The Red Room (26 page)

I stepped out of the house and walked away without
looking back. There was a full moon so bright that
it lit wavelike rims on the clouds across the
sky. My body was quivering with tension. I felt
tears running down my cheek, hot, stinging, but I
took some deep breaths. I wiped my face.
That was better. I'd done the right thing, there was
nothing to get in a flap about. It was probably
all over now, anyway, but I went over and over
it in my mind. Move on, I told myself.
Move on. I had other things to think about.
I've never been worried about walking in
cities late at night. I have a theory that if
you walk briskly, and look as if you know where
you're going, you'll be safe. I've spent quite a
lot of my career talking to dangerous men, and
I've frequently asked them how they select
their victims. I think the answer is that they
pick on people, women mainly, who, through weakness or
lack of judgement or insecurity, seem to be
inviting their attentions. I've tried to make myself
believe that if you don't look like a victim, you
won't become one. Maybe I'm just kidding
myself. The randomness of suffering is unbearable.
Better to believe that people are responsible for the things
they bring on themselves.
I walked through empty dark streets until
I reached the brightness and noise of the main road and
Kersey Town station. The taxis were squealing, the
stall was there selling tomorrow's newspapers, as if
there wasn't time enough for that tomorrow. Usually I would have
been fascinated with the sights of the late-night
city. I love looking at people who seem to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time. I try
to imagine what strange errands and wrong turnings
have brought them here, I tell myself 453
stories about them. But now there were other stories in
my head, interrupting each other, shouting to be
heard. I crossed the busy road and cut across
the square, leaving the bustle behind me. I thought of
Bryony, walking late at night along the
canal. It was stupid, as Oban had said, but I
understood the impulse. The darkness, the quiet, the
barely shifting black water, a strange
secret world right in the middle of the city. I thought
of Philippa, on Hampstead Heath in broad
daylight, in a crowded children's playground.
My mind was working so furiously that my walk
home had become almost unconscious, even though
I was following a complicated route through back
streets and small alleyways. I was barely a
hundred yards from my front door when something
jerked me out of my reverie and I looked around
feeling startled. Had I heard something? I was in
a quiet street with a row of houses on one side
and a churchyard on the other. I saw nobody but
then, in the corner of my eye, I caught a
movement. When I looked more carefully in the
direction I'd come from, there was nothing. Had someone
moved back into a shadow? I'd be at my front
door in a minute. I started walking briskly,
my hand closed around the key in my jacket
pocket. A minute, less, thirty seconds.
I broke into a run and reached my door. At the
moment I pushed the key into the lock, I felt a
hand on my shoulder and gave a stupid little cry of
shock. There was a tightness across my chest as I
looked round. It was Michael Doll. His
sour-sweet breath was on my face.
"I just caught up with you," he said, with a
smile.
I tried to think. Be calm. Defuse it.
Make him go away. But I had to seem
surprised. I mustn't seem to take his presence
for granted. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"I missed you," he said. "You didn't come and
see me."
"Why should I come and see you?"
"I've been thinking about you."
"Were you following me?" I asked.
"No, why should I?" he said, taking a step
back, looking away.
He had been following me. For how long? Had
he been outside Will Pavic's house?
"You been with someone else?"
Someone else? What was going on? 455
"I've got to go now, Michael," I said.
"Can I come in?" he said.
"No, you can't."
"Just for a few minutes."
"It's too late. My friend's up there."
He looked up at the flat.
"There's no light on."
"She's in bed."
"I want to talk."
I couldn't believe that I was standing on my
doorstep at half past midnight negotiating
with Michael Doll about whether he could come in.
"I've got to go."
"You'd let other people."
"Michael, it's late. You've got to go
home."
"I hate my home."
"Good night, Michael." I said it with a
slight, but not a welcoming, smile and a touch on
his arm, which signaled sympathy but not real warmth.
"I want to see you," he said, but more feebly.
"It's late," I said. "I'm going."
Not too quickly, I eased myself back into the
doorway and pushed the door shut but it jammed.
He had his foot against it. He leaned forward so that
his face was in the gap. "You hate me?" he said.
It was hardly a question. "You want me to go. Never
see me."
Oh, how I wanted him to go. To scuttle out
of my life, and if he was going to fasten himself
to somebody, then let it be to somebody else. "I
don't mean that at all," I said. "I'm
tired. I've had a difficult day. Please."
His face was quite close to mine now. He was
breathing with a wheezing whistling sound. His arm reached
through the gap and I felt his hand on my cheek.
"Night, Kit," he said.
I didn't reply. The hand withdrew. I
felt the pressure against the door relent and I
was able to push it shut. I leaned against it and felt
a sudden rush of nausea. I could still feel the
traces of Michael Doll on my face. I
could still feel Will Pavic inside me. It seemed
to me that I was smelling of these men. I ran
upstairs and, although I'd already had a shower at
Will's, I had another long one, until the water
ran cold. Then I rummaged in a cupboard and
found a bottle of whiskey. I took a glass
to bed with me and sat in the dark sipping at it in
mouthfuls that burned me inside and dulled 457
my brain.

