The Red Room (6 page)

life yesterday in the files, when I'd gone into the
station to talk with Furth: taken into care at eight,
having been neglected by his alcoholic mother and
beaten by his stepfather. Twenty residential
homes and ten sets of foster-parents by the time he
was sixteen. A history of bed-wetting; running
away; of being bullied at school, then of being a
bully. He'd tortured a cat in one of his
foster-homes, and set fire to his bedclothes in
another. He'd been moved to a special unit
for disturbed children at thirteen, where his violent
behavior had escalated. By the time he was 79
independent, living in a squalid
bed-and-breakfast, wandering around streets with his wandering
eyes, and spying on girls in the park, he was a
crisis waiting to happen.
"Nobody listens," he went on fretfully.
"That's what the trouble is. Nobody ever listens.
You say something and they don't hear you because they think
you're scum, or something. That's what they call
you. They don't hear what you say. That's why I
go fishing, where I don't have to meet no one. I
can be there all day. Even when it's raining. I
don't mind the rain."
"Has nobody ever listened to you?"
"Nobody," he answered. "Not ever. Not
her." I guessed he meant his mother. "She never
cared. Didn't even see me after I was taken
away. Never seen me. I don't even know if
she's alive. If I ever have a little baby boy
or girlie"--here his tone became cloyingly
sentimental--"I'll cuddle them and pet them and
never let them go." A column of ash crumbled
onto his trousers.
"What about in the homes?" I asked. "Did
they listen to you there?"
"Them? That's a joke, that is. Sometimes I
did bad things, I couldn't help it, like I was
all full of stuff inside me and I had to let
it out, and they hit me and locked me in my room
and wouldn't let me out even when I cried and
cried." His eyes filled again. "Nobody hears
you."
"What about your friends?" I asked cautiously.
He shrugged, ground his cigarette out.
"Girlfriends?"
Doll became agitated. He picked at the
cloth of his trousers and his eyes darted off.
"There's a lady," he said. "She likes me,
that's what she said. I told her stuff."
"Stuff like what?"
"Like, things I felt. You know."
"About feelings?"
"Feelings, yeah. And other things. You know."
"Feelings you have about women?"
He mumbled incoherently.
"The feelings you have about women, Michael, do
they make you anxious?"
"Dunno."
"Do you like women?"
He tittered nervously and said, "Course.
There's nothing wrong with me in that area." 81
"I mean, like them as people. Do you have friends who are
women?"
He shook his head, lit another cigarette.
"When you think about the girl who was murdered,
what does that make you feel?"
"That Lianne, she was a girl who'd run
away. Don't blame her either. I ran away,
you know. I always thought my mum would end up getting
me back. I'd smash her face in if she showed
up now, though. Smash it in with one of her
bottles, like, till there was nothing left. That'd
teach her."
"So you wanted to help the police, because you
knew you'd been in the area?"
"Right. I keep going over it in my mind. I
can't stop. I make up stories about it." He
glanced at me, then away. "I go back to the
canal and sit there and I think to myself, It may
happen again. It could, couldn't it? It could happen
again, right where I'm sitting."
"Does that frighten you?"
"Kind of. It ..." He licked his lips.
"Kind of nervous and kind of, you know ..."
"Excited?"
He stood up and started to prowl round the small
room. "Do you believe me?"
"Believe what, Michael?"
"Believe me," he repeated hopelessly.
I hesitated before replying. "I'm here
to listen to you, Michael. To hear your side of the
story. That's what I do: I listen to people's
stories."
"Will you come back again? I thought you'd be all
angry with me, after, you know ... what happened.
But you don't treat me like I'm no good."
"Of course not."
"And you're pretty. Don't get me wrong,
I'm not--you know, coming on. You're a lady. I
like your eyes. Gray. Like the sky. I like the way
they watch me."

Furth was sitting gloomily on the stairs.
I almost tripped over him.
"So, what do you think?" he asked, as if I
had just emerged from the insect house at the zoo.
We walked out and got into the car. Doll would
probably be looking at us out of the window. He
would see me with Furth. What would he think? I
would down the window and let the warm wind gust over
my face. A few heavy drops of rain 83
splattered against the windscreen and the sky darkened.
"Poor."
