The Hollow Men: A Novel

by Rob McCarthy

‘Hold on, then.’

  Wilson broke away from the car behind them, swinging around the back of a retail park and heading onto the Rotherhithe New Road, where the traffic was lighter. Noble looked down at the A to Z. It couldn’t be more than a few minutes now, not on blue lights.

  They would have to wait at the rendezvous point for Trojan to arrive and clear the scene before anyone could go in. Noble looked at the map again, then jolted forward as Wilson slammed on the brakes, looking up, panicked. A teenage girl wearing cup-sized headphones had stepped out onto a zebra crossing and Wilson hit the horn with a clenched fist, accelerating away down an empty street as the girl darted out of the way. Noble pulled the radio back to her mouth, pressed the transmit button.

  ‘Trojan 138, come in,’ she said. ‘Confirm your ETA, please.’

  Better be fucking soon, she thought to herself, the gun itching under her arm again. It had been years since she’d fired it, on a revalidation day. She chose the number five in her head, arbitrary and meaningless. If Trojan were more than five minutes away, she and Wilson would go in. She knew Wilson would go with her, and he was built so big it would take more than a few bullets to take him down. There was a taser in the back of the car he could take.

  ‘Control, this is Trojan 138,’ a Scottish accent said. ‘ETA four minutes, over. All units please hold until arrival.’

  ‘We’ll be there in two!’ Wilson said.

  ‘Roger that,’ Noble shouted. Wilson took a corner hard and she bounced out of the seat again, aware of her heart thudding in her chest. She wondered if Lahiri had somehow been tipped off, if Harry had been responsible. She already had images of Marcus Fairweather, sitting her down across a table, making her account for every single decision she’d made. Fuck, if Harry was dead, if Lahiri had killed him. She tasted bile and the metal of adrenaline.

  A new voice on the radio: ‘Control, this is Echo Five-Five. We are at RVP and holding.’

  The first unit on-scene, a local uniform. Noble held the radio tightly.

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘There’s a white boat, third from the right as we’re looking at it, guv. Appears to be one guy on the jetty, one on the boat, can’t really see cause of the rain.’

  They swerved into a side road and the masts of sailing boats came into view, silhouetted against the dark sky, blue lights mixing with sodium orange.

  ‘Control, DI Noble. Can we get India 99 in the air, use the thermal.’

  If the shooter had stayed among the boats, there was no way the three-man Trojan team would be able to search the marina effectively. India 99, the police helicopter, had a thermal imaging camera that would pick the bastard out wherever he was.

  ‘Already tasked, guv.’

  ‘We’re here!’ Wilson announced. They shot up a ramp, towards a gate and a guard hut, ominously unoccupied. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Another patrol car was parked across the gate, its two occupants crouched up against a low wall, torches out and ready. Noble was out of the car and into the rain before it had even stopped, opening the boot, pulling a vest over her head, throwing another to Wilson. She got one hand on her gun and advanced towards the gate, shouting to the uniforms.

  ‘Which boat is it?’

  ‘That one,’ said the first uniform, pointing out into the marina. Noble risked a look over the wall, could see the figure on the jetty, fuck-all on the boat. The guy who was lying down was moving, struggling, obviously injured.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  Wilson by her side now. ‘I’ll go in with you if you want,’ he said. ‘Just say the word, guv.’

  She thought about it. For now, they waited. Only the sounds of rain and sirens approaching, a helicopter somewhere in the mist. Her hair already cold and wet, her hand wiping her eyes. She thought of Harry again, his anger when she’d told him about what they’d found, Lahiri’s log-in deleting the allergy. She hoped he was the one who was moving on the jetty.

  ‘Guv?’ said Wilson again. The true cop in him. Ahead of them, in the rain and the chaos, there were people in need, and they were there to help.

  ‘OK,’ said Noble, reaching to draw her gun, but they were stopped by the sound of the Trojan 4x4 squealing as it pulled up behind them, the two officers in the back jumping out as it slowed, hands on their MP5s.

  ‘Berth twenty-nine!’ she yelled. ‘We’ve got casualties.’

