The Red Room (13 page)

"How are you, Kit?" said Bella, looking
at me with an expression of sympathy. She had
sent me flowers in the hospital, I
remembered, and a card of a charcoal-and-ink woman
bending over and brushing her long hair; her writing
was dashing and bold. I had kept the flowers long
after they had started to turn brown. I had always
wanted Bella to think well of me. You don't
have to be a genius to know that she and Rosa were my
mother-figures, my figures of authority and of
comfort.
"Better, I think."
We were sitting in Bella's battered old
car, stuck in traffic, so she was able to turn and
look at me without putting our lives at risk.
She had a thin face, crow's feet round her
eyes now, tiny wrinkles forming above her 203
lip, strands of gray in her curly brown hair
that flowed everywhere. She was dressed in a
deceptively nuanced way. In her dark
trousers and light brown sweater she was smart enough
to assert some sort of professional status, to show
that she hadn't just walked off the street and was making
it up as she went along, but she was casual enough
to be reassuring.
"Thank you for letting me see Emily."
"I wouldn't if I thought you'd be clumsy in
your approach--but I must say I don't know
what it is you're after here." She put up a hand
to stop me when I began to answer. "I don't
particularly mind, either, as long as you don't
confuse the child, or distress her, which I'm sure you
won't." A warning was implicit in the sentence.
She didn't need to spell anything out. "My
job is simply to talk to Emily and, if necessary,
to offer her help. The police investigation is
outside my area of expertise." And yours, she
didn't need to add.
"So what have you been doing with her?"
"I asked her what she remembered."
"Just like that?"
"Why not? I know what you're thinking, that it
sounds too simple and open-ended. Last year I
had to talk to a four-year-old boy who had been
in the flat when his mother was raped and murdered. He
had spent eight hours alone with her body. He
was severely traumatized, almost unable to speak.
Remember the case?" I nodded. "There we had
the problem of healing Damien as well as finding out
what he had seen. That was a complex case
involving a whole lot of oblique strategies.
Games, drawing, telling stories, you know the
kind of thing. But Emily was just left by her mother at
the playground. There's no trauma, no evident
distress. She wasn't disturbed by being asked and it
seems there was nothing to remember. She was playing
with other girls and then her mother wasn't there. That was
the distressing part but she doesn't seem to have
witnessed anything of her mother's disappearance, or
abduction, or whatever it was."
"Three-year-olds aren't very good at
responding to direct questions."
Bella laughed.
"Don't worry," she said. "I've played
with her. I've watched her interacting with friends,
playing with her Beanie Babies. Sometimes,
painful as it is, we've got to admit 205
that all the sensitivity and clever tricks don't
mean anything if there's nothing there to find."
We drove up through Hampstead to the very top of the
hill and then down the other side through opulent
residential streets that were new to me. Bella
turned into a quiet road and pulled up.
"They're staying with Philippa's mother who lives
nearby. For what it's worth, it's meant to be a
secret."
"Do the police believe they're under threat?"
"From the press, I think."
Bella sat still for a moment, not getting out of the
car. I looked at the large house.
"Philippa's mother must be pretty well off,"
I said, stating the obvious.
"Very," said Bella. She drummed her fingers
on the steering-wheel. "Look, Kit, have you got
anything?"
"I don't know."
She looked hard at me with an expression of
just the mildest anxiety. She was trying to work me
out. Could I have gone mad? Her jaw tightened and
she opened the door.
I talked to Jeremy Burton outside in his
mother-in-law's beautiful back garden, where the
smooth lawn curved around well-tended beds.
Bella had introduced me vaguely as an
associate and left it at that. I knew that he
had worked for some sort of software company. I
think he owned it, or most of it. He was
thirty-eight years old but looked older. His
hair was graying, his face looked drawn, his
eyes bloodshot. "Is there any progress?"
he said.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know
anything about that. You'll have to ask the police."
"The only police I see are uniformed
officers. There's one supposedly lurking around
somewhere. They don't know anything. I feel--I
feel in the dark." He rubbed his face.
"I don't think there's been any large step
forward."
"They won't catch anybody," he said.
"Why do you say that?"
"Isn't that what they say? If they don't
find the murderer straight away, then mostly they
don't find him at all?"
"It gets harder," I conceded.
"So what can I do for you?" he asked. 207
"I'm extremely sorry about your wife."
"Thank you." He blinked, as if he couldn't
see very well.
"It must have been a terrible shock. Where were you
when you heard about it?"