"That's it? That's your profile of him?
Poor? This is the man who's wrecked your
face. Remember?"
I sighed. "OK. Poor, sad,
uneducated, disturbed, self-pitying,
self-righteous, vicious, lonely, damaged,
scared."
Furth grinned. "And you've only had the
starter. Now it's time for the main course."

6

Back at the police station, I splashed
cold water over my face and wiped it dry on
a thin paper towel from the dispenser, scrubbing off the
last traces of lipstick. I brushed my hair
and tied it back more tightly, no loose strands.
I took off my earrings and dropped them into the
side pocket of my shoulder-bag. I felt as
if something soft and almost indefinable was drifting over
my face, like cobwebs or a few thin strands of
hair. The air was warm and thick and stagnant.
Second-hand. I was sucking in air that other people
had just expelled from their lungs. I caught a
glimpse of myself in the spotted mirror. I
looked stern and pale. And plain--but plain was good
right now.
Furth was waiting for me, standing among all the
packing cases. He had a tiny mobile
pressed against his ear, half hidden under his shiny
hair, but he slid it into his breast pocket as
soon as he saw me. "Bloody phones don't
work here anymore," he said. "Half the computers
have already gone. Nothing to sit on in half the
rooms. No fucking toilet rolls in half the
cubicles." Then he jerked his chiseled jaw.
"Upstairs," he said.
I followed him into a small square room,
with a dead rubber plant drooping in one corner and a
window that was painted shut. In the corner, a
broken chair lay on its side. On the table in
the center of the room there was a large
tape-recorder, and a box of tapes with small
neat writing on the labels. Furth sat down,
and I sat opposite him. Our knees were almost
touching under the table and I drew back a little, put
my hands on the wooden armrests of my chair.
"Ready?" he asked, lifting a hand. 85
"We've wound it forward to the spot you'll be most
interested in."
I nodded and he jabbed the "play" button with
his forefinger.
I didn't recognize the voice at first.
It was higher, for a start. And the pace was completely
different--sometimes very fast, so that I could barely
make out what was being said, and then, abruptly, it
would slow down and each syllable would be slurred.
For a few seconds I almost thought there was something
wrong with the machine, the batteries running down--
except it was plugged into a wall socket and when
I leaned over, I could see the spools running
evenly.
"I go down there. At nights I go down there
when I can't sleep and I often can't sleep,
Dolly, thinking about ..."
I pushed the "stop" button. "Dolly?"
Furth gave a modest cough. "That's the name
Colette--WPC Dawes--chose for herself.
Delores--Dolly for short. See? He's
Doll, and she's Dolly. That's how she struck
up a conversation at first. You know--"What a
coincidence," she said, all surprised, blinking
her long lashes, "my name's Doll too!"
Clever, eh?"
"I'm awestruck."
He laughed. "You're a hard woman
to please, Kit Quinn. Do you want to continue?"
"Go on then."
his... the women. You know."
"Go on, Michael," said the woman. "Go
on."
"I got to where it happened. When no one else
is there and it's all dark and I stand where she was
standing."
"Yes?"
"Yes, Dolly. Is this right?"
"You know it is."
"I go there and I imagine--I imagine it
all happening again, just like then. This girl walking
up the path and she's quite pretty, right? She's
young, seventeen maybe, and she's got long
hair. I like hair that's long. Like you hair,
Dolly, when you let it down. And I imagine
for a bit I just follow her, a few steps behind.
She knows I'm there, right, but she doesn't look
round. I can see she knows. Her neck's gone
all stiff, right, and she walks a bit faster.
She's scared. She's all scared of me. 87
I feel tall and strong. You know. Manly.
Can't mess with me. She walks a bit faster and
I walk a bit faster. I get closer."
There was a pause, just silence and breathing and an
ambient hiss. WPC Colette Dawes said
again: "Go on." Quite sharply this time, as if she was
his teacher.
"I get closer," he repeated. His voice
had slowed right down. "She turns round and as she
turns round I see her mouth wide open and her
eyes wide open and she looks just like a fish, like
one of my fish before I throw it back in the dirty
water. Like a fish under my thumb."
I listened to the sound of Michael Doll
laughing. A nervous, liquid laugh. At least
the woman didn't join in.