  The officers sprinted up to the wall, the driver coming to join them, drawing his weapon. Noble met them there, her fingers clammy around the grip of her own gun.

  ‘DI Noble, CID,’ she said. ‘We’ll follow you in.’

  ‘OK,’ said the first Trojan officer. ‘Stay close.’

  He pulled open the gate and through they went, the three black-clad Trojan guys and Noble and Wilson following behind, heads low. There was a thin walkway snaking down towards the jetties, Lahiri’s boat about a hundred metres from them.

  ‘Armed police!’

  Noble ran closer, sprinting through the rain. Watched as two of the armed officers hurled themselves at the railing on the side of the boat and pulled themselves up like commandos on an assault course. The third stayed on the jetty with the injured man.

  Noble reached them and realised she was holding her breath. The man was wearing a security uniform, an obvious wound in the meat of his thigh. It wasn’t Harry.

  ‘Harry!’ she yelled, into the sky, up at the boat. The ladder dangling down from the side deck had become dislodged, half in the water, useless. One of the Trojan guys appeared on the railing, a panicked look on his face.

  ‘Ma’am, up here!’ he called. ‘I’ll help you up.’

  He extended a hand and Noble leapt and took it, her feet scrabbling for a hold on the ladder. She came onto the deck, slipped again. Turned and saw the two bodies lying on the aft deck, almost holding hands, like an old couple laid out on a picnic blanket.

  ‘Harry! Can you hear me?’

  ‘Fucking hell, is he shot too?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so!’

  ‘Control, this is Trojan 138, get onto LAS, we’ll need another ambulance and HEMS, we have two casualties and one fatal. Over.’

  ‘Should we roll him on his side? He’s wet, he’s been in the water. Mo, go get a blanket or something.’

  ‘Get him on his side, quickly, quickly!’

  ‘Come on, Harry, wake up!’

  The voice sounded ethereal. Had it been male perhaps he would have imagined it to be the voice of God.

  Harry let out a low moan as hands on his shoulders shook him back into consciousness. He needed to find James. James was hurt. Tammas was coming with the rest of the team, to get him fixed, and back to Bastion. He could hear the helicopter. They were almost here.

  ‘I need a medikit over here!’ the voice called. ‘Christ, Harry!’

  He was still on the boat, could feel its motion beneath him. People coming aboard. His eyes were blinking open now, his limbs starting to send feedback to his brain. There was rain coming down, hitting his right cheek. He was wet, and on his side. Couldn’t feel his extremities, and there was a dull pain in the side of his face, where splinters of the Time and Tide had ripped into his skin. He knew the voice now. He felt her breath, warm on his skin as she knelt next to him.

  ‘Harry, are you hurt?’

  He managed to moan something approaching ‘No’.

  He felt himself coming round. The hull shuddered, as it had when the gunman came aboard, and he became aware of other footsteps, someone running to Noble’s side. He could hear the voices now as two distinct people. ‘Paramedics are at the cordon, guv.’

  For Lahiri, only Lahiri was stone dead, so they wouldn’t be coming for him. Then he remembered there was the watchman, too.

  ‘Get them through,’ Noble said. ‘Send them to the other guy.’

  ‘What about him, there?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  Dead. Who’s dead? Harry thought. Everything was still fuzzy. He was on James’s boat, and James was dead. The watchma
n wounded.

  Hands shaking Harry awake. Noble’s voice.

  ‘Harry? Can you tell us who did this? Did you get a look at him?’

  Harry tried to form words, but nothing came. His throat was full of cold water. He really needed to throw up.

  James isn’t dead. He can’t be dead. Not here, not in London.

  ‘Get me some blankets over here,’ Noble’s voice shouted, clearer now. ‘He’ll freeze to death.’

  Harry felt hands on him again. Noble was pulling off his wet coat, trying to get to his shirt. He tried to speak again, tried to undo the buttons, but his cold fingertips had lost all coordination.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Noble said, pulling off his fleece and his shirt. ‘Sit up for me, Harry, can you sit up?’

  Things were less grey now. He pushed up against the railing behind him, shuffling along on his backside, and hands under his armpits helped him. Someone came over and wrapped Harry’s bare back in a blanket, followed by a layer of insulating foil.