"I've said all this before. I've said it so many
times it no longer feels like the truth to me." He
paused, then managed a sad smile. "Sorry.
I'm not my normal merry self. I was at
home. I usually work from home at least one day
a week."
"Was Philippa distressed? I'm sorry,
is it all right if I call her Philippa?
It sounds strange talking like this about someone I
never met. It's just that if I call her Mrs.
Burton I feel like a tax inspector."
"Thank you," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"For asking. You know, in the papers they call
her Pippa. She was never called Pippa in her
life. I called her Phil, sometimes. Now
it's the tragedy of Pippa--Pippa this,
Pippa that. I think they use it because it fits
into a headline. Philippa's got too many
letters." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"And the answer is; no she didn't seem
distressed. She was happy. The same as always.
Nothing was different. It was just life as normal.
We were happy together--though sometimes now it seems
as if I can't remember anything properly
anymore."
"Mr. Burton ..."
"What I really don't understand is what
Phil's mood could have to do with her death."
"I'm interested in patterns of behavior.
Maybe I'm asking the same question you must be
asking, which is, why her?"
"Everything was normal ...," he said, sounding not
resentful but just puzzled. "Normal mood,
normal state of mind, normal patterns of
behavior. I say that and you look at me like that,
and it all sounds suspicious and strange.
Anyway, what does normal mean?"
"Did she have a routine to her life?"
"I suppose so. She looked after Em,
looked after the house, saw friends, saw her mother,
went shopping. Ran our life together, I
suppose. We were quite a traditional couple, you
know."
"Did she see friends during that last 209
week?"
"I've already told the police, she saw her
mother and she went out with Tess Jarrett." I
made a mental note of the name.
"If anything had been troubling her, she would have
told you about it?"
"Doctor ..."
"Quinn. Kit Quinn."
"Right. There was nothing troubling her. She went
out and got killed by a madman. Everyone says
so. Look, I don't know what you want from me.
Everyone wants something. The police want me
to cry on television, or to break down and confess
that I did it. The press wants God knows
what. Emily wants--well, she wants to know
when Mummy's coming home again, I suppose. I
don't know." He sighed and looked at me out of
his bloodshot eyes. "I don't know," he said
again.
"What do you want?"
He rubbed his eyes. He looked tired and
sad. "To go home with Emily, and go back to work,
and be left alone and let everything get back
to normal."
"Except of course it can't."
"I know that," he said wearily. "I know.
What I really want is to wake up one morning
and find it's been a dream. In fact, every morning
now I wake up andfora moment I don't
remember, and then I do. Do you know what that
feels like? To have to realize all over again?"
I was silent for a moment, and he stared down at
the grass.
"Was your wife ever involved in any kind of
social work? With foster-children, that sort of thing?"
"No. She worked for an auction house when we
met, but she gave that up when she had Emily."
"She had no connections with the Kersey Town
area?"
"She may have caught a train from there."
I went around in circles several more times,
always coming back to the same point: What was the use
of asking Jeremy Burton about his wife's character and
mood when she'd been the victim of a random
attack? At last I stood up. "I'm
grateful to you for talking to me," I said, holding
out my hand. He shook it. "Sorry, my questions
must have sounded a bit strange."
"No stranger than most of the other things I've
been asked. You know, one newspaper 211
has offered me fifty thousand pounds to talk to them
about what it's like to have my wife murdered."
"What did you say?"
"I couldn't think of anything. I put the phone
down. You want to talk to Emily. She hasn't
any connections with the Kersey Town area. I can
tell you that straight away."
"I'll only be a minute."
"Pam will show you. That's my mother-in-law."
A handsome gray-haired woman was hovering by the
French windows that led into the kitchen. There was an
ashen pallor to her face, the color of a woman
who had experienced intense grief. Jeremy
Burton introduced us. "I'm very sorry about
your daughter," I said.
"Thank you," she replied, with an inclination of
her head.
"Dr. Quinn wants to see Emily,"
Burton said.
"What for?"
"I'll only be a moment."
Pam Vere led me along the corridor.
"Emily's got a friend here at the moment. Is that
all right?"
"Of course."
Pam opened the door and I saw two little
girls crouched on the carpet arranging some stuffed
animals in a circle. Two girls, one with
dark brown pigtails, the other with light brown
curls and just for an instant I didn't know which was
which, and I felt a pang. It was like a lottery.
Which of them was going to be picked out as the one whose mother
had been brutally killed? Pam stepped forward
to the darker girl. "Emily," she said, "there's
someone to talk to you."
