The Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  “No. Who was he?”

  “Graham Dougsdale. Used to work in Covert. He was one of our best: a pursuit man, a watcher. Graham vanished. He was on a recce where he got photographs of Devereux. Do you know how hard it is to get photographs of Alexei Devereux? We get a call from Graham at 2 p.m. on Sunday saying he’s tailing and he’s had a result; he’s following the Russian. Then nothing. No contact.”

  Belsey thought about a strip of exposed subsoil in the corner of The Bishops Avenue garden. He wondered what time of year you were meant to plant bulbs.

  “Where did you lose him?”

  “Hampstead somewhere.”

  “Did you get the photographs?”

  “No.”

  “Where was the call from?”

  “Whitestone Pond. We’re searching everywhere: the Heath, everywhere. We’ll find him. And get the pictures.” It sounded as if he’d rather have the pictures than the missing investigator.

  “Photos of what?”

  “Devereux and whoever he was with. Some business going on. I don’t know. Something Graham thought was significant.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Some people.”

  “And Jessica Holden—did these people ask you to investigate her?”

  “No comment, Nick. Tell me your side of the story.”

  “Did you tell your client where they’d be able to find her? Did you know they were going to fill her with bullets?”

  “We haven’t broken any laws.”

  “Oh, thank fuck for that. Let’s all sleep easy. Who are they, Chris? Who’s paying?”

  “Clients.”

  “Why are they upsetting my neighbourhood?”

  “I don’t know.” Starr looked sincere.

  “Something they’re angry about.”

  “I’ll say.” He leaned back and massaged his face, then removed his hands and stared at Belsey.

  “I think that’s why you were asked to gain information as to where Jessica Holden was going to be that morning,” Belsey said.

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Maybe I’ll go to the police.”

  This elicited a scornful expression from Starr.

  “How popular are you with your fellow police these days, Nick?”

  “What’s that meant to mean?”

  “I hear about you.”

  “What do you hear?”

  “Your luck’s running out.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Tell me what you know about Alexei Devereux,” Starr demanded.

  “Tell me who’s hiring you.”

  “No way.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want to know who’s associated with this Devereux. They want to know everything about his life. What happened to Graham?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” Belsey said, rising.

  “Don’t fuck me around,” Starr said. “Don’t make me angry when you’re in the line of fire.”

  “I’m in the line of fire?”

  “You’re putting yourself there.”

  38

  Disposal of a body is hard. People talk about acid, but even acid leaves teeth and gallstones. And who has acid? Burning anything in London is a nightmare, and you never get to a heat necessary to melt down bones, not even with petrol. Burial is just preservation. That’s if you were lucky. Less than two feet down and nature’s scavengers will reveal a body in a week or so.

  Belsey returned the response car to Hampstead station, swapped it for the more discreet unmarked CID Peugeot and drove back to The Bishops Avenue. The winter afternoon had turned dark as night. He left the car on a side road and walked the last block to Devereux’s. He let himself in, went to the garden and took a spade from the shed.

  Graham Dougsdale, the days of man are as grass, as a flower of the field so shall he flourisheth.

  The saplings came straight out when he pulled at them. They hadn’t been properly bedded. Belsey tore the trees out, threw the bulbs to the side and began to dig. After a minute he hit something. He’d cleared a small hole, just over one foot deep. Crouching, he could see the unmistakable colour of bone down through the rich soil. He checked the spade edge and it had caught some blood and a scrap of flesh.

  Belsey took a roll of bin bags and a fresh pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen. He put the gloves on and knelt beside the grave. After a minute of clawing at the soil he could see thick black hair. It didn’t make much sense. Belsey dug around and the hair continued. He took the gloves off and felt the hair. It was coarse. He dug some more until he could see a tail. Eventually he was able to wrench the corpse free. He pulled out a mixed-breed Dalmatian-pointer.

  Belsey stared at it for a moment. Then he used the spade to lift the dog into a bin bag and carried it to the kitchen, where he laid it on the breakfast bar. He turned the main light on. The dog was male, eyes misted, throat slit.

  Belsey gave Isha Sharvani a call.

  “Very funny, Nick,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The blood sample. You asked if it was the same.”

  “It’s dog’s blood.”

  “Right. I’m a busy woman—”

  “Which one is the dog’s blood?”

  “Your package labelled ‘Safe Room.’ The other’s human enough, the carpet fibre. But the safe-room sample’s got canine antigens. Did you not know that?”

  “Not until now.”

  “There’s no mistaking them.”

  Belsey returned the dog to its grave and piled the soil back in. He stepped softly up the stairs to the safe room and stood there for a long time looking at the dried blood. He felt the logic of the world shifting once again. There seemed plenty of reasons why someone might murder Alexei Devereux but he couldn’t see why they’d then go to the elaborate lengths of staging it as a suicide. That wasn’t the MO for revenge killings. A crime of passion, maybe, but not a hit. He sat down at the control panel for the CCTV.

