The Red Room (25 page)

35

"I want you to stick with me now," Oban had
said. So here I was beside him, standing once more on
Jeremy Burton's waterlogged lawn 435
and conscious all the while of Emily--watching us
out of her bedroom window with her thumb stuck in her
mouth. Jeremy had insisted we go outside
to talk, as if he felt oppressed in the house.
He was wearing only a short-sleeved shirt, no
jacket, but he didn't seem to feel the chilly
wind that was rippling round the garden. I was wearing a
cardigan but I still felt cold. Water seeped
through my shoes.
"I don't understand," he repeated. That was almost
all that he'd said since we arrived. He had
looked at the photographs of Daisy,
Lianne and Bryony, picking each one up and
holding it away from his face as if he was
long-sighted, before handing it back to Oban.
"No," he had said to each one. "No. I've
never seen this face. I've never heard this name.
No, no, no. I don't understand why you're showing
them to me."
"Your wife wrote down the names of the other
victims before she died," Oban said patiently.
"Lianne. And the name of the woman who was recently
attacked by the canal, Mrs. Teale--Bryony
Teale. And Daisy Gill was a girl who
killed herself a few months ago, and was
apparently a friend of Lianne's. Your wife also
wrote down her name."
"Why?" He shook his head vigorously, and
frowned at us as if he wouldn't quite make out our
shapes. "Why?" His face sagged. He looked
tired. His skin had a gray pallor to it and his
eyes were red-rimmed and looked sore.
"We don't know why, Mr. Burton," said
Oban. "We have only just found this new evidence,
and obviously it changes the way we're looking
at everything."
"Philippa never knew them," he insisted.
"She didn't."
"She wrote down their names."
"It's all a mistake," he said
frantically. "I can't explain it but it's all
a mistake. She never knew them."
"What makes you so sure?" I asked, as
gently as possible.
"She would have told me."
"What would she have told you?"
"Anything. Everything. All the things in her
life." For a moment he looked as if he was going
to burst into tears, but then he glared at us and started
striding down the garden. 437
"Mr. Burton," interjected Oban
firmly, "I know this is a shock but--was
"It's not a shock, it's--it's like a bad
dream."
"Could she have been threatened or ...?"
"I don't know why she wrote them down. Why
would anyone threaten her?" He suddenly stopped
walking and turned on us, so that we were standing in a
tight knot. "I know what you're thinking."
"What are we thinking?"
"That she was up to something. Having an affair,
or some such rubbish. Or maybe that I was.
Maybe I was having an affair with all those
women and she found out. Is that what you want me
to deny? All right, I deny it."
He walked away again.
"Jeremy." I caught up with him and put my
hand on his arm to slow him down. "Please listen
carefully. We are not suggesting anything or
assuming anything. Please listen. I know--was
"What do you know? Nothing. I'm not much good at
showing my emotions. I never have been. That
doesn't mean I don't feel them. Phil
knew that. She could see when I was down or
worried about something, or if work had got to me.
I would walk in through the door, and she would look
at my face and she'd know if I was all right or
not. I didn't have to say anything with her. We
weren't all over each other, nobody would call
us a passionate couple. But there are ways and
ways of loving someone. And I loved her and she
loved me, and now she's dead and you stand there
insinuating things about us and our life together. We had
a good life. The life we both wanted. Not
glamorous or anything like that. But we had each
other and then we had Emily. And we were trying for
another child. Then we would be a family, complete.
That's what she said. Now she's dead and we're
never going to be complete, are we?"
"Mr. Burton ..."
And then we both saw that he was crying. He
stood under the apple tree, bowed down by its
half-ripe fruit, and howled like a little boy
until his face was blotchy, and shiny with tears.