The tiny little girl looked up with a fearsome
frown. I sat down next to her. "Hello,
Emily. My name's Kit. What's your friend
called?"
"I'm Becky," the friend said. "Becky
Jane Tomlinson."
Becky immediately started chatting away. I sat
as I was introduced to the toys one by one. Last of
all were the good bears and the bad bears.
"Why are the bears bad?" I asked.
"Cos they're bad."
"What do you do with the toys?" I asked.
"Play," said Emily.
"Do you ever take them to the playground?" I
asked. "Do you take them on the swings and 213
into the sandpit?"
"I dunnit," said Emily. "I dunnit
all with Bella."
"Did it," said Pam.
I laughed, outsmarted.
"You're a clever girl, Emily," I said.
"And I am sorry your mummy died."
"Granny says she's with the angels."
"What do you say?"
"Oh, I don't think she's gone that far.
She's coming back."
I glanced up at Pam Vere and saw on her
face an expression of such fierce anguish that
I had to look away again. "Well, can I come
back again one day? If I think of a new thing
to ask you?"
"Don't mind," said Emily, but she had already
turned away. She lifted up a sad-eyed
koala and pressed her lips to its black
plastic nose, crooning gently. "I'm so
proud of you," I heard her whisper. "So
proud."

16

I was tired as I drove back to my flat
through the fumes of the rush-hour, and glad that Julie
wasn't home. She's said something about an
interview with a record company--although what she, a
math teacher and world-traveler, knew about the music
industry I didn't know. I opened the windows
to let in the evening freshness. Children's voices
floated up from the garden at the back. I went
into the bathroom, turned on the taps, and tipped
some bath oil into the water. Then I took off my
clothes, which felt dirty after my day, and slid
into the tub. The water was slippery and pungent, and
I lay back and closed my eyes. Then the
telephone rang. Damn, I hadn't turned
on the answering-machine. Why did phones always
ring when you were in the bath? I waited, and it went
on ringing. So I clambered out, wrapped a towel
round myself and dripped into the living room, leaving a
trail of wet footprints behind me.
"Hello?" Little soap blisters burst along
my arms.
"Is that Kit Quinn?" the voice crackled;
he must be calling on a mobile.
"Speaking." 215
"It's Will Pavic here."
"Oh," I said, into the silence that followed this
announcement.
"I wanted to apologize for the other night."
"Go on, then."
"What?"
"You said you wanted to apologize."
There was a splutter at the other end, which might
have been outrage or amusement. "I'm sorry
I was unsociable. There you are."
"You were obviously tired, and it was a stupid
invitation anyway. Forget it. It doesn't
matter, really."
"Maybe there's something I can tell you about
Lianne."
I felt a jolt of surprise. "Yes?"
"It's not much, really. But ... well, I'm
about a mile away from your flat, and I thought I
might as well call round. Just for a few
minutes. If you haven't got company."
"Fine. It's just me." I thought about my bath
of silky water. "See you, then. By the way, how
come you found my number?"
"You were right. It wasn't so hard."

I pulled the plug on my bath and dressed in
a pair of ancient jeans and a vest top. I
wasn't going to make any effort for Will Pavic.
While I was waiting for him, I flicked on the
television news to see if there was anything more about
Philippa Burton. She'd dropped from the
main story to the third one: detectives still
searching the area for clues; flowers and soft toys
still being left at the place where her body was found.
There was a new photograph of her being shown, one
of her on a hilltop in baggy canvas shorts
and a T-shirt, laughing, her silky hair blowing
in the breeze, her arms around her little dark-eyed
daughter.
I thought of Emily burying her face into her
koala and whispering words to it that her mother had said
to her: "I'm so proud of you." Maybe my mother
had said things like that to me before she went and died. My
father had never been very good on details like
that--he'd just say, frowning, "Well, she loved
you very much, of course," as if that was enough. I'd
always wanted so much more: all the daft
diminutives and terms of endearments, the games
she'd played with me, the way she'd held me and
carried me, the things she'd wanted for 217
me, the hopes she'd had. All through my life
I'd made them up for myself. Every time I had done
well at school, I'd told myself how pleased
my mother would have been. When I became a doctor,
I wondered if she would have wanted that for me.
Even now, when I look at myself in the mirror,
with my mother's face, my mother's gray eyes, I
pretend it's not my reflection that I am gazing
at, but her, standing there at last, smiling at me
after so many years of waiting. ...
The doorbell rang.
