The Hollow Man (32 page)

57

H
e raced it to Hampstead, stopping to wash the blood off at a drinking fountain on Heath Street. There’d be an All Ports warning out in ten or fifteen minutes: to airports, ferry ports, international train stations. The borders were closing in. He had a couple of hours before the system fully connected. They would put out a bulletin with his name on, including calls to every patrol unit, but that didn’t mean the stations would know until the next start of shift meeting. He was counting on circulation lag, and got it.

PC Craig Marshall on the front desk nodded.

“Nick.”

“Craig.”

“How’s things?”

“Ticking over.”

Belsey went up to the second floor, past the Community Support office, to the room they used for evidence storage. PC Drakeley, on guard duty outside, signed his name in the book.

“All well, guv?”

“Very well, thank you.”

Belsey walked in, opened the safe, removed ten grams of ketamine and a Sig Sauer P220 handgun. He stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket. He couldn’t find any money. There were bullets for the Sig in a separate cabinet at the side. He emptied them all into his pockets and walked out.

“Have a good one, Nick.”

“See you around.”

Up to the CID office, which was empty. So this was it, he thought—a silent good-bye. He picked up a phone on Rosen’s desk and called Duzgun.

“It’s Jack Steel. Is my order ready for collection?”

“It’s ready. Do you have the money?”

“I’m getting it now.”

Belsey called Emmanuel Gilman and it rang ten times, then went to voice mail.

“You’re in luck,” Belsey said. “I’ve got something for you. I need seven hundred in cash and that’s a bargain.”

Halfway down the stairs he bumped into Trapping: gangly, grinning.

“Nick.”

“Rob. Have to run.”

“I got a name for the assault on Thursday,” Trapping said.

“Good work, Rob.”

“Everything on the Halifax job is on your desk. Patrick Dent’s given five alibis so far. The CPS called—”

“I’m in a bit of a rush right now.”

Trapping frowned. “Are you OK?”

“I’m good. I’ve got to run, though.”

“Can you sign the forms?”

“Sure.”

Belsey went back up and signed them. He gave Trapping a wink and touched his arm. What did he want to say?
Good-bye. Do not embrace the idea of being a policeman. Manage your expectations. Remember to move.

He ditched the Mazda in Camden, and stole an old Citroën estate from behind the market. It had a baseball cap under the passenger seat. He put the cap on, pulled it low and started driving. King’s Cross, east on City Road, Commercial Road, into Docklands. At a red light he leaned down and loaded the gun. He breathed in the smell of polish and cordite. He put it back in his jacket and continued weaving between the office blocks of Canary Wharf.

There was no answer on Gilman’s intercom. Belsey followed another occupant into the building. He went up to the top floor. Gilman’s door was open. He took the gun out.

“Emmanuel?”

Silence is different with a gun in your hand. It seemed brittle. Blood had reached the living-room doorway and seeped into the hall.

Gilman lay face up in the living room with the AK on his chest. His mobile lay a few inches from his right hand. The body hadn’t fully stiffened. Belsey removed Gilman’s socks and put them on his hands. He tried not to look at the fund manager’s head. He picked up the mobile and played the message.

“You’re in luck,” he heard himself say. He wiped the message and put the mobile back.

Belsey flushed the drugs and took all the cash in the protein powder tub. It felt like close to a grand. He was halfway out of the door when he stopped and took a last look at the bleak tableau. The screen of the mobile phone was still lit. He went back and picked it up. One message remained, undeleted. He played it.

“Emmanuel, it’s not good.” A man with an East Coast American accent. “I made some inquiries and he hasn’t been in London for a couple of years. The hotel says Devereux’s been on the island six months. He’s not investing in anything and doesn’t know the Hong Kong Gaming Consortium. His lawyers flew over the day before yesterday and they’re ready to sit on anyone who says otherwise. He’s in a wheelchair, Emmanuel. He’s devoting himself to environmental charities: marine conservation, coral reefs. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to . . .”

Belsey counted the money in the lift on the way down and it came to nine hundred and sixty.

He tore north through east London, through Hackney to Green Lanes. Old men crowded the front room of Duzgun’s social club watching a TV mounted high in one corner:
LONDON SNIPER PANIC
. It was rolling news now. Reports kept cutting back to a computer-generated map with four crosses for four crime scenes: Starbucks, St. Clement’s, Cavendish Square, The Bishops Avenue.

