The Red Room

by Nicci French

  “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.”

  __________

  My flat looked neglected, as if no one was living there any longer. All the windows were shut, the curtains ambiguously half closed as if I had gone on holiday, the surfaces dusty. There were no fresh flowers, as there usually are, except some dead ones in a vase on the kitchen win-dow-sill; no fruit in the bowl on the kitchen table; no books lying open on the arm of the sofa; no notes from Julie stuck on the fridge door. I opened the fridge. It was clean and almost empty: one carton of semi-skimmed milk, a tub of butter, a little jar of pesto, half full, a bag of coffee beans.

  And when had I last properly seen Julie? With a little jolt of shame, I realized that I couldn’t remember. Over the last few frantic days, she had been like a hazy outline on the edge of my vision, hovering there but ignored, blinked away. I had a vague recollection of her saying we needed to talk as I rushed past her, on my way somewhere else. When had that been?

  The door to what I had grown used to thinking of as her bedroom was open, so I put my head round it. It looked too tidy. Julie always left clothes on the floor, the bed unmade, lipstick and pots of face-cream open on the filing cabinet that she had turned into her dressing-table. For a moment, I wondered if she had gone altogether, but her suitcase was still on the floor, and the cupboard was full of clothes.

  I went back into the main room and opened some windows. I wiped the surfaces. Then I ran out of the flat, down to the deli on the corner, where I bought goat’s cheese and a rough slab of Parmesan, fresh pasta, single cream, Italian salami and ham, olives stuffed with anchovies, little almond biscuits, basil growing in a small pot, artichoke hearts, four plump figs. It wasn’t that I wanted to eat any of these things; I just wanted to have them in my house, like a welcome for whoever came through the door.

  After the deli, I visited the greengrocer’s further up the road: red peppers, yellow peppers, green apples, one pale-striped melon, nectarines, purple plums and a bunch of black grapes. At the florist’s, I bought a huge, brash bunch of yellow and orange dahlias. I staggered home with the plastic bags digging into my fingers and the flowers tickling my nose. I put the kettle on, ground coffee beans, stuck the flowers in a glass vase, put the cheese in the fridge, piled the fruit and vegetables into a large bowl. There. If Julie came in now, she’d know I was back home again.

  I was just thinking about a bath when the phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Kit, I’m going to pick you up in about five minutes, OK? I’m nearly with you now.”

  “I thought you said it was over, Daniel.”

  “It is, it is. This is just a coda. You’ll appreciate it, I promise you.”

  “I don’t like surprises—” I began, but the phone had gone dead.

  __________

  “You’ve been in on this from the beginning. I thought you should be here at the end as well.”

  “I still want to know where we’re going.”

  Oban grinned. “Don’t grumble so much.”

  A few minutes later, we were standing at the Teales’ front door.

  “Are you sure she’s here?”

  “I rang in advance.”

  When Bryony opened the door, I was taken aback by her appearance. She had tied back her orange hair and her face looked pale. There were smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept for days. She looked thinner under the old blue jeans and an oversized white shirt she was wearing, and the smile she gave us didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Come in.”

  “This won’t take long, Mrs. Teale,” said Oban, as soon as we were in the living room. “I just wanted to ask you if you’d ever seen this.” Then he pulled a thin glove on to his right hand, leaned down into the bag he was carrying and, like a conjuror, he flamboyantly produced a small leather pouch.

  Bryony took one look at it, and her hands flew up to her mouth. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “It was found in Michael Doll’s house.” He darted a look of pure triumph at me.

  “Oh!” She gasped, as if someone had punched her in the stomach and all her breath was being expelled. Abruptly, she started to cry, bending her face into her hands and whimpering. Tears dribbled between her fingers.

  I glared at Oban, who got up and crossed over to her, putting a hand clumsily on her shoulder. “There, now. It’s all right. It’s all over, Mrs. Teale, Bryony. He’s dead, you see. You are safe now.”

  “Safe?” She lifted her drenched face, looking bewildered. “Safe?”

