The Red Room (23 page)

Walking home, I passed a coffee shop with a
temptingly empty table outside in the sunshine.
I sat down, ordered a double espresso and
tried to make some sense of the clutter in my
brain.
When the second cup arrived, I phoned
Oban. Yes, Bryony had given 395
them a statement and he was in low spirits. "As you know,
we got fuck-all out of Mickey Doll that
made any sense, pardon my French, and as far
as our description goes we've got Terence
Mack's fairly tall man and Bryony's
fairly short man. Maybe we can get the two
of them together and they can get their stories straight."
"It was a scramble in the middle of the night,"
I said. "What did you expect?"
"I can't believe that this bastard broke cover,
people saw him and we've still got bloody nothing.
What are you up to?"
"I'm sitting in a caf@e drinking coffee."
"I wish I was bloody with you. By the way, are
you going to give us some kind of report on the
incident? What do you reckon about it?"
"Bryony told me that she thought it might have
been a straightforward mugging gone wrong, nothing
to do with the case at all."
"Yeah, she said the same to us. What's the
matter with her? Doesn't she want to be
famous?"
"We should consider it."
"Do you want to put her in charge of the inquiry?
I'd be glad to be shot of it." I couldn't
help laughing. "Are you still there, Kit?"
"We don't want to be sidetracked," I
said. "It's not just Bryony. It doesn't quite
fit the pattern."
"What do you mean it doesn't fit the
pattern? It fits too many bloody patterns.
There's the spot on the canal, there's Doll.
That should be enough, even for you."
"I was thinking of the attack itself. The other two
were done quite skillfully, in a way. But this was so
clumsy."
"Come off it, Kit. These killers
escalate, they get more reckless. They need
to take more risks to get the same thrill. If the
witnesses hadn't been a wimp and a headcase
we'd have had him. And as for that bloody headcase
..."
"I don't know, Dan. I just went and talked
to Doll down by the canal."
"Don't tell me. You think he's too
nice to have done it."
"The opposite. If Doll were a murderer,
he would be much worse than this. I should know.
I've just watched him putting a worm on a
hook." 397
"Is that the basis for your judgement?"
"One of them."
"Well, I'll keep you away from my
thirteen-year-old, then. You should see what he
does with beetles and a magnifying-glass."
My coffee cup was empty. I couldn't
manage any more. My head was already buzzing. The
sun had gone behind a cloud. It was surprisingly
cold.
"So what are your plans?" I asked.
There was a silence on the line for a few
seconds so that I began to think we had been cut
off.
"I've got a horrible feeling that what
we're really doing is sitting and waiting for him
to do something even more stupid and get caught. In the
meantime we're going to try some more publicity.
I've briefed some journalists on the new
attack. I was trying to persuade Mrs. Teale
to go on television but she didn't seem keen.
Maybe you could work on her."
"All right."
"Any other ideas? What are you up to?"
Now I was silent for a few seconds. What
.was I up to? "I suppose I'm trying
to look at everything again. I have this feeling we're
missing something."
"Are you looking for some connection between them all?"
"I don't know."
"But Kit," said Oban, with only the
smallest hint of exasperation, "we've already got
connections. You established one of the main ones.
Why are you looking for others?"
"I don't know," I said, suddenly lacking in
all energy. "Maybe I'm just blundering around in the
dark."
"You said it, not me," said Oban. "Let me
know if you find the light switch."
And now he really was gone.
I went into the clinic and spent a busy day
taking calls, answering mail, chairing a case
meeting on a boy who had set fire to his
foster-home, sitting in on interviews of two
hopeless applicants for a job. I made
concerned comments, I discussed and argued, and all the
time my mind was somewhere else. I didn't get
home until eight and there was a note on the
table: "Ou. Back very late. The weirdo
called. Love J." Had he 399
remembered something?
I had a long bath during which I briefly
fell asleep. I knew that you could fall
asleep while driving, then crash and die. Could
you fall asleep and drown in the bath? I
didn't take the risk. I got out and put on
a dressing-gown. I phoned W. No answer.
I looked in the fridge and found a bowl of rice
there, so I ate it standing up. It would have been
better heated, with olive oil and Parmesan on
it. Then I ate two gherkins and a tomato. There
was an open bottle of wine in the fridge and I
poured myself a glass.
I turned on the radio and, with no
surprise, realized that the voice I heard
belonged to Seb Weller and he was talking about
