The Hollow Man Read Online Free PDF

the crossing to enjoy its dour Alpine charm. But the pub had a side room with a good pool table. Belsey played two frames, won both, and when a fight started he moved on. The Adelaide, the Enterprise. At some point he crashed a birthday party in the Camden Holiday Inn. He was happy there. And then he was outside again. Everything was fine. He moved down the ladder gracefully from the Neptune to the Cobden Arms to the Sports Bar, which had karaoke so raw it felt like Greek tragedy.
    “Singing, Nick?”
    “Not tonight.”
    “I want you to meet my friend. Anne, Nick’s a detective.”
    “A detective!”
    “Not for much longer.”
    “I’ve always wanted to meet a detective.”
    “I’m not going to be one for much . . .”
    But he was OK. Into the back streets of Hampstead, where the world seemed gemmed and out of an advert; the houses themselves fat jewels with rustic tables behind basement windows. And the Heath always beside him, a shadow; and then he was crossing the Heath in primeval mud again, through trees that seemed half familiar like the ghosts of a thousand old friends.
    Belsey was halfway to The Bishops Avenue before he realised what he was doing.
    T he road was deserted, fantasy homes unlit behind their gates. It seemed as if part of the fantasy was that you didn’t even have to be there, present in your own life. Guards slept in booths beside the larger houses. Number 37 hung back from the road, shrouded in darkness, mourning. Belsey rang the bell. He felt forms shift, the ghost of Alex Devereux approach the intercom and retreat. The house itself appeared larger in the gloom, heavy with emptiness. Belsey unlocked the front gate and walked into the grounds. He climbed the steps and knocked. After a moment he unlocked the front door and stood on the threshold, waiting. He moved inside and sat on the edge of the hallway’s fountain while his eyes adjusted to the dim interior. Then he got up and familiarised himself with the alarm system, made sure it was all off, and shut the door.
    Belsey left the lights off. He felt his way through grey shades of luxury to the second floor and opened the door to the roof. A hazy moonlight caught the undulation of the pool’s surface. It looked like treacle. Belsey let his clothes fall to the floor and dived in.
    The water was freezing. Belsey surfaced with a gasp. But it felt good, his body naked in the cold water. It woke him up. He floated on his back, gazing at the light pollution. It felt as if the water itself was a kind of wealth and he was floating in it.
    He swam a few lengths and dried off, went down to the kitchen, heated a can of soup and took it with bread and cheese into the living room. He ate, watching his silhouette in the television screen. Then he stood up, unlocked the French windows and walked out. A security light came on. The plants and garden furniture froze as if caught in nocturnal conspiracy. A fox stared back. Hello, friend . Belsey lowered himself to his heels and it ran into the undergrowth.
    The garden extended to tall wooden fences with cameras at each corner. He wondered where the tapes were kept. There was what looked like a small bandstand and a rock garden with shallow pools of dark water flowing down to a pond. He couldn’t see any fish. He returned inside, locking the door and then—this surprised him—wiping his prints off the handle with a corner of curtain. What was he doing here? He explored the house, testing the silence for an enduring impression Devereux might have made upon it. He found a room with nothing but a card table and two decks of cards in neat piles, facedown. A door in the basement led to a small cinema with three rows of cushioned chairs and a smell of damp. There was a small bathroom in the basement, with its own TV screen in the wall and a lot of colourful glass bottles by the sink.
    Belsey returned to the bedroom. A cordless telephone sat on the bedside table, beside a book entitled Ten Secrets of Effective