The Red Room (17 page)

I left Tess's house half an hour
later, at midday. I felt drained. Before
Tess, I had revisited Philippa's
husband and her mother. Jeremy had moved back
into his house, which was a bit smaller and a 279
bit newer than Pam Vere's. The long, narrow
garden had an orchard at the bottom, a swing
hanging from one of the apple trees. They had been
rather less forthcoming about Philippa than Tess
had been. I didn't think they were holding anything
back, but they seemed naturally reticent. He
was bewildered and helplessly sad. She seemed
dazed and numb.
I had two messages on my mobile. One
was from Poppy, asking me why I hadn't been in
touch with her for so long. The other was from W.
"Please ring," was all he said.
"Yes?" he barked into the phone, when I
dialed.
"It's Kit."
"Hang on a minute." I heard him giving
some kind of instructions to whoever was with him. "Kit?
Can you be here this evening, at about six-thirty?"
"Why?"
"There are some people coming to meet you."
"Who knew Lianne?"
"Why else would they be coming to meet you?"
I opened my mouth to snap back, then closed
it again. "I should be able to get there in time."
"See you, then." And he was gone. He was like a
man with a swarm of bees in his head.

22

I rang the bell and a young man with dreadlocks
and a tattoo of a ladybird on his forearm
answered. I assumed he was one of the residents,
but he turned out to be a volunteer member of
staff who introduced himself as Greg. Unlike
the time I had been here before, the center was buzzing with
activity. A knot of teenagers stood about in the
hall, smoking cigarettes. Through an open
door, I could see into a games room, where a
loud game of snooker was in progress. The sound
of voices drifted down from upstairs. Greg
took me across the hall to Will's office and pushed
open the door without knocking.
"Hi," I said to W. "This is good of you.
Thanks."
"Thank them, not me. They're waiting for you in
an upstairs room. Shall I show you up?"
"How many of them?"
"Five, I think, unless any have wandered off.
They may have done."
* 281
The room was hot, and thick with smoke. There was
a pinball machine in the corner, and two boys were
standing idly by it in a fog of cigarette smoke.
One had a shaved head with a white scar running
across his scalp, and the other was squat and rather hairy.
They looked up when I came in but didn't
acknowledge me. The other three were girls, or
young women. They sat in the three easy chairs and
on the floor. Among them was the startlingly
pretty girl that I'd seen the first time I'd
met Will Pavic. She looked up, frowning
slightly. She had thick dark brows and spooky
green eyes.
"Hello," I said, walking into theirthe midst.
"I'm Kit."
No one said anything. I went round shaking their
hands one by one, realizing almost at once that this was a
mistake but unable to stop what I'd started.
Most of them looked self-conscious; their hands were
limp and sweaty in the baking room.
"Thank you very much for seeing me." I sat on
the floor and pulled out a packet of cigarettes
I had bought, offering them round. That got their
attention. Everyone took one, even if they already
had one on the go. "How about if you all tell me
your names?"
"Spike," said the boy with the shaved head by the
pinball machine. There was a splutter of laughter
from the others. A joke I didn't get.
"Laurie." That was the hairy one.
"Carla," said the black girl sitting on my
right, in a whisper.
"Catrina." She had the worst acne I'd
ever seen, and a beautiful mane of red hair.
"Sylvia." That was the green-eyed girl. She
smiled knowingly. "That's the name I've given
myself, at any rate."
"I'll try and remember. Will's probably
told you why I'm here. I want to find out as much
as I can about Lianne, because the more we know the more
chance there'll be of finding who killed her. For
instance, if we could find out where she had come from,
what her real name was, her background, that might
help a lot." There was a stony silence. "But
apart from that," I went on, "I just want to find
out, well, what she was like. The kind of person she
was."
"Will said you were all right," said Spike. He
made the sentence sound like a question.
"He means, you won't go running to the 283
cops with things we tell you," added Sylvia.
"Not that we'd tell you anyway. We never told
the other one."
"What other one?"
"You're not the first."
"The police talked to you already?"
Sylvia shrugged and a shuffling kind of silence
descended on the room, broken only by the flare
of a match as Spike lit up again.
"Anyway," I said at last, "I won't
tell them anything that isn't connected to Lianne.
OK?" There was a general grunting of assent.
