The Red Room (9 page)

I went back to my boxy room at the station and
rifled through Lianne's file again, though I
knew it pretty well by now. I looked first at
the sparse sheet of biography: young woman known
as Lianne, estimated age around seventeen,
thought to have turned up in the Kersey Town area
seven to eight months ago, stayed briefly in a
hostel run by a man called William
Pavic, otherwise--according to the couple of fellow
drifters the police had managed to track down
-comslept in parks and on benches and in the
doorways of shops or, every so often, on the
floor of a luckier friend who lived in a BandB.
That was all--notothing about her character, her friendships, her
sexual history. It didn't say whether she
had been a virgin or not.
I picked up the map of where her body had
been found, X marks the spot. Then I dialed
through to Furth.
"I'd like to see where she was found," I said.
"Maybe this afternoon, after my clinic work? Say
five o'clock, is that possible?"
"I'll get Gil to take you there," he
answered. I could almost hear him smile.
"Here's where Doll did her," he said,
glancing sideways at me. He stood back
to let me see.
Lianne's body had been found on a
steepish bank behind the stump of a dead tree, where
ragwort, cow parsley and nettles grew. You
could still see from the crushed and broken stems where she
had sprawled face down. Her head had been
pushed right into the green forest of weeds. Her feet,
in their white pumps and perky red-striped socks,
had been resting against a broken bottle.
Tatters of plastic hung from the brambles and
floated in the oily brown water. There 135
were cigarette packets and old stubs ground into the
mud of the canal towpath. A tiny plastic
horse lay just in front of Lianne's hiding
place; probably some toddler had let it drop
there. Just behind it I could see a bike wheel,
rusting and bent.
"And a young man found her?"
"That's right. Darryl something or other."
"Pearce?"
"Yeah, a jogger. Serves him right. Did you
read his statement? He found her as she was dying.
More or less. He was staggering along here and heard
her crying out."
"But she had died by the time he found her."
"Wanker--that's Darryl, not you. He pissed
around her for ten minutes, he said, deciding what
to do. Scared out of his wits, more like. Then, by the time
he got his bottle back and looked and then
called us and we got there, she was dead. If
he'd walked straight round, she could have told him
who'd done it. Saved us an inquiry."
"Wasn't he a suspect?"
"Course. But he didn't touch the body.
Old Lianne looked as if she'd been
sprayed with blood. The killer must have been
covered. We did swabs on Darryl, fiber
tests, everything. Not a sausage."
"And there was the woman, Mary Gould," I
said, half to myself.
"Yeah, the old dear with bread for the ducks.
She came from the other side of the bushes, from the
flats. She saw the body and just legged it back
home. She didn't phone until the next day.
We've put her medal on hold."
I turned back to the spot and stared at it.
"And then Doll came forward a couple of days
later to say he'd been lurking in the area," said
Gil. "He didn't exactly use those words."
I frowned and he gave me his cocky grin again
and whistled through his teeth.
I tried to picture the scene to myself. When she
was found, she had been wearing a very short red
Lycra skirt, pulled up over her
buttocks. Her underpants had not been removed.
She had been wearing a purple cotton shirt with
no bra underneath. She had been wearing the clothes
when she died and they hadn't been removed
subsequently. The stabbings had been through the
shirt. On her left wrist she wore one of those
digital watches they give away 137
free at garages, and round her neck was a
tacky gilt locket in the shape of a broken
heart. It had curly pink writing on it:
"Best ..." Was someone, somewhere, wearing the other
half of the heart, bearing the legend, his... Friend"?
I rang up Poppy, my best friend. I
needed to hear a warm voice again.
"Kit! How's it gone, your first week
back?" In the background I could hear children
shrieking and yelling. Poppy was stirring something, the
chink of a spoon.
Only a week, I thought. Four days.
"Odd," I answered. "Very odd."
"I tried to ring you before. Some woman I
didn't know answered."
"Julie. Did you ever meet her years ago?
Maybe she was before your time. She's been away."
