The Hollow Man

Chapter One

It was well past five in the afternoon when Shelley Tinton discovered the man’s body.

She was late for her shift, parking her battered pale blue moped in a space usually reserved for a sleek black four-wheel drive that belonged to one of the regular visitors to the serviced offices. The moped’s headlight was peppered with days-old dead bugs, including part of a large moth that had bounced off of it only a few metres from her house before splatting against her helmet visor, causing her to wobble precariously close to a neighbour’s car.

This afternoon though, rain had lashed at her high-visibility protective coveralls and splashed over her waterproof boots. She had gritted her teeth and squinted as the wind drove fat droplets under the visor while buffeting against the moped’s slight frame. It was only a twenty-minute journey from her home in Harwell to the serviced offices building in Abingdon, but by the time she hurried to the front door, swiped her security card and removed her helmet, her hands were numb from gripping the handlebars and she was soaked through.

She stood for a moment, contemplating the puddle around her supposedly waterproof ankle boots, then sighed.

‘Hi, Shelley.’ The middle-aged man behind the reception desk looked up from his phone with a smirk. ‘Nice out, eh?’

‘Bloody fantastic, Mike. Never better. You’d never guess it was the middle of July, would you?’ Shelley tousled her cropped brown hair, sending a fresh shower of water across the floor tiles. She saw the muddy footprints criss-crossing the atrium and sighed. ‘Guess it’s going to be a long night tonight getting this lot clean. How many were in today?’

‘Not too many. That lot from the cosmetics company rescheduled for next Thursday so the meeting room on the second floor wasn’t used after all,’ Mike said, reading from his computer screen. He leaned back, and smiled. ‘Marcie stopped by on her way home to say that the windows in her office are smeared with dirt.’

‘More likely she needs new glasses. I only cleaned that room on Wednesday night.’ Shelley chuckled. ‘What’s the roster tonight?’

‘It’s not too bad,’ said Mike. ‘The third floor was quiet – there’s a bloke who’s had the office at the far end rented for the past week, but he was due to vacate it this morning so you can do that one now before we lease it out again next week, and the conference room was used today. Apart from that, it’s just the usual tenants on the first and second floors, plus the toilets and the kitchen area. One of the clients mentioned there’s a bulb out in the gents’ toilets but couldn’t tell me the floor number so let me know when you find it and I’ll wander up.’

‘Thanks. All right, see you in a bit.’ She headed towards the lift, wondering what state the conference room would be in.

After pressing the button for the third floor, she avoided looking at the mirrored walls while the doors closed. She was tired, almost divorced and earning just over the minimum wage at the moment, and she didn’t need reminding what a toll all of that was taking on her complexion.

Instead, she stared at the smeared PVC tiles that covered the lift floor and bit back a sigh. She would leave those until last, along with the chrome railing and keyboard panel with their equally grubby surfaces.

The lift slowed and the doors swished open, spitting her out into a brightly lit open-plan break-out area. There were colourful armchairs swathed in lime green or orange cord material to match the serviced office agency’s branding scattered around a large television that showed a twenty-four-hour news channel. Here and there, glass and chrome coffee tables had been placed between the armchairs and Shelley made a beeline for these, collecting discarded coffee cups and sandwich wrappers before turning her attention to the kitchenette off to the right-hand side.

Stacking the dishwasher with the empties, and rearranging the cutlery basket to her liking, she then wiped out the microwave and checked the refrigerator.

There was nothing in that to throw away yet, so she turned her attention to the overflowing waste bin under the sink. After changing the bag and leaving the full one beside the lift, she pulled out the cleaning basket from another cupboard and applied a liberal amount of disinfectant spray to the laminated counter top.

She hummed under her breath as she worked, remembering a catchy Top 40 song that was being played on high rotation by her ten-year-old daughter every morning while she got ready for school.

Once all the surfaces had been wiped down, she checked the timer on the dishwasher.

‘Okay, forty minutes. Let’s see what state the rest of the place is in,’ she said.

