The Red Room

by Nicci French

  “Hello,” she murmured, struggling into a sitting position so that her pale orange hair fell forward. She had a striking, slightly flat face, with high cheekbones and a firm jaw. Her eyes were pale brown, almost golden.

  “You’ve had a shock,” I continued, “but you’re quite safe now. There is no need for you to be frightened. All right?”

  She nodded and half smiled. “Sorry,” she said, in a low voice. “Sorry to be so feeble.”

  I smiled back. “Don’t apologize. Is there anything you need? Tea? Something to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Look, it’s beginning to get light outside.” I gestured to the small window. Outside, the dark had become gray. “Night’s nearly over.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to very soon. Where is home?”

  “Home,” she repeated vaguely, and lifted a hand to her head. “Why do I feel so strange?”

  “You’ve had a shocking experience. It’s normal to feel strange.”

  “Like people after the football-disaster thing?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I’m not that kind of person.” She trailed her fingers over her face, as if she were tracing her features to remind herself of who she was. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?” Oban was going to be even more glum when he heard that.

  “I remember bits, like in a fog. Tell me what happened. Please.” She leaned forward and touched the back of my hand softly.

  I thought of those confused misty few seconds in Stretton Green police station, the warm feeling of the blood on my face. “You were attacked by the canal late last night. But you were lucky. Two men came to your aid. Your attacker ran off. Obviously anything you can remember will be a help but don’t force anything. Just let it come back of its own accord—don’t block it out.”

  She nodded and sat up straighter, pulling the sheet around her. “My head aches,” she said, “and I’m thirsty. Can I have a glass of water?”

  I poured water from the jug on the locker beside her into a plastic beaker, and held it out. When she took it, her hand was trembling violently, so that drops spilled onto the sheet and she had to wrap the other hand round the beaker as well.

  “Thank you,” she said. “God, I’m tired. I’m so tired now. Is Gabriel coming soon?”

  “Gabriel?”

  “My husband.”

  “I’m sure the police will have contacted him.”

  “Good.” She lay back and her hair spread on the pillow.

  “Before you rest, Bryony, could you tell me what you remember?”

  “I remember… I remember a shape in the darkness. Coming out of the darkness.” She closed her eyes. “And someone shouting.” Her eyes snapped open. “I can’t,” she said. “Please. Not yet. It’s a jumble. When I try and grab hold of something it slides away from me, like trying to remember a dream. A horrible, horrible dream.”

  “It’s OK. Take your time. Did you recognize the person who attacked you?”

  “No! No, I’m sure I would remember that, wouldn’t I? Or would I?”

  “And what,” I asked her as neutrally as I could, “about the men who helped you?”

  “What?” She blinked and rubbed her face again.

  “Had you seen them before, those two men?”

  “Seen them? No. I don’t know. I don’t know. Who were they? Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

  I stood up and crossed to the little window, where morning was breaking. It looked straight into another room. I could see an empty bed, a locker, a phone on wheels, just like the ones in Bryony’s room. My brain was seething. What the fuck had Doll been doing there? I would have to speak to him too. Later, though. My mouth was parched from the whiskey I’d downed last night, my eyes ached in their sockets. I needed caffeine.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bryony.” I turned back to her. She was staring at me, waiting for me to speak. “It’s very important that if you remember anything, anything at all, any detail, no matter how irrelevant it seems to you, you tell someone. The police. Me. But someone. All right?”

  She nodded. At that moment, the door swung open and Oban pushed his head into the room. “Mrs. Teale,” he said, “you have a visitor to see you. Your husband is on his way up now.”

  “I’ll leave you now, Bryony, but I’ll come and see you later, if that’s all right,” I said, moving toward the door where Oban was waiting, his great weary brow puckered with anxiety. She nodded at me and half closed her eyes.

  “Well?” said Oban, as soon as we were in the corridor.

  “She doesn’t remember much.”

  “Fuck,” he said. Then: “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “She will, though,” I said. “She’s just had a shock. Give her time.”

  “Time, you say. Time is the one thing I don’t want to give. What if he strikes again?”

  A tall man strode past us, the husband, I guessed. He had a straight nose, dark hair and thick dark eyebrows, and he reminded me of a picture of a Roman emperor in one of the books I’d had as a child.

  “Do you want me to speak to her later?” I asked Oban.

  “Would you?”

  “Sure. And, as you said yourself, I think it’s best for a woman to talk to her, given what’s just happened.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What about Doll? Should I see him?”

  “Fuck,” he said again. “I don’t know. He’s at the police station now, making a statement.”

  “So he definitely wasn’t the attacker?” I asked cautiously.

  “Oh, God, Kit, ask me in a few hours’ time. The other witness is there as well. Sensible type, for once.”

  “A man in a suit with a mobile phone, you mean.”

  “Yeah, all that. Anyway, I’m on my way back there now, so I’ll find out more, maybe.” He gave a disgusted grunt. “Just maybe.”

