The Red Room (24 page)

33

I phoned in my apologies to the management
meeting at the Welbeck. I canceled my lunch
with Poppy. I sat in the car next to Oban,
while he swore and sweated and told me for the
hundredth time that it made no fucking sense. His
voice was just a drone, like the traffic. I
pressed my fingers against my temples. There had
to be an explanation. We were just looking 415
at this in the wrong way, somehow. If we
approached it from a different angle, we would see
it differently. All the things that made no sense
at all would shine with meaning. I closed my eyes
and tried to relax my mind, so that the knot of
incomprehension would unsnarl. I waited for
clarity to float down. Nothing happened. I
groaned to myself and rubbed my eyes. Beside me,
Oban's face was glum. He wasn't looking
forward to this visit either.
His mobile rang and he picked it up.
"Yes," he barked. "Yes. Go on." His
expression changed, and he leaned forward slightly
in his seat, gripping the steering-wheel with his free
hand. "Say that again. OK, OK, we'll be on
our way back in, say, half an hour. No
more. Stay put."
He put down the phone. "Fuck," he said
once more.
"What?"
"Fuck."
"Yeah, but what else, Daniel?"
He pulled up outside the Teales' house
with a shriek of brakes. "You'll never believe
what I just heard."
"Tell me! What?"
"No time now, I'll save it," he said, and
sprang from the car.

"No," she said, in a whisper. Her face
drained of color as she stared at us. Her eyes
looked huge and dark. "No!" She spoke
louder this time, fiercely, and lifted both hands
to her mouth as if she was praying. "I don't
understand. It can't be true. What does it mean?"
"We don't know," I said. I glanced
briefly at Oban to see if he wanted to add
anything to my bald statement, but he was sitting
perfectly still, staring down at his hands, which were resting
on the kitchen table, as if he was trying
to remember a fragment of a dream.
She opened her mouth to say something, but then
dropped her head into her hands. Her glorious
hair hung over her face like a curtain.
"Can't be happening," I heard her mutter. And
then again. "It can't be happening."
Behind us on the cooker something hissed then boiled
over. A smell of burning sugar filled the
kitchen but Bryony didn't move. Oban
lumbered to his feet and lifted a pan 417
off the hob, then came back to where Bryony was
crouched over the table.
"One of the victims wrote down your name," I
said. "Yet you say that you never met her?"
"I didn't," she said slowly. "I really
didn't."
Oban lowered his big, tired face into his
hands.
"You're sure, Bryony? We meet so many
people, maybe you didn't know her name. Maybe she
knew you."
"I've never met her. Don't you think I'd
have remembered, with all the stuff in the papers?
I've never set eyes on her. I'd never
heard her name before she was killed."
"Nor Lianne?"
"For God's sake, I didn't meet her.
What more can I say?" Her voice was a wail.
"What about the name Daisy? Daisy Gill?"
This from Oban, who had suddenly lifted his head.
"No! No! Who's she? Another victim?"
Oban silently handed her a photograph I
had never seen before. The police can work fast when
they have to. It was one of those strips of four,
taken in a photo booth, of a girl with a peaky
triangular face and spiky black hair. In
the first she was serious, her lips slightly open
to show a chipped tooth. In the second she was
beginning to grin, and was glancing sideways,
presumably at some invisible friend. In the third,
Daisy was giggling, and had shifted sideways, so
that the left slice of her face was cut off. In
the fourth, she was gone and only a hand waved in the
air.
Bryony stared at the photo for a minute then
pushed it away, shaking her head violently.
"No," she spluttered, then burst into tears. I
leaned across the table and took her hand. She held
on to it as if she was drowning and only I could
save her.
"Yet Philippa Burton wrote down your
name before she died," said Oban quietly, almost as
if he was talking to himself.
"I know she fucking did!" snapped
Bryony, through her tears. "I heard you loud and
clear. Sorry. Sorry. Shooting the messenger
and all that. This is a shock, to say the least."
She wiped away her tears with the heel of her hand,
and made a visible effort to compose herself, sitting
up straighter in the chair and pushing her 419
hair behind her ears. "I need to get a grip on
this. Shall I get us all some coffee?"
"I never say no to coffee," I replied,
at the same moment as Oban said, "Not for me,
thanks."
She stood up in one graceful movement. She
was wearing a long black cotton skirt with a
black T-shirt over it and her feet were bare.
There was a silver chain around her ankle.
"Give me a few seconds to let this sink
in," she said, as she padded over to the kettle.
"Please."