"Didn't she give you my message?" She
hadn't. "Who is she? Hang on--Megan!
Amy! Come and get your hot milk and honey!
Sorry. This Julie ..."
"She's been away, traveling round the world.
She's staying here. For a bit."
"Oh. Do you mind?"
"Not yet, not really."
"But are you all right? Oh, Christ, clear that
up now. Now! Get a cloth or something, it's
running everywhere."
"Do you have to go?"
"I think so. Call you back."
I'd bought food the previous day, including a
bag of fresh pasta, a jar of red pepper and
chili sauce and a couple of those bags of salad
that you don't have to wash. But they had disappeared. So
had the slice of lemon and ginger cheesecake.
There was almost nothing in the fridge except for a
couple of cartons of milk, some cream cheese
and--I lifted them up to make absolutely
sure--a pair of new black knickers, with their
price tag still attached.
I knocked on Julie's door. No
answer. I pushed it open. Clothes were flung
everywhere, including some of my own. There were jars of
cream and tubes of lipstick on the filing
cabinet, where she'd propped a mirror from the
bathroom. My slippers lay by her unmade
bed.
I didn't feel like going out to the 139
shops again--I was too tired--so I made myself
some toast and marmalade and a mug of cocoa. I
retrieved my slippers and put on my
dressing-gown. Then I got out my sketch-pad.
I sat at the table, taking small sips of
frothy hot chocolate, and I tried to draw
Lianne--not her face, though; her small
childish hands, with the nails chewed to the quick. Hands
are difficult, worse than feet or faces,
even. It's almost impossible to get the
proportions right. Fingers bulge out like bananas;
the thumb twists at an improbable angle.
I couldn't get it right, and after several
attempts I gave up. I was mildly bothered
by the black knickers in my fridge and the rain
slapping at my window and the itchy notion that I was
missing something.

11

Being busy brings its own adrenaline rush. That
morning, instead of lying in a hot bath until I
heard Julie leave, I took a quick shower and
washed my hair. I didn't bother to dry it, just
toweled it briskly then twisted it up. I
drank my coffee while I pulled on a
dress and sandals. Then, putting my car keys and
an apple in my bag, I managed to whisk out
past Julie, who sat at the kitchen table with a
mug of tea, looking as sleepy as a cat in a
puddle of sunlight. I drove straight to the
Welbeck and parked my car in its old place,
under the acacia tree. The morning was misty and
damp. No one else was there yet except a
cleaner, moving backwards over the lobby with a
vacuum cleaner.
In my office I pulled the door shut and
opened the windows, which looked out over the small
patch of gardens at the back. There were no papers
in my out-tray, but a small mountain in the
in-tray. Patients I should see, referrals
I had to deal with, correspondence I needed
to reply to, forms to fill in, journals to read,
invitations I was going to turn down. According to my
answering-machine, I had twenty-nine
messages. I switched on my computer and found
a dozen or so e-mails there, too. I'd read
somewhere that a busy executive can get up to two
hundred e-mails a day. It was so unfair.
Couldn't they be shared out among all the people 141
sitting alone in rooms to whom nobody wanted
to send messages?
By nine, the heap of paperwork had sunk and I'd
refused invitations to conferences in three different
countries; I'd separated requests for me
to see patients into the yes, no and don't-know
piles; I'd filled up my diary with
satisfying little blocks of allotted time. There were
crumpled balls of paper all round my chair.
I could hear the sounds of the clinic coming to life:
phones ringing in other offices, doors slamming,
the murmur of conversations in the corridor. I
went down to the coffee machine, which was on the ground
floor, then bolted back to my office with my
cup slopping against my fingers.
There I pulled out the notes I'd made on
Lianne. I stared at the sentences I'd jotted
down until they blurred, became
hieroglyphics. The only name I had that could
provide any kind of illumination was the man who
ran the drop-in center where she sometimes slept
or went for a hot bath, a warm meal and clean
clothes. Will Pavic, that was it. On an
impulse, I picked up the phone and dialed his
number.
