The Hollow Man
Deep Shelter
Amber Knight is London’s hottest ticket – pop star, film star, front-page, gossip.
Nick Belsey is less celebrated. He can’t shake his habit of getting into serious trouble. His career at Hampstead CID is coming to a dishonourable end. He is currently of no fixed address.
But a knock on the door is about to lead Belsey straight into the hollow heart of Amber’s glittering life – a world populated by the glamorous and the lonely, the desperate and the obsessed. A deadly combination.
The House of Fame is a blistering joyride into the murderous underside of celebrity. The latest book in the hugely admired Belsey series, it sees one of the most cunning and audacious characters in contemporary fiction throw himself headlong into his most inextricable mystery yet, and come face to face with a ghost from his own notorious past.
Oliver Harris is the author of the acclaimed Nick Belsey trilogy, which includes the previous titles The Hollow Man and Deep Shelter, both of which are available in Vintage paperback. Born in north London in 1978, where he still lives, he has worked in clothing warehouses, PR companies and as a film and TV extra, and now holds a doctorate in psychoanalysis.
THEY’D CUT THE electricity. Mid-morning the sun hit the CID office, sliced by the window’s metal screen into planes of tobacco smoke and dust. By 3 p.m. it reached the back of the building: Belsey liked to open the doors on the first-floor corridor so light stretched from the kitchen to the interview rooms. Long lozenges of gold slipped across the chipped walls, made the place feel less abandoned. It created a sundial around him. He sat on the floor and watched it all. Caught in the bars of light, the dust seemed frenzied, directionless. His smoke rolled through it. He used the clocks as ashtrays.
Hampstead police station had closed three weeks ago, one of six across London disposed of in cost-cutting measures. Most staff had been reassigned at the end of last year. Belsey had expected to go to Holborn, but nothing happened. The DI at Holborn said they’d tried to get him only to be told he was blocked. Then, ten days after the station closed, he was informed he’d been officially suspended pending a hearing over allegations of gross misconduct. No details. A few hours after that, he got a call from a man who wouldn’t give his name but told him he was under surveillance: the Independent Police Complaints Commission were collecting ammo, approaching everyone from Belsey’s exes to his past informers, putting obs on his car, his local, his current landlord. They were bracing themselves for a shit-storm. Stay safe, the caller said, and hung up. An hour later Belsey withdrew the contents of his current account, bought a gas stove, three bottles of Havana Club and a book – Teach Yourself Spanish. He broke into his old place of work, changed the locks. It was, he felt, the last place they’d look for him.
Eleven days ago.
It had been an odd stretch of time. Sometimes he found himself following patterns of an old routine, standing in the CID kitchen at 10.30 making a tea; lying on the floor of the old meeting room watching the wiring exposed by missing ceiling panels. He’d wander the station. The building dated to 1913, a labyrinthine relic with adjoining courthouse and cells. Most of it had been disused for decades. But in the process of clearing out, older areas had been unlocked: the abandoned station had grown, extending itself back into the past. Belsey walked through the magistrate’s court to an Edwardian custody suite, past old fuse switches to cells that had become carpeted in handwritten reports from the 1950s and ’60s: loose, yellowed papers, notebooks with cracked leather covers like shells. They had spilled from rat-chewed cardboard boxes, an infestation, filled with the handwriting of dead policemen. Sometimes he’d skim through old cases to keep his mind occupied. There were unnerving moments, once or twice a day, when it felt as if he was meant to be here after all, assigned for reasons that had faded. The thick old glass made the place feel submarine. His kingdom until ten minutes ago, when someone had started knocking on the front door.
The steady insistence of the knocks was troubling. Ceremonious. A ceremony he was failing to perform: the coming of reality. He knew that this last misdemeanour, like the rest, had been a taunt, the gambler’s desire to suspend the moment of reckoning, to conjure options from nothing. The knocking was at the main entrance, directly beneath the CID office. Belsey looked down through the shutters but the angle was too tight. The sign down there was clear enough: HAMPSTEAD POLICE STATION IS NOW CLOSED. YOUR NEAREST STATION IS KENTISH TOWN. No one knew where he’d chosen to lie low. But the knocking felt like the return of something he’d forgotten: a debt, an arrangement, a plan of action.
Belsey walked down to the wood-panelled shadows of the old magistrate’s court. He took a clean shirt from the line of phone cable he had strung above the pews. He picked up a heavy overcoat with metal buttons and white thread where the sergeant’s stripes had been. The pockets contained his phone charger, passport, bank card and £220 in cash. Next to the coat was a foot of copper piping he’d picked up from the basement just in case. He put the coat on, slipped the piping up the sleeve, ran a hand over his eleven-day beard and took a breath. He unlocked the door at the back of the court and stepped out.
The day seemed unnaturally bright. Forty-eight hours since he’d been directly beneath the sky. Belsey climbed over the fence and dropped, silently, to the pavement. He walked to the corner and watched: a woman with shoulder-length white hair glancing up at the shuttered windows. Torn, mauve jacket. Feet in socks and sandals. Belsey stepped out.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘I need the police,’ she said.
‘This station’s closed. Want me to call them for you?’
‘Closed?’
‘Since last month.’
