The Hollow Man

by Oliver Harris

  “Everybody out,” he shouted, walking into reception. Police and civilians streamed out of the gates. He moved through them. “Evacuate the building,” he said, badge out. He ran up the stairs to the fourth floor, past Cheque Fraud and Computer Crime to the Financial Development Unit. Midgley was pulling his coat on. Belsey walked past, to Ridpath’s office, and tried the door. It was locked.

  “Have you got keys to Inspector Ridpath’s office?” he asked.

  “Yes. Have you got permission to enter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so. Because maybe there’s pictures of you in there. You with someone else’s credit card.”

  Belsey walked to the officer’s desk, took the drawers out and emptied them on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Midgley reached for the desk phone and Belsey punched him hard in the face so that he fell to the floor, out cold. He took Midgley’s keys and opened Ridpath’s office, went in and shut the door. CCTV images of himself with Devereux’s cards lay on top of a white envelope stamped “Camden Council.” Belsey pocketed them and searched the desk. Inside the top drawer was a dog-eared sheaf of photocopies: “Specialist Crime Directorate—UK Eyes Only: Pierce Buckingham.” It contained full intel reports on Buckingham for the last seven years, stapled to a printout from the Moscow Business Gazette website: Fortunately, Devereux has established bases in Paris, London and New York and would probably be welcome in any of them . . .

  On top of the pile was a copy of an e-mail from Chris Starr: I appreciate your concern. Unfortunately, for reasons of security, I cannot disclose information regarding any equipment PS Security utilise in their operations . . . It was clipped to printouts from espionage websites, pages torn from catalogues of hidden cameras, miniature cameras, cameras in lighters and jewellery and fake cans of drink.

  Belsey called PS Security from Ridpath’s phone. Starr sounded tense.

  “Nick? Where are you?”

  “Where am I meant to be, Chris? The cells of West End Central?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “When exactly did Graham Dougsdale go missing?”

  “Sunday, around 3 p.m.”

  “He’s five-eleven, broad, balding.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s at St. Pancras Mortuary, tagged as Alexei Devereux. My condolences, Chris. Better luck next time.”

  Belsey put the phone down. The fire alarm was still going. He checked the time on his fake Rolex. Two hours to get to the airport. Everything was in place and he was fucked by a tail team. Then he looked at the watch again.

  Very flash. Do you even know what all those things do?

  He saw the figure on CCTV moving through the house, searching the study, and then he saw the same silhouette standing over him at Ridpath’s, touching the blanket, after something. He lured me back there, Belsey thought. He was trying to take the watch.

  Belsey stared at the watch face, the fake Rolex hands, the stars and buttons. He took it off. Then he pulled it apart.

  The lens was a pinprick in the “o” of “Rolex.” The buttons operated the device. A third unscrewed to reveal a port for linking to a USB input.

  It wasn’t Devereux’s watch. It was PS Security’s.

  Belsey barged out, stepping over Midgley, down the stairs, out through the back of the Yard.

  He searched for an Internet cafe. The first place he found with PC access was a convenience store that advertised laptop repairs and money transfers and had six monitors along one wall. It worked. The owner had a box of wires and adapter cables and the second one they tried connected the watch to a hard drive. There were a couple of people making long-distance video calls and a group of teenagers listening to ringtones. The watch attracted a crowd.

  “How much does that cost?” the teenagers asked. They gathered around Belsey.

  “Where did you get it?”

  They stopped smiling when the images appeared on the monitor.

  It was obviously surveillance, hurriedly taken from a variety of angles, none very close. They showed a middle-aged man and an eighteen-year-old girl in embraces, obscured by parked cars, spied through the window of a restaurant, leaving the restaurant and kissing.

  The images were time-stamped to 2 p.m. last Sunday. The couple had then been tailed back to the house on The Bishops Avenue, photographed leaving it again an hour later, then Dougsdale made his way inside. There were photographs of the living room and the bedroom and finally the study. Then there were no more photographs.