Lianne and Philippa. God, he was a pro.
Words flowed smoothly from him, no hesitations,
occasionally a small pause to establish his
spontaneity.
"Obviously, this case touches on a central
nerve for many women living in the area," he said.
"I often think that men do not understand it properly."
"Except you, of course," I muttered, then
felt ashamed of myself.
"Men don't know what it is like for women
to walk down a dark street, stand in a lonely
subway hearing footsteps coming towards them, lie
in bed at night and listen to the strange sounds
outside. All women, bold or cautious,
always have this hidden basement of fear. I like to call
it ..." he paused once more his... I like to call
it their red room. ..."
"Oh, Christ!" I exclaimed loudly.
"A red room where all the things they fear the
most ..."
The phone rang and I banged the off-knob on
the radio angrily.
"It's me."
"Who?"
"Mike."
It took me a second to connect this name with
Michael Doll. So it was Mike now.
"Hello."
"What are you doing?"
I felt a slight wave of nausea. Was he
going to ask me next what I was wearing? I
pulled my dressing-gown more firmly around me.
"Why are you calling, Michael? Have you
remembered something?"
"I was just calling," he said. "You just 401
called on me, down at the canal. I'm just
calling you." There was a pause. "It was good to see
you."
"I've got to go now," I said.
"That's all right," he said.
"Good night."
"Sleep well."
I didn't. Not after that. Not for hours. I
woke up feeling as if I hadn't slept at
all. My tongue felt as if it had been glued
to the roof of my mouth. I hadn't drunk that much,
had I? It was half past eight when I got
up. Julie was sitting at the table with a pot of
coffee looking through a newspaper. Others were
scattered on the table. It felt like Sunday
morning, but it was Thursday. She'd gone to sleep
about four hours after me and she looked like someone in
an advertisement for being young and fresh-faced.
"What's up?" I said.
"I went to get a paper and there was stuff about
your crime in the papers, so I bought some of them."
"It's not really my crime."
"It's amazing. There's a woman who says
she can find the murderer using crystals. There's
someone else who thinks it's to do with the moon.
There's another psychologist. There's a
photofit picture." She held up the
newspaper. "He definitely reminds me of
someone. It's been driving me mad."
"Buster Keaton," I said.
"That's right. But he's dead, isn't he?"
"I think so. Also, it's the way he looked in
about 1925."
So that was what they had got out of Terence and
Bryony. God, they must be desperate.
"It doesn't mention you, though," said Julie,
in a slightly disappointed tone. Maybe she
suspected that I'd been making it all up, that
I wasn't really involved, or just at some very, very
low level. Tea-girl or something. "Do you
want to read it?"
"I don't think so."
I drank some coffee and dressed quickly. There
were things I wanted to do. If I drew a
blank, then I would call a halt, make an
attempt to become normal again, stop seeing
patterns everywhere, shapes in the clouds.
"We need to talk," said Julie, as I
rushed past on my way out.
"Later," I said, racing down the 403
stairs.
As I came out of the door, I sensed someone
close by. I could smell it. I turned.
"Morning, Kit."
It was Doll, his dog beside him. He was wearing
the same jacket as the day before and the same hat.
He had added a scarf, which was tied around his neck
with two ferociously tight knots. How could he
ever untie them? And how long he had been waiting
for me?
"Michael," I said. "What's up?"
"I need to talk to you."
"You've got some evidence?"
"I just need to talk to you."
"I'm in a hurry."
"I'm not."
The oddness of the reply stopped me in my
tracks. "I've got to go," I said.
I began to walk but he walked along with me.
"I wanted to call round," he said. "I wanted
to see you."
"What about?"
"You understand. I need to talk about things."
I stopped. "You mean the murders?"
He shook his head too vigorously. It
looked as if it must hurt. "Things. You understand."
I tried to think clearly. What I really
wanted was to get away and never see him again. But
did he have something important to tell me?
"Michael, I'm working on these murders. You know
that. If you've anything to say about that, I'll
listen. I haven't time for anything else."
"Why?"
"Because I'm busy."
"That's all you care about, isn't it? You only
care about me because you think I might tell you
something. You're like all the others."
"Which others?"
"I'll talk to you later," he said, his face
a fiery red now. "I'll talk to you later when
I feel like it. I've got my eye on you now,
Kit. But I'm going. I'm busy as well, you
know. It's not just bloody you."
And he was away, muttering and twitching. A young
man walking toward him crossed the road.