Belsey looked around. Hampstead’s boutiques had their awnings unrolled, couture on display. Nothing had changed. It was the afternoon, but not school run yet. The lull between lunch and rush hour.
‘Are you a policeman?’ the woman asked. She had pale eyes with fear frozen into them.
‘Not really,’ Belsey said. ‘Nearest police station is Kentish Town. Lots of police there.’ He gestured towards the phone box. ‘I can dial the number; you can tell the police what happened.’
‘I was told to come here.’
‘Well, someone made a mistake.’
She nodded, as if she’d suspected as much all along. ‘Would I find Detective Nick Belsey at Kentish Town?’ she asked.
Belsey stopped. His mind tracked through possible explanations.
‘Why do you want Nick Belsey?’
‘I was told he could help.’
‘With what?’
‘My son. He’s disappeared.’
‘Who told you to come here?’
‘A man – he phoned the house.’
‘Who was he?’
‘I can’t remember his name. I wrote it down. It’s not on me.’
She looked desperate. The day turned a little colder.
‘Your son went missing and a man called and said you should come here?’
‘Yes.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Just that I should try to find Mark, urgently.’
‘Mark’s your son?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s his surname?’
‘Doughty.’
It was no one Belsey knew. ‘How long’s he been missing?’
‘Almost two days.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Forty-one.’
This didn’t seem to lower the urgency – she reached for the railings to support herself, looked unsteady. Belsey helped her down to sit on the front steps. He took a seat beside her.
‘I’m Nick Belsey,’ he said.
She glanced at him with her scared eyes, chest rising and falling. He wasn’t sure she’d taken it in.
‘I know you must be very busy,’ she said, when she had her breath.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Maureen.’
‘Try and breathe, Maureen. Nice and calmly.’
Belsey leaned back, shut his eyes, felt the sun on his face. Life sought you out. The sun rose, people knocked. He let the piping slip out of his sleeve and placed it on the step. There were plenty of old acquaintances who might recommend him, plenty oblivious to his predicament. What difference did any of it make? He imagined a distress flare penetrating the roof of his mouth and igniting in his brain.
When he opened his eyes Maureen Doughty was studying his face. He smiled, got to his feet and helped her up. ‘What day is it?’ he asked.
‘Monday.’
‘Monday,’ he repeated. They stood there for a moment, Belsey with a hand beneath her arm, Maureen watching each car that passed, as if it might contain her son. He didn’t want to be outside. He wanted to return to the dust and continue entertaining the idea that he had options. She clutched the railings again. ‘Let’s get you home,’ Belsey said.
THEY CAUGHT THE 46 bus. Belsey ignored the stares of his fellow citizens: on his coat, his beard. At Queen’s Crescent, Maureen pressed the bell and they disembarked. She led the way to a ground-floor flat in one of the low council blocks behind the high street.
The key shook in her hand as she unlocked the front door.
They stepped over carrier bags into the hall. The house smelt of damp and soil. It was cold. Off the hall was a living room cluttered with pot plants and bound piles of Christian pamphlets. A bed had been made up on a floral sofa. Belsey hadn’t been in someone’s home for a while. Not an aspect of the job he missed: the underwear on the clothes horse, the halos of grease up the wall behind the armchairs. Pill bottles crowded the coffee table like pieces for a game: donepezil, which meant Alzheimer’s or dementia; ketoprofen, for arthritis; heavy-duty painkillers.
Nothing happened when he tried the light switches. In the kitchen, the microwave display was off; same with the radio. Stacks of plates crusted with old food, a back door into a cramped concrete courtyard. Someone had kicked in the cat flap leaving an empty frame of plastic. The glass was cracked.
Maureen filled the kettle.
‘You’ve got no power, Maureen. It won’t work.’
‘Oh yes.’ She stood with the kettle for a moment, then poured the water into the sink.
‘How long’s the electricity been off?’
‘I’m not sure. Mark does it.’
Belsey checked the fuse box. Then he found the meter flashing in a cupboard by the front door. She needed to top up a power key.
‘This is him,’ she called from the living room. He returned to find her tapping a framed photo on the living room’s chest of drawers. It was a school photo. Mark Doughty’s twelve-year-old face had been propped between a school prize and a prayer card. She picked it up and gave it to Belsey. Mark had been a striking child, paper-white skin, eyes small and bright, hair neatly combed. In the uniform of a local private school. A scholarship boy, Belsey imagined, who never quite fitted in.
‘He’s a bit older than this now, isn’t he?’ Belsey said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have any more recent photos, Maureen?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She looked troubled by this and began casting about the room. The fear in her eyes was permanent, he saw. But she wasn’t mad. He knew from experience how hard it was to gauge sanity. Beyond a modest dose of fear and disorientation she seemed sharp enough.
‘Does Mark work at all?’
‘He can’t work. He looks after me.’ She eased herself down onto the sofa.
‘Have you told any other police?’
‘They say there’s nothing they can do. He hasn’t been missing long enough.’
‘What happens when you try to call him?’
‘It’s the recorded message.’
There was a small room on the ground floor that she used as a bedroom. Belsey climbed the stairs. At the end of the landing was a very pink bathroom, beside a spare room with a washing machine and cupboards of her old clothes. Also off the landing, a closed door. Locked.