  Belsey clicked back to the kiss. The couple stood between the Porsche Cayenne and the front windows of an Italian restaurant. Villa Bianca. Ridpath held the girl’s coat and she had her face raised, eyes closed, both with their eyes closed, looking like they knew it was their last.

  Belsey printed a copy. He found his flight details and checked in online, printed his boarding pass, then slit the lining of his jacket and slipped the watch inside.

  60

  Citadel Place had got its name for a reason, an ugly 1980s block on an armoured business park by the river, all black gates and caged turnstiles. Belsey approached with caution, glad for the area’s industrial gloom. Cars swept hurriedly in and out, past crumbling warehouses and rusting barbed wire. This evening they were parked up the street as well: marked and unmarked, all under the eyes of four security guards and fifteen cameras. Belsey recognised Northwood’s silver BMW from the driver waiting in the front.

  They would be putting a plan together, huddled around a big table in the Operations Centre. They needed men moving to Stansted in the next thirty minutes. There was no way he could get into the place unnoticed. If anyone was going to have his picture up, ready to pounce, it would be the Serious Crime team.

  He went to the pub.

  The Rose occupied a corner at the riverside end of the street. There was a man behind the bar, stacking glasses, and one customer: a ten-year-old boy in a Chelsea kit putting someone’s money into the slot machine. A train passed over the adjacent bridge and the pub rattled.

  “Evening,” Belsey said. He found a telephone beside the toilets and checked it for a dialling tone. The back seats were beside a window with a sight onto the entrance to Citadel Place. From the seats you could also see anyone entering the pub without being immediately noticeable yourself. A doorway in the corner led to the beer garden, which contained two wheelie bins, a parasol and empty kegs. Belsey went out. He climbed onto the kegs. On the other side of the wall was a row of storage spaces under the railway arch, leading back into the Lambeth housing estates. It was a getaway.

  He bought a pint of Guinness and took a sip. Then he went to the phone and placed a call.

  “Organised Crime Agency,” a man answered.

  “I believe you’ve got people in a meeting at the moment,” Belsey said. “I need to speak to one of them quite urgently. His name’s Inspector Ridpath, from Financial Development. Could you put me through to the Operations Centre?”

  “Who should I say it is?”

  “A friend of Alexei Devereux.”

  The voice disappeared for a moment, then came back.

  “He’s not taking calls.”

  Belsey swore under his breath. He thought about this. He tried to control a mounting frustration.

  “Tell Inspector Ridpath it’s his snow tiger,” he said finally.

  “His what?”

  “Tell him. Say it’s his snow tiger. He’ll understand.”

  The line went silent. Belsey thought they’d gone for good. Then a few seconds later he heard the faintest of clicks as a receiver was lifted.

  “Yes?” Ridpath’s voice was absolutely still.

  “Step outside the building,” Belsey said. He hung up. Belsey found the printout of the kiss and admired it. It was a fine shot. Dougsdale must have been sitting in a cafe on the other side of the street
. Playing with his watch. The barman disappeared into the back. Belsey called the boy over from the slot machine.

  “Want to make some money?” Belsey held up a twenty-pound note. “A man is about to come out of the offices across the road. Give him this.” He passed the print. “Tell him his friend is waiting for him here.” He reached into his pocket, got a tenner and handed it over. “Half up front. Half when you’ve given it to him.” The boy took the money and looked at it, then at Belsey. “Easiest money you’ll ever make. Yes or no?”

  The boy took the picture and the tenner and walked out. Belsey watched the window. Ridpath stepped out of SOCA HQ. He stood alone on the street, looking up and down towards the blind end of the road and then the river. Then he saw the boy, the sheet in his hands. The boy gave him the picture and pointed at the pub. Ridpath looked at the pub, then at the picture.

  Belsey settled away from the window. The young gambler returned and Belsey gave him his money. “Go spend it somewhere that’s not here.” The boy left quickly. Ridpath walked in a moment later.

  He looked around, saw Belsey and walked over. For a moment they just stared at each other.