END OF VOLUME II

THE RED ROOM

by Nicci French

Volume III of Three Volumes
Pages i-ii and 405-598

Published by: Warner Books. A Time
Warner Company. New York. Further
reproduction or distribution in other than a
specialized format is prohibited.

Produced in braille for the Library of Congress,
National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped, by the American
Printing House for the Blind, 2003.

Copyright 2001 by
Nicci French

THE RED ROOM 405

32

"I don't know how I can help you," said
Pam Vere. She had placed herself in the armchair
opposite me, but upright, with her hands tense on
the armrests, as if she was about to stand up again and show
me the door.
I sat in the room where Philippa used
to sit, where the light flooded in through the French
windows. The bouquets of flowers that had been standing
on every surface last time I'd been here had all
gone now; people lose interest pretty quickly.
Only a vase of massed pink and dark purple
sweet peas stood on the table between us--I
remembered that her talkative friend, Tess, had
said they were Philippa's favorite flowers.
There was a large black-and-white photograph
of the dead woman on the mantelpiece behind Mrs.
Vere, so that in looking at the mother I was also
looking at her murdered daughter, whose grave
smile and dark eyes seemed to be staring intently
into the room she'd left.
Pam Vere seemed to have aged ten years since
I last saw her. She was probably still in her
fifties, or early sixties, but her face was
pale and weary, and the wrinkles on it were so deep
that they were like grooves carved in stone. Her mouth was
a thin line. There were dark smudges under her
eyes. When I had been here before, I had been
touched by Emily, and had imagined what it must be like
for her to lose her mother so young, but I hadn't really
imagined what it must be like for Pam to lose her
daughter, her beloved only child--not until now,
when I looked into her bleak face and saw how her
hands, when they released the arms of the chair,
trembled on her lap.
"I don't know how I can help you," she
repeated.
"I'm so sorry to disturb you again. I just
wondered if it was possible to look through some of
Philippa's things."
"Why?"
"Have the police already been through her
possessions?"
"No. Of course not. Why on earth would they?
She was killed by a mad person, out there. ..."
Her hands gestured toward the windows.
"I'd like to take a look."
"You don't want to talk to Emily 407
again, do you?"
"Not at the moment. Is she here?"
"She's upstairs, in her room. I look
after her at the moment, most of the time at least. I
come in the mornings and I stay until her father
gets back. Until things get on an even
keel. She spends half her time in her room.
She'll be going to nursery school, anyway."
"How's she doing?"
"There's a cardigan Philippa used to wear
a lot, which she uses as a blanket. She
curls up on it and just lies there sucking her
thumb. The doctor said I should let her. He
said she was coming to terms with Philippa's death in
her own way."
"That sounds right," I said, looking at her
intently. Was I making her angry? Was I
blundering in?
"Jeremy does his interminable crosswords and
cries when he thinks no one can hear him.
Emily lies on her carpet. ..." She rubbed
her eyes. "I don't know. I don't know
what's best."
"What do you do?" I asked.
"Me?" She gave a faint shrug. "I get
through the day." She stood up abruptly. "What
are you looking for?"
"Did she have somewhere she kept her things--letters,
diaries, things like that?"
She took a deep breath, flinching as if there
were a pain deep in her chest. I knew that she must
be toying with the idea of telling me to go away and
never come back.
"There's the desk in the bedroom upstairs,"
she said finally. "I'm not sure there's much in there,
except bills and letters. We haven't been through
all her things yet." She glanced up at her
daughter's photograph for an instant, then
looked away. "Jeremy's packed up most of
her clothes now. He gave most of them
to Oxfam. It makes me feel odd to think of
strangers walking around wearing her nice
dresses. She had some lovely clothes, you know.
The police took away her diary."
"Yes, I know."
"There's nothing to find. She just went to the park
one day, and she didn't come home."
"Can I see her desk anyway?"
"All right. What does it matter?"
* 409
It felt illicit to be in the large bedroom,
which had clearly been decorated by a woman, and still
looked as if it was shared by a couple, with a
cluttered dressing-table against one wall, and two
plumped-up pillows on the bed. But one side
of the open wardrobe was empty, except for dozens
of bare hangers on the rail, and only men's
clothes were slung on the chair near the door.
The bureau-style desk was near the window that
overlooked their back garden. There was a little jug
of dried flowers, a cordless telephone and
several photographs on its top. I sat
down at it, looking once more into the face of
Philippa Burton, this time holding a younger
Emily, legs wrapped around her mother's waist,
round flushed cheek pressed against Philippa's
smooth pale one.
I pulled down the lid. Inside, it was
unpromisingly neat and empty. I started with the little
compartments, lined with green baize. There were pens,