‘Is this where Mark sleeps?’ he called down. ‘The locked door?’
‘Yes.’
He crouched and checked the keyhole. No key in the lock; darkness on the other side.
‘Do you have a key?’
‘No.’
Was Mark Doughty in there? he wondered. Was she sure he wasn’t? Two days. No flies, only a slight smell that seemed general to the place. Belsey took a wire coat hanger from the wardrobe in the utility room, uncoiled it, bent the end until he had a loop. It was an easy lock. He felt the click, paused, turned the handle slowly and walked through.
‘Christ.’
The room was an explosion. Books and clothes covered the floor. Cans of energy drink and takeaway packaging. Magazine pages taped up across walls and cupboard doors.
Belsey stepped over the mounds of stale clothes and opened the curtains. He turned and admired the décor again. Celebrities – singers, actresses: glossy pages of eyes and teeth and brightly coloured dresses like frigid pornography. Gowns spilled over red carpets, bikinis emerged from turquoise water. The A-list gazed out over a double bed with a coverless duvet, opened packets of biscuits, disposable razors. Mugs had grown mould, shelves were crowded with tattered books that looked like they’d been rescued from a skip. A cupboard with its mirrored door off its hinges added another plane of reflected chaos. There was a smell of urine and unwashed denim.
Rooms like this never boded well, places that had witnessed too much unspent life, had taken on the burden of living themselves; growing septic, choking.
No PC visible, but print-outs, from an internet café or library. Belsey sifted through a few sheets on a desk beneath the window. They were shuffled with other cuttings. Mark Doughty, it seemed, collected interviews, adverts, gossip columns. He cut out diet ideas and had printed an online personality test: ‘What’s stopping you living the life you want to lead? Try this simple survey.’
After twenty years in the police force, Belsey had concluded that not everyone should live the life they wanted to lead.
On the bedside table was a perfume box: Bride: The New Fragrance by Amber Knight. It shimmered in reflective pink. The bottle stood proudly beside it, clear glass in the shape of a diamond. He couldn’t smell any perfume. This bedside nook was a shrine, he realised. On the wall behind the table, all the decorations related to Amber Knight: carefully preserved interviews, photo spreads. Teen Amber, precocious and oblivious. Twenty-one-year-old Amber, dress slashed down to her belly button, seductive eyes heavy with false lashes. Then sophisticated Amber, a year or so later, pale in a silver sheath dress on a red carpet: ‘Stunning in Dior at last night’s Woman of the Year Awards, chart-topping British singer and now Hollywood actress Amber Knight . . .’
As an obsession, Belsey respected Mark’s choice. She was alluring, working a well-tested combination of innocence and newly awoken sexual hunger. And there was something that put her a cut above; eyes that established a pact with you personally, sidestepping the photographer and the sheen of the magazine.
‘You got in.’ Maureen stood uncertainly in the bedroom doorway. She stared at the walls as if she hadn’t seen them for a while.
‘He liked Amber Knight,’ Belsey said, for want of anything better to say. ‘Lots of her.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘He’s got the perfume and everything.’
‘He wasn’t queer.’
‘No.’
She glanced around once more then retreated downstairs. Belsey stepped over the clothes to a dresser: on the top were empty canisters of Lynx, a pouch of tobacco, candle stubs and a pub ashtray filled with the ends of rolled cigarettes. In the drawer of the dresser he found library cards for three boroughs and a dog-eared King’s University ID from 2001. Mark had knifed up the laminate and manually adjusted the date. A student discount was nothing to lose. Mark Doughty stared out, late twenties, early thirties, postgraduate or mature student. The years since school hadn’t added much colour to his cheeks. They’d added wisps of brown beard and lent a certain mug-shot defiance to his eyes: long hair thinning, tucked behind his ears. The clever scholarship twelve-year-old had gone awry. He looked addict-thin. Belsey found a roach in the ashtray, split it with his nail. He sifted the tobacco for powders. Hard to tell. The pouch of tobacco was fresh enough; it contained Rizlas, no other drug. Belsey pocketed it and walked back to the landing. He heard Maureen Doughty talking. Belsey thought she was on the phone, then heard her addressing the Lord. He stood at the top of the stairs and felt a place thick with incestuous madness.
When he went down she was on the sofa, curled over her clasped hands, eyes closed.
‘The man who called – his name. You wrote it down.’
‘Yes. I wrote it down.’ She stopped praying, searched amongst the pill bottles on the coffee table and found a leaflet for the Catholic Medical Association. ‘Here. Look.’ On the back, in shaky writing, was the name ‘Lee’ followed by a mobile number Belsey knew off by heart.
‘Lee Chester.’
‘He didn’t give his full name. Do you know him?’
Every police officer in north London knew Lee Chester. He was senior management in the capital’s flow of proscribed narcotics.
‘What did Lee say? Exactly?’
‘Just that you might help.’
‘He didn’t say Mark owes money? Anything like that?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Did he threaten you?’
‘No.’
‘But he didn’t just call, did he, Maureen? The back door – that was him.’
She wouldn’t look up.
Belsey went out to the concrete courtyard and dialled Lee’s number.
‘Nicky, mate.’ Belsey could hear a car engine, traffic.
‘Guess who I’m with.’