  “You’re a cute bastard,” Belsey said, with awe.

  “What do you want?”

  “Stand them down.”

  He could see the inspector thinking through his diminishing options. So, Belsey thought, here he was: the man who created the fiction I inhabited. The man who was prepared to destroy me. And yet he couldn’t help feeling a reluctant bond, as if they had shared an obsession.

  “I can’t,” Ridpath said.

  “Northwood can. He’s following whatever you tell him. Say you want to hold off for now. Say something’s not right.”

  “I want justice.”

  “You want justice? You got her killed.”

  Ridpath threw himself at Belsey. He wasn’t a natural fighter. He ended up with a hand in Belsey’s face and one holding his collar. Belsey was ready to take it.

  “I didn’t kill her,” the inspector said, eyes bulging. “You know that. You know who did.”

  “Take the tails off Kovar,” Belsey said. “Let him get where he’s going, then do what you want. There is an alternative and it’s not pretty.”

  Ridpath released Belsey. “When are you meeting him?”

  “An hour.”

  “You won’t do it.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Give me the camera.”

  “Call it off. Tell them it’s switched to tomorrow morning.”

  “It will make a complete fool of me.”

  “So will the photos I have.”

  Ridpath hesitated for a few seconds then backed away. Belsey watched him leave. He went to the window and saw the inspector cross the road to SOCA HQ and stop at the entrance. Ridpath stood there for another moment with his head bowed, then he showed his pass to the guard and walked in.

  Fifty-eight minutes.

  61

  Belsey went over to Northwood’s BMW. The driver sat in the front, studying a manual on pursuit technique. Belsey knocked on the window and the driver jumped, then rolled the window down.

  “Yes?”

  “Is this Chief Superintendent Northwood’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s asked for his shoes. From the boot.”

  “His what?”

  “His shoes. In the boot.”

  The man got out, frowning. He went to the back of the car. Belsey climbed in, started the engine and drove.

  Everything was fine.

  At ninety miles per hour he was out of central London in four minutes, past Bethnal Green in seven and onto the A12. He found a detachable police light on the passenger seat and stuck it on. He flicked the switch for the sirens.

  A low suburbia peeled away. The woods of Romford flashed past. The boarded-up houses that flanked the route out of town were briefly beautiful in the sodium light, then they were gone.

  He found the police radio and lifted it. He called in a sighting of the BMW heading in the opposite direction down the M20 towards Folkestone.

  “Received,” the call room said.

  He swung onto the M25 and eased it to one hundred. It took him back to his night-racing days. Gallows Corner, Pilgrims Hatch. His sirens split the darkness. The world itself seemed to divide to let him through. At Junction 27 he joined the M11 heading north. Now all he had to do was follow a straight course for the airport. It was perfect: total peace. And then the police arrived.

  The first to give him attention was a Traffic Police Land Rover. They thought he was on a chase and wanted to help; Belsey could see them in his rearview mirror, radioing through. They were trying to make contact.

  Belsey lifted the two-way. “It’s all fine. Back off. This is a Met operation. Please back off.”

  He could outrun a Land Rover Discovery, and he accelerated away. That was a rush. He enjoyed it for all of twenty seconds. When he checked his mirrors, he saw two red pursuit vehicles with the swords of Essex Constabulary on their side doors. Mitsubishi Lancers. Belsey swore. That was all he needed: a pair of Essex boys up for a race. The front-runners pulled level and eyeballed him. Two young, gelled-up constables. They turned to each other and spoke. Then the officer in the passenger seat lifted a radio to his mouth and Belsey knew they were running a check on his plates. Next they’d be radioing a block.

  Belsey took it to a hundred and thirty.

  The response unit tried to box him. Belsey felt the force of a side slam. But Northwood’s BMW had weight advantage. He slammed back and they lost control for a moment. He weaved out between them.

