The Hollow Man by Oliver Harris Page B

again.
    “He said it was urgent.”
    “Hang on.” The guard checked a list. A few late-evening loiterers. Plain-clothed men and women passed the desk, glancing at Belsey. “Is he expecting you?”
    “Certainly is.”
    Eventually the guard escorted Belsey through the department, past closed doors. They arrived at an office with a sign saying “Financial Investigation” and the guard knocked.
    “Come in.”
    The office had its own steel security door with hinge bolts. Inside, one man with greased black hair sat in the large, neat room, polished boots up on his desk. Belsey guessed that this was Midgley.
    “Visitor for Inspector Ridpath,” the guard said.
    “He’s busy . . .” Midgley began.
    “I think he deserves a break,” Belsey said. There was a wooden door at the other end of the office. Midgley shook his head and smiled. Belsey walked past him. He knocked on Ridpath’s door and a small voice said: “Who’s there?”
    “Alexei Devereux,” Belsey said. There was a long silence. Eventually the door opened.
    Ridpath stood in the doorway. He was Belsey’s height, but a little wider, in a white shirt and paisley tie a few decades old. His eyes were small and dark but not without fire, and he sported a neat moustache, like the admission of a harmless personal foible. It drew attention to his plump, clean-shaven cheeks and his baldness. There was an overall carelessness to the man, like someone who’d been put together from badly written instructions. Behind him was a windowless office filled with papers: stacks on the floor and on top of cabinets and desks. It felt as if the space that remained had been carved out with effort.
    “What is it?” he said.
    “You called about a Mr. Devereux.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Detective Constable Nick Belsey.”
    “Detective Constable?” he smiled.
    “Excuse me,” Belsey said, stepping into the office and shutting the door with Midgley on the other side. Now it was the two of them, face to face.
    “What do you want?” Ridpath said.
    “I want to know about Alexei Devereux.”
    Ridpath walked back to his desk and collapsed into an old cushioned chair. He waved with wary hospitality towards a spare seat and Belsey sat down and studied the inspector. It was terrible, he thought, in the twenty-first century, that you could tell a man lived alone by the state of his shirt collar. Ridpath moved some papers.
    “A routine inquiry. I can’t recall the exact nature of it.” He found a file and flicked through it, then seemed to give up.
    “What does AD Development do?” Belsey said.
    “I don’t know. If it’s something to do with Devereux, then I’m not aware.” He spoke with the faintest of Yorkshire accents, like a man who’d spent a career trying to lose it, but it had clung on, honest and stubborn, and made Ridpath seem honest and stubborn too.
    “Did you speak to him?”
    “No.”
    “What happened? Why did you call him in as missing?”
    “I can barely remember. I must have been told to contact him. He wasn’t at his home, so I contacted you. Or your station, at least.”
    “When did you try to contact him?”
    “Won’t you have all this information at Hampstead?”
    “Who said anything about Hampstead?” Belsey said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You said Hampstead.”
    “Isn’t that where you’re from?”
    “I am. But I didn’t say it.”
    “ He was in Hampstead.” Ridpath’s voice was quieter, eyes steely. “Devereux.” There was something he wasn’t saying. Belsey suspected they were building a case and didn’t want it poached, a case concerning things far beyond one body in a Hampstead mansion. “He’s been showing a lot of cash around the place,” Ridpath said. “I just wanted to ask him a few questions.”
    “How are you with a Ouija board?”
    This stopped him. He closed the file. Then he carefully moved it to a different area of his desk. The graveyard. It must happen all the time, Belsey thought. Death stealing his