‘Did she come to you? I didn’t think she would.’
‘It’s not very nice to scare old ladies, Lee. How much does he owe you?’
‘About a grand. Is he there?’
‘No.’ Belsey looked back at the maisonette, up to the window of the bedroom. He sat down on a broken section of wall. ‘What does he score?’
‘All sorts.’
‘Where does he get the money?’
‘A life of crime, I imagine. Fuck knows. Whatever it is, he needs to do some more of it fast.’
‘So you told his mother to hire a private investigator?’
‘You’re not a private investigator.’
‘That’s a good point, Lee. Let’s bear it in mind next time. It can be what we take from this whole miserable experience.’
‘You’ve got connections.’
‘Right now my best connection’s sitting on a piss-stained sofa praying to Jesus.’
‘Who else am I going to send her to?’
‘Anyone.’
‘I’m not writing it off, Nick. People think I’m a muppet for dealing with him already.’
‘You kicked the back door in.’
‘I’m not like that, Nick.’
‘Yes you are.’
Belsey hung up and went back in. There was no food in the cupboards. On the sofa, Maureen stared dumbly at an empty bottle of pregabalin, massaging her swollen hands. He found the repeat scripts on the counter behind the prayer card, took the power key from the meter.
‘I’ll be straight back.’
He left the house, turned onto Queen’s Crescent. The road was a curve of shops, cutting through the estate. It filled up twice a week with stalls selling cheap clothes and household cleaning products. Without the market it felt deflated. Poundland, Magic Hair Salon, a scruffy pub, a lot of identical grocery stores, owners standing in their doorways, looking out.
Belsey found one that charged power keys and put ten pounds on Maureen Doughty’s key. The shopkeeper was unshaven, in a leather jacket, keeping an eye on a TV above the door showing news in Turkish.
‘Do you know a man called Mark Doughty?’ Belsey asked. ‘He’s local, maybe charges his power key here. Son of Maureen Doughty.’
The shopkeeper shook his head. Belsey walked out. The afternoon was sinking towards its end. A man in a wheelchair sat on the corner of Malden Road sipping Tennent’s, another dutifully moving between phone boxes checking the coin slots. Three kids drifted past on bikes with the solemn air of a security patrol.
Belsey sat in Bubbles Launderette and rolled a cigarette with Mark Doughty’s tobacco. He watched the pub across the road, the Sir Robert Peel. He wondered what spirit of mischief inspired this corner of London to name a pub in honour of the founder of the modern police force. The launderette clock said five past four. Belsey counted his money. A clever man would buy seeds, fill the drawers of his old desk with compost, survive alone. Belsey walked into the pub.
The place was cool and dark. An old man sat in the far corner, eyes closed, a beer mat protecting his pint from flies. A landlord whose polo shirt didn’t fully cover his stomach nodded to Belsey.
‘A Guinness, please.’
The man pulled the pint and let it settle.
‘Does a guy called Mark Doughty ever drink here?’ Belsey asked.
‘No idea, son.’ He took Belsey’s money and passed the drink over. Belsey remained standing at the bar. Seventy-two hours without proper sleep: his body was finely balanced. He sipped and let the alcohol ride to his brain. He drank to Sir Robert Peel. Fuck the police, as the saying goes.
An inquiry into him was one thing, suspension another. Suspension, to his mind, meant a foregone conclusion. It meant they either thought he could prejudice the investigation or it would look bad having the subject of a gross-misconduct inquiry turning up for work. The whole thing was being managed by a new commander, Clive Randall, who Belsey had never met – who refused to meet Belsey now or speak to him on the phone. He heard the voice that had tipped him off, as he had done often over the past week. Someone who had cared about him once or was worried about how much he might reveal. It felt important, partly because it was the last significant human contact he’d had before today, partly because Belsey’s interpretation of his past hinged on the voice’s concern. All judgements were contained in that one.
A pair of community support officers ambled past the pub, met his eyes before he could look away, kept walking. He waited for them to turn the corner before finishing his pint and stepping out.
He bought tea, milk, some bread and eggs, then went into Fine Pharmacy. Between the racks of slimming pills and incontinence pads, a man with his hood up was drinking methadone. Behind the counter, a locked glass case displayed razor blades and fragrances: Eternity, Chanel, Dior. No Bride by Amber Knight.
Belsey handed Maureen Doughty’s prescriptions to a small woman in a white coat. She glanced at the paperwork, eyed his beard and creased shirt.
‘Usually it’s the son,’ she said.
‘You know him?’
‘Not really.’
‘He’s gone missing.’
‘OK.’
‘Since Saturday. I’m trying to find him.’
‘I only know him to see. Who are you?’
‘A friend of the family.’
The chemist checked the prescriptions, assessed him again then fetched the drugs. She bagged them up and gave Belsey instructions about when and how often they needed to be taken. He thanked her and took a final look at the perfumes.
‘There’s a new perfume. I think it’s called Bride. By Amber Knight.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you stock it?’
‘No.’
‘OK. I’ll try elsewhere. Thank you.’
He was past the toothpastes when the woman said: ‘You won’t find it anywhere.’
Belsey turned back.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not out.’
‘Not out?’
‘It’s not available. Not yet. It hasn’t been released.’