  They were close to the border with Cambridgeshire now. The clock said a hundred and thirty-five miles per hour. Reality doesn’t keep up at that speed. He felt calm. He could see his pursuers a few hundred yards behind him. On either side, Essex fields were preparing to become Cambridgeshire fields, level and grey, divided by pylons and hedgerow. Cambridgeshire Constabulary would provide the backup for a block. They also had their own air support. He knew he had to do something before they got the helicopter up.

  Junction 7 passed in a blur. If they set up a block it wouldn’t be before Junction 9. He could see planes coming in, low, to the north, the lights of the runways reflecting off the underside of clouds. Then the Essex cars were joined by a Motorway Police bike. The three gained on him, appearing suddenly large in the rearview mirror. Belsey put his seat belt on and moved towards the hard shoulder. The car directly behind him nosed his bumper with a clang, and the LED signs above the road flashed across all six lanes: Stop Now. Block Ahead.

  Belsey moved his passport from his breast pocket to inside his jacket. He slowed to ninety, then eighty, which confused them. The bike raced on ahead. The nearest car smashed his back bumper again. He could see a line of blue lights flashing in the near distance. Two hundred yards to go. Belsey wrenched the wheel to the left. The car scraped across the hard shoulder and was suddenly free of the ground. It came to earth a second later with an almighty crash. Then he was upside down and he thought he’d fucked it. Lean, he thought. He was still conscious. The car landed heavily back down on its wheels. Horns screamed above him, fading into the distance. He was alive.

  He found the door handle, jumped out and plunged into a field of crop stubble. He checked himself as he ran; nothing was broken. He could see. He climbed over an electric fence onto a golf course, crossed the golf course, climbed a brick wall beyond the clubhouse, then stumbled past farm equipment and a barn. Now he could hear the helicopter. It had missed his evacuation though, which meant even with thermal imaging they were unlikely to have a lock on him. Walk calmly, he thought; he couldn’t be the only person on the ground, walking, although it felt like it amid the thin sprawl of countryside that Sunday night.

  He followed a road with no pavement, walking in the storm drain, following sig
ns to Bishop’s Stortford. A fleet of Dutch lorries passed him. Then there were just fields swaying beneath moonlight. I’ve made it out of London, he thought.

  A few scattered cottages became a cluster of pale pre-fab houses. Bishop’s Stortford was locking up: tables upturned outside pubs and cafes, a group of youths by a war memorial, one man walking his dog. He’d lost the sound of sirens now. Even the helicopter was distant. Walking through the town was like entering another world, with smells of Sunday roast, white cider, fresh tarmac. And he knew he could make it then.

  The airport appeared as a box of light on the horizon. He’d lost precious time. He thought about the hour, about the security on the gates. Who walked into Stansted airport with no luggage and a nice, new passport in the middle of the night? He knew the anti-terrorist precautions. Now he was on the edge of the village, almost on the last stretch of road. A train released a long mournful note, slowing as it passed through Bishop’s Stortford station. The Stansted Express. Belsey crashed through a back garden to a field, and down the muddy slope of the field towards the tracks.

  The train rattled by, throwing sparks, lighting the branches behind it. Belsey eased himself down the embankment. Something caught his leg and tore through the trouser fabric. He kept going. He pushed through the brambles and rubbish to the gravel of the railway sidings and felt the force of the train. He reached a hand out, tried to grab a handle at the back of a carriage. The metal was torn out of his hand. He’d have to make a clean jump. He prepared himself. Three more carriages passed. As the last arrived he grabbed the handrails of the rear cab and leapt.

  Suddenly he was clear of the ground. Belsey felt a wave of agony as his entire body hung from his fingers. His feet kicked frantically for support, then found the buffer bolts. He wedged himself flat against the metal as they roared into a tunnel. The sound was deafening. The back of the cab slammed against his face and knees but the pain was trivial beside the fear of falling. After another minute the train began to slow again. Then, like a dream, the concrete shell of the airport’s train station appeared. Families stood waiting beneath neon lights. Belsey stepped clean from the back of the train onto the platform and walked to the escalators, checking for security, brushing himself down.