  “Yes. I can’t tell you the details, but I can say that we are confident that Doll—the man who passed himself off as a witness to your attack—was the murderer. He has always been a suspect, and he was found dead in his flat this morning. He had in his possession items belonging to both you and to Philippa Burton. We knew this was yours”—and he held up the pouch, jingling it—”because it contains, among other things, your labeled house keys. Maybe he’d collected something belonging to Lianne, too, but we’ll probably never know that.” He nodded at her genially. “Trophies, you see.”

  “But how… what…?”

  “He had been the target of a vigilante attack before, so we’re working on the supposition that they killed him. Early days yet.”

  “My pouch,” she said slowly. “He had my pouch.”

  “Do you remember losing it?”

  “No. I don’t know. I mean, I must have lost it on the night of the attack. But I didn’t think… I knew it had gone, but I didn’t remember where I’d last had it. I was too confused. When I fell, he must have… I thought he was helping me…. How did I think that?” She shuddered violently and wrapped her arms tightly round herself.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She turned to me. “I suppose I must be,” she said. “I feel a bit sick, all of a sudden. I mean, it’s all going to be all right now, isn’t it? I suppose it hasn’t quite sunk in.” She made an effort, and smiled. “It’s been an interesting few days.”

  He held out his hand. “Goodbye, Mrs. Teale, we’ll be in touch again soon. Tying up the many loose ends, as it were. Though it won’t ever be quite tidy enough for you, Kit.” He looked smugly at me.

  “Goodbye, Bryony.” I was going to shake her hand as well, but she put her arms round me and kissed me on both cheeks. She smelled clean and felt soft and fragile. “You’ve been lovely,” she whispered in my ear. “Thanks.”

  __________

  “Satisfied?” said Oban, as we left.

  “Don’t crow, Dan, it doesn’t suit you. Where are you off to now?”

  “Press conference. I hope you’re coming.”

  “You don’t hang around, do you?”

  “Not when we’ve got a result. Jump in.” He held open the passenger door.

  “I don’t know why I let you bully me.”

  He snorted with laughter. “That’s a joke.”

  I don’t know why, but I put my fingers up and touched my scar lightly. “It’s funny,” I said, “but I can no longer remember a time when I didn’t look like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Scarred.”

  “You’re all right,” he said, self-consciously. Then: “Come on, climb in, we can’t stand outside Mrs. Teale’s front door discussing your looks all afternoon.”

  __________

  It was getting dark by the time I returned home. The windows were dark, which meant that Julie hadn’t come back yet. I let myself in and immediately ran myself a bath. Less than twelve hours ago I’d been staring down at Doll. His face rose unbidden in my mind, not just the mess I had seen on the carpet but the face he’d turned toward me when he’d sat fishing by the canal. That expectant smile. He had killed two women, Lianne and Philippa. He had tried to kill a third, Bryony. Yet despite that, I couldn’t stop myself feeling a
spasm of pity for the man. He’d never had a chance. He had been vicious, repellent, perverse, murderous, but he’d never had a chance. I’d met too many people like Doll.

  “Hi. You’ve got foam in your hair.”

  I sat up. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “That’s probably because you were under the water. The flat looks nice.”

  “Good. I’d been neglecting it.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s finished.”

  “What?”

  “The case. It’s over. It looks like it was Michael Doll all along.”

  “Doll? The man who was in the flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ. That’ll make me more careful about whom I open the door to.”

  “Julie, why don’t we go out this evening? Unless you’ve got something else on.”

  “I’d love that. But I’m rather out of money at the—”

  “On me. I’ve got plenty of money and nothing to spend it on.”

  “Oh, I’m brilliant at spending.”

  __________

  I ordered clear soup, Thai fishcakes, pork and chicken satay, noodles and rice, steamed spicy dumplings, king prawns in chili, squid with lemongrass and coriander, spare ribs, a bottle of South American wine. Julie looked impressed and alarmed.

  “And two glasses of champagne,” I added.