‘When’s it released?’
‘Next week.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
He stepped out with the paper bag and wondered what he’d seen in Mark Doughty’s room.
Maureen Doughty answered the door and looked surprised to see him again. Belsey gave her the bag of medication and charged the electricity. Then he went to Mark’s bedroom and switched on the light. He picked up the perfume bottle. It was a good weight. He put it back and lifted the box. This also struck him as authentic: UK barcode, the name in raised lettering against the pearly background.
He looked around the room again, crouched, peered under the bed – and saw the toe of a stocking.
It trailed from a rucksack. Belsey pulled the bag out. It contained women’s clothing: vest, leggings, skirt, underwear. There was a pair of silk Alexander McQueen pyjamas, a Chanel clutch, a Gucci scarf. He emptied it all onto the floor. The knickers were all small; the bras all 34B. They were in good condition but not shop-new; no price tags, freshly laundered, high quality.
The only other thing under the bed was a blue carrier bag containing nylon gloves, a torch and two screwdrivers. A housebreaker’s kit.
Belsey searched through the pile of clothes again. Hidden amongst the underwear were a tub of Crème de la Mer face cream and a photograph of Amber Knight with her family. At the very bottom of the rucksack was her passport.
He took the passport into the centre of the room, held it beneath the naked bulb. It looked genuine. He wouldn’t have recognised her in the photo: hair scraped back, light make-up, scoop-necked top. But it was her: Amber Sophia Knight. Date of Birth: 2 June 1991. Validated seven months ago.
She had a stalker with very intimate access. Belsey took out his phone and tried to find where exactly Amber Knight was living these days. An article came up with pictures of Amber house-hunting for a central London base.
Until recently she’d been living with her mum near Epping, in the village of Theydon Bois, where she’d grown up. Her mother ensured she ‘kept her feet on the ground’: ‘“We chat, we bake, we watch TV.”’ In February last year the appeal of standing on the ground must have worn off. Along with the appeal of being managed by her mother, who she ditched. Amber bought a £13 million mansion on Wadham Gardens in Primrose Hill. She put in a £1.5 million basement extension and re-landscaped the garden. The result was somewhere she could call ‘her first proper home’. She was twenty-three years old. Her first proper home was ten minutes’ walk from Mark Doughty’s.
Belsey studied the passport again. He sifted through a few more clippings. Underneath pages of Grazia and Heat was a more sober document from a site called the Home Chemist: ‘Three poisons you can make in your kitchen’. It listed recipes for ricin, cyanide and the botulinum toxin.
He picked up the university ID from the dresser, met Mark Doughty’s troubled gaze, then slipped it into his wallet. He took Amber Knight’s passport and went downstairs.
Maureen Doughty was standing nervously in the living room, like someone awaiting test results.
‘I found this,’ Belsey said.
‘What is it?’
‘It appears to be Amber Knight’s passport.’
‘Amber Knight?’
‘Know her?’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Has Mark ever been in trouble with the police, Maureen?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever say anything about things he wanted to do? Maybe bad things?’
She hesitated.
‘He wanted to be famous.’
‘Excellent,’ Belsey sighed. ‘Maureen, what did he study at the uni?’
‘Chemistry. He started, twice. But he doesn’t finish things. He was always very brilliant, Mark. But he has difficulty concentrating.’
‘Has he brought any chemicals into the house, ever?’
Maureen Doughty shook her head despondently. She came over, took Belsey’s left hand in both her own. ‘He’s my only child. I don’t know what I’d do without him.’
THE SHORTEST ROUTE to Amber Knight’s house was across Chalk Farm Road. The busy thoroughfare was all that divided Maureen Doughty’s estate from one of the most desirable enclaves of an expensive city. But Amber’s neighbourhood, Primrose Hill, was isolated enough to keep its rich inhabitants happy, protected by rail tracks to the west, Regent’s Canal to the east, and a general air of affluence more effective than a moat. It was an island and another world.
Belsey crossed the bridge over the tracks and wondered where he was headed and why.
Last time he lived somewhere with a TV Amber Knight was still a teenager. He remembered seeing her on a chat show and she came across as young, self-possessed, ambitious. On a date a year ago he saw her in her first film role: a nurse in a time of war, with decisions to make. She was a good actress as well. He could name two hit singles in the last year and picture the videos to go with them. Her personal life was vaguer, gleaned from tabloid pages he hadn’t dwelled on. Men happened; she’d briefly been in LA with an actor, then in London with a footballer, he remembered that. He had a sense that she currently considered herself a businesswoman, branching out, taking control.
He didn’t wish a slow death from botulism upon anyone, and all she’d done was be beautiful and talented. Mark Doughty concerned him. Everyone’s sick and evil; humanity’s redeeming feature was its laziness – most people kept their malevolence in fantasies. Then there are the industrious ones, those who get off their arses and prepare. From what he could tell, Mark Doughty was nothing if not industrious.
If he could get into her underwear drawer, he could get into her stomach, her lungs, her nervous system. That was how stalkers worked, imposing intimacy, turning up uninvited in nightmares.