  Belsey checked the system again, in case there were any early recordings that he had missed. He couldn’t find anything before his stay. He watched the recordings of the previous night.

  Each monitor gave footage from four cameras, the screen quartered. There was a camera at the front of the property, one in the hall, two cameras in the upstairs corridor, one in both the study and the living room, two in the garden. He watched himself sleeping on the living-room sofa. He had never seen himself sleeping before. One time they raided a man’s home and found images of people sleeping, thousands of them over three hard drives, and had to figure out if there was anything illegal about it. Belsey sat watching the images. He thought about shutting himself in the safe room, drinking the mineral water, eating the tinned food and waiting for the emergency to pass. Then something appeared on the left-hand monitor.

  The clock said 4:32 a.m. Belsey was lying on the sofa with one arm over his face. A man entered the room.

  Belsey stopped and rewound. The figure walked in from the hallway, went up to the sofa and cast his shadow across Belsey’s chest and arm. He had no face. Something obscured his features entirely. Then the figure walked out again.

  Belsey felt the touch of that shadow cross him. A deep, superstitious instinct made him get up and walk through every room of the house, checking the windows and the doors to the outside world. Finally he could sit back down at the monitor and try to understand what he was seeing.

  The hallway camera caught the intruder as he entered the front door—he went straight to the alarm and punched the code in. He wore a latex mask. Then he went through the living room. He knew the place. Belsey tried to see the figure’s throat as if it might bear telltale scars: Devereux revisiting his past life, touching the surfaces, the furniture, looking for whatever it was that would allow him to escape
limbo.

  Then he saw Belsey.

  The figure froze. Then very slowly he approached the sofa to look at the sleeping form. He continued out of the living room to the study.

  The shadow stood a long while in the study, then crouched down. He disappeared from view as he crawled across the floor, reappearing beside the desk. Four-forty a.m. He searched the bin and the fireplace. He faced straight into the camera and still there were no features.

  He must have seen the camera lights, Belsey guessed. A small red light beneath each camera told you the CCTV system was on. The intruder began to move towards the stairs. To the safe room, Belsey thought. He was on his way to stop the tapes. Then, suddenly, he fled. Some noise must have startled him into thinking Belsey was getting up.

  Belsey watched the tapes again. Whoever he was, he was looking for something. He searched systematically, moving through all the rooms, but he lingered longest in the study.

  He stopped the tape and went downstairs and retraced the ghost’s steps. What was he searching for? Belsey crouched to the floor in the study, as the ghost had. When had he been crawling around here before? The watch. He straightened, looking at his wrist and wondering how valuable a fake Rolex could be. Worth breaking back into existence to retrieve? He took it off and looked for an inscription but there was nothing.

  Something was closing in. This was clear now. His hours in London were numbered. Belsey wanted a passport in his pocket. He wanted to know he could move fast whatever happened with Kovar. The phone rang. Belsey unplugged it, then plugged it back in and called the B&B where he’d last been staying.

  “Have you got a contact number for Siddiq Sahar? He was there last month.”

  The B&B had a mobile number for him. Belsey called and the new wife answered.

  “Oh yes, Nick.”

  “Can I speak to Siddiq?”

  He came on the line. “Nicky, my friend.”

  “I need papers.”

  “You want papers?”

  “A passport and ID.”

  “You sound bad, man. Very bad.”

  “I’ve been better.”

  There was a brief pause; then, in a low, measured voice Belsey had not heard him use before, Siddiq gave an address on Green Lanes.

  “Take two passport photos. Ask for a man called Hasan Duzgun. Say I sent you. You will need fifteen hundred in cash.”

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  “If he is not there, wait and he will come. I will tell them to expect you.”

  Belsey had nine hundred pounds or so remaining but he was ready to haggle.

  Belsey knew of the Duzguns. They were a sprawling family with ties to the Turkish mafia. Their London activities were a model of political tolerance, working with the Kurdish to import heroin and with the Greeks to trade black-market cigarettes. Belsey placed a call to Operation Mandolin from the Peugeot’s car phone as he drove north. Mandolin was Haringey’s specialist task force, given the job of monitoring the Turkish and Kurdish communities since a string of shootings a couple of months back. He got hold of DS Simon Walters.

  “Hasan Duzgun,” Belsey said. “Is he selling passports?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good ones?”

  “Good as they come. Fresh from a printer’s in Wolverhampton.”

  “What’s the going rate?”

  “About two grand for a full set of papers.”

  “Is he currently under observation?”

  “No.”

  Belsey drove through Holloway to Haringey. He found a photo booth in Manor House tube station and drew the curtain. Father, I have sinned. He looked severe, the monochrome mirage in the glass reduced his face to bloodless skin and dark grey hollows. A sign said not to smile if it was for a passport. He had two sets taken, one with his coat, one without and with his hair messed up. While he waited for them to appear he took a torn envelope from a bin and transferred the last nine hundred pounds from the shopping bag to the envelope. It left two lonely twenties in his possession. He wrote a date of birth and a fake address on the back of the envelope. The photos appeared. He headed down Green Lanes.