"Yes." The voice was abrupt and
impatient.
"Could I speak to Will Pavic, please?"
"Yes."
There was a pause.
"Is that Will Pavic speaking?"
"Yes." Crosser this time.
"Good morning. My name's Dr. Quinn and
I'm helping the police--was
"Sorry, I don't deal with the police.
I'm sure you'll understand that, in the
circumstances." The line went dead.
"Bastard," I muttered.
I took the apple out of my bag and ate it
slowly, everything except the stalk. Then I
dialed my own number.
"Hello!" Julie sounded much livelier than
she had when I'd last seen her.
"It's me, Kit. Something's been bugging me
all morning. Why is there a pair of knickers
in my fridge?"
"Ooops!" There was a splutter of laughter.
"I read in some magazine that if it's hot
weather, it feels glorious to put on a chilled
pair of knickers. That's all." 143
"But it's not that hot."
"That's why they're still there. I'm waiting."
So that was sorted. I phoned Will Pavic
once again.
"Yes." Same voice, same tone.
"Mr. Pavic, this is Kit Quinn, and
please would you hear what I have to say to you before
putting the phone down again."
"Ms. Quinn--was
"Doctor."
"Dr. Quinn." He managed to turn the
title into an insult. "I am a very busy
man."
"As I said--or was trying to say--I am
helping the police with their inquiries into the death of
Lianne." There was a pause. "Lianne who was
found by the canal?"
"I know who you mean. I don't know how you
expect me to help you."
"I wanted to talk to people who knew her. Who
knew what her life was like, what company she
kept, what was worrying her, whether she was the kind
of person who--was
"Certainly not. I won't have the young people here
badgered by your lot. They've got enough problems as
it is."
I took a deep breath. "What about you, then,
Mr. Pavic?"
"What about me?"
"Can I talk to you about her?"
"I've nothing to say. I scarcely knew
Lianne."
"You knew her well enough to identify the body."
"I knew what she looked like, of course."
His voice was harsh. I imagined a stern gray
man with a face like a hatchet and gimlet eyes.
"I hardly think that's the kind of discussion you
want, is it? You want to know about her mind,
right?" His voice dripped sarcasm.
I wasn't going to lose my temper. The more
cross he became, the calmer I felt. "I
won't take long."
I heard a pencil tapping rapidly against a
surface. "Very well, what do you want to know?"
"Can I come and see you in person?" No way
was he going to tell me anything like this.
"I have a meeting in less than an hour and after
that--was
"I'll be with you in fifteen minutes," I
said. "It's very kind of you, Mr. 145
Pavic, I appreciate it." Now it was my
turn to put down the phone. I grabbed my bag
and jacket and ran out of my office before he had the
chance to ring me back.

The Tyndale Center for Young People was a large
and unprepossessing pre-war building with metal
windows, squeezed between a slatternly pub and
what must have been one of the ugliest low-rise
apartment blocks in London--dirty gray
breeze-blocks and mean little windows, some of which were
smashed. A brightly colored mural made its
way up one edge, flowers, tendrils curling up
to the roof. It might have been Jack and the
Beanstalk. In another hand "Fuck Off" was
scrawled across the design about six feet off the
ground. On the other side of the street, there were
several derelict houses with boarded windows and
doors, and weeds taking over the front yards.
Two teenage boys with shaved heads were kicking a
ratty tennis ball between them in the street, but they
stopped and stared suspiciously at me as I
approached the door.
"Hello?"
I couldn't work out if the person who opened it was
one of the young people or a helper. She had purple
hair, several studs in her eyebrows and her
nose, a sweet smile. She was wearing
massive shaggy slippers. Behind her, I could
see a large hallway, with corridors leading
off it, and I could hear, coming from upstairs, the
insistent throb of rap music and someone shouting.
"I'm Dr. Quinn. I've got an
appointment with Will Pavic."
"Appointment?" shouted a voice, out of sight.
"Let her in."