Belsey turned onto Regent’s Park Road. Primrose Hill twinkled in the sun. Cherry blossom, hanging baskets, new cars gleaming. Pale bricks held the soft light. Children with ski tans walked beside Asian nannies. The local adults wore gilets, tailored jackets, knee-high boots. The high street curved unhurriedly towards the park, pastel-coloured, independently owned: delis, pet accessories, cupcakes. Belsey stopped at a rack outside a newsagent’s and browsed two tabloids. Nothing about an Amber stalker or a break-in at her home. But there she was on the gossip pages. All the talk centred on her upcoming wedding to a millionaire property developer: rumours about her dress, her diet, her tears.
Kentish Town – that was the closest police station to Primrose Hill. Belsey called an old drinking buddy.
‘Jim, it’s Nick. Nick Belsey.’
Jim hung up.
Same with Matt Yarwood at Holborn, Sheila French at West End Central. Guilt was contagious, every police officer knew that. Belsey put his phone away. A wine shop across the road advertised its own book club: Our sommelier will match wines to the books. First glass free. He went in, bought a miniature of vodka and drank it in the shop. Back outside, he took the passport from his pocket and checked it again. He felt the same buzz of excitement, a bit of fame in his possession.
The address was one street away from the park. The properties themselves hid behind high brick walls and mature trees. No mistaking Amber Knight’s wall though: four schoolgirls sat on the pavement beside a very large, very solid-looking wooden gate. They clutched T-shirts and CDs. The gate had security cameras angled down on either side. Across the road were two men, one in a Mini with the door open, one leaning against a low garden wall, both in heavy coats. The man on his feet had a camera around his neck and a bag of photographic lenses.
The photographers looked wary as Belsey approached. He showed Mark’s uni ID.
‘Seen this guy around at all?’
They were happy enough to look at the picture, reluctant to divulge information. The standing one shrugged.
‘Amber in?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Has there been any trouble recently? Police about?’
‘Why?’
They were cagey. In their line of work you had to earn your tip-offs. They had him down as an amateur hack.
Belsey crossed the road. He bummed a cigarette off the schoolgirls, squatted down and got a light.
‘Do you know if Amber’s in at the moment?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s filming.’
‘We saw her car go through.’
Belsey went to the gate and buzzed the intercom. No one answered. Belsey waited sixty seconds then walked to the park.
He sat on a bench beside a mother and daughter. The mother was on her phone, talking about a problem with a French tutor. Belsey called Charlotte Kelson at the Mail on Sunday.
‘Well, Nick Belsey. What a pleasant surprise. Are you OK?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I heard things have got a bit complicated.’
‘Things have never been simpler.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Primrose Hill. I’m actually phoning about Amber Knight.’
Kelson laughed. ‘Going to the wedding?’
‘Probably not. Have you heard anything about a stalker getting into her home?’
‘No. Sounds like you’ve got a story. You know a guy last week got twenty grand for a copy of the guest list.’
‘Twenty grand?’
‘For a sheet of paper.’
‘When’s the wedding?’
‘Saturday.’
‘And her perfume, Bride, that’s connected to the wedding.’
‘Well done, Nick. You’ve still got it.’
‘OK.’
‘I reckon you could get thirty grand for a picture of the wedding dress. It’s meant to have half a million quid’s worth of Swarovski crystals on it. Forty-plus for anything juicy.’
‘What does juicy mean?’
‘Well, something like trouble with a stalker, Nick. Come to me. I’ll let you buy me dinner.’
They hung up. Belsey checked gossip sites on his phone in case any less official corner of celebrity news had a lead. Amber was rumoured to be on a liquids-only diet. She swore by Revlon’s Autumn Spice scented nail enamel. She kept a picture of her ex by her bed. She was secretly quite shy.
There were a lot of pictures of her holding cocktails in exclusive London situations, not looking shy. Nobu, Scott’s, the Berkeley. In a city to which the world aspires, someone has to look like they’re having fun. Amber was the gold standard underwriting it all. Her favourite designer was Valentino. She had been named Gillette’s Legs of the Year. She loved Vitamin Water’s new range of spring flavours, and used a Sony Cyber-shot camera to capture special moments.
Last year, after splitting from her parental manager, she’d moved to another company. All enquiries directed to Karen at Milkshake Management. Belsey found a number for the company and dialled.
‘Milkshake,’ a woman answered, brightly.
‘This is Nick Belsey, Kentish Town CID. I’ve been asked to get in touch about Amber Knight. Is Karen there?’
‘Karen’s not in today.’
‘OK. Anyone I can speak to today?’
There was some hesitation.
‘Who is this?’
‘Detective Inspector Nick Belsey. It’s quite urgent. I have Amber’s passport here. I think she might be in danger. Is there a PA or anything?’
‘You have her passport?’
‘I found her passport at the home of someone I believe broke into Amber’s house.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hang on.’ The woman disappeared, came back thirty seconds later. ‘You can try Gabby. Gabby’s at the house.’ She recited a mobile number. ‘She’s the PA. She deals with security.’
It took Gabby a minute to answer the phone.
‘Who is this?’
‘My name’s Nick Belsey. I was told to call you about Amber’s security.’
‘Nick Belsey?’ Her accent was an icy transatlantic.
‘I have some concerns about—’
‘Hold on.’ It sounded noisy behind her: there was a dog barking, men’s voices, echoes across a large space. She exchanged words with someone before addressing Belsey again. ‘You were meant to call us yesterday.’
