’s a guy called Mark Doughty. He’s on the run now.’
Drummond slipped a notebook from his jacket pocket and wrote this down.
‘How do you fit in?’ he asked.
‘I don’t.’
Drummond turned back to the main office. ‘I’d like you to put all this on record. There would be a fee, for a full interview.’
‘Not right now, Damian.’ Belsey stood up.
‘Are you represented by Andy Price?’
‘Not really. We’re in talks.’
‘There are people trying to sell stories about you.’
‘Good luck to them.’
‘We spoke to a DI Geoff McGovern. He knows the editor.’
Belsey sighed. ‘Yeah, Geoff McGovern. He’s talking to you, but where is he? You know what I mean? Here we are at a crime scene trying to stop a killer and where’s super DI Geoff McGovern?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Me neither, Damian. Maybe he’s not all he’s cracked up to be. Maybe he’s talking about me because I’m one of the few people off statins who knows what a dark bastard he is. Maybe he’s not investigating at all. But someone needs to sort this out, don’t you think? Before more people get killed.’
Drummond nodded warily.
The House of Fame Page 17