  “What’s all this about?”

  “What?”

  “You’re ordering enough for six of us. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  The champagne arrived and I chinked my glass against Julie’s. “This is my New Year’s Eve.”

  “It’s August, Kit.”

  “The New Year can begin anywhere.”

  “I can’t work out if you’re celebrating or drowning your sorrows.”

  “Bit of both. I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad Doll isn’t going to do any more harm. But I don’t understand how it all happened, it’s completely baffling, it doesn’t add up. And that makes me feel…”

  “Frustrated?” supplied Julie.

  “More than that. As if I’ve failed them. Philippa and Lianne. Does that sound mad?”

  “Yes. It does. You’ve been worrying me with your—”

  “At the press conference today, Oban went out of his way to praise me. He was effusive, even. I felt a complete fraud.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I feel as if I haven’t laid them to rest yet. It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “They’re dead so they’re already at rest. And surely what most matters is that he’s been caught.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” She looked taken aback.

  “Killed by vigilantes who’ll feel completely justified when they find out what he’d done. Here we are, our meal.”

  I drank the whole bowl of soup. It was so spicy it was like swallowing pins and needles. My body glowed with the after-effect. Then I ate three of the spicy dumplings. I chewed them lots of times and had to make an effort to swallow them. But I managed it.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so obsessed.”

  “That’s OK. I just want to know what happened with Will Pavic.”

  “That’s over too. Or it might be, at least.”

  “Really? That was quick. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. He was rather grim, wasn’t he?”

  “I think his grimness is the point,” I said. I bit into my spare rib and took a large gulp of wine to swill it down. Doll’s pulped face floated in front of my eyes. The room was in my head, sprayed with his blood, with mine.

  “So why end it?”

  “What? Oh, because I don’t want to go down that road. I think, well, I think I should try to be happy.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  I picked up a ring of squid. It looked like rubber. Or guts. I laid it back on the plate and stared at the beige rice. I drank some more wine. I felt extremely odd.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” Julie was saying, through the mist in front of my eyes.

  I blinked. “What’s that?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “I know, you’re going to find a flat of your own.”

  “No. I’m leaving the country again. I can’t stand it. I feel trapped. I don’t want to be a teacher, or work in a record company, turn up at an office every day in my boring suit, with tights and leather shoes. So I’m going away again. Do I sound like someone who’s having trouble coming to terms with real life?”

  “I’ve always thought that there’s nothing wrong with escapism,” I said, and my voice seemed to come from a long way off.

  “I just want to be happy too. Like you.”

  I raised my glass. “To your happiness.”

  “Don’t cry, Kit. We can both be happy. At the same time.” We giggled tearfully at each other. “And while you’re drunk and emotional,” she added, “I think I ought to tell you that I borrowed your black velvet dress without asking you, then I washed it in hot water and it’s gone all funny. The hem looks like a wave. Sorry.”

  39

  I woke the next morning to the sound of wind rattling at the panes and clattering in the trees outside. A few yellow leaves scratched at the windows as they fell. For a horrible moment I couldn’t remember anything: not what day it was, where I was, who I was. All I knew was that I couldn’t remember anything, that I was a blank. I lay waiting for the vacuum in me to be filled up with memories. And sure enough, the memories came flooding in. Doll without a face, first of all, lying in his blood and all around him blood dripping from the walls, from the ceiling. A torture chamber. Then Doll with a face, his arm raised, the jagged porcelain in his fist, the blood spraying everywhere, and it was my blood. I lay pressed back against my pillow with my eyes open but seeing what was inside my head. I felt as if I had been running and running for all these months, thinking I was leaving the red room behind. And all the time I had been coming full circle, back to where I had begun.

  __________

  I drove straight from Market Hill to Kersey Town, where I parked. On an impulse, I ran to buy some flowers. I didn’t have a clue what kind of flowers she had liked, if she liked any, but I bought a fat bunch of anemones, purple and red and pink, still dewy and like a cluster of soft jewels. I ran along the pavement, for I didn’t want to be late. It seemed to me that to turn up on time was the least I could do. I wanted to pay tribute. I wanted to say sorry.