Making her way past empty offices, Shelley peered through the glass-panelled walls of each. It was habit, more than anything. Even if they hadn’t been booked out that day, she knew from experience that clients might use one of them to make a private phone call if they needed some quiet away from a larger meeting space, and then often left a trail of abandoned kitchen crockery and discarded snack wrappers in their wake.

She glanced at the cleaning schedule in her hand. Room number one oh five was along here, right at the end before the corridor kinked round to the corner and along the back of the four-storey building. And, according to Mike, ready to be cleaned so it could be handed over to the next tenant on Monday.

‘With any luck it just needs a quick wipe down and a vacuum,’ she muttered.

The lights had been switched off, which was a good sign. She had never ceased to wonder why the building’s owners – a large corporation based in Greece or somewhere equally warm – had never thought to invest in automatic lights that would switch off if no movement was detected. Instead, clients were expected to switch off the lights when they left their offices or meeting rooms for the day, and invariably forgot.

She recalled that the man who had been renting the office that week had been working late when she was here on Tuesday, and had raised his hand in greeting as she had passed by. Shelley had returned the gesture, but by then his gaze had already returned to the laptop screen on the desk in front of him, and she had felt a little embarrassed as she lowered her hand and hurried round to the conference room. That day, the IT crowd had left it looking like a tornado had passed through, and she crossed her fingers.

With any luck, the pointed reminder that had been emailed to their manager on Wednesday had served its purpose and she might be finished up here within the hour.

The Top 40 tune was still going through her head when she reached out for the door handle to room one oh five. The chorus was a repetitive six-note arrangement that, in the video, was accompanied by a simple dance move that her daughter and friends were copying at every opportunity. A smile feathered Shelley’s lips as she pushed open the door, wondering when to tell her daughter that she had bought them tickets to see the band in concert at the end of the year.

She froze on the threshold, her smile faltering.

‘Are you all right?’ she ventured.

The man who she had noticed on Tuesday night was now sitting in the chair behind the desk, facing her. From the light pooling from the corridor, she could see that he wore a pale blue shirt, but his head was in shadow.

She tried again. ‘Are you okay?’

He said nothing in response, and didn’t move.

‘Excuse me?’ Shelley reached out for the light switch, and then recoiled, a strangled cry escaping her lips. ‘Oh my God.’

The man’s head was completely encased in plastic bubble wrap.

She took a tentative step closer and could see that his head was rolled back slightly, his eyes bulging as they stared at the ceiling. The bubble wrap covered his neck, wound across his mouth and nose, up over his ears and around again to cover his eyes. His mouth was open, the plastic filling the gaping void, and his wrists had been tied to the chair arms. A distinct stench of piss and shit filled the room, and Shelley gagged as she took a step forwards.

Then another, and another, until she could reach out and touch one of his wrists.

There was no pulse, and his skin was cool under her touch. There were scratch marks in the plastic armrests where his fingernails had clawed them, and scuff marks in the carpet tiles under the chair where his shoes had dug in.

She snatched back her hand, then ran out to the corridor and back to the lift.

‘Come on,’ she urged, pressing the button for the doors.

They swished open, and yet the ride back down to the ground floor seemed to take an age while her heart thrashed painfully. A moment later, the doors peeled back to reveal the reception area, and Mike looked up from his phone once more.

‘Don’t tell me, the conference room has been trashed.’

Shelley cleared her throat, felt bile threaten, and swallowed before taking a deep breath. ‘Call the police. There’s a dead man in room one oh five.’

Chapter Two

Detective Sergeant Mark Turpin peered through the car’s rain-lashed windscreen and exhaled.

Warm air emanated through the dashboard vents, percolating around the vehicle’s interior, yet not quite alleviating the chill that clung to his bones.

He wiggled his toes, damp socks rubbing against his feet, then grimaced as his wet trouser hems stuck to his calves.

His gaze found the clock displayed beside the vents and he blinked to offset the tiredness that threatened. His shift had started at nine that morning, with a court appearance in Reading resulting from a joint investigation between local policing areas in the Thames Valley which took up several hours. That was followed by attending the scene of an aggravated burglary at a house on the outskirts of Wallingford. The victim was now in an induced coma in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford and would be lucky to survive the night.