Will was in a dark suit this time, no tie. His
eyes were red-rimmed and his skin chalky. He
looked as if he needed to sleep for a hundred
years.
"Do you want a drink?" I asked.
"No thanks. Coffee maybe." He stood
in the middle of the living room, ill at ease.
I made a coffee for him, and poured myself a
glass of wine. "Milk? Sugar?"
"No."
"Biscuit?"
"No, I'm fine."
"Why don't you sit down? Unless you want
to deliver your information like that and bolt."
He managed a brief grimace, then sat
on the sofa. I took the chair opposite him and
resisted the urge to make small-talk, to fill
in the silence that flowered in the space between us. He
stared at me, frowning.
"I told you I didn't really know
Lianne."
"Yes, you did."
"And it's true. Dozens of teenagers come through
my doors every week. They are given shelter if
they need it, information about their options if they
require it. We put them in touch with various
organizations if that is what they want. But no
questions are asked. That's the whole point--in a
way, that's why I set up Tyndale Center in
the first place. We don't try to tell them what
is best for them. We don't make any
judgements--everyone else does that, not us. We
lay down certain rules, but outside that we
make no demands on them. That's what the center
is--a place where they are free to think for themselves,
even if that means making painful mistakes about
their lives--was He stopped abruptly. "All
that's beside the point."
"No, it isn't, as a matter of--was 219
"Lianne had been to the center three times in the
last six months or so," he cut in. "The first
two, she was quite optimistic about her future.
She said she wanted to be a cook--you'll find that
about a fifth of children in care seem to want to be
cooks. We gave her some leaflets about catering
courses, that kind of thing. But the third time, the
last time we saw her, she was depressed. Very
subdued indeed. Withdrawn and listless."
"Do you have any idea why?"
He drained his coffee and stared into the bottom of
his cup. "Her best friend had killed herself a few
weeks earlier."
"How old was she?"
"Fourteen or fifteen. Maybe sixteen.
I don't really know."
"How did they know each other?"
"No idea. They came to the center together
once, but they'd obviously known each other before.
They probably hung about in the same places."
"Why did she do it?"
He shrugged. "Pick a reason. Why don't
more of them do it, is a better question. Daisy."
"That was her name?"
"Daisy Gill. Sounds a happy sort of
name, doesn't it?" And for the first time since I'd
met him he gave me a proper smile--
rueful, quick to fade, but genuine while it lasted.
I smiled back and he looked away, staring out
of the window at my grassy plague pit.
"Do you want a glass of wine now?"
"So now you've got another fact," he said,
ignoring me. "I mean, to add to the one you already
knew. One: Lianne was troubled. Two:
Lianne was killed."
"Maybe. Wine?"
"No. No wine. That's enough. Goodbye."
He stood up in a single movement and held out
his hand. I took it. "Thank you," I said, and it
was at that moment that Julie sailed through the door,
with her glossy and excited face; her mouth open
to tell me something. She stared at us, startled.
"This is a surprise," she managed finally.
Will nodded at her. "I'm just leaving."
"Glass of wine?" she gabbled. "Beer?"
"No," he said. "Thank you."
At the door, he turned. "I wanted to say
..." He stopped and threw a glance at me.
"I am sorry for my rude behavior at your
dinner party. The food was delicious." 221
And he was gone.
"Well," said Julie, turning on me.
"You're a sly one."
"He came for about two minutes. He wanted
to tell me something about the young woman who was
murdered."
"Yeah, yeah. Well, I've lost interest in
him anyway. He's too grim for me. Do you
want to hear my news?"
"Go on."
"I got the job."
"No!"
"Yup. Starting in a month's time--I told
them I had other commitments before then."
"Do you?"
"No, of course not, but you can't seem too
available, can you?"
"Congratulations, Julie. I'm sure you'll
be brilliant at it--whichatever it is."
"I don't really know myself." She giggled.
Then: "So I'll start looking for a place
to live."
"No hurry," I said, before I could stop
myself. I'd have to get used to being alone again. I
closed my eyes briefly.
"Why don't you try and get him back?"
Julie said.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't shout so. Albie. I bet he
misses you too. Anyone in their right mind would
miss you."
"I don't want him back." To my
surprise, it wasn't so much of a lie
anymore. He'd left of his own accord, and if
he was missing me, he was sure to be missing me
in the arms of another woman; missing me while
holding someone else's face in his hands. So I
didn't want him. I wanted someone who would just
belong to me. I wanted to be the best beloved.
That's what most of us want, isn't it?