  ‘James’s been shot,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got to help him.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Noble, stroking his shoulder. ‘There’s people here.’

  A throbbing pressure in his temples.

  ‘FUCK!’

  ‘Harry, did you get a look at him? Who did this?’

  Harry shook his head and felt his chest burn again, his eyes painful, like he’d been crying. Who did this? he thought. Who did this? Noble sat at his side and hugged him close, and he felt some of the sensation returning to his hands, tucked into his armpits. Another officer held him from the other side. He tried closing his eyes, as if that would make it go away, but all he saw was Lahiri’s face as he rolled him over, the missing part of the back of his skull.

  ‘Harry, you’re starting to shake, I’m gonna get the medics,’ Noble said.

  ‘No,’ he said, coughing. ‘The watchman needs them. If I’m shivering it means I’m warming up.’

  Noble turned his head with her hand to look at him. He saw her face for the first time, silhouetted against the blue strobe lights.

  ‘Trust me,’ Harry said. ‘I’m a doctor.’

  Noble’s face didn’t even start to smile. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘You’re a bloody doctor, what the hell were you doing here?’

  ‘I was already on the way before you called,’ he said. ‘He called me.’

  Just answer the questions, Harry told himself. Answer the questions and it will make it less real.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We had a fight,’ said Harry. ‘He said they’d given Idris the money. He was blackmailing them. But he said it was just to help him get away.’

  ‘From what?’

  Harry was still shivering but he was warming up now, his sentences no longer fragmented, his thoughts more coherent. ‘They were prescribing kids weed at the Saviour Project. Idris was going to tell the papers for money.’

  Harry felt a sudden need to pass out and buckled forward, before the blood rushed to his head.

  ‘What about the allergy?’

  Harry shook his head, and the stench of the water he was covered in hit, or maybe he just became aware of it. He burst out of Noble’s embrace and vomited onto the deck, most of it dirty brown dock water.

  ‘Said he didn’t do it,’ said Harry. ‘Acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about.’

  ‘Acted?’

  Harry shook his head, coughed, and vomited again.

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  He wiped his mouth on the blanket and started to look around. Go and ask him, Harry thought. Go and ask his corpse. The pressure was rising in him like a wave, and he felt the tears start to build behind the dam in his head, soon to overflow. Beside him, an officer spoke to Noble.

  ‘Guv, this is a crime scene now. We need to get him off.’

  ‘OK. Let’s get you to your feet, Harry.’

  Hands under him again, pulling him upright. He could taste shit and vomit.

  ‘No chance of any chewing gum?’ he said as he pulled the blanket closer.

  ‘Richmond menthol?’ Noble offered.

  ‘Jesus, my chest hurts,’ he said. They began an awkward walk off the boat, from treadplate to treadplate, a token gesture for sure. The rain was still coming in hard, and any forensic evidence the shooter had left would be long gone already.

  ‘Do you want me to get the paramedics?’ Noble asked.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ He ran cold fingers over the scar on his chest, and threw up again, collapsing on the wood of the jetty, where Trojan officers stood cradling their guns, and paramedics worked on the watchman. One of the fast-response cars that HEMS, the air ambulance, used after dark pulled up next to the cordon, the orange-jumpsuited crew rushing out towards them.

  ‘This way,’ said an officer, and pulled him towards the collection of vehicles, towards the noise. He closed his eyes, heard gunshots echoing around the docks. Saw Tammas, then Idris, then Lahiri.

  Christ, Harry thought, his parents. Tammas. He’d have to tell Tammas that James was dead, that he’d let him down, too. The unreality of it all began to take hold. He looked around and it was like watching himself on camera, it was him but not really him. And then he saw a paramedic filling out paperwork. Behind the paramedic, a body lay underneath a blanket, pale fingers poking out, pointing to the sky. Harry stared. It was all real, and the reality sucked into the place behind his sternum like stars into a black hole. Ten minutes ago, he’d come close to killing the man with his bare hands. Now Lahiri was dead, and all Harry wanted to do was sit in a dark room and punch the walls until his knuckles bled.