“Here.” Belsey slipped twenty pounds to an aproned man. “Is Hasan around?”

He was nodded through the doorway into the back room. It hadn’t changed. The fat man was behind his table. The passport was on the table, with the licence inside it, jutting out.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Belsey said. He placed the seven hundred on the table and picked the passport up. It was UK, backdated a couple of months, which was a nice touch. He checked the driver’s licence and the passport photo and moved the holograms under the light. They were fine. There were whole factory towns in northern China devoted to producing black-market holograms. One day he’d like to go to those places. It was one of the best fakes he’d seen.

“Good job. Thanks.” He was on his way out when Duzgun said, “Sit down.”

“I can’t stop.”

“I have something that might be of interest to you.”

“What’s that?”

“Work.”

“Work?”

“If you want to work,” he said. “I can get you good work, minimum wage.”

“I’m not looking for work at the moment,” Belsey said. “Thank you.”

“Good employer.”

“I’m fine,” Belsey said. “Maybe another time.”

H
e stashed the Citroën at the back of Smith Square, close to the river, with the gun and baseball cap in the glove compartment, put his jacket on with the Kilgo Vesser architectural plans inside it, then walked up Millbank to Parliament. Westminster was extra jumpy, snipers on the mind. He could see endless protection officers: stopping vehicles, keeping tourists moving along. A gathering of protesters was being shaken down, scattering pictures of burnt children and Palestinian flags. The Palace of Westminster loomed over them, lit for effect and vaguely monstrous. Its yellow stonework dripped down over the scene. It kept the tourists distracted. Belsey showed his police ID to the officer on St. Stephen’s Gate and went inside, into St. Stephen’s Chapel. He sat for a moment in the musty lobby area admiring his new passport. He bent it, ground it beneath his heel, roughed it up a little. Then he walked back to the entrance and saw Kovar beyond the gates.

“Max,” Belsey called. He wanted him to get the full effect. Kovar looked up. Belsey stepped out of Parliament, thanking the police guard. He grabbed Kovar’s hand with both of his own. “Treasury on a Sunday,” he said. “There are places I’d rather be. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Can we walk?”

“I hope you haven’t had to cut anything short.”

“It’s sewn up. Now they just need to drink the champagne. Alexei’s got them swooning. He’s a dangerous man.”

Belsey led Kovar across the front of Parliament onto Millbank.

“So you have the information on Project Boudicca?”

“Sure,” Belsey said. “But I’ve been having second thoughts as to whether this is fair on you, Max. The sort of money being thrown around is distasteful. Once people know something like this is a sure thing, they go crazy. Now we’ve got the Treasury on board, and we’re putting up another ten mil of our own. Mr. D says this kind of project is the future. What can I say to him? He’s never lost money before and I’m not the man to turn around and tell him now might be different. But a casino on Hampstead Heath . . .”

“A casino on Hampstead Heath?”

The limo was right where it was meant to be, waiting beside the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens. They’d even sent the same driver.

“Evening, sir.”

“Here we are,” Belsey said. “Would you get in? It will be more convenient.” He opened the car door for Kovar. They got in. There were four rows of seats, turned to form two booths, each with a shiny black table, a rack of cocktail glasses and its own minibar. They slid into the back booth.

“I hate these things,” Belsey said. “But they’re useful if you want to work. Alexei calls it his portable office.” He pulled the crumpled plans from his jacket and spread them across the table: a map of the new-look Heath and a design for the central structure itself, in aerial and cross section. They hung over the sides of the table and across the men’s laps. “There it is. Project Boudicca.” He let Kovar drink it in. “The mayor’s desperate for it, the City’s desperate for it. We’ve got tax breaks that make me blush. Now people are talking about Hackney Marshes, Clapham Common. I’m thinking, is this real?” Belsey fixed them both a brandy. Kovar pored over the plans. He couldn’t contain a smile. “If it’s the start, then it’s just the start,” Belsey said. “The beginning of the start.” He checked the window. Two men in paint-flecked overalls watched them from beside the park railings. “Let’s go round the block,” Belsey said to the driver.