Belsey considered this.
‘It’s been hectic,’ he said.
‘I explained to whoever it is at your office that this was urgent.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘I think it was a Chris I was dealing with.’
‘Sure. This is Nick now. Chris is away.’
‘For god’s sake. Where are you? Can you come in?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Now is all I’ve got. And it will have to be quick.’
He suppressed an urge to laugh.
‘I’m in Primrose Hill at the moment, actually.’
‘Give me a call when you’re outside.’
She hung up. Belsey moved the phone from his ear and stared at a lot of people jogging in a line. The world had become stranger since he withdrew his involvement. Gravity was lighter, oxygen thinner. The woman on the bench beside him hadn’t paused. ‘Natasha used them with the twins and said they were superb, but all she’s learned in three weeks is how to order a bloody ice cream.’
Belsey walked back to Amber Knight’s road. He checked his reflection in the wing mirror of a Lambretta and shook his head in wonder. What the fuck was he doing? Past the paparazzi, the schoolgirls. He dialled Gabby again.
‘I’m outside.’
‘Make sure the gate shuts behind you.’
The gate buzzed open. A schoolgirl ran up and handed Belsey a pink envelope.
‘Can you give this to Amber?’
‘Sure.’
He walked through. A camera clicked behind him. The gate shut.
Amber had bought a beautiful home. A double-fronted house looking like nothing in two hundred years had left a mark. White gravel stretched to the front door with neat lawn either side. Two Porsches, yellow and silver, had been moved onto the grass to accommodate a black van. The front door of the house itself was open a crack, cable running out to a generator on the lawn. Belsey pushed it and stepped into a hallway with huge mirrors and polished floorboards. A grey pug ran out of a room to the right and pawed at his legs. Someone said: ‘Cut.’
Through the doors he could see a small film crew, a man with a camera on his shoulder, a boom, lights, other people with headphones, radio mics. The room was double height with a white piano on a rug, glass stairs twisting up to a mezzanine level, a swing seat hanging from the ceiling. It stretched to the back of the house, to more glass: a wall of it looking onto a garden. As well as the film crew there was an entourage of smarter men and women with IDs hanging around their necks. On the sofa, head tilted to receive a make-up brush: there was Amber.
The star was more brightly lit than the anonymous people around her, but she looked real enough. Odd with reality, in fact. She wore a white sweater, jeans with a rip exposing tanned thigh. Her hair was up. She was no more than ten metres from him.
That had been easy enough.
She was alive at least. No sign of any chemical poisoning. Belsey turned back to the hallway, put the fan’s envelope on a ledge at the side. Someone said: ‘Excuse me.’ He turned to see a young woman with a headset and clipboard emerging from the living room.
‘Have you signed a release form?’
‘A release form?’
‘Have you been in it before?’
‘No.’
She thrust a clipboard with a release form in his direction, pen resting on the dotted line. He checked the sheet: Halcyon Entertainment. One Perfect Day. ‘I hereby irrevocably consent to the inclusion in this documentary of my appearance and words . . .’
‘I’d rather my face wasn’t shown.’
She peered at him, struggling to get her head around this.
‘Seriously?’
‘I’m on the run.’
The woman shrugged and took the clipboard back as if he was an arsehole. Her radio crackled. Belsey watched her return to the room, head over to a man with a utility belt who was peeling tape from the floor.
He walked towards the back of the house, past a huge chrome and copper kitchen, a room with a small catwalk and mirrored walls adjoining what looked like a fully functional salon with sinks for hair-washing and a nail bar. Five model heads sported wigs in different styles. Wide, carpeted stairs took him up to a first floor with a lot of rooms that looked like waiting areas for Thai restaurants – tasteful combinations of cream, dark wood and slate. Belsey peeked through doorways until he found a woman going through a chest of drawers. He watched her sifting papers for a moment before she sensed him, stiffened, then placed the papers back very carefully before turning.
‘Hey,’ she smiled. She was short, in patent leather heels, long dark hair, bright red lips and thick mascara.
‘Hey.’
‘I haven’t seen you around before.’ The woman thrust a hand out. ‘Terri.’
‘Nick. I’m looking for Gabby, Amber’s PA.’
‘She’s definitely around somewhere.’ Terri studied him, hungrily. Now Belsey saw the notebook and Dictaphone on the coffee table. ‘So how do you know Amber?’
‘I’m security. Just started.’
‘Ah. Security. Well, welcome to the madhouse.’ She winked. ‘You’ve got a job on your hands.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Oh, you know. Everything. I’ll let Gabby fill you in.’
She gave him a business card and smiled again. The card identified her as Terri Baker, the Mirror’s show-business correspondent.
‘Do you have a card?’ she asked.
‘Not on me.’
‘We’re all one big team here,’ Terri said. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other around.’
‘I’m sure.’
Belsey returned to the corridor, went up another floor. There was a room with massage tables and one with a dance floor beneath a mirror ball, framed magazine covers on the wall, windows leading onto a large balcony. Belsey crossed the unlit dance floor to the balcony. It was busy out there, he saw as he got close. On the other side of the window two men with secateurs and watering cans tended a lush set of window boxes. Beyond them, a miraculous half-acre of garden lay green and empty. Intruders like side doors, back doors, access from gardens. And here it was: a set of steps leading down from the balcony terrace to the garden. A half-acre – that was a lot of perimeter to protect.