  They sat him down on the back step of the ambulance, Noble continuing to shield him with her body. His shivers were still frequent, but decreasing in their vigour. One of the paramedics put an oximeter on his finger, but Harry shook it off.

  ‘Won’t work,’ he said. ‘Too cold.’

  Then a temperature probe into his ear. Noble got the hint and stood up, wiping the moisture she’d gained from him off her shirt. She was drenched, too, he realised as he looked up. Wearing only a short-sleeved shirt and a tactical vest.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she said.

  ‘We need to find who did this,’ Harry said.

  ‘No, Harry,’ Noble said, squatting so she was at his eye level. ‘We need to find them. Us. The police. Not you.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Do I stink like shit?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘James,’ Harry said.

  DS Wilson came over. ‘Didn’t think getting shot at once in a week was enough, then?’ he said.

  ‘How’s the security guard?’ Harry asked. People who dealt with death every day took the piss to keep them sane, and Harry did that most days. It was different today.

  ‘The HEMS docs think he’ll make it,’ said Wilson. ‘He’s still conscious. Good job you did there, mate.’

  Harry looked over at him. ‘What do you mean, good job?’

  ‘Putting that tourniquet on.’

  ‘What?’

  Wilson looked across at Noble, and then at the crowd of medics around the wounded watchman, and then back to Harry. He crouched down next to Noble.

  ‘Our friend over there got shot in the leg,’ said Wilson. ‘Straight through the thigh. Someone tied a belt around his leg, stopped the bleeding. We assumed it was you.’

  Harry tried to stand up, but the medics stopped him.

  ‘I never left the boat,’ he said. ‘I went into the water when the guy came onto the deck, then I came back up. Last thing I remember is hearing the watchman shout, and trying to crawl back around, but then . . . Then I don’t know.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Wilson.

  Harry looked up at Noble. She met his eyes and then glanced down at the floor.

  ‘It must have been the shooter,’ Harry said. The words felt foreign on his lips. Background noise grew, the team of medics getting ready to transfer the watchman into the waiting ambulance. Wilson ran back over, fresh from a c
onversation with someone in a white jumpsuit.

  ‘Forensics have found a casing,’ he said, panting. ‘Obviously, we’ll have to wait for ballistics, but it looks like nine-mil. Mick reckons it’s the same gun as Sunday.’

  Harry nodded. Tried to process the information. The same person who had tried to get Idris killed had been successful with James Lahiri. Everything linked up, got sucked into the same black hole. One of the paramedics ran up to them, waving them off the ambulance’s back seat.

  ‘Gotta move, guys, we’re loading the patient up.’

  Noble and Wilson lifted Harry, keeping him wrapped in the blankets. Harry resisted, holding onto the paramedic.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Harry demanded.

  ‘The Ruskin,’ said the paramedic.

  ‘No!’ Harry said. ‘Go to the Royal London. The Ruskin’s not safe.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ said Noble. ‘He’ll have a Trojan escort. Have we got another ambulance coming for him?’

  She pointed at Harry. They moved out of the way and the HEMS crew loaded the guard up into the vehicle. He was breathing oxygen through a mask, not a tube, which was a good sign.

  ‘I’m not going to hospital,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near that place. I’ll be fine.’

  The paramedic crouched down.

  ‘I really think—’

  Harry burst from the blanket and grabbed the front of the paramedic’s shirt. ‘Look, with all due respect, my best friend has just been killed, and there’s a man out there with a gun who should have killed me too, and he’ll know that a fucking hospital is the first place I’d go. So while I appreciate your concern, please, just accept . . .’

  He let go and collapsed backwards into Wilson, his voice cracking, each word punctuated like a slamming door. ‘I – will – be – fine.’

  He closed his eyes and was back in the blanket, Noble’s arms pulling him close. Wilson and Noble had a quiet conversation, but the siren from the departing ambulance blocked it from Harry’s ears. She took Harry by the arm, leading him across the wooden planks, opposing the tide of white-suited forensic officers heading for the boat.

  ‘I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ she said, but from the wobble in her voice Harry knew she was lying.