They joined the traffic and Belsey thought one of the men might have lifted something to his mouth. Keep calm, he thought. When you’re on the black, close the game.

“In Pennsylvania—did you see what we did there? I personally made half a million in the first month after I invested. With this we were hoping for sixty percent market share. It’s looking more like eighty. It’s printing money. It makes me sick.”

They approached Buckingham Palace and stopped as a crowd of tourists crossed the road, cameras flashing in the darkness. The driver hit the horn.

“Tell me,” Belsey said. “Why do these people come here and take photographs?”

“I’ve never understood,” Kovar muttered.

“It’s because they don’t have anything better to do. They’ve finished shopping, their show’s not until eight. Why do people go to see the
Mona Lisa
when they’re in Paris? They have no idea what else to do. That’s what Mr. D knows. London’s a resort town now.”

“Yes.”

“By 2030 there will be fifteen Las Vegases, spread all over the world. God willing, London will be one of them.”

“I expect so.”

Belsey watched the rearview mirror. “How long’s that Mondeo been behind us?” he asked the driver.

“I don’t know, sir.”

It was hard spotting tail techniques in London traffic. The Mondeo was making late turns; one man driving, one passenger in the back.

“Make a left here,” Belsey said to the driver. “Don’t signal.”

“Pardon, sir?”

“Turn here. Don’t signal.”

“The road’s closed.”

“That’s why I want you to do it.”

They swerved around the Queen Victoria memorial, cutting up a lot of angry drivers, and turned onto Constitution Hill.

“Now keep going to Hyde Park Corner. Put some speed on it.”

“Is there a problem?” Kovar tore himself away from the plans as the limousine accelerated.

“No, no problem. What do you think?”

“I think it’s impressive,” Kovar said.

At the Hyde Park Corner roundabout Belsey told the driver to go round twice. It seemed they’d lost the Mondeo.

“I’ve got a good feeling about you,” Belsey said, sliding low in his seat. “That’s rare for me. There are people I want you to meet now: the IT boys, the MPs. I told Devereux how I feel. We’re men of instinct.”

“I can cover whatever Hong Kong Gaming were covering.”

“That’s a thirty percent stake.”

“It won’t be a problem.”

They were on Park Lane, beside the monument to Animals Killed in War, when a silver Skoda Octavia pulled up beside them, two men, making a point of not looking at the limo, but not looking at anything else either.

“Take us back to Parliament Square,” Belsey said.

“What happens next?” Kovar said.

“Well, we’re at Stansted in three hours. Mr. D wants you to come over to St. Petersburg in the next few days, thrash out the fine details. But I know he’d hate to go home empty-handed. I said I could pick up your gift at Stansted.”

“Stansted?” Kovar looked uncertain.

“Is that a problem?”

Steer it home, Belsey thought. All the dots had been connected, all the boxes ticked. He needed the payoff. He could see Kovar thinking.

He could see the Skoda close behind them as they ran lights back towards Whitehall. It was a police surveillance unit, he was sure now. The Skoda Octavia was popular for discreet jobs—unadventurous looks, high performance. The Yard owned a few. Belsey made a mental note of its registration.

“Is the airport the best place?” Kovar said.

“It’s the only one that works. It’ll be secure—we’ll make sure of that. I need you to bring the gift to Stansted for quarter to eleven tonight and I’ll see to the rest. Ten forty-five on the dot, in front of the main terminal building. I’ll be there to collect it.”

“That’s possible.”

“It’s possible. You’ll do it.”

“OK. I’ll get out here.”

“Stop here,” Belsey told the driver.

Kovar shook his hand and climbed out. Belsey watched him cross the road, back towards Parliament.

“Hold on one second,” he said to the driver.

There were two men outside Westminster Abbey, one of them talking on a radio handset. They watched Kovar cross the road and continue down Millbank where he hailed a cab. Then the men climbed into a black hatchback, swung a violent U-turn and began to follow.

58

B
elsey used the phone in the limo and called the Coordinating and Tasking Office. The Tasking Office made sure police didn’t end up crashing one another’s operations. He ran a check on the Skoda Octavia using his colleague Derek Rosen’s ID code. It came back SCD10: Covert Unit.

“One of ours?”

“One of ours.”

“Who set it up?”

