The Red Room (4 page)

3

"I've never been here before," he said, looking
around.
I couldn't help laughing at that. "Why on
earth should you have been? We've only met the
once. Remember?"
"Feels like more," he said, walking around as if
he were thinking of buying it. He went across to the
back window, which looked out over the expanse of
grass. "Nice view," he said. "You don't
see that from the front. Nice bit of green."
I didn't reply, and he turned 43
round with a smile that was betrayed by his eyes. They
flickered warily around the room as if he were an
animal that feared being caught from behind. I always
felt that my flat changed with each person who
entered it. I would see it through their eyes. Or,
rather, I would see it the way I imagined the person
would see it. This flat would look too bare
to Furth, lacking in comfort and decoration. There was a
sofa and a rug on a varnished wooden floor.
There was an old stereo in the corner and a pile of
CD'S stacked next to it. There were
bookshelves full of books, and books on the
floor. The walls were whitewashed and almost bare.
Most pictures irritated me or, worse still,
they stopped irritating me. I found it painful the
way, after weeks or months, a picture that had
unsettled me would become unnoticed, just another
part of the decoration. When I stopped noticing a
picture, I put it away or got rid of it
until I had only two. There was a painting of
two bottles on a table that my father had given
me when I was twenty-one. It was by a hopeless
old friend of his, a distant cousin. I could never
walk past it without it stopping me. And there was a
photograph of my father's father and his brother and
sister in front of a studio backcloth somewhere in
what must have been the mid-1920's. My grandfather
was wearing a sailor suit. All three of them
had a strange suppressed smile on their
faces, as if they were holding back a giggle at
a joke out of our view, out of our hearing. It was
a lovely photograph. One day, maybe in a
hundred years' time, someone would have that picture
on the wall and they would be amused by it and they would
wonder: Who were those children?
I looked at Furth and saw that for him, of
course, it meant nothing. Maybe there was just a
touch of bafflement and scorn. Is this all? This
is what Kit Quinn comes back to every night?
He stood too close to me and looked into my
eyes with an expression of concern that turned my
stomach. "How are you now?" he said. "Everything
all right with the face?"
I stepped back before he could stroke my scar.
"I didn't think we'd ever meet again," I
said.
"We felt bad about you, Kit," Furth said,
before adding hurriedly: "Not that it was anybody's
fault. He was like a mad animal. It took
four of us to lay him out. You should have paid more 45
attention when I told you he was a pervert."
"Is that what you've come round to say?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
"Chat."
"What about?"
He looked shifty. "We wanted some
advice."
"What?" I was so startled by the wild
unexpectedness of this that I had to make some effort
not to giggle "You're here about a case?"
"That's right. We wanted a chat. Have you got
anything to drink?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"A beer or something."
I went and found a bottle of something
Bavarian-looking in the back of the fridge and
brought it to him.
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
I fetched him a saucer from the kitchen. He
pushed the glass I had given him to one side and
took a swig from the bottle. Then he lit the
cigarette and drew on it several times. "I'm
working on the Regent's Canal murder." he said
finally. "You've heard about it?"
I thought for a moment. "I saw something in the
paper a few days ago. Body found by the
canal?"
"That's the one. What did you think?"
"Sounded sad." I grimaced at him. "A
little story at the bottom of a page. A young
drifter. The only reason there was any story at
all was that there were some nasty injuries. They
didn't even know her name, did they?"
"Still don't. But we've got a suspect."
I shook my head. "Well done. Now--was
He held up his hand. "Ask me the name of the
suspect."
"What?"
"Go on." He grinned widely and settled
back in the chair with his arms folded, waiting.
"OK," I said obediently. "What is the
name of the suspect?"
"His name is Anthony Michael Doll."
I stared at him, taking it in. He looked
back, cheerily triumphant. "There now, see
why you were just the person for the job? Perfect, eh?"
"Chance to get my own back," I said. "I
missed out on my chance to give him a kicking in the
cell, so perhaps I can help to send him 47
down for murder. Is that the idea?"
"No, no," he said, in a soothing tone.
"My boss was interested in you doing some work for us.
Don't worry, you get your fee. And it might
be fun. Ask your friend Seb Weller."
"Fun," I said. "How could I resist? And
we had such a good time before."
I went over to the fridge and pulled out an
open bottle of white wine. I poured myself a
full glass and held it up to the fading light.
Then I took a mouthful and felt the icy cold
liquid trickle down my throat. I stared out
the window, at the red sun low in the turquoise
sky. The rain had stopped and it was going to be a
beautiful evening. I turned back to Furth.