He returned to the landing and followed it to a pink marble bathroom as big as the Hampstead CID office. A jacuzzi took up a whole corner, next to twin sinks crowded with lotions, ornaments, awards. Adjoining the bathroom was an austere bedroom with a lot of white fabrics, white walls, hyacinths and scented candles. It had a flat-screen TV facing the bed. No picture of her ex by her bed, as rumour had suggested. One framed photo of a teenage Amber with a much older man who looked like he was her father.
Belsey opened drawers, found lingerie. The sizes matched Mark Doughty’s haul. A woman passed the doorway, glanced in, stopped.
‘Excuse me. Who are you?’
She was short, in her early thirties, with a severe black fringe. She clutched a bulging file. The voice was instantly recognisable.
‘Gabby.’ Belsey shut the drawer. ‘Nick Belsey. The security guy.’
‘What are you doing in here?’
‘Exactly. This is a shambles.’
She stared at him. She looked angry, but also like she didn’t have many facial expressions to choose from.
‘I don’t have long,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’
No handshake.
She led him back down the corridor, talking to the space in front of her.
‘Do you need coffee? Water?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
They reached an office that didn’t look like it had been fully occupied yet: neat piles of paper on the floor, bare shelves, an incongruous leather-topped desk, empty but for a MacBook. She dropped the file on the desk.
‘Take a seat. I didn’t realise Karen was on it.’ She took one of the piles of paper from the floor and spread it over the desk. ‘Where do you want to start?’
Belsey sat down and placed Amber’s passport on the table, but Gabby was focused on her paperwork.
‘We need a full twenty-four-seven team back on. There were originally three guys on rotation here. Amber might need some persuading, of course.’ She ran her finger down bullet points. ‘We need a review of her phone and emails and how secure that is. We’ve had someone trying to hack in, journalists snooping. All that needs to be sorted out.’
‘Does that include the one downstairs?’
‘Terri? Terri’s OK. Terri’s on-side.’
Her phone rang. She checked, then muted it. ‘The thing right now is I need you to help keep costs down as much as possible. Obviously, this is sensitive . . .’
Belsey slid the passport towards her. Gabby checked it this time, frowned.
‘I’ve been looking for this. Where did you get it?’
‘It was in the bedroom of a man called Mark Doughty, about ten minutes’ walk from here.’ She showed no recognition of the name. Belsey moved the paperwork to the side and placed Mark’s ID on the desk. ‘Recognise him?’
Gabby took a good look.
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I’ve seen him. That’s him.’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s been around a few times. I’ve seen him at events.’
‘Ever in here? In the house?’
‘God no.’
‘He had some clothes that look like they belong to Amber as well.’
Things were dawning slowly and unpleasantly on her. ‘Is that where they’ve been going? Oh wow. Yes, some clothes have been going missing.’
‘You’ve told the police?’
‘No.’
‘Let them know. I think Mark Doughty may be dangerous, but there’s a limit to what I can do. Check any security footage you have. If you see him entering the property pass it to the police. And tell Amber.’
‘What are you saying about me?’
They both turned. Amber stood in the doorway, cradling the pug. Belsey hadn’t been prepared for the effect of proximity. She was just a person, of course, but a person in a lot of dreams across the globe, on billboards, magazine covers, the sides of buses. And here was the original, with eyes that didn’t look at him. Belsey tried to imagine someone being in your house and not bothering to look at them.
Gabby got to her feet. ‘Amber, you remember we had concerns about a fan.’ She held out the ID.
Amber walked over. ‘That’s the guy.’
‘You think?’
‘Definitely.’
‘I think so too,’ Gabby said.
‘Jesus. He’s freaky,’ Amber said. ‘Who are you?’ She hit Belsey with eye contact for the first time.
‘This is our new security guy,’ Gabby cut in. ‘He’s the best in the business. And totally checked out.’
‘Good. Pleased to meet you.’ She freed a hand to shake. Her hand was warm, the shake indistinct.
So he’d touched Amber Knight.
‘What are you going to do about this?’ She nodded at the ID. Her eyes had a curious intensity.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘We’ve got a strategy,’ Gabby said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Will you keep me informed this time?’
‘Of course.’
Amber looked at the ID again, then at Belsey. ‘I guess I’ll be seeing you around.’ She gave a sweet and unconvincing smile. Then she was gone.
Gabby exhaled. ‘In future, please – she needs reassurance.’
‘She needs good security,’ Belsey said. ‘What happened to the old team?’
‘It didn’t work out. Don’t worry about that.’
‘You fired them?’
‘Amber fired them.’
‘Why?’
‘She thought they were spying on her.’ Gabby checked the landing, closed the door. She sat down again. ‘There’s a situation here. A lot of nerves, a lot of high spirits. We have the wedding in less than a week, with a lot riding on it. This is a very important few days. Amber has a schedule.’ She found a spreadsheet amongst the lists of security concerns. ‘What I’d appreciate is, if she goes anywhere that isn’t prearranged – I mean, by Karen or by myself – you let me know.’