"How long had she been around here, do you know? In
this area, I mean."
"Will said about five months," said Spike. I
wished Will had told me that.
"Which of you saw her last, do you reckon?"
"That'd be me." Carla wouldn't look up
to catch my eyes. She talked to her folded
hands.
"What did you do together?"
"We just walked around together, looking in shop
windows. We talked about the things we'd buy if
we had the money. Clothes and nice food and
stuff. CD'S. We didn't have any money
though, did we? Unless Lianne--was She
stopped.
"Yes?"
"She was a pretty good pickpocket,"
interrupted Laurie admiringly. "She could
slide her hand into anyone's bag. She and
Daisy used to go round the underground stations together.
They were a wicked pair. One would bump into the
person and the other would lift their wallet."
"Cool," said Spike.
"Daisy Gill?" I asked.
"Yeah, the one who topped herself."
"How did you two meet?" I asked
Sylvia.
"Here. She was quite shy, really. Or rather ..."
She wrinkled up her nose and pushed her blond
hair fastidiously behind her ears, "she didn't
talk much. Not about herself, if that's what you're
wanting. She never said where she came from. I bet
it was somewhere in London, though. She knew
London really well."
"I bet she'd been in care for ages." This was
Catrina.
"Why do you say that?"
"You can tell. I only met her the 285
once. I met her here, like Sylvia, a couple
of months back. We had a game of table
tennis, and she was crap at it and stormed off when
one of the others teased her. But if you've been in
care, you can tell."
"It's like a smell." Spike sniggered.
"That's horrible." Sylvia turned on him.
"That's a stupid thing to say."
He winked at her. "Don't worry, you
don't smell, Sylvia. You're lush."
"Anyway, I know for a fact she was in care
because she once told me about a home she'd been
in," said Sylvia, ignoring him. "She tried
to organize a sleepover with her friend at
Christmas. They slept in next-door rooms
anyway, so it was no big deal, but the staff
wouldn't let them have a sleepover. That's
typical of the way things are run. Red tape.
They said nobody was allowed to share rooms. Against
the rules. So Lianne said she barricaded herself
and her friend into her room and they wouldn't come out and then
the next day as a punishment they weren't allowed
Christmas dinner. Or crackers or anything.
But she said she was still pleased she did it, just
to make a stand. She didn't say where the home
was. She was dead secretive, really."
"You don't ask?"
"You respect people's privacy."
"I know she slept in the park sometimes. She
said it was better than most of the poxy hostels
round here."
"Had she been in lots of homes?" I
asked.
"Probably," said Sylvia. "Most of us have
by the time you get to our age." She looked almost
smug as she said this, her beautiful face
demure. "If she was a runaway, then like as not
she'd been round the houses."
"Look at me." I turned to Catrina's
soft, monotonous voice. "I've been in
twelve foster-families and eight homes."
"I was with a foster-family once for nearly
two years," said Laurie. His face was plump
and young behind all the hair. He didn't look more
than fourteen.
"Yeah? What did you do wrong, then?" asked
Catrina.
"They moved up north. They said there wasn't
room in their new house. It sounded really cool
there, with a garden and all. Close to the 287
sea." There was no self-pity in his voice. He
sounded quite matter-of-fact.
"Can you tell me about Lianne's sexual
relationships?" I asked cautiously. There was
silence. Spike ground out his cigarette
furiously. "I'm asking because it might help.
Had she been abused, for instance?"
"Probably," said Sylvia casually.
Spike rattled the pinball handle loudly.
There was a nasty kind of sneer on his face. I
thought he was trying to stop himself crying.
"Why do you say that?"
"If she'd been in care for a long time, I
mean."
"You mean, you expect people in long-term care to have
been sexually abused?"
"I've had enough now," said Spike. "I'm
off." But he didn't move.
I looked at him. His pasty face had
flushed; there were red blotches on his cheeks. "So
you reckon she'd been sexually abused."
"I wouldn't say sexually, necessarily,"
said Catrina, "but you don't get through it
unharmed, if you see what I mean. You stop being
a child pretty quickly."
"You don't trust anyone," agreed
Laurie. He came and sat down among the
girls at last, while Spike hovered by the
door. I took out my packet of cigarettes
again and he moved forward to take one, but still didn't
sit.