"Why do you think it's Doll?"
He looked surprised, and then pleased. "You
see? You're interested. He spends his days
fishing on the canal. He's there every bloody day.
He came forward when we had our appeal for
anybody who'd been in the area." Furth looked
sharply round at me. "Does it surprise you?"
"How?"
"A man like that, coming forward."
"Not necessarily," I said. "If he's
innocent, he's better off identifying himself. And
if he's guilty ..." I stopped. I
didn't want to be sucked into a consultation based
on Furth's thumbnail sketch of a suspect.
He winked at me anyway, as if he'd
caught me. "If he's guilty," he said,
"he might like to get involved in the inquiry, even
in a small way. What do you think?"
"It's been known," I said.
"Of course it's been known. People like that love
it. They want to be close to it, to feel how
clever they are. A little extra kick. The sick
bastards."
"So what did he say?"
"We haven't interviewed him."
"Why not?"
"We'll let him stew a bit. But we
haven't been lying down. We've got this young
officer called Colette Dawes. Nice
lady. Clever. She's got to know him. In plain
clothes, of course. Got him talking. You know the
sort of thing. Bit of a drink, bit of
flattery, bit of crossed legs when he's
looking, steer the conversation. In the meantime, she's
wearing a wire and we've got the tapes. 49
Hours of them."
"That's your investigation?" I said, baffled.
"Getting a female officer to flirt with him?"
Furth leaned forward with an urgent expression
on his face. "I'm not going to say anything," he
said, in a conspiratorial whisper. "We just
want your professional opinion of him. Off the
record. It wouldn't take long. Just look at
his file and then have a brief talk with him. You know
the kind of thing--a preliminary assessment of
him."
"Talk to him?"
"Sure. Have you got a problem with that?"
Of course I had a problem with that and now I
knew that I couldn't say no. "No problem,"
I said. "This woman, Colette Dawes,
does she know what she's doing?"
Furth pulled a face. "She can look after
herself. We're always around, anyway. Look,
Kit, I can understand you feeling nervous. We thought
it might be a way of making you feel better."
He took a sip from his beer. And you wanted
to make sure I wouldn't sue for compensation, I
thought to myself.
"Thank you, Doctor," I said. "Maybe it
would."
"So, what do you say?"
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out
over that hidden lawn trapped between the backs of
office buildings. It was early evening now but it
wasn't dark or even twilight. The light was
softening from harsh yellow into gold.
"It's a plague pit, you know," I said.
"What?"
"Bodies were tossed in a pit there during the
plague. Covered with quicklime. Buried.
Forgotten about."
"Bit creepy."
"No, it isn't," I said, turning back
to him. "I'll just say one thing now. I don't
know anything about your case. I think this woman
playing Mata Hari is a crackpot idea.
I don't know what authority you're doing this on
and I don't want to know. To me it seems
irresponsible, it may even be illegal, but then
I'm a doctor, not a lawyer."
"Will you let me know, though?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"How about a couple of days? There's 51
someone I need to talk to first."
"You'll ring?"
"Yes."
He went and I stayed for many minutes looking
out of the window. Not at Furth, not out of that window.
I looked out at the grass, watching the green
change and fade in the glorious evening. Dead people.
Dead people everywhere.

4

I phoned Rosa at once, at home. I
couldn't wait.
"Furth came to see me," I said.
"Who?"
"The detective. The one who was there when it
happened, when I was attacked."
I told her the whole story and as I told it
the more bizarre and unprofessional it sounded.
"And what did you say?" she asked finally.
"I was taken aback."
"But curious."
"Curious? I felt pulled."
"What does that mean, Kit?"
"I wake in the night. Or sometimes I
don't wake in the night. It hardly seems
to make a difference. And I go over and over it, as
if it is still happening to me. Or as if it is about
to happen and I can do something to stop it, wind back
the clock. It's like I am back in that room
again, and there's red blood everywhere. Mine.
His."
"So you want to meet Doll again and reduce
him to his human size?"
"You're a clever woman, aren't you?"
"You know, I've never thought being clever was very
important. Look, Kit, I'm just going
to say two things to you and they're the two things you must
have had in mind when you decided to ring me. The first
is whether you'll do yourself any good by seeing this man.
The second is that it doesn't really matter
what good it does you. You're being brought in to do a
job. Can you do that?"
"Yes. I think so."
There was a pause.
"It's dangerous to ask for advice, Kit.
You might not get the advice you wanted." She
gave a sigh. "I'm sorry. In my opinion
you shouldn't do this. Now why do I think you're not
going to pay any attention to what I 53
say?"