“It’s tied to the sniper. Northwood thinks he knows how to catch him, and it involves tailing this target, Kovar.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Everyone’s in Vauxhall drawing up a plan. Rush job.”

Belsey punched the back of the passenger seat hard.

“Where did Northwood hear about Max Kovar?”

“Financial Development.”

“Philip Ridpath?”

“I don’t know which officer. Someone started talking about Kovar yesterday.”

Belsey cursed. Vauxhall meant Citadel Place, the headquarters of SOCA, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. He could make it in five minutes, but what was he going to do apart from get himself arrested?

“Which units is Northwood requesting?” Belsey said.

“Operational Support, Armed Response, CO19, Territorial. Leave’s been cancelled. He sees this as his last shot.”

Belsey slammed the phone down. They were calling up every unit in the south-east with guns and wheels. He lifted the phone again, called Ridpath’s office and got Midgley.

“He’s on his way out,” the officer yawned.

“Tell him it’s Nick Belsey. I’ve got something about tonight he needs to know.”

“Seriously, he’s going.”

“Tell him to take the surveillance off Max Kovar. This operation won’t work.”

“OK. I’ll pass that on. Thank you.”

“Where’s he going?”

“Maybe it’s private.”

“He’s going to SOCA.”

“What if he is?”

“Tell him to wait.”

“Tell him to wait?”

B
elsey left the limo parked on Whitehall for any surveillance to watch and walked the four blocks to New Scotland Yard. He caught Ridpath as the inspector was leaving, clutching files to his chest, heading towards a taxi.

“Any luck with the CCTV?” Belsey said. “Sorry I ran. I had an appointment.”

Ridpath blanked him, continuing past.

“I need to talk to you about what you’re trying to do,” Belsey said.

“You’re a wanted man.”

So, Belsey thought, it had arrived.

“I’m being set up,” he said. “The whole thing’s bullshit. We’re both being played.”

“I don’t know what your situation is, but I think I can get the sniper. That’s what I care about right now.”

“The whole thing’s a fraud.”

“You were right about the Corporation of London. They’re selling off the Heath. The Hong Kong Gaming Consortium were coming in with Devereux but now Max Kovar is preparing to deliver his entry fee and take their place.”

“No one’s selling the Heath.”

They reached the taxi. Ridpath fixed him with a stare.

“Why’s Kovar been on the phone all day preparing to deliver what he calls ‘a gift’?”

Belsey felt the money, felt the longing for the money in his heart.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“It’s for Devereux. Kovar thinks he’s delivering something to Devereux.”

“Kovar is a joke,” Belsey said. “He’s nothing to do with Alexei Devereux. Devereux’s sat on an island somewhere, saving marine life. Our Devereux, the one on The Bishops Avenue, was a fraud. This was a con man who used us as his props. The set-up was pure theatre: the petition, the rumours about Milton Granby, French companies competing for the contract. He almost walked off with a cool thirty-eight mil, leaving them to fight among themselves, except someone got a blade to his throat. It was going to be a perfect long con, played out over three weeks and closed down in less than an hour.”

Ridpath climbed into the taxi. Belsey went round to the other side and got in.

“Don’t start,” Ridpath said to the driver. “He’s not coming with us.”

“Yes I am.”

The driver started. They drove down Victoria Street onto Vauxhall Bridge Road.

“There’s still a murderer on the loose,” Ridpath said, looking straight ahead. Belsey sensed the terrible force of a small man given his day.

“Kovar has nothing to do with the sniper,” Belsey said.

“So who is Kovar meeting? Who is he delivering this gift to?”

“I don’t know.”

“He will lead the sniper. We follow Kovar and we get the sniper.”

“No.”

“It’s our best chance.”

“And you’re going to take him down in the next few hours? Wherever he ends up? That’s crazy. That’s inviting a bloodbath.”

“It’s now or never.”

“But none of it’s real,” Belsey said finally, quietly.

“Jessica Holden was real,” Ridpath said. He wouldn’t look at Belsey. “I will find whoever killed her.” They were at lights waiting to cross onto Vauxhall Bridge, with the stream of traffic endless and grey around them. Ridpath stared out. Belsey tried to see his face. The traffic lights turned amber and caught pain far back behind the inspector’s eyes. And it struck Belsey as odd. It looked like grief.

“Stop the car,” Belsey said.