"No," said Pam Vere, sitting upright in a
chair. Her amber earrings swung as she shook
her head firmly. She didn't recognize
any of the faces. Yes, she was sure.
Perfectly sure. 439
"How long was Daisy here, Mrs. Winston?"
Mrs. Winston was plump and curly-haired,
and would have looked cozy except that she wore too
much makeup and her eyes were shrewd and appraising
behind her thick glasses. We sat in her warm
kitchen, three cats winding themselves round my
legs, and ate chocolate digestive
biscuits. Oban was back at the police station
and dismissive of my desire to find out about
Daisy. "We've got to concentrate on the main
players, Kit," he'd said. "And, anyway,
my men have been there, done that."
"How long?" Mrs. Winston frowned and took
a noisy slurp of her tea. "Now, let me
think. What exactly did I tell those nice
officers who were here? Well, it wasn't that long,
as a matter of fact. Usually, we like our children
to stay a long time, build up a proper
relationship, you know, give them a family life.
One girl we had for nearly two years.
Didn't we, Ken?"
Ken, who was half her size, nodded. "That's
right."
"Georgina, that was, lovely girl."
"Lovely," echoed Ken.
"But Daisy, now, she didn't stay long at
all. Three months, maybe a bit longer."
"Why such a short stay?"
"She never settled. We tried, you know. We
gave her her own room, with new curtains that I
made for her, and nice furniture. And we
made her welcome, didn't we, Ken?"
"We did."
"I said to her, the day she came, I said,
"Daisy, treat this house as your home. And if
you have any problems, however big or small, then
come to me.""
"And did she? Come to you with problems, I
mean?"
"Oh, no. Never. She was tight as a clam,
that one. I knew, that first week, I knew it
wasn't going to work, didn't I, Ken?"
"You did."
"She kept herself to herself. Ate in her room.
Crumbs everywhere. Didn't join in or make
an effort. And she said dreadful things about my boy
Bernie." I'd met Bernie--a great hulking
boy of about seventeen in a T-shirt with a skull
on the front who'd opened the door 441
to me. "When he was only trying to be
companionable."
"So, Daisy never told you much about what was
going on in her life?"
"No. Hardly anything at all.
Secretive little thing."
"Did you meet any of her friends?"
"No. She went out, but never brought anyone
back here. Sometimes she stayed out all night. I
told her, "Daisy, I don't mind you going
out, and here's a key, but you have to tell me what time
you're coming back." Not that she ever did, mind."
I spread out the photographs in front of
her.
"No," she said, flicking through them. "I already
said. Of course, I recognize this one, but
only from the telly."
"Philippa Burton."
"What's someone like her got to do with Daisy?"
"So you're quite sure you never met any of them?"
"I told the officers already, no."
"Thank you," I said wearily. "Just
double-checking."
"It's not easy being a foster-parent, you know.
You probably think I didn't care about
Daisy, but I did my best. I was very sorry
when I heard about what had happened to her.
"Poor little thing," I said, didn't I,
Ken? But I wasn't surprised."
"Why not?"
She shrugged. "She was an angry, wretched
girl, really. Prickly and rude, flaring up
over nothing, crying in her room, throwing things.
She kicked the cats sometimes. I caught her at
it. It was like a final straw. She thought the world was
against her, that one. It was all too late."
"What was too late?"
"U. Everything, I suppose."
"Thank you," I said, getting up to go, wanting
to leave the overheated kitchen and the winding cats.
"We did our best."
"I'm sure you did."
"But some people, you can't help them."
"I'll let myself out."
"She was her own worst enemy."
"In a way, I blame myself," said Carol
Harman.
"Who found her?"
"I did. My staff called me because 443
her door was locked and she wasn't answering their
knocks. So I opened it with my master key from the
outside and found her there. She'd hanged herself--but
you knew that, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did."
"We knew she was at risk, cutting herself and
starving herself. She was on special measures at
the home--one-to-ones with the staff, things like that. It
shouldn't have happened."
"She must have been determined," I said. I
liked this woman, who was making no attempt
to justify herself to me. "It wasn't a cry for
help."
"If she hadn't succeeded, she might well
never have tried again. You don't know. She was a
difficult girl, very stubborn, very needy.
Terrible life. She once said to me, "No
one's ever said they loved me.""
"What did you say back?"
"That I loved her, of course--but it
doesn't really ring true, does it, coming from a
woman who's only known you for a few weeks, and
is paid to look after you?"
"At least you said it."
"Hmmm. Anyway, you want to know if I ever
saw any of these women. I met her once."
She put the tip of one finger on Lianne's
face. "She came to call for Daisy. They
went up to Daisy's room together. That's all."
"None of the others?"
"No."
"Why do you think she did it?"
"Killed herself? I don't know. She had a
sad life, didn't she? I don't know of any
particular circumstances, but that doesn't mean there
weren't any. Probably because in the end it was
easier than being alive."