"It must be a bad line."
"Yes, it must be that."
I put down the phone. It was twilight
outside. Once more the rain splashed down the
window-panes and rattled and slapped in the wet
trees outside. Wild July, bashed and
drenched by warm gales. I went and stood by the
window and looked out at the garden below, the
waterlogged lawn.
A couple, holding hands, sloshed together across the
grass, through the piles of sodden blossom and the
shallow puddles. She turned her face toward
his, laughing in the half-darkness. I moved
away from the window. Love and work, that's what
gets you through the days.
The phone rang, startling me out of my reverie.
"Is that Kit?"
The voice sounded very far away. Crackly.
Was it abroad? Maybe not. New York can
sound closer than South London. It is, in a
way.
"Yes?"
"It's Julie." Dull silence. Julie.
Julie. Julie. Couldn't think of anybody.
"Julie Wiseman."
"Oh, Julie. But I thought you were ..."
She'd gone away. Dropped off the face of my
earth.
"I'm back in London."
Back from where? Should I know? I tried
to picture her as I'd last seen her. Dark
curly hair--pinned up, wasn't it? There was a
rush of memory, like a breath of warm air, that
made me smile. Cigarettes late at night
in cheap restaurants. One night we were all there
so late that the cooks came out of the kitchen with a
bottle of wine and sat with us. Above all,
Julie had done the thing we all said we wanted
to do and secretly knew we would never dare to.
She had been a math teacher in a secondary
school and she handed in her notice and set off
around the world or around South America or wherever it
was. I felt myself soften. I said that we'd
missed her and that it would be great to see her. And she
said it would be great to come and see me, and then it
quickly emerged that it would be great if she could do even
more than that. I remembered now. She'd given up
her flat when she left. What had she done with
her stuff? Given it all away, knowing 55
her. That was Julie, generous with her own
possessions, generous with your possessions. Could
she stay for a day or two? I paused for a moment.
I couldn't think of a single reason why it wouldn't
be better to have somebody else here with me for a bit.
She came through the door with a waft of elsewhere
about her. A vast rucksack and a brown canvas
bag hit the floor so that dust rose off them.
She wore brown leather shoes, rough khaki
trousers, a blue padded jacket that had a sort
of Tibetan look to it. Her face didn't just
look tanned. It was beyond tanned. It looked
sanded, seasoned, weather-blown, polished. Her
hands and wrists were brown as well, and her eyes,
bright as semi-precious stones, were grinning at a
joke you hadn't seen yet.
"Blimey, Kit, what on earth happened
to your face?"
"Oh, well, as a matter of fact ..."
But she was head down, rummaging in a plastic
bag.
"I've go something for you," she said. I
expected her to produce some hand-carved antique
Buddha, but it was a bottle of duty-free gin.
"I thought you might have some tonic to go with this," she
said. "I could pop out and get some."
Clearly there was no doubt that this was to be opened
and poured straight away.
"It's all right," I said. "I've got
some."
"And could I make myself something? I slept for
about thirteen hours on the plane."
"Where have you come from?"
"I stopped over for a couple of weeks in
Hong Kong," she said. "Amazing. Some fried
eggs maybe."
"And bacon?"
"That would be great. And fried bread if you've
got some. For the last couple of months I've
been having a dream about coming back to England and
having a real old fry-up--eggs and bacon and
tomatoes and bread all fried up together."
"I'll get some tomatoes while I'm at
it. There's a twenty-four-hour shop on the
corner."
"I've got something else for you too." She
got out a huge duty-free carton of
Marlboro cigarettes.
"Actually I don't smoke."
"I sort of knew that," Julie said 57
with a smile. "Do you mind if I light up?"
"Not at all."
Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting
opposite Julie at the kitchen table. I was
sipping at my gin and tonic. She was alternating
sips from her gin with gulps of treetrunk-brown
tea and assaults on the great platter of her very,
very late breakfast. As she ate she told me
bits of stories: treks at altitude,
canoes, hitchhikers, campfires, strange
foods, a flood, war zones, brief sexual
encounters, a full-blown affair in a
harborfront apartment in Sydney, crewing on a
yacht between Pacific Islands, waitressing
jobs in San Francisco and Hawaii and
Singapore, or was it S@ao Paulo and Santo
Domingo? And all this--it was understood--was like a
film trailer advertising coming attractions. The
full stories, in all their texture, would be
told to me in due course.
"I love this flat," she said. "I always
did."
I was puzzled for a moment.
"Was I living here before you left?"