  “OK, well, give me a call. On my mobile—I may well be out.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” His tone was preoccupied. I could almost hear his brain churning round and round, like a wheel in mud. Then he said, “Do you know what really pisses me off ?”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got three witnesses, if you count bloody Mickey Doll. One’s a bereaved little child. One’s in shock. One’s a fucking pervert and weirdo who can’t string three thoughts together, and who’s a suspect anyway—or would be if it was possible. I need a break here.”

  “Give it time. Maybe you’ve just got a break.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Speak to you later, then.”

  __________

  I was driven back in a police car through the early morning. The roads were already full of traffic. The wet pavements gleamed in the low sunlight. The metal shutters outside newsagents were being scrolled up. Asian grocers were arranging oranges and baskets of plums in pyramids outside their shops. A refuse van moved slowly along, picking up sacks that had been left by the side of the road. I lay back and watched London move past me. I thought about Will, his frowning face in the candlelight, and about Bryony Teale with her apricot hair and her smile and trembling hands. I pictured Bryony alongside Lianne, and Philippa. I touched my scar. Welcome to the club, I thought to myself. Then I tried not to think at all.

  27

  Julie was still in bed. I could hear her turning over on her divan in the room that a long time ago had been my study. I boiled the kettle and heaped several tablespoons of coffee beans into the grinder. I covered it with a tea-towel before turning it on, but still I heard Julie groan through the walls. I put my nose close to the coffee and inhaled deeply. In the fridge I found a nectarine, which I quartered and put on a plate, and a small pot of Greek yogurt. I drank the strong, rich coffee slowly, between small bites of sweet juicy nectarine and creamy spoonfuls of yogurt. It was seven o’clock.

  I had to arrange to see Doll and maybe the other witness. I had to visit Bryo
ny Teale. And I wanted to see Will. I lifted my hand and put it against my neck, my cheek. My skin felt soft and tender. I closed my eyes and let his face come into my mind. Maybe he didn’t want to see me again, though—maybe that was it, a few hours in the middle of one sleepless night.

  Julie staggered in, wearing a man’s shirt that looked suspiciously like one of Albie’s. Where had she found that? “Hi,” she said vaguely, and padded over to the fridge. She poured herself a mug of milk and drank it in one go. Then she turned to me, with a white mustache on her upper lip. “Everything OK?”

  “Yes. I guess.”

  “Emergency over?”

  “For the time being.”

  “Good. Want a slice of toast?”

  “No thanks.”

  I went and stood by the window, looking out on to the street, as if he’d be walking there.

  “I wish…” I stopped.

  “Yes? Tell me?”

  I had his home number. Why not? I rang him. There were several rings before he answered. The receiver was picked up and there was a muffled greeting. It sounded something like: “Unngh.”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Kit.”

  There was another unintelligible sound followed by a pause. Gathering his faculties perhaps. “Did you just wake up?” he said.

  “I’ve just got in,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was called out.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause. “Do you want to have breakfast?”

  “Now?”

  “What’s the time?” I heard some fumbling and a groan. “At about eight?”

  “At your place?”

  “I don’t really eat much at my place.”

  I was disappointed. I wanted to see his home. People say that you’re strongest on your own territory. It’s not true. Your own territory is where you’re vulnerable. You can play at being a tourist everywhere else, but the place where you sleep will give things away about you. Somehow I found it hard to imagine Will Pavic living anywhere. He gave me directions to what he described as a pretty basic café that he went to on his way to work. I put the phone down. How many hours’ sleep had I had? One. Maybe two. I felt as if there was somebody small inside my head jabbing the back of my eyeballs with slightly warmed needle points. I went to the bathroom, filled the basin with cold water, dipped my face in it and held it under for as long as I could manage. I looked at it in the mirror, water running off it. Had last night really happened? It felt confused in my mind now, different bits running together, like in a dream. That face, my face, was the best evidence that something had occurred. Pale, hollow-eyed—what a sight.

  __________

  Andy Café was full of smoke and people in donkey-jackets and steel-capped boots. Will waved me over from the far corner. I sat opposite him and we didn’t touch.

  “I’m having a basic fry-up,” he said. “What about you?”

  “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend their coffee.”

  “Tea, then.”

  “What about food?”

  “I ate something when I got in.”

  Will’s food arrived, stacked on a large oval plate, with two uncompromisingly dark brown cups of tea. He loaded some fried egg, bacon and tomato onto his fork.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before filling his mouth.

  “What about?”

  He had to chew and swallow for a long time before he was able to speak. He took a gulp of tea. I took a gulp of tea. “Leaving like that,” he said. “I don’t sleep. I get restless. It’s better to go.”

  I didn’t speak and Will carried on eating. He wasn’t looking at me.

  “You don’t need to make excuses,” I said. “I suppose I’d like you to be honest with me. I’m tired of playing games with people. Or maybe just tired.”