37

The next morning I phoned Oban and told
him about Michael Doll. He seemed to find it
mildly amusing.
"So you've got an admirer," he said.
"Another admirer, I should say."
"It's not funny," I said. "I think he
may have been following me."
"Why?"
I hesitated. I didn't want to talk about
Doll following me back from Will's place.
"It's getting more serious," I said. "He's
hanging around the house, watching me. I don't
feel safe."
There was a cough that might have been a laugh.
"I don't believe this," he said. "We've
spent the last few weeks trying to convince you that
Doll is dangerous and you've been trying
to convince us that he's a sweet, misunderstood
boy."
"That's not what I was saying."
"I know, love, can't you take a joke? But
what do you want me to do about it?"
"I'm not sure. But I'm starting to feel
threatened by him."
"Dear me," said Oban. "And I was just starting
to get more interested in your other friend."
"What?"
"It's hard to avoid. I've been thinking about
it and all roads seem to lead to Will Pavic and his
bloody drug-dealing center."
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe. But we need to think about it. If you
like I can send someone round to whisper in Mickey
Doll's ear."
I gave a sigh of relief. "That might be a
good idea," I said. "The problem is, everything
I say to him, whether I'm friendly or angry, just
seems to encourage him. I don't want
to bully him but it's getting out of hand."
"Don't worry. We'll lean on him. In
a nice way, of course. Are you coming in today?"
"Maybe later," I said. "I'll be at the
clinic for most of the day."

In the morning, I was sitting in one of the seminar
rooms at the clinic with a 459
fifteen-year-old girl called Anita, her
whey-faced, stunned mother, a social worker and a
solicitor. I was looking through a file. It was
the usual disaster. Worse than the usual disaster.
Supervisory visits had been omitted,
medication not administered, papers lost. That was all
standard. But a school building had been set on
fire. That had certainly done the trick.
Anita had attempted suicide twice,
repeatedly mutilated herself and her case had got
stuck in the in-tray. But if you set fire
to public buildings, you get attention.
There was a knock and the door was pushed open. It
was the clinic's receptionist. "Phone for you," she
said to me.
I looked round in disbelief.
"I'll call back later."
"It's the police. He said he tried your
mobile."
"It's switched off. Tell him I'll ring
back in a minute."
"He said to get you out of wherever you were. And
he'd hang on."
I made profuse apologies, ran down the
corridor and picked up the phone. "This had
better be--was
"Doll's dead."
"What?"
"In his flat. Get there now."
When I'd visited Michael Doll in his
flat before, I'd thought it a squalid,
desolate home for a strange and lonely man.
He had seemed the sort of person who would have
been obscure while he was alive and whose death
would have been ignored. No longer. He had
become notorious. There were three police cars,
an ambulance and other unmarked cars double-parked
along the road. The area around the street entrance
was taped off. Two policemen stood outside,
and there was a small crowd of people with nothing better
to do on a weekday afternoon in Hackney.
I pushed my way through with murmured
apologies, and as I approached the policemen
I saw the old women with wheeled shopping
baskets looking at me with new interest. What
could I be? A detective? An undertaker?
One of the police went inside and I heard a
muffled shout. After a few moments Oban
emerged. He seemed deeply shocked, 461
his face a startling gray-green color. I found
myself asking how he was.
"Jesus," he said in a low voice.
"Un-fucking-believable. Pardon me." He
looked around guiltily at the old women.
"What's happened?" I asked.
"The crime-scene guys are just starting," he
said. "I wanted you to have a quick look. Just so
you've seen it before they take him away. Are you
up to it?"
"I think so," I said, gulping slightly.
"It's not pretty," he said.
I had to put things like miniature hairnets
over my shoes. Oban told me not to touch
anything. Mounting the stairs required some care because
they were covered with a sheet. At the top Oban
turned to me and told me to take a deep breath.
He pushed the door open and stood back, leaving
me to go in first.
The body was sprawled on the floor, face
downwards, except there was no face. It looked
like an effigy but the head wasn't finished. I
recognized the clothes from the previous night. The
soles of his shoes were pointing up at me. The
lace on the right shoe was undone. Brown
corduroy trousers. Anorak. Above that just dark
wetness. I started to speak but my mouth was too
dry. I had to swallow several times. I felt
a hand on my back. "Steady, love," said
Oban.
"Where's his head?" I asked, in a voice that
didn't sound like my own.
"All over the place," said Oban.
"Repeated massive blows with a very heavy, very
blunt object, much of it after death. It was a
fucking frenzy. Hence all this."
I looked around. It was the red room. It was the
red room of my nightmares. I had thought of it as
an idea, a symbol, but I was standing in it. It
looked as if the room had been sprayed with
blood from a hose. The walls, even the ceiling,
thick globs on the ceiling that looked as if they
were about to drop on us but they had coagulated.
"You know, head wounds," said Oban, looking
round. "They always bleed a lot, don't they?"
I looked round. I tried to be dispassionate,
but I kept thinking about that irritating disgusting
presence on my doorstep last night, that
repellent urgency, all reduced to that wretched
bundle on the floor. I had put some 463
sort of curse on him. I had wanted him out of
my life forever. Had I wanted him dead?
"Take a look at this," said Oban.
He held a transparent folder, which contained
a piece of paper. Written on it in crude
capital letters was: MURDRUS BASTAD.
"That was lying on the body. Do you see?" he
said. "They can't even bloody spell."
"So they caught up with him," I said.
Oban nodded. "What a shithouse," he said.
"You've been here before?"
"Yes," I said.
"I thought it might be useful for you to have a look
at it. Take as long as you want. Or as
short."
My legs shook and I moved to sit down on
the arm of a chair but a man stepped forward and
prevented me. I apologized.
"What a fucking mess," Oban said, again.
"It looks like a slaughterhouse in a museum."
"Michael Doll was a collector," I
said. I mustn't be sick. I swallowed hard and
breathed shallowly through my mouth.
Oban pulled a face. "Really? What did
he collect?"
"Just anything he found. Stuff by the canal.
Anything he could carry. It was a kind of
illness."
"I don't envy the people who have to clear this out.
..." Oban carried on talking but I couldn't
hear him. I couldn't hear anything. Because suddenly
I had seen it. I walked across the room, I
had to maneuver carefully around the body. I
walked across and reached for something on a shelf. It
was between a jam-jar and a coil of rusting wire.
Somebody shouted something and I felt a hand tugging
at me.
"Don't touch," a voice said.
"That," I said, pointing. "T."
The man was wearing gloves and he leaned forward
and picked it up, very carefully.
"What's that?" Oban asked.
"You tell me," I said.
"It's a feeding cup, the kind you give
to toddlers. What's that written on it?"
"Emily," I said.
He looked puzzled. "You're not going to tell
me that Mickey Doll had a daughter called
Emily, are you?"
"No," I said. "But Philippa 465
Burton did."