Oban smiled tiredly at me and undid the
top button of his shirt. His blue eyes
seemed even smaller and paler than usual, and
he kept blinking them, as if he could somehow clear
his vision. His straggly hair was greasy and his
face unshaven. On the way over here, between
frantic calls on his mobile, he had turned
to me and said, "I want you with me on this from now
on." It hadn't sounded peremptory, but humble,
as if he had turned from boss to supplicant in
an instant. There was no doubt that I was the hero
of the hour: the woman who had seen what was invisible
to everyone else. I didn't feel particularly
good about it. I had discovered a pattern, sure,
but one that made no sense. Rather, it actually
destroyed whatever sense there had been remaining
to us. In the meantime, there was a killer out there.
I picked up the picture of Daisy Gill
and stared at it. There was a stud in her eyebrow and,
I saw, one in her tongue. There was a locket
round her neck. In the third photo, the one where
she was sliding out of the frame, I could see it more
clearly. It was a little heart, like the one that
Lianne had been wearing when she was killed,
bearing the word "Best ..." I wondered if
Daisy's locket said his... Friend."
I watched Bryony as she spooned coffee
into two mugs. She was biting her lower lip and
frowning slightly, but when she felt my gaze on
her she turned her head and gave me a rueful
grimace.
"Is your husband here?" I asked.
"Gabe? No, he's just gone down the road
to the post office. He'll be here any minute.
He doesn't usually work until mid-afternoon.
Here, you don't take milk, do you?"
"No milk, no sugar. Thanks."
She sat down at the kitchen table 421
again, wrapping her fingers around her mug as if for
comfort. Suddenly she looked terribly young and
vulnerable.
"All right," she said to us. "What happens
now?"
Oban cleared his throat, and said, with
portentous meaninglessness, "We'll be making
extensive inquiries."
Bryony stared at him, looking baffled.
"Look," I said, "it makes no obvious
sense that a victim should know the identities of
two other victims or potential victims.
We don't know when she wrote down the names, of
course, so we don't know if Lianne was already
dead, or not." I hesitated for a beat, but she was
an intelligent woman. She already knew what
I was about to say. "One thing it seems to suggest
is that it wasn't just a mugger by the canalside."
She nodded. Her lips were white.
"And that the killer isn't just acting randomly,"
I added gently.
"No," she murmured. "I see."
"So the police will be spending some time with you now,
trying to find out ..."
As I spoke, I heard the sound of a key
turning in the front door, then someone whistling
tunelessly in the hall.
"Gabe!" called Bryony. "Gabe, I'm
in the kitchen. With the police."
The whistling stopped abruptly. When he came
in, he was shrugging off a battered leather
jacket. His face was tense. "What's
happened?" he asked. "Bry? Are you OK?"
"Please don't be alarmed, Mr. Teale,"
said Oban, but Bryony cut in, "Philippa
Burton wrote my name down before she was
killed."
Gabriel opened his mouth but didn't seem able
to say anything. He just stared at her, at us. He
looked absolutely stricken.
"Mine and the girl Lianne's, and someone
called Daisy," continued Bryony slowly, as
if to make sure he was taking it in. His
horror seemed to give her new calm and
resolve. "Daisy Gill, did you say?"
"That's right, Mrs. Teale."
"So it looks like it wasn't just a mugging. And
it looks as if he wanted to get me, not just
anyone."
Gabriel came over and knelt beside 423
her chair. He gathered both her hands in his and
kissed them, and then he buried his head in her
lap. She stroked his dark, tousled hair
softly, then took his head and lifted it so that he
was looking at her. "It's all right, you know," she
said. I thought she was probably reassuring herself
as well as him. "It's all going to be all right,
I promise. Nothing will happen. Do you hear,
my darling?"
"Can we ask you a few more questions before we leave
you in the capable hands of my detectives?" said
Oban.
Gabriel got up, and stood behind Bryony,
both hands on her shoulders.
"Do you know a man called Will Pavic?"
asked Oban.
I stared at him--whichyou was he asking that?
"I don't think so. Do we, Gabe?"
"Well, of course I know who he is," said
Gabriel. "I mean, most people know him in this
area."
"Why?" Oban asked. "I mean, I don't
even know the woman who lives next door, let
alone the couple across the road."
Gabriel raised his palms. "I meant,
we're all in the same kind of world. I run a
community theater and one of the things we do is to try and
get some of the people who feel most isolated and
abandoned by their community involved again. He runs
a hostel for young people. And he's kind of famous,
isn't he? He's always, er, how shall I put it?
Making waves. We come across each other, sure.
That's all, though. Why? Why do you ask about
him?"
"That's all for now," Oban said.
"Detective Inspector Furth will be wanting
to talk to you, though."