sharpened pencils, paper glue, Sellotape,
two books of stamps, one first- and one
second-class. Also a stack of headed stationery,
white envelopes, brown envelopes, ink
cartridges in a small plastic bag, blank
postcards, a collection of bills with "Paid"
written across them. I examined them, but there was
nothing odd there: l80 to unblock the drain;
l109 for a case of wine; l750 for a set of
eight ladder-backed chairs, including two
carvers; that kind of thing. There was a bundle of
drawings by Emily--people with heads and legs and no
bodies, blotchy rainbows, wonky flowers,
crooked patterns. Philippa had written the
dates when they were drawn on the back; clearly
she had been a methodical woman.
I found a stiff glossy card showing National
Trust paints that were called things like sepia and
old linen, saffron yellow and drawing-room red.
There were circulars from charities appealing for
donations; three invitations, inviting Philippa
and Jeremy to parties that she would never attend now;
quite a few summer postcards--scrawled, barely
legible messages sent by Pam and Luke,
Bill and Carrie, Rachel and John,
Donald and Pascal, sent from Greece,
Dorset, Sardinia, Scotland. And there were also
a couple of handwritten letters. One was from a
woman called Laura, thanking Philippa and
Jeremy for the lovely dinner. The other was 411
from someone called Roberta Bishop, introducing
herself as a near-neighbor and proposing that
Philippa should come to the next residents'
meeting to discuss parking on the road and the plan for
traffic calmers. She used lots of exclamation
marks.
I shut the lid and opened the first drawer. A
stash of A4 paper, a pile of holiday
brochures, old bank statements
chronologically arranged and neatly clipped
together. I leafed through them, looking for anything that
might snag my attention. Nothing did.
Philippa hadn't been extravagant. She
spent about the same amount each month; withdrew the
same amount each week from the cash machine. I was
about to close the drawer when I felt something right
at the back, pushed up behind the pile of paper: a
slim paperback book with a pink cover called
Lucy's Dream. It was, it announced on
the cover, "an erotic novel for women." There was
a soft-focus image of a woman with blurred
bare breasts, the dark shadow of one nipple, head
thrown back, hair falling over her shoulders like
water. I toyed with the idea of taking the book
away before Jeremy started to clear out his wife's
desk, but decided against it. Philippa wouldn't
mind now what he found out.
In the bottom drawer there was a large doll in
an unopened box. Her name, apparently, was
Sally; she had brown ringlets, long brown
lashes, and wide blue eyes that stared up through the
cellophane. She gave me the shivers. There was
a pacifier and a bottle tied into the cardboard.
The writing on the box announced that if you gave
Sally water, she cried and wet herself.
Probably, I thought, Philippa had bought the
doll for Emily; maybe for a birthday that was coming
up. There was also a small notepad, which I
opened. On the first page was a shopping list with
items ticked off. The second page was a list
of things to do: ring plumber, buy shoelaces,
defrost fridge, take car to garage for
service.
The next page was covered in rather superior
doodles of various kinds of fruit. The fourth
page was empty, apart from several London phone
numbers jotted in the margin. The fifth page had
a few words scrawled across it, which I glanced at
casually as I licked one finger, ready to turn
over the leaf. I stopped dead, finger in 413
mid-air.
"Lianne" was written in a scrawl. I
stared at the letters, hardly daring to move in case
they should disappear, blur into something else.
Suddenly my mouth felt dry. The word didn't
change, however long I stared at it. It still said
"Lianne."
I looked down the page, gazed as if I was
in a dream. For there, near the bottom and ringed in
question marks and in smaller writing, still
unmistakably Philippa's: "Bryony
Teal." Lianne and Bryony Teale,
misspelled. Philippa had written down the
names of the two other victims. There was another
name, as well, with a little flower doodled next to it,
symbol of the word. "Daisy."
Very carefully, as if it was a bomb that would go
off in my hand, I lifted the notepad and
dropped it into my bag. I closed the drawer.
For a minute, I sat at the desk and stared out
of the window, allowing the knowledge of what I had just seen
to sink through my brain and take root there. A
small dark cloud moved across the sun, so that the
garden lay in shadows. As I looked, Emily,
dressed in denim shorts and a striped top, ran
onto the lawn and stood there, calling something to her
grandmother, who was still in the house. Suddenly she
looked up and saw me, sitting at her mother's
window and for one terrible moment her whole face lit
up into unbearable joy and she stretched out her arms
to me; her mouth opened to call out a name, a word.
Then her body sagged and her arms dropped
limply to her side. I felt tears prick my
eyes.
I stood up and left the room, the bag with its
precious cargo slung over my shoulder. All
that I could think about were those names in the notebook.
And that I had told Bryony she was not in
danger.