"Did she have boyfriends?"
They looked at each other.
"I didn't see anything," said Sylvia.
"And she never said. I mean, lots of people say,
don't they? They like to brag about things. But
Lianne never mentioned anything like that. Mind, none
of us knew her that well, did we?" Again, she
looked round the group and they shook their heads.
"She was just around."
"She was close to Daisy," said Carla.
"They painted each other's toenails once, I
remember. I came into Lianne's room and they
were giggling and painting each other's toenails.
One color for each nail. It was nice," she
said, a bit wistfully. "Lianne didn't
giggle much. They told me they were going to save
up the money Lianne stole and have a restaurant
together."
A silence fell on the group as they 289
thought of the two girls, both dead now. All of a
sudden, they looked young and defenseless. Even
Spike, still on his feet, with his cigarette
hanging off his upper lip and his hands in his
pockets, looked as if he had been caught
off-guard. I sat quite still, not wanting to interrupt
the moment.
"She once kissed me," said Laurie, his
face scarlet. "I told her I'd never, you
know." He ground to a halt. Carla took his hand
and put it on her lap with a gesture that was
unexpectedly touching and maternal. "Anyway,
I told her, I don't know why, maybe because
I had had a review that week, with my social
workers, you know, and I'd heard there was still no one
who wanted to foster me, and I just felt rotten that
day, you know, lonely or something, like you get every now
and then, and she was sitting there, downstairs where the
snooker table is, just sitting and not doing anything,
and no one else was around. And all of a sudden she
kissed me. Held my face and kissed me."
His eyes filled with tears. Carla patted his
hand.
"I heard her cry," said Spike, suddenly
and hoarsely. As he spoke, he moved closer
to the door, as if he was going to bolt. No one
said a word. "I'd only met her the day before.
We had a blazing argument because she nicked my
radio and said it was hers. She was a right little
thief. Anyway, it was in the day, and there was no
one around, and I came back from doing some
business." He cast a furtive look at me
and continued: "Anyway, I heard this sound coming from
upstairs. I didn't realize at first what it
was. It sounded so odd. Like a cat being
tortured or something. I crept up the stairs and
it was coming from her room. She was kind of mewling and
whimpering, just like a cat. I stood there for ages and
she didn't stop. She went on and on, just crying
and crying and crying like her heart was breaking."
"Did you go in?" I asked.
He frowned. "I didn't want to embarrass
her," he said.

I poked my head round Will's door. He was
staring at his computer screen, but his hands were slack
on the desk.
"Working late?" I leaned against the wall. My
legs felt weak and my head buzzed with
fatigue. 291
"What? Yes, I guess so."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Mmm?"
"Do you have anyone to go home to?"
"No."
"I didn't think so." I looked at him.
His face was like a stone. I leaned forward, took
it in my two hands and I kissed him on his
lips. Then I turned and left, and he went on
sitting there.

23

People should enjoy their work. One of the great
pleasures of life is activity, and work is the
main activity for most people. Whatever it is, it should
be fun, and people somehow have the capacity to turn the
strangest things into fun, and it's right that they should.
I would almost prescribe this capacity for taking
pleasure as a medicine against depression, against the
boredom and fear in most lives; I know that, and
feel it as well, yet sometimes it seems
difficult to bear.
When I was twelve I went to the funeral of
my grandmother. We came out of the crematorium and
were ushered over to the Garden of Remembrance, an
area with short formal hedges and a small lawn that
looked as though it should contain a miniature putting
green. Grown-ups stood around awkwardly,
reading the messages on the wreaths. After a few
minutes I wandered away. I remember seeing
two things. The first was smoke coming from the chimney and
wondering if my grandmother was in that. Then, around the
side, I entered the parking area for the hearses. It
was a warm spring day and the undertakers were sitting on
the bonnets of the cars. Several of them had taken
off their jackets and rolled up their sleeves.
They were smoking cigarettes and talking. A
couple of them laughed at a joke I was too far
away to hear.
It's stupid, I know, even for a
twelve-year-old, but it was then that I realized the
undertakers weren't really sad that my granny had
died. In fact, they didn't care at all.