Biting back a yawn, Mark pulled out his notebook and turned to a fresh page, noting the date and time at the top of it, then reached out and turned off the car’s ignition.

The warm air died, and he could feel the cold seeping through the perished door seals within seconds. The car smelled of stale takeout coffee dregs, fatty food wrappers and the faintest reminder of a petrol station-purchased pine air freshener. The cardboard pine tree still dangled from the rearview mirror, spinning gently from side to side, its once green surface bleached by bright sunshine. That sunshine was now a distant memory after two weeks of wind and rain that had battered the Vale of the White Horse along with the rest of Oxfordshire and left the countryside flooded and swollen.

He looked up at movement out of the corner of his eye to see two protective suit-clad figures emerge from the building. They disappeared around the corner for a few moments before reappearing with a metal equipment box that they carried between them, their heads bowed against a fresh onslaught of rain that lashed at their exposed faces while they made their way back to the reception doors.

Mark felt a familiar rush, his heart rate increasing, and then glanced down at the mobile phone on the passenger seat as the screen flashed to life and he heard a distinct ping.

The message was succinct, to the point, and a response was not required.

He leaned across and pulled a pair of protective gloves from a crumpled box in the passenger footwell. Stuffing the gloves into a pocket of his waxed three-quarter-length raincoat and the mobile phone in the other, he rested his hand on the door handle and stared through the windscreen once more.

Beyond the car, the blue emergency lights from one of two Thames Valley Police-liveried patrol cars flashed and strobed against the lower windows of the red brick office building. The second vehicle was bathed in the pale glow from a security light over the reception door, while the passenger seat’s occupant sat with her head bowed and her chin angled to the radio strapped to her protective vest.

He could see her colleague inside, in the building’s reception area beyond a glass and chrome door. The older uniformed officer, Nathan Willis, was a constable Mark had worked with on a number of occasions, and was currently speaking with a man in a crumpled shirt and trousers while taking notes.

‘And so it begins,’ Mark muttered, pulling his jacket hood over his head and climbing out.

He leapt up the kerb to a paved concrete tiled area that surrounded the building, his shoes splashing through inch-deep puddles that splattered his ankles with fresh mud as he jogged towards the revolving doors. Pushing through them, he entered the reception area, and nodded to the uniformed constable while shaking the worst of the water from his jacket.

‘Evening, constable.’

‘Sarge.’ Nathan gestured to the receptionist. ‘This is Mike Fenchase, the man who called it in.’

‘Mr Fenchase, I’m Detective Sergeant Mark Turpin. Is the victim known to you?’

Mike shook his head. ‘I was telling your colleague here, the man was a client, like everyone else who rents offices here.’

‘A regular?’

‘No, this week was his first time here. He had a booking from Monday, just for the week.’

‘Did you meet him at all during that time?’

‘Only when he turned up, which was usually around nine fifteen. I used to greet him, but he didn’t stop to chat or anything like that.’ Mike shrugged. ‘Some clients just prefer to keep themselves to themselves, so I have to respect that.’

Mark checked his watch. ‘That’s a long shift you work.’

‘I just do longer hours on a Friday so they can do a final clean before the weekend,’ said the receptionist. ‘Most other days I’m only here until three in the afternoon – they don’t take any bookings for after two o’clock, you see, and if guests don’t have a permanent pass, once they’re out the front door they can’t return when there’s no one on the reception desk.’

‘I’ll finish taking Mr Fenchase’s statement, and then I’ll continue to monitor the cordon here if you like, sarge,’ said Nathan.

‘Thanks. Where’s Jasper?’

‘Third floor. Stairs are over there, through that door on the left. The lift’s being processed for prints at the moment.’

‘And Jan?’

‘Upstairs, with him.’

‘Thanks.’

Mark pushed through the fire exit door and into a stairwell that was bare concrete and plasterwork walls. His steps echoed off the concrete stairs as he made his way to the third floor, leaving waterlogged footprints in his wake. He gave his coat another flap to lose the excess moisture before wrenching open the door on the third-floor landing and finding himself in a carpeted reception area. To his right, the elevator doors had been propped open and a pair of forensic technicians crouched inside, their backs to him while their attention was focused on the chrome railing that encircled mirrored walls.