The woman stepped aside. The hall was
painted pale yellow. There was a spindly tree
in a pot in the corner, a table stacked with
leaflets against one wall and an old sofa near the
stairs where a ginger cat lay asleep. I saw
at once that it had been carefully designed to be
unintimidating for anyone who made it through the
doors.
Will Pavic was in a small room opposite,
with the door open. He was sitting at a desk staring
directly at me over the top of his computer.
He must have been in his forties, with hair cropped
to about the same length as his dark stubble, and thick
dark eyebrows. In the brightness of his 147
office, he looked monochrome, all black and
gray and chipped, as if he had been hacked out of
granite. He was scowling. He stood up as I
crossed the hall toward him, but stayed behind the
cluttered fortress of his desk.
"Hello," I said.
He shook my hand firmly but cursorily.
"Take a seat," he said, nodding at a
hard-backed chair in the corner. "Just put the
papers on the floor."
I cleared my throat. I gave a nervous
smile, which Will didn't return. There were yellow
Post-it stickers on every spare inch of the wall behind
him. Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn't
really thought about what I was going to ask. "I'm
sorry," I said. "I don't really understand.
Is this a children's home?"
"No," he said.
"What then? A council half-way house?"
"The local authority have nothing to do with it. The
government have nothing to do with it. Ditto the social
services."
"Then who runs it?"
"I do."
"Yes, but who do you answer to?"
He gave a shrug.
"But what actually happens?" I asked.
"Simple," he said. "This is a place where
homeless young people can stay for a short period. We
give them some help, make some calls, whatever,
and send them on their way."
"Did you send Lianne on her way?" At
that his face froze. "Look, I'm starting from
zero here," I said, smiling at him. No
response at all, like a computer that's been
turned off. "I want to find out whatever I can
about Lianne--I don't mean about her movements
round the time of her death, last-known sighting, that
kind of thing. That's for the police. More, the kind of
girl she was, you know."
His phone rang but was picked up by the
answering-machine.
"I didn't know her like that," said W.
"How long was she here?"
"She wasn't here. Not the way you mean. She
came occasionally. She knew people."
"This doesn't make sense. If you've got
so little connection with her, why was it you who identified
the body? How did the police make the
connection?" 149
"The police made the connection because they put
her face on a poster and a concerned citizen
phoned up anonymously and said that she had spent
time at the Tyndale. And the reason I
identified her was because I was the only supposedly
respectable person they could find who admitted
to ever having met her. But, then, this is Kersey
Town, which isn't the sort of place you come from."
"You don't know where I come from."
"I can guess," he said, with a slight smile
at last.
"I just want to know what she was like, Mr.
Pavic. Do you know anything about her background,
for instance? Or her friends?"
Now he looked uncomfortable and irritated, as
if I were being obtuse.
"You don't get it," he said. "I don't
want to know about these people's lives. I'm not going
to pretend to be their friend. I try to give a
small amount of practical help and most of the
time I fail. That's all. Runaways have their
reasons for running away, Dr. Quinn. Do you
think they do it for fun? Lianne probably had
very good reasons for running away."
"Do you think she might have been abused?" I
asked. He didn't reply and I felt crass
for asking the question.
"She was lonely," he said abruptly. "A
lonely, eager, frightened, angry young woman.
Someone like you might say she was looking for love.
Enough now?"
"And you don't want to help?" I said.
He leaned over the desk, his face harsh. "But
I already failed to help," he said. "Again."
"I--was
"I've got to go now. I've got a
meeting."
"Can I walk with you to the underground?"
"I'm driving."
"You could drop me off at a station on your
way, then. I've just a few questions. Which way are
you going?"
"Blackfriars Bridge."
"Right past my front door," I said,
conveniently forgetting that my car was parked at the
Welbeck Clinic.
He sighed ostentatiously. "All right."
We walked out into the hall together. A startlingly
pretty girl, with long fair hair, ran in.
"I'm fucking trying!" she screamed 151
into our faces, then bolted up the stairs, sobbing.