When I was driving back with my father I told him
angrily about what I had seen and said that he
shouldn't pay them because they had been so
disrespectful. My father explained patiently that
the undertakers went to two or three funerals every
day and they couldn't be sad for everybody. 293
Why not? I said. It was their job to be sad.
My father failed to convince me. In fact, I
decided that only unfeeling people could possibly
become undertakers. If you were a good, sensitive
person, all those deaths, all that grief, would
send you mad. So, by definition, the people left doing
the job must be psychopaths who were able to look
serious while they carried the coffin, then rush
home to watch TV and play with their children and say that
they'd had a good day at work.
Of course, I'd grown up and learned that the
surgeon you'd want to operate on your baby's
defective heart valve was not someone who was as
worried as you were but the person who was best at the
job, even if he was a bow-tied prima donna
only thinking of his reputation and about getting out to the
golf course as early as possible.
So what did I expect of Oban and Furth
and the rest of the men, and a very few women, in suits?
They assumed the requisite somber expressions
with language to match when the cameras were around.
They were gutted, absolutely gutted. This was an
appalling case, everyone involved was deeply
shocked. But the fact is that they were having a great
time. Take DCI Oban. He wasn't being
festive exactly, but there was a new bounce
to his step. It was understandable. He had been stuck
with an obscure, hopeless murder case that no
one else wanted. No one was paying any
attention, except when it went wrong. Now,
Cinderella-like, it had turned into the murder case
of the year and everyone wanted to be his friend.
When I called on him the morning after my
visit to Kersey Town, it was like trying to see the
prime minister. He gave me a friendly nod.
"Are you in a rush?" he asked.
"Not especially," I said.
"Good," he said. "You can talk to me as we
go."
This wasn't an easy matter. He was always
taking a call, always between meetings. He was always
that few minutes late to demonstrate he was the
most important person. It was like talking from the
platform to someone who was on a train pulling out of a
station. I started telling him about my conversation with people
who knew Lianne, but he interrupted quickly,
"Do I need to know this, Kit?"
"Look, Oban ..."
"Dan," he insisted.
"The background to the victims is 295
all we have."
He stopped for a moment and gave a doubtful
grunt. "I'm not convinced, Kit. Until I
see something specific, we've got to stick with
what I said at the press conference. The
presumption must be that what we have is an
opportunist killer. Have you talked to Seb?
He agrees with that."
"No, I haven't talked to him." In fact,
I had been putting it off. That was one of the
reasons I hadn't returned Poppy's phone
calls in the last few days--I didn't want
to get Seb instead.
"We'll see him in a minute. You can talk
it over."
"That won't be necessary."
"And I don't want any rivalry between you."
"There isn't any rivalry."
"By the way, Kit, have you been talking
to anybody about our Mr. Doll?"
"No," I said. "Who would I talk to about
him?" A thought struck me. "He came round
to my flat."
Oban shrugged. "I'd watch yourself."
"So obviously Julie knows about him."
"Obviously," said Oban, with a twinkle in his
eye.
"Oh, and I've talked to Will Pavic about
him. Will knows him anyway."
"Pavic again?" Oban gave another grunt.
"You're getting into some strange company. He's
treading a fine line, that one."
"So people keep saying."
Oban's expression became somber. "No,
I mean it, Kit. Pavic has rubbed a lot
of people up the wrong way in this area. The
social-service people hate him. I think a few
journos are out to get him."
"What on earth for?" I said. "I know he's
not exactly easy to get on with but he's only
trying to help."
"Really?" said Oban dubiously. "Not
everyone would agree about that. There are rumors, more
than rumors, about drug-dealing in that hostel of
his. Some people say that he's just turning a blind eye
to it, but others are saying he rakes a percentage
off the top. I can tell you that if he makes one
false move he's going down. Anyway, that
wasn't what I was saying. I've been phoned
up by a couple of journalists about 297
Mickey Doll."
"What for?"
"Just questions. Is it true that he's been questioned
for the murders? Is there a prospect of his being
charged? Why did we let him go?"
"How did they hear about him?"
"This station's like a bloody news agency. If
someone farts in here, someone else will be on the
blower to the Mail about it."
"What did you say?"
"Just bare bones. If anybody rings you about
it, refer them to me. Ah, here he is now."
