The House of Fame Read online

  ‘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 w
as 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.’

  3

  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.’