Silence. Furth and I sat and listened to the
sound of the tape turning. I looked at the other
tapes in the box. There were three more, labeled and
dated. Doll spoke again: "Does that make me
a bad man? What I've just said, does that mean
I'm bad, Dolly?"
"Did you hate her, Michael?"
"Do I hate her?" he asked, fretfully.
I made a mental note of the jumbled tenses.
I wished I had a pad of paper in front of
me, that I was making pedantic little notes and
concentrating on that. "No, not hate. I love
her, of course. I love her. Love.
Love."
Furth leaned over and turned off the tape, then
he sat back and crossed his arms.
"Well?"
I pushed my chair back and stood up. The
room felt too small. I crossed over and
looked out of the window at the wall opposite, the
thin trickle of water coming from the leaking gutter.
If I craned my head, I could almost see a
line of heaving gray sky.
"I'd like to talk to WPC Dawes."
"Come on, Kit, for Chrissakes. This
isn't a big deal. We just want your
professional opinion, based on his background,
the impression he made on you, his taped
confession. What kind of man Doll is in you
considered opinion, blah blah, you know the kind of
thing. You've heard him. He did it. He as good
as confessed he killed the girl and now he's
getting off on it, wanking in his squalid bedsit
night after night, looking at his dirty 89
pictures and thinking about it. He's a pervert, a
murderer. Not someone you want to be anywhere near.
You of all people know that. You know what he's capable
of. Just write a few paragraphs on what you
thought of him."
"Just a word with Colette Dawes. Then
I'll write up your report. All right?"
He frowned. He sighed heavily. He
jammed his hands in his pockets. "I'll see
what I can do," he said.

A woman carrying a clipboard and a bundle
of envelopes came through the door. I could see
immediately how Doll would have trusted her. She had
yellow hair and a smooth, softly contoured face
that seemed to have no edges to it, no bones. She had
pale skin with a permanent blush about it. And she
looked very young. We shook hands.
"Did Furth tell you about me?"
"Not really," she said. "You're a doctor or
something."
"Yes. Furth wanted some advice about
Michael Doll. I've seen the file. I've
listened to a bit of the tape."
She lifted her bundle, holding it with both
arms against her chest, like a shield. "Yes?"
"I wanted a quick word."
"Yes. DI Furth said. I haven't got
much time. I'm emptying filing cabinets."
"Fifteen minutes. No more. Shall we go for a
walk?"
She looked wary but pushed her bundle across the
desk and murmured something I couldn't make out to the
duty officer. We went in silent single file
down the stairs, and walked outside. Stretton
Green police station is on a quiet
back-street but a minute's walk brought us
to Stretton Green Road. There is a
health-food shop with a few tables that serves
coffee during the day and we sat in the corner. I
walked across and ordered two black coffees from a
young woman who was sitting reading the paper by the
till.
"Ten," I said, as the woman left us with our
mugs.
"What?" said WPC Dawes.
"Piercings," I said. "Three in one ear,
four in the other, two in the nose and one through her
bottom lip. And who knows what else?"
She took a sip from her coffee but 91
didn't reply.
"Colette. Is it all right if I call you
Colette?"
"Sure."
"Well, Colette, it was remarkable what you
got out of Doll," I said. She gave a
shrug. "Was it difficult?" Another shrug.
"Where did the conversations take place?"
"Different places."
"I mean the one in which he describes the
murder in detail."
"We were in his flat."
"Did you like him?"
She looked up sharply and then looked away.
Crimson patches had appeared through her pale
skin. "Course not."
"Or did you feel some sympathy?"
She shook her head. "No, no, Doctor
..."
"Kit."
"Kit. Look." She was angry, or making
herself get angry. "Didn't you see the
pathologist's report?" she continued.
"No, that's not my remit. I'm just concerned with
Michael Doll."
"He's a dangerous man, you don't know."
"Oh, yes, I do."
"What do you want, then? Do you want to wait
until there's another murder and maybe we can
catch him then? Or maybe the next victim will
fight back and catch him for us--is that what you're
waiting for?"
I sat back in my chair. I didn't
reply and she continued.