I half expected to see Michael Doll but
he was referring to Seb, the media's favorite
psychiatrist, Poppy's husband, my kind-of
friend. Today, he looked as if he was ready to go on
the one-o'clock news. He was wearing crisply
pressed black trousers, boots and a rather
spectacular black-leather jacket over a shiny
white shirt. His hair was deftly tousled and he
had the appropriate day or so's growth of
stubble. He stepped forward, kissed me on both
cheeks than gave me a hug. "Kit," he
said. "Isn't this great? Working on the same
case, I mean."
"Wonderful," I said, wrapped in his arms and
deeply uncomfortable there. "How's Poppy?"
"What? Oh fine, hunky-dory. You know
Poppy." He gave a light laugh and winked
at Oban. "Kit and I go way back."
"Obviously."
"She and my wife are thick as thieves. So
this is like a family affair."
"So you know Julie?" asked Oban.
"Julie?" Seb frowned. "Do I know
Julie, Kit?"
"I hope I'm not putting my foot in it,"
Oban said roguishly.
"No," I said frantically, feeling my
cheeks burn. "Look, I keep wanting
to say--was
"Never mind. There are things we need to discuss.
Hang on." His mobile was ringing again.
"Oban was telling me about your views on the
case," I said to Seb as we waited. "I
knew some of them already, though. I think I heard
you talking about the case on the radio, but I'm not
sure if I heard your conclusion. I think they
had to play a record."
"Oh, that," he said absently. 299
Oban put his phone in his pocket and joined us
again. "We need to talk integration here," he said.
"Well, of course I'm completely
delighted that Kit's on board." Seb gave his
wide smile once more and touched my shoulder.
"I've always wanted to see her being a bit more
ambitious about her work. But I suppose we should
just formalize the pecking order. Two separate
inquiries have been merged into one, and I was the
consultant for the primary murder."
"But the murder of Lianne happened first,
Seb. Do you mean that the murder of Philippa
Burton is more important?"
"I mean it was a larger-scale inquiry.
What I'm saying is that we have two
psychological consultants and I want
matters made clear. Just to formalize things."
"I don't quite understand," I said.
"Well, for instance--just a random example--there
should be a consistency in the public presentation of the
psychological expertise."
"You mean, you want to appear on television and
at press conferences," said Oban drily.
"That's fine by me," I said hastily.
"So that's agreed," said Oban.
"It was only a hypothetical example,"
Seb said, "but very well, if that's what you want,
then I accept the responsibility."
"However, Kit remains centrally involved,"
said Oban firmly. "After all, she is the
person responsible for the two inquiries being
merged."
"Yes, I heard about that," said Seb. "What
a piece of luck."
I took a deep breath. I wasn't going
to be goaded. "How is the fiber analysis
going?" I asked. "Have they managed to get any
closer to the car type?"
Oban shook his head. "You can see the
technical stuff if you want. It's a very
specific kind of colored synthetic fiber. It
definitely comes from the same source but that
doesn't mean it's actually the carpet from the car
itself. It could be from a blanket or a piece of
cloth or a hundred other things. The result's
no bloody help at all." He put his hands
in his trouser pockets and looked blank.
"I've got to be going. There's a meeting with
someone from the Home Office. Then I've got
to see a collection of people who're going 301
to dowse for the murderer. Or at least I think that's
what it was. Idiots with forked sticks."
He went and Seb and I were left awkwardly
together with nowhere to go. "How's Poppy?" I said,
then remembered I'd asked that already.
"Oh, you know," he said, looking over my
shoulder. "By the way, I've been meaning to call
you. Did Poppy tell you? Megan and Amy
hardly slept for days after your goodnight story.
Woke screaming in the night."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean
..."
"No, I was only joking. Interesting idea,
though. I've been thinking about it. Did you get it
from somewhere?"
"I think I told you that it was a dream I've
been having since my accident."
"Red room. Interesting idea. A bloody
chamber. So you think it's a sort of womb? Your
mother died, didn't she? Do you think you're
expressing a wish to return to her dead womb?"
I had a strong impulse to beat Seb around the
head with a heavy object. "No, I don't,"
I said. "It's a story about being very afraid because
being slashed across the face made me very afraid."
"Possibly," Seb said reflectively.
"Have you written about it? Are you planning a paper
on it?"
"No," I said. "My subject is usually
other people's dreams."
"Good," he said. "Good."