We left them in the kitchen, Gabriel with his
hands still on his wife's shoulders; she with her head
twisted round to look up at him. She looked
terrified, and I was flooded by a sense of dread.
"What do you make of this, Kit?" Oban said,
as we drove back toward the station. "Guess
what I heard on the way over: Three calls
were made between the Burton household and
Pavic's center during the month leading up
to Mrs. Burton's death."
"Oh," I said. I felt cold to the bones,
though the day was sticky. 425
"Oh? Is that all? Jesus, Kit, did you
hear? The first two calls were just a minute or so
long. The final one lasted eighty-seven
minutes. What do you make of that, eh?"
"I don't know."
"Pavic, eh? This is going to be interesting."
"Very interesting," I said slowly. Then: "I
think," I said painfully, "that I ought to mention
something."
"Hang on." He punched some numbers
into his phone. "Tell me later."
"All right."
I leaned my forehead against the window and
briefly closed my eyes. What a colossal
mess.

34

We pulled in at the police station and Oban
leaped out and set off at speed so that I had to run
to keep up with him.
"What are we doing?" I said breathlessly, to the
back of his head.
"Talking to some people."
A uniformed officer joined from a corridor
to one side and moved into step with Oban. "Is he
here yet?" Oban asked.
"He's in Two," the man replied. "You
want me to talk to him?"
"We'll do it straight away. Won't take
a minute."
I followed Oban as he turned left and then
right down the corridor. We came to a door and
Oban knocked briskly. It opened and a
policewoman stepped out. She nodded
respectfully.
"Is he all right?"
"Don't know, sir," the woman said. "He
hasn't really opened his mouth. Except
to yawn."
"Stay here," he said, to her, not to me. "We
won't be more than five minutes."
He held the door open for me and I stepped
inside. I don't know what I was expecting.
I hadn't really had time to think. So when I saw
Will Pavic I felt as if, quite unexpectedly,
I had been punched in the face. He was leaning
on the far side of the table, his hands in his
pockets. He looked round and caught my eye.
Even my legs felt unsteady. He 427
displayed almost no reaction except for the smallest
trace of a sardonic smile. He was wearing a
gray suit and a white shirt with no tie. I
wondered if he had actually been arrested. Did
they still take ties away from men to stop them hanging
themselves? I turned toward Oban. "I didn't
..." was all I managed at first. "I didn't
realize ..."
"Mr. Pavic has kindly come in for a quick
word. Obviously we need to clear one or two
things up. Please sit down."
Oban gestured at one of the chairs by the table.
Will sat down. He still didn't speak. I leaned
on the wall just inside the door, as far away from
him as I could get. I looked at him but his
bored gaze was on the table. It was an expression
I already recognized, unyielding, opaque. I
was gibbering by the door but Oban was affable and
relaxed, sitting down opposite Will as if they
were having a drink together.
"There've been developments in the murder
case involving Lianne and Philippa
Burton." No response from W. Oban
gave a cough. "Maybe you know there was a further
attack by the canal on a woman named Bryony
Teale. I think you may know her husband,
Gabriel."
"I've heard of him," Will said tonelessly.
"I don't know him."
"He'd heard of you. But then, you're pretty
well known, aren't you, Mr. Pavic? And you'd
had contact with Lianne, of course. Until this
morning, I must admit that I doubted there was
anything that connected the women in this case."
Will's eyes narrowed and the sour smile became more
apparent, but he didn't speak.
"You've never come across Bryony Teale?"
Oban continued. "She's a photographer.
Apparently she spends a lot of time walking
around this area, in the streets and by the canal."
"No," Will said.
"What about Philippa Burton? Do you know
her? Have you met her? Heard of her?"
Behind my back I clenched my fists, my
fingernails digging into the palms of my hands.
Will shook his head. "No," he said.
"Why should you?" said Oban. "She lives over
in Hampstead. Married to a businessman. But I
suppose you meet all sorts of people."
No reply. This time he looked over 429
at me. I didn't look away. I tried
to make a face at him conveying that, although I was a
part of the investigation, I was still aware of the
awkwardness of the situation and also how completely
unnec it was to interrogate him in this way. It was
a lot for one expression to convey, and it
probably came out as a form of panic. It
didn't seem to matter, though. Will was looking at
me as if I was a coat Oban had hung up
on the way in.
"As I was saying," said Oban, "I wasn't
convinced of any sort of link. I just assumed
women were being attacked at random. Dr. Quinn,
though, she nagged away at the idea of a link.