"This is a piece of good old-fashioned
police work. Furth and the others spent days and
nights going through everybody who was in the area. It
was Furth who came up with the material on
Doll. Didn't he tell you that?"
"No."
"I got friendly with him, got him to talk. That
wasn't a nice thing to do. So I don't know
what you're saying."
I took a slow sip of my coffee,
carefully not finishing it off. I didn't want
her to go yet. "I just want to get any information
about Michael Doll that I can. All right?"
She gave the smallest hint of a nod in
reply.
"So, Colette, what was your plan 93
once you got to know him?"
"I just wanted to get him to talk."
"About the murder?"
"That's right."
"But that's hard, isn't it? So could you tell
me about your conversations?"
A strand of hair had slipped down her forehead
and she pushed it up. It slipped again and she made
an effort to fasten it. "Doll hasn't exactly
got a lot of friends. I think he was desperate
for somebody to talk to."
"Or desperate for a friend."
"Same thing."
"Yes," I said. "How long have you known him?"
"Not long. Not more than a couple of weeks."
"I understand that there were three or four taped
conversations and that the one I heard came from the last
of them. Is that right?"
"That's right."
"What were the first ones like?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did he talk about the murder?"
"No."
"Did you raise the subject?"
"A bit."
"Did he talk about it straight away?"
"I had to get his trust."
"You mean he had to trust you before he told you that
he'd murdered someone?"
"He didn't exactly confess, did he?
That's why they brought you in."
I put both my elbows on the table, which brought
my face close to Colette's. "You know,
I've talked to lots of people with terrible problems,
who've done terrible things, and the barrier at the
beginning is to get them to feel that their interests will be
served by being honest with you, by telling you everything. How
did you do it?"
"Have you got a cigarette?" she asked.
"As it happens," I said, and took out of my
bag the packet I'd brought along for Doll.
"I encouraged him to talk freely," she said.
"I said I wanted to know his secrets."
"You said you wanted to know his secrets and he
told you he had committed murder."
"It wasn't like that. I was talking to him about his
fantasies."
"This wasn't in the pub, I take it. These
conversations were back at his flat."
"Yes." 95
"You steered the conversation towards areas of sex and
violence."
She took a drag of the cigarette. "I
encouraged him to talk. The way people do. The way
you do."
"Was it a sort of quid pro quo?
Did you provide him with fantasies and invite
him to respond with his own?"
"I tried to get him to talk. I needed to show
him that I wouldn't be shocked by anything he would
tell me."
"But the first couple of big conversations you had with
Doll didn't produce anything?"
"Not really."
"Obviously Furth and the rest listened to the
tapes."
"Obviously."
"And they said they weren't producing anything."
"They weren't producing anything."
"And they said, "Go back and get something
better.""
"Not exactly."
"And they said try harder."
"How do you mean?"
"I imagine they said something like "Why should
Doll tell you anything? You've got to encourage
him a bit more.""
"I don't know what you mean. I just got him
to talk."
"Absolutely. What I heard was great
stuff. Really disgusting. There's no question,
Colette, you went back in there and came away
with the goods."
"I did my job."
"You met this strange, disturbed, highly
unsocialized man and by the third or fourth
meeting he's giving you a lurid fantasy about
murdering a woman. You see where I'm heading,
don't you?"
"I did my job."
I leaned over so that our noses almost touched.
"Did you have sex with Michael Doll?"
She flinched. "No," she said, almost in a
whisper. Then, more loudly, "No."
I kept my eyes tightly on hers. "You were
wearing a wire. Maybe sex would be a problem.
Maybe it wasn't exactly sex."
"No," she said, shaking her head. She rubbed
the corner of her right eye.
"Good," I said softly. "Let's 97
go."
We walked back in silence until we were
walking up the steps to the station. I stopped and
held her back. "Colette," I said.
She looked away.
"Who prepared you for the assignment? Who gave
advice?"
"Just Furth."
"Right," I said. "And how do you feel about it
now?"
"How should I feel about it?"
"Troubled, maybe."
"Why? That's the problem with people like you. You try and
get everybody to feel traumatized."
"I was trying to be sympathetic."
"I don't need sympathy."
We parted coolly and I called Furth
immediately. He appeared looking breezily
confident. "So?" he said.
"I need to hear all the tapes," I said.