  The address he’d been given was a social club with brown shades over its windows and no apparent name. The interior consisted of three plastic tables, six old men, a pool table and not much else.

  “Is Hasan Duzgun here?” Belsey said.

  The men looked up. Belsey was nodded through a doorway into a back room. Card tables stood in neat rows, covered with paper tablecloths and lit by bare bulbs. Behind the farthest one sat an obese man with a full ashtray and the remains of his meal on a plate. He had large brown eyes. He gestured to the seat across from him and Belsey sat down. The table was small. Their knees touched. The man raised two fat fingers and a moment later two thimble-sized glasses of mint tea arrived. A grey curtain was drawn across the doorway to the front.

  “You know Siddiq.”

  “That’s right,” Belsey said. “He told me you could help.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “We shared some temporary accommodation.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s very well. He just got married. I need a passport and a driver’s licence.”

  The fat man nodded. “Why do you want papers?” he asked.

  “I lost mine.”

  “Sure. It will cost you fifteen hundred pounds.”

  Belsey reached into his jacket and took the envelope out and placed it on the table.

  “That’s nine hundred. I’ll give you the rest when I see the papers.” Duzgun raised his eyebrows at this. “I want them in the name of Jack Steel,” Belsey said. “I want a UK passport, not Honduras or some crap from the Internet. I need something that will scan at an airport.”

  Duzgun didn’t look at the envelope. He dropped two sugar cubes into his tea using small gold tongs. He stirred and it sounded like a bell ringing. Belsey did the same. They sipped their tea in silence.

  “This is a good country,” the man said.

  “It’s great.”

  “Peaceful. Lots of money.”

  “I love that about it,” Belsey said.

  “To the British, two things are very important: politeness and respect.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Lewisham, originally.”

  “Why do you want these?”

  “There’s nine hundred pounds on the table. I didn’t think I had to have an interview.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Here? I drove.” The conversation was breaking down. Belsey needed to leave. “A good passport, not new, but valid for a while,” he said. “And a driver’s licence, ten years old. I want you to use the different pictures for them.” He got up.

  “You know a lot about this.”

  “That’s right. When can I collect them?”

  “Two days, maybe three.”

  “I need them tomorrow. Get them to me tomorrow and I’ll give you another seven hundred,” Belsey said. Duzgun reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and produced a toothpick. He thought about this.

  “Come tomorrow afternoon. That is the earliest I can do. You come here.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I will be here, Jack Steel. You bring another seven hundred.” He watched Belsey leave. “Seven hundred,” he said at his back. “Or I hand you to police. They know me. It will cause trouble for you.”

  39

  Belsey changed a twenty and called Max Kovar’s mobile from a public phone in Archway Snooker Centre. The place was deserted. The speculator answered on the second ring.

  “Is this line secure?” Belsey said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Mr. Devereux
is back now. He says he was sorry not to have met you the other night. He sends his regards.”

  “Well, tell him I’m very honoured. Is he there?”

  “He’s with someone. But he didn’t want to waste a moment. An opportunity has arisen.”

  Kovar controlled his voice. He wasn’t a man to sound grateful or excited. “Well,” he said, “as I’ve made clear, it would be in your interest as well as my own.”

  “Yes. That much is clear, I think.”

  “I need details, however.”

  “I’ll get you details. But we need big-game players here, Max. Men not afraid to step up. You understand me?”

  “I think we understand each other.”

  “Meet me later,” Belsey said.

  “Will Mr. Devereux be there himself?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And he will tell me what I’m looking at?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where will I find you?”

  “The Rivoli bar at the Ritz,” Belsey said. The Rivoli was a mess of art deco glass and gold leaf. Belsey loved it. He had kept warm there plenty of times, wondering if he could afford a drink. He’d always wanted to do some business at the Rivoli.

  “I know it,” Kovar said. “I have a dinner appointment, but that can be rearranged.”

  “Keep your dinner appointment. We’ll be there around midnight.”

  “Perfect.”

  He hung up. Now he really needed to sort his act out. He called Ajay Khan.

  “You said there was one guy who was talking up Devereux and Project Boudicca.”

  “Emmanuel Gilman.”

  “I need someone who can give me an indication of what Devereux was working on. I’d like to see what Emmanuel Gilman knows.”

  “OK.” Khan sounded hesitant. “But Emmanuel’s in a strange place right now.”

  “I need to speak to him. Can you arrange that?”

  “Sure. I’ll tell him you’re a drug dealer.”

  “And a policeman?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  He gave Belsey a Docklands address, a block of flats near Canada Water.

  “Will he talk?” Belsey said.

  “Oh, he’s talkative all right. Be gentle with the guy, Nick. Be careful.”