38

"All right?" asked Oban, as we drew
away from the pavement where the group of people had become
a small crowd.
"Fine." I kept my voice firm and
smiled at him. I wasn't shaking. My voice
was steady. My breathing was even. I wound down the
window and let the warm wind blow into my face.
"It was unbelievable, wasn't it?" His face
had returned to normal, and his tone was jovial,
even gleeful. He looked more alert yet more
relaxed than I'd seen him in weeks. I
half expected him to start whistling through his teeth.
"Yes."
"Tough job for the scene-of-crime lads.
Nightmare. But there will be a lot of sympathy for the
people who did it, even so. Rough justice and all of
that. We have to tread carefully at the press
conference."
I closed my eyes for a minute and thought of
Doll's pulped remains, the sea of blood.
Red blood everywhere; a room dark red with
blood.
"So we come full circle, Kit."
"What?"
"It was Doll all along. After everything."
I made a noncommittal noise and gazed
out of the open window. The sky was blue and cloudless,
the sun golden; people on the street were dressed in
bright colors. It was a day of heat and light, like
the last gift of summer.
"Come on, Kit. You can put it behind you now.
It's over, admit it."
"Well ..."
"Let me guess. You're still not convinced. We
find Emily's drinking cup in Doll's room,
for Christ's sake, with her name written across
it--of course we'll have to confirm it with Mr.
Burton, but I think that's just crossing the
T's, don't you? But you're not convinced. What
would it take?" He turned his head and grinned
across at me as he said it. He sounded fond, rather
than exasperated.
"It's just that I don't understand."
"So? Who does? We don't need you to understand
any more. You're not required to conduct a seminar
about it to your colleagues, or whatever it 467
is you do. We just needed to find the person who
killed the women, and we have, thank God."
"No. I meant it doesn't make sense."
"Lots of things don't make sense." He
swerved to avoid a cyclist in neon Lycra,
leaned briefly on his horn. "But Doll was the
murderer, Kit."
I didn't reply.
"Kit? Come on, say it. Just once. It
won't hurt."
"I'm not saying that I think you're wrong.
..."
"But you won't say I'm right either."
"No."
He laughed. Then he put a warm hand over
mine. "You did well, Kit. Even though, in the
end, your instincts were mistaken, you did
excellently. Don't think I haven't
realized how hard it must have been for you, after
everything. But we'd have been all over the place
without you. You kept us on the straight and narrow."
"No," I said, and was surprised by how firm
my voice was. "No. I stopped you from charging
Doll weeks ago. If you'd charged him then,
guilty or not, he'd be alive now. In a
year's time, maybe he would have landed up in my
hospital. I told him he was safe."
"It does no good to think like that. We've all
made our mistakes on this one, but you saw
connections we didn't see. You stopped us from
making mistakes we were poised to make. You
prevented a Godawful mess."
"But ..."
"Christ, Kit, give it a rest. No more
buts. You're the most bloody-minded woman
it's ever been my pleasure and privilege to work
with."
"I'll put it on my CV," I said
drily.
"And the most honorable," he added. I looked
at him, but he was staring straight at the road
ahead.
I put a hand on his arm, lightly. "Thank
you, Daniel."