36

The next day I drove to the clinic, sat through
a meeting about staff structures and pretended to do
some paperwork. My brain was teeming with the events
of the last twenty-four hours. I thought about the list
of names; about Bryony's white, shattered face
when she heard; Jeremy's howls under the apple
tree.
And I didn't know what to do about W. Would he
be so angry with me he wouldn't talk to me? Did
I want to see him again? At a quarter 445
past six I phoned him. At about ten to nine I
looked at my watch as Will removed it from my
wrist and put it on the floor by his bed. When
I put it back on my wrist I had come out of the
shower. It was just after ten. He was lying in bed. I
lay down beside him. I was still damp from the shower and
he was still damp from sweat and sex and me. I
smelled of his soap and I could smell me all
over him.
"That was wonderful," I said, and then started
to apologize. "I always feel stupid saying that.
I feel as if I'm saying thank you for something."
I sat up with my back against the wall, propped
up with a pillow, and looked at the room. There were
the remains of a Chinese takeaway. An empty
wine bottle lying down and another a third
full. Our clothes were scattered.
"I'm sorry about yesterday afternoon," I said.
"I didn't know what to do."
"It doesn't matter," he said. He was
trailing his fingers over my body, but not looking
at me.
"That was what surprised me," I said. "It
really didn't seem to matter to you. I get
scared by police and I'm working with them. You
didn't seem bothered."
"Is that a problem?"
"Maybe I get more scared than you do."
"That's understandable."
"Oh, you mean this?" I raised my hand and
touched my cheek, my scar.
"What did you want?" he asked. "Should I
have got on my knees and started pleading my
innocence?"
"What do you mean, your "innocence"?"
"That's what you want as well, isn't it? You
want me to look you in the eye and say, "Kit,
I'm innocent. So help me God.""
"No," I protested. "But ..."
"Aha, so there is a but after all." He stood
up. "I'm going to have a shower."
I lay in bed, half covered by the thin sheet,
thinking. As soon as he came back into the room,
wrapped in a large white towel, I said, "You
know what the problem is?"
"Whose problem? Mine or yours?"
"You didn't lose your cool for a second in
there. You were perfectly in control."
"And the question is, would an innocent man behave like
that?" 447
"Don't you care, though?"
"What?" He raised his eyebrows. "About
what people think of me? Why should I?"
"No. No. I don't mean about what people think
of you. I mean about--well, all of it. Lianne
and Philippa and Daisy and now Bryony, and
you're involved in it somehow. Even if you have
absolutely nothing to do with it in a technical
term, you're involved. And you knew some of them,
W. You knew Lianne, and she was young and lonely
and in need of help, and now she's dead, they're
dead, and yet you just sat there with your ironic
smile, scoring points. I mean, I know you must
care somewhere, deep down, because otherwise why are you
doing this job and everything, so I know you care, of
course ..."
"No, you don't. It doesn't follow."
"Well, all right, maybe you don't care one
bit and I find that chilling."
Will gave a nasty smile. "More chilling than
the possibility that I might be capable of
murder? Maybe," he let his towel drop to the
floor in a white puddle, then pulled on a
robe, "maybe the possibility even excites
you? Do you like to think I'd be capable of killing
someone? I know you--you like to face your fears,
don't you? Feel the fear and do it anyway?" The
tone was mocking and cruel.
I sat up in the bed. "Listen, Will, let's
not play games like this. Please. For what it's
worth, I've met a few dozen killers, I
suppose. Maybe more. For all of them there are
big fat reports explaining why they did it.
I don't know of a single example where somebody
spotted them in advance as potential murderers.
In fact, several of them were let out by people like me and
killed somebody else. So I'm not going to stand
here and say that you couldn't kill a woman."
"Sit."
"What?"
"You're not standing, you're sitting."
"Oh, for God's sake. You're proving what
I'm saying. Look, what I'm trying to say
is that I was looking at you this afternoon. And I
suddenly thought you'd quite like people to think you'd done it.
It would be great in every way. You would be a victim
yet again. The great misunderstood Will Pavic. And
it would show how stupid the police were. It would be
pretty much your ideal situation--you being right and
everybody else being wrong. Which is your 449
basic world view."
Pavic's slow smile didn't waver. "So
I didn't manage to fool you?" he said.
I reached over and took his hand and pulled him
down beside me on the bed. I stroked his bristly
short hair. I kissed his forehead. I laid the
palm of my hand against his cheek and for the briefest
moment he leaned into x. "I've had rather a bad
year," I said. "I have bad dreams."
"Kit ..."
"My sex life had been non-existent for a
bit and just now it's been the best, and that's been so
nice. Nice is the wrong word. You know what I
mean, anyway. And sometimes I wonder whether
I'm falling in love with you."
"Kit ..." he said again. He wasn't joking
or sneering any longer. That was something. Even if
everything was about to come to an end, that was better than his
contempt.
"Maybe you're right," I continued. "And I'm
drawn to you because you're bad-tempered and
intimidating, and you scare me in some way. Or
maybe I want you because you seem unhappy and
I'm kidding myself that I can make you happy again--
you know, that mad female fantasy you've
probably read about. Whatever. I've been
happy, anyway, just feeling wanted again like this.
I've been happy when I've been working and
suddenly I let myself think of you. I have felt
myself coming back to life again. But I don't want
to be with someone who doesn't care about anything, and
who won't yield to anyone. I'm not much good at
passion with no tenderness. I'm not tough enough. And
I'm really very bad at playing games--well,
here I am putting all my cards on the table.
No aces, as you can see." I gave a small
laugh and he still didn't say anything. "So,
maybe I need someone with softer edges."
Will put up a hand and tucked a strand of wet
hair behind my ear.
"I think it will be harder for me than for you if
we stop seeing each other," I said. "I'm a
rotten leaver. I've never been any good at it.
You're probably better at it, though--I bet
you don't spend much time looking back."
"I still want to see you, Kit."
"You want to see me on your terms."
"What are your terms, then?"
"I don't know." I gave a small sob.
"But the point is, there are some." 451
He smiled. "That's completely
incomprehensible, you know."
"I know." He handed me a tissue and I
blew my nose. "Anyway, for tonight at least,
I'm going. And maybe that's what I should be doing
alt." I put a finger on his lip. "Ssh,
don't say anything else. Not now."
I stood up and pulled on my trousers and
shirt.
"I don't like the idea of you walking around here
at this time of night," Will said.
"I think I'll be all right," I said. "My
name wasn't on the list."