Mark caught sight of his reflection as he passed and quickly looked away, rubbing at the stubbly hair already covering his jawline and ruing the dark circles under his eyes.

It had already been a long day, and it was going to be a long night if the initial report from Force Control was anything to go by. Despite his tiredness, he was intrigued by what had happened here, and already determined to find some answers.

Jasper’s forensic team had set up their equipment beside a marble-topped coffee table over to his left. Behind the table, there were a series of branded welcome messages etched into the plasterwork wall that gave the clients a reminder that the staff were there to help them and this was to be considered their office away from home.

He took a few steps forward, keeping his hands in his pockets, and turned his attention to the U-shaped bookshelf that surrounded a pair of comfortable-looking armchairs and a small wooden coffee table over on the right. A vase of wilted chrysanthemums took centre stage on the coffee table beside which were arranged half a dozen business magazines, the front covers curling where they had evidently been well thumbed during the course of the month since their publication.

There was nothing to suggest that there had been a struggle, or any other act of violence within the confines of the reception area though.

Mark turned at the sound of a polite cough to see one of Jasper’s forensic team dressed head to toe in a white protective suit that crinkled as the woman walked towards him.

‘You must be Detective Turpin,’ she said, lowering her mask before tucking a stray strand of dark brown hair back under her hood. ‘I’m Leila Benjamin – I’ll be assisting Jasper on this one. He heard you were on your way up and asked me to come and find you.’ She held out a pair of protective booties and some gloves, along with a matching suit in a plastic wrapper. ‘Hopefully these will fit you. We’ve taken over an office just around the corner where you can get changed into these.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’

He followed her away from the third floor’s reception area and around the corner to a room cluttered with forensic equipment. Leila waved him inside, then pulled the door closed while he tore open the wrapped suit and pulled it over his damp trousers. Dropping his coat over an abandoned chair with a broken wheel, he pulled the rest of the suit up over his shoulders, placed the booties over his shoes and wiggled his fingers into the gloves.

Opening the door, he waggled his hands at Leila. ‘Good guess. These fit okay.’

‘Great,’ she said, then jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. ‘The victim’s this way.’

Leila set a brisk pace as they turned a corner where, standing on the threshold of an open office door at the far end, was Detective Constable Jan West. She wore an identical protective suit to his, and turned away from the activities in the room at the sound of footsteps, revealing a calm face with a determined expression in her eyes.

‘Evening, sarge,’ she said. ‘Looks like we’re going to be in for a busy weekend.’

He grinned, despite the sombre circumstances. ‘Good to see you. How was Italy with the family?’

‘Hot. Looks like the place has gone to the dogs while I’ve been away though.’ She jerked her chin to the open doorway, standing aside to let Leila past, then beckoned him closer. ‘Ever come across something like this before?’

Mark paused on the threshold and stared at the dead man sitting behind a pitted white laminated desk. Leila and another forensic technician were now unravelling a long sheet of bubblewrap from around the victim’s head, their movements methodical while a third figure looked on.

Gillian Appleworth glanced over her shoulder, her grey eyes keen. ‘Evening, Mark.’

‘Evening. Ever seen something like this before?’

‘No,’ said the Home Office pathologist. ‘Which is why I’m staying for a while. I might learn something.’

‘No problem. Do we know who the victim is yet?’

‘There’s no ID on him, but he booked out the office under the name of Trent Jardel,’ said West. ‘I’ve given Caroline a call back at the incident room and asked her to start looking into his social media and work history. She’ll have something put together for us by the time we get back there.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

Jasper was over in the far corner of the room, his stocky frame taking up much of the space behind the Formica desk.

‘Have you found anything?’ said Mark.

‘Actually, there is something of interest, here in front of the desk,’ replied the forensic lead.

Mark looked to where he pointed.

In the thin carpet, three neat round indents could be seen, as if something had been poked into it for a period of time.

‘What caused that?’

‘Off the record for the moment until I’ve corroborated it, but I believe those were caused by a tripod,’ said Jasper. ‘The sort used for a digital camera. I think someone might have filmed his death.’