  Will was mopping up egg yolk from his plate with a piece of fried bread. It was almost more than I could bear at this time of the morning. He put it into his mouth and chewed it vigorously. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He raised his eyes and looked at me. As he did so I realized how rare that was. He was always looking to one side, over my shoulder. I had seen him naked, I had been to bed with him, yet I had hardly looked in his eyes. He was some years older than me, about forty, but looked older with graying hair and a face that wasn’t so much wrinkled as creased over his ferocious high cheekbones. But his eyes were gray and very clear, like a child’s eyes.

  “It wasn’t just that,” he said, his face coloring slightly. “I looked at you when you’d fallen asleep. I brushed the hair off your face. You’re a heavy sleeper.” He smiled slightly. “You looked lovely.”

  “Look, you don’t have to… I know I’m not…”

  “Shut up and listen. What I was trying to say is that you looked different. It was the first time I had ever seen you when you didn’t look sad or anxious or…” He hesitated and then said, “Or too hopeful.”

  “Oh, well, hopeful,” I said. It made me sound pathetic, like a spaniel that was going to be kicked.

  “You’d even looked a bit sad when you’d walked across your room and kissed me. But then, when you were asleep and didn’t know anyone was there, you looked young and peaceful.”

  I took a sip of the last of my tea. It was even browner and more bitter than the rest had been.

  “And,” continued Will, “I just had the sudden feeling that the best favor I could do you was not to be around.”

  “I don’t need to be protected,” I said. “I can make up my own mind about what’s best for me. And, anyway, I think you’re maybe quite a happy person, in your own grim sort of way. Especially considering the number of people who hate you. It’s amazing, I would have thought that a part of your job was to get on with the police and the social services.”

  “I don’t have a job,” Will said, frowning. “A lot of these kids I’m trying to keep clear of the police and social services.”

  “You talk as if they’re out to get you.”

  “They are out to get me.”

  “I’ve heard people talk about drug-dealing on your premises. They said they’ll charge you with conspiracy. You could go down for ten years.”

  “Fuck them,” he said dismissively.

  “Well, do you allow it?”

  He gave a noncommittal grunt.

  “I’m not wired, you know.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve seen the place. Obviously we keep dealers out, or try to. But it’s the culture. We’re trying to help these people. It’s complicated and messy. It’s not like reading out a paper at a seminar.”

  “Do you know what I think?”

  Now he did allow his features to relax into a sort of good humor. “No, Kit. I don’t know what you think.”

  “I think there’s a bit of you that would like to be arrested and sent to prison, just to confirm your view of what the world is like.”

  “I’m not interested in gestures.”

  “That depends if you count martyrdom as a gesture.”

  I looked at him, unsure whether he would flare up or give his sarcastic laugh. He seemed unsure himself. “Maybe it’s flattering to be hated,” he said finally.

  “I think that might be one of the definitions of paranoia,” I responded. “Maybe the idea that everybody’s out to get you is preferable to the fear of just being ignored.”

  “But you just said that everybody was out to get me.”

  “Yeah, I forgot. Are you ever going to ask me back to your place?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You talked about not being able to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. I’m curious to see how you manage it in your own bed.”

  He looked at his watch. “I’d invite you back now but it’s about twenty to nine. I’ve got people to meet.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  He looked the closest to embarrassed that I’d ever seen. “Sure,” he said. “Anytime.”

  “What about tonight?”

&n
bsp; “That’s a possibility,” he said. “I’d just have to warn you, among various warnings, that it’s quite austere. I mean, it lacks a woman’s touch.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Suddenly he looked more somber. “Don’t expect too much from me, Kit,” he said, in a return to his usual starker tone.

  I gave a sigh. “I don’t think I expect very much at all,” I said, and I gave a huge yawn.

  “Tired?”

  “I think today’s going to be a bit of a struggle.”

  “What happened last night?”

  I sat back in my chair and looked at him. “Do you really want to know?” I said. “It’s nothing interesting.”

  “Yes, I want to know.”

  So I ordered two more teas for us and I gave him a précis of my night at the hospital.

  “So what are you going to do now?” he said, when I’d finished.

  “She was deeply shocked when I saw her. I’ll talk to her over the next few days and see if I can find out anything.”

  “Walking along the canal after midnight,” Will said scornfully. “Honestly!”

  “You mean she was asking for it?”

  “I mean she was a fucking idiot.” He took a sip of tea. “What was her husband called?”

  I thought for a moment, trying to get the pea-soup fog in my brain to disperse. “Gabriel,” I said. That sarcastic smile again. “Do you know him?”

  “I know who he is.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Haven’t you heard of that theater building that’s opened in one of the warehouses by the railway? The Sugarhouse or something. You know, Hungarian mime artists on stilts, that sort of thing. That’s him.”

  “I think I’ve heard of it.”

  “Lottery grants. Revitalizing the community. He should just fuck off back over the hill to Islington and then his wife wouldn’t get attacked.”

  “Revitalizing the community is your job, is it?”

  Will didn’t reply but ran his finger around the rim of his cup. Then he looked up at me. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what are you doing? Are you trying to make them better or do you think you’ll catch the murderer all on your own?”