Authors: Oliver Harris
The Hollow Man (35 page)
B
elsey didn’t leave immediately. He wasn’t going anywhere. He sat on a garden wall across the road, watching the house, which seemed very small now, crouched to the earth, as if everything on the planet was resting low on its suspension. He was tipsy. It had been a long day. He watched the house and the sky above it, searching for stars. Finally he looked at the envelope in his hands. How much did he want explained? He stabbed the packet and tore it open, took out a bank-sealed wad of notes. Then he took out another. There were wads of crisp fifties and twenties. Belsey crouched by the side of the road and made neat piles on the pavement, trying not to laugh or cry. Twelve piles. He estimated eighty grand, maybe ninety. Well, he thought. He stuffed some in his pockets and the rest back in the envelope and sat there, breathing. Well, he thought again. And, after another moment: That’s a start.
It deserved a celebration. He took a cab to the Dorchester hotel and hit the bar. The place was lively, polished tables occupied, bar staff doing brisk service. The bar was long and curved and there were a lot of mirrors and men and women who looked famous. Belsey ordered a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvée. He watched the ceiling lights, the glass sculptures, the velvet. He drank the most expensive champagne he had ever tasted. But it wasn’t a drink to enjoy on your own. After half a bottle Belsey slipped a band off one of the wads and caught a cab across the river to the Wishing Well.
“My round,” he announced to the bar.
“Nick!”
The Well’s infamous Sunday-night lock-in received him warmly.
“What am I done for now, Officer?” He took friendly blows to the shoulders and pretended to fight back. He bought a round. The crowd seemed to swell when he started getting drinks in.
“What are we celebrating?”
Men got on their phones and spread word of a party. Belsey bought the two dusty bottles of Cava that had been behind the bar for as long as he had drunk there. He downed a lot of sambuca and some stale beer. Eventually he went to a public phone box on the street outside.
He called St. Thomas’ Hospital. Charlotte Kelson had been discharged. The hospital refused to give him any details. Belsey tried her mobile but she didn’t answer. He stood in the phone box and thought about visiting her house.
He went to Lorenzo’s.
“Nicky, you’re back.”
“Nicky, what are you having?”
He arrived in time for the shambolic end of what must have been a birthday or a hen party, with a drunk DJ and women dancing on tables who looked like they weren’t hired entertainment. The floor was sticky. The landlord was bandaging his arm.
Belsey bought a lot of rounds and made some new friends. He found himself behind the bar, fixing people drinks. At one point he was talking to a girl and she said, “What do you do? Are you a barman?” And he said, “I’m a police detective,” and it felt OK.
He moved on to Roxy’s, then across the road to the Blue Eyed Maid: tourist traps and pubs for people who didn’t go to bed. Then, when even the stalwarts closed on him, Belsey caught a cab to Soho, to the Spanish Bar. There was a man who worked for a ferry company and they were drinking vodka martinis and watching shop assistants set light to shots. After his fifth or sixth Belsey must have left because he was walking up the Euston Road. Even without a home he had the sensation of walking away from home. The night was young. London restrained a smile, finding him still there. So, it seemed to say, the two of us again.
M
any thanks to Judith Murray for making it happen; to Alex Bowler for making it a pleasure. The excellent people of FIE provided good times and accommodation, both of which were invaluable. Charles Harris has been a huge source of inspiration and advice; Elaine Harris supplied pretty much everything else. Emily Kenway was the book’s first reader and her comments improved it greatly. It’s dedicated to her for less literary reasons.
OLIVER HARRIS holds an MA in Shakespeare studies from University College London and an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. He has worked in clothing warehouses, at PR companies, and as a TV and film extra, and more recently assisted with research in the Imperial War Museum archives. He writes reviews
for the
Times Literary Supplement.
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First published in slightly different form in Great Britain in 2011 by Jonathan Cape.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Prayer” taken from Collected Poems © Hugo Williams and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
THE HOLLOW MAN
. Copyright © 2012 by Oliver Harris. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062136701
FIRST U.S. EDITION
ISBN 9780062136718
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