Now she's found a note kept by Philippa
Burton. It was all there: Lianne's name,
Bryony Teale's. Amazing, don't you
reckon? Two of the victims' names written
down by the other victim."
Will gave a tired shrug. "What's this about?"
"That's what I was getting on to. We
checked her phone calls for the last month or so.
It was mostly what you'd expect, her mum,
husband at work, couple of friends, a travel
agent, that sort of stuff, but there was a funny
thing. On July the ninth, a call was made from the
house to your hostel. Now, I know what you're
going to say, but it wasn't to the payphone you've
got in the hallway, the one that people use to do their
drug deals."
"They don't use that phone to make drug
deals," Will said. "I think you'll find that dealers
prefer their own mobile phones."
"The point I was making is that the call was
made to the phone in your office. We were interested
in any comment you might like to make on that."
If this had been an exam testing
impassivity, Will would have got ten out of ten. But
it wasn't an exam, and I knew that any
normal person in Will's situation would have been
startled by the connection between the women, then thoroughly
taken aback by the call made to his own phone.
A normal innocent person would have started behaving
like a guilty person. Will just looked bored. "I
have no comment," he said.
"Do you mean you're refusing to answer? That is
your right."
"No, I don't mean that. I don't know
what sort of comment you're expecting. Ask me
questions and I'll answer them." 431
"Did you talk on the phone to Philippa
Burton?"
"No."
"Do other people have access to the phone?"
Another shrug. "Probably."
"I don't want "probably." Yes or
no."
Will clenched his jaw. "Yes," he said.
"Supervised access?"
"I'm out a lot. My assistant, Fran,
is there most of the time. We have lots of casual
helpers and volunteers. But I'm sure the
phone is left unattended at times."
"Was Lianne staying at the hostel at that
time?"
"She never stayed at the hostel. She might have
been around."
"It's an important point because this call was
made before either of the murders occurred."
"Obviously," said W.
"I'm sorry," said Oban. "Am I
missing something? What's so obvious?"
Will drummed his fingers lightly on the table.
"It's not important," he said.
"But what did you mean?"
Will sighed. "If these people were talking to each other,
then it was before they were murdered. That's all I
meant."
"Who said they were talking to each other?"
"You did."
"No. I said a call had been made from
Philippa's phone to yours. She could have talked
to you. For example. Except, of course, now
you've assured us that she didn't. But it might have
been someone else. Or else somebody else
rang from that phone. There are endless
possibilities. So it would now be more useful
than ever to know when Lianne was at the hostel. Do
you have records?"
"They're not very precise."
"That's a pity," Oban said, his benign tone
cracking at the edges. "Some detailed records
might have been extremely helpful."
Will pushed back his chair, the way people used to do
after finishing large Victorian meals. Its
metal legs squeaked horribly on the
linoleum floor. He looked engaged for the first
time, which with Will Pavic was the same as saying he was
angry. "You know," he said, "after years of
experience, I've discovered that the only 433
way to stop people like you getting at my records is
not to keep them."
For a moment Oban concentrated very hard on
removing invisible dirt from his fingernails. "Mr.
Pavic, I'm not much interested in whatever
political point it is you're trying to make.
A young woman who spent time at your hostel has
been murdered. Another victim called the
hostel. I'm sorry if you find that boring."
Then there was a silence. When Will spoke his
voice was very quiet, but also clear and icy, so I
could hear it from across the room. "I work with these people
all the time," he said. "They're invisible.
Something happens and people like you get terribly
interested. Then you go away. So you'll forgive me
for not being grateful for the attention." He stood
up. "You don't seem to understand how my house
works. People don't punch a clock. They don't
write in a little book when they use the phone."
Now, for the first time, he looked at me with clear
recognition. "It's not Cheltenham Ladies'
College. It's more like a little rock in the middle
of the sea. People get washed up on it. They cling
to it for a bit. Then they get washed away again.
If they are a little stronger than they were when they
arrived, that's about the best I can hope for."
"Was Lianne stronger when she left?"
Now, despite everything. Will couldn't hide the
sadness in his eyes. "I don't know," he said.
When he left, he didn't look at me and
I didn't hold out my hand or say anything.
But when he was gone, I bit my lip and told
Oban in faltering, half-formed sentences that in the
last week or so I had been seeing Will
Pavic. Sort of. Oban looked
punch-drunk and flabbergasted, as if I had
woken him from a very deep sleep only to tell him
something incomprehensible.
"Pavic?" he said dully. "But I thought
... But what about ... You and him? Oh, well."
He gave a puzzled frown. "Pavic? You're
sure? You and him, a couple?"
"We're not exactly a couple."
"Like my wife and me. I know what you mean."