"Of course," she said, mopping up a thick
pool of yolk with a corner of greasy bread.
"I've been here several times. I've been
to dinner here."
That was right. I remembered now. It felt like a
rebuke. She had done so much, seen so many
strange sunsets, had so many "experiences,"
all those sights, and all the time I'd been here in
Clerkenwell, going out to work, having a room
painted. My work had seemed so important, I
hadn't even taken a holiday in the time Julie
had been broadening her mind. I caught a
glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked so
pale. As if Julie had come back from being in the
sun and lifted a stone and found me stuck to the
underside, damp and sickly.
"But in a way I really envy you," she said, not
meaning it at all. "I stepped off the ladder. I
mean the career ladder. Now I'm back and I've
got to find a way back on. Here I am.
Back and totally unemployable." She gave a
laugh. She was clearly, and rightly I had
to admit, very proud of herself. "And you," she said, in
the moment I'd been dreading. "What have you been
up to? How did you get that amazingly sexy
scar?" 59
"Someone attacked me in a police cell."
"God!" She looked suitably impressed.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Because he was panicking, I
suppose."
"How awful." She chomped loudly for a few
seconds. "Was it really bad?"
"Pretty bad. It happened three months
ago and I went back to work today."
"Today? You don't mind me coming, do you?" Her
face creased in an anxious frown. "Landing on
you like this."
"No, it's fine. As long as it isn't for
too--was
"What else is happening? Apart from being
attacked by a madman and nearly dying, I
mean."
I searched for a significant event.
"Albie and I split up," I said.
"Finally."
"Yes," Julie said sympathetically. "I
remember you talking about having problems." Oh,
fuck, I thought to myself. Really? Three years
ago? I seemed to be living a life like one of
those old-fashioned deep-sea divers, walking
along the bottom very, very slowly in heavy lead
boots. "So it there anybody new?"
"No," I said. "It only happened
recently."
"Oh," she said. "What about work?"
"I'm still at the clinic."
"Oh," she said.
I had to think of something. I just had to. Or
else I might as well leave the room and phone
the Samaritans.
"I've been asked to do some work for the police.
Maybe it might even turn into a kind of
consultancy." Saying it out loud to an outsider
made it seem real.
She took a giant slug of gin, swallowed
it, then yawned. I could see her white teeth,
pink tongue, a glistening tunnel of throat.
"Amazing," she said. "Did I tell you about
this man who picked me and a friend up when we were going
up to the Drakensberg Mountains?"
She hadn't but we moved over to the sofa and she
did now. The full version, this time. It felt
soothing, Julie stretched out like a cat talking with
fond pleasure about these faraway dangers while
I took a sip of my drink every few 61
minutes, and outside the night came on very
slowly, like a game of Grandmother's Footsteps that
I could never win. And finally I looked up and
Julie was asleep, her drink still in her hand, her
brain having told her strong brown body that it was
in Thailand or Hong Kong, and that it was actually
three in the morning. I slid the glass from her
fingers and she murmured something unintelligible.
Then I fetched a duvet from the cupboard in my
bedroom and covered her with it, right up to her chin.
She gave a sigh and wrapped herself up in it like a
hamster in its nest. I couldn't help smiling at
the sight. This wanderer was already more comfortable in my
flat than I was.
I went into my bedroom and took off my
clothes. It had been the strangest day--frantic
with activity after so many weeks of convalescence.
My head buzzed with thoughts. My skin felt
cold and exposed, like a twig peeled of its
bark. I climbed into bed and pulled my own
duvet around me. I couldn't seem to get it
comfortably over me. I knew that it was square but
it felt as if it were lozenge-shaped and there always
seemed to be a bit of my body exposed. At
last I allowed myself to think of the girl found dead
by the canal. Lianne, that was her name, or the name
she had called herself. Just Lianne. A lost
girl with no real name. I would find out more about her
soon; tomorrow, perhaps. I had to sleep, so that my
brain would be clear for tomorrow. Tomorrow I had to see
Doll. I touched my scar. Closed my eyes.
She wasn't by the canal anymore,
obviously. Lianne with no last name. She would
be in a cold metal cabinet, filed away. I
felt, almost physically, the size of London
stretching around me in all directions. There were
bad things going on in some of those houses. But I
tried to convince myself that it didn't matter
statistically. Think of all the millions and
millions of houses in which good things were happening,
or nothing much at all beyond loneliness or
neglect. That was the really amazing statistic.
All those houses in which no serious harm was being
done. It didn't cheer me up but I fell
asleep anyway.