  I don’t know why Lianne had touched me so deeply. I had never known her, but she was motherless, like me. I had only seen her face when she was dead, a round face with freckles on the bridge of her nose. I knew nothing about her, and perhaps if I’d met her when she was alive, I wouldn’t have liked her or felt any kind of tenderness toward her. I knew nothing about her life. I didn’t even know her real name. No one did. She might have been a Lizzie or a Susan or a Charlotte or an Alex. Anyone. She was an unknown girl, being buried in a council plot, and maybe a woman who had never met her would be her chief and only mourner.

  As I arrived people were coming out of the previous ceremony—the taped organ music ushered them out and then, after a few minutes of silence, the music ushered me in. The room was quite long, painted cream, and was lined with new wooden pews. In front of them stood Lianne’s coffin. I was the only one here. I didn’t know what to do with my flowers. Should I put them on the coffin? Was that what people did? I glanced round, then laid the bright anemones on top of the pale, shiny coffin with its gilt handles. Then I sat down in the front pew and waited while the taped music played. After a minute or so, there was a rustle behind me, and a woman came and sat down beside me. She had her hair tied back in a head-scarf and wore a dark gray jacket over her flowery dress, as if she’d pulled it on in a hurry.

  We smiled warily at each other, then she leaned across to me and said in a whisper, “Hello, I’m Paula Mann, from the council.” She waited a beat, then went on, “I didn’t know her, but I’m the one who organized this. She died in our distric
t, see, and with no one else… poor mite, whoever she was. It falls to us. We like to come and pay our respects if we get the time. Sometimes we can’t manage it. But it’s not right they should be sent off with no one.”

  “Kit Quinn,” I said, and we shook hands, and I thought, Not just one but two mourners who only ever saw you when you were dead.

  “I don’t suppose you knew her either?”

  “No.”

  “Thought not. Usually we manage to find someone if there’s someone to be found,” she said. “It’s amazing how many people die all alone, and you don’t even know where they came from. Says something about the way we live, I reckon. So much loneliness.” Her nice face creased.

  “Did you try and find out who she was, then?”

  “That’s my job, see. I’m like a detective, really, except usually there hasn’t been a crime. I get the corpses that haven’t been claimed and I’ve got to see if there’s a next of kin, or a friend, even, who’ll take responsibility—and if there isn’t I arrange the funeral and sort out all the possessions. Throw them away in most cases. Sometimes I feel terrible, when I come across photographs, or letters, or things that must’ve meant an awful lot to someone once. And we just bundle them all up, and keep them in a big cabinet for a few months, then chuck them. Burn them.”

  “What did you do with Lianne’s stuff ?”

  “She was different—we don’t even know if she had any stuff. All we got was a dead body found by the canal.”

  “And that doesn’t happen often?”

  “Not so much—though it happens more often than you’d care to think.”

  The organ music changed and the chaplain came in, so the two of us hushed. He looked at us solemnly and laid his hand on Lianne’s plain coffin, just above my bunch of flowers. But before he could say anything there was a noise behind us. I turned and saw four young people hovering awkwardly on the threshold. I recognized them at once, though they were dressed very differently, in strange assorted black garments that they’d probably cobbled together from friends. There was Sylvia with the green eyes, who looked like a sprite; the shy black girl, Carla, who’d been the last of the group to see Lianne alive; Spike with the shaved head; hairy Laurie. Each of them held a small bunch of flowers, though Sylvia’s looked as if it had been grabbed from a front garden as she had passed. Carla had bought huge, waxy lilies that must have cost a lot; I could smell them from where I sat. I smiled at them but they didn’t smile back. Perhaps they didn’t remember me. They looked embarrassed, self-con-scious, and Spike was giggling and nudging Laurie as they shuffled up to the coffin and laid their flowers next to mine, then trailed back to the pew across from us.