The Red Room Read online

  I blinked at him, feeling the little knot of panic in my stomach. “You’ve got me wrong,” I said. “I’m never sure. That’s the point.”

  __________

  Thirteen of the unsolved murders were of young men, who had been killed late at night or in the early hours of morning, outside night-clubs, pubs, football matches, parties. I scrolled through their cases: bludgeoned to death, stabbed, smashed in the face with a broken bottle. In twelve of the thirteen cases, they had drunk a large amount of alcohol; the thirteenth was a nineteen-year-old black man who’d been found lying underneath his bicycle, the lights still on. His skull was fractured. Hit by a car. Possible accident. Possible race attack.

  Two prostitutes, one found dead in her little room above a kebab joint, whose owners wondered what the smell was; another who’d been battered to death on some wasteland in Summertown. Not far away from Lianne. I hesitated briefly over her: Jade Brett, aged twenty-two, HIV positive, no next of kin. Probably not, but I made a note. There were several homeless people, winos with wrecked livers found dead by park benches, or in the shop doors where they usually slept. There were seven children, and although their murders were unsolved, in all except one case the police were directing their inquiries towards family members, acquaintances. They weren’t relevant anyway.

  And of course, there was Philippa Burton, thirty-two years old, middle class, respectable, famous now for dying. Hers was the only name I recognized. Clearly none of the others had merited more than a couple of paragraphs on page five of some newspaper. I looked at the details of her case. As I already knew, she’d been snatched from Hampstead Heath, by the playground where her little daughter had been playing, and discovered several hours later at the far, wild end of the Heath, face down among trees and bushes. She had been hit over the head, several times, with a stone that had been found a few feet away from her. There was a cut down her left cheek, and faint bruises around her wrists. She had not been molested. There was no sign that it had been a sexual murder.

  I rubbed my eyes and stared at the screen. Then I picked up the phone and dialed Furth’s extension.

  “I’d like to see Philippa Burton’s body. And her case file.”

  “What?”

  It wasn’t a “What did you say?” It was a “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Can I?”

  “Why?” he repeated heavily. I could hear him breathing.

  “Because I want to,” I said.

  “Are you messing us around, Doctor? Is this something to do with your own work?”

  “I realize that I—”

  “You want to know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got a problem. After Doll’s attack. Other people have been saying it.”

  “Then why was I asked in?”

  “I’ve been wondering about that.”

  “The fact is that I’m here. Can I see the body?”

  “Just because it would be interesting? No way.”

  He put the phone down on me. I stared at the computer screen for a few seconds longer, then I picked up the internal phone again and asked to be put through to Oban.

  “Can I come and see you?”

  “Sure. Now?”

  “Please.”

  “All right.”

  __________

  Oban looked at me steadily over the steeple of his fingers. His eyes seemed paler than ever. It was several seconds before he responded. “I don’t quite understand, Kit, what it is you’re looking for.”

  I didn’t reply—there wasn’t much to say, since I didn’t know either, and the consciousness that I was probably making an idiot of myself, to the delight of the whole police station, was growing stronger.

  “You’ve talked about not making assumptions. Now you’re assuming that Lianne’s killer murdered someone else as well. Why? You think there might be a connection with the Pippa Burton case. Why? Help me out here, Kit.” His gentle and courteous tones were much harder to respond to than Furth’s bluster.

  “I don’t think I’m assuming that at all,” I said. “I am just saying that if Lianne wasn’t murdered by the canal—and there’s no reason now to suppose that she was—then there are things we should consider, that we might have missed.”

  Oban was being painfully patient with me. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that you’re right. Let’s ignore the fact that Furth’s team have already looked through the files. Why Pippa Burton? All I can see here is the lack of connections.” He started counting them off on his fingers: “The victims are different, the wounds are different, the areas are different, the kinds of area are different. And it’s not just that, it’s office politics. You’ve got a fund of goodwill, guilt even. We felt bad about, you know, the accident. You don’t want to use all that up.”

  Again, I didn’t reply. I managed to hold his gaze, and not drop my eyes.

  “OK,” he said with a sigh. “Take a look.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s not in our remit, of course, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll make sure Furth sets it up—he won’t be happy, though. I know he’s an idiot, but he’s got instincts as well. They’re not all wrong.” He looked at me assessingly and didn’t smile.

  “Oh, well…” I managed a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

  “Why is this case so important to you, Kit?”

  I gave a shrug. “I’m trying to be thorough.”

  “I hear you’ve been seeing Will Pavic.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Dodgy character. You know he used to be something big in the City?”

  “I heard something about that.”

  “I don’t know all the details, but he had a breakdown, gave it all up. He’s tried to become the Mother Teresa of north London.”

  “That sounds like a good thing.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. He’s out of his depth.” Again, he looked at me searchingly. “He’s not very friendly to the police either.”

  “Apparently the feeling is mutual,” I said drily.

  “We’ve just been trying to persuade him to obey the same laws as the rest of us. Don’t be fooled by his charm.”

  Finally, something that made me smile. I thought of Pavic the other night, with his bristling head and scornful eyes. “There’s no chance of that.”

  __________

  Oban was right. Furth was right. So why did I not agree with them? I stared again at Philippa Burton’s body on the tray. A slim, smooth body, with round hips, high breasts and faint stretchmarks on the stomach, from the birth of her daughter probably. The hands were long and graceful, the manicured fingernails painted with pearly-pink polish, matching her toenails. Her body was untouched, except for the marks around her delicate wrists. She lay there like a beautiful statue, draped in the folds of a sheet. But above her smooth torso, the left side of her head was bashed in. Her cap of yellow hair stuck to the dark blood.

  I felt no impulse to touch her, or linger over her body. She had a husband and a daughter to mourn her, dozens of shocked friends, a whole crowd of strangers who had fallen in love with the thought of her. There had been articles in the newspapers; politicians had queued up to pay tribute to this model mother, so brutally mown down by an evil monster, and we must not rest till he’s caught, etc. Thousands of people had piled flowers and soft toys at the site where her body had been discovered. Hundreds of people would go to her funeral. Strangers would send flowers. But I stayed, staring at her, because of a feeling, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. She’d been found face downwards, like Lianne had been found face downwards. Even I knew that wasn’t enough to connect them. Nevertheless, I had this sense of a connection waiting to be made, if only I could think about it in a different way.

  I left the morgue and went for a walk on the Heath. It wasn’t raining, but it was a dull and heavy day. The grass was wet and the trees dripped steadily. There weren’t many people around, just a couple of joggers, and
dog-owners throwing sticks into the soggy undergrowth. I walked fast, past the playground, past the ponds, up the hill where on sunny days people fly kites. I wasn’t really going anywhere, just round in circles, my brain churning uselessly.

  15

  I was already distrusted by one group of detectives. Now I had to deal with another. At least they were attached to the same station—or maybe, given the way I was regarded, that wasn’t such a good thing after all. Oban was kind, despite all his misgivings, and spoke to the head of the Philippa Burton murder inquiry and said nice things about me. So within a day I found myself sitting opposite Detective Chief Inspector Vic Renborn. He was a large bald man, with a very small amount of ginger hair above his ears and at the back of his head. With his fiery red complexion, he was a scary sight. I could imagine doctors taking bets on whether the heart-attack or the stroke would come first. He panted slightly as he spoke, as if the effort of opening the door for me had been too much.

  “Oban says you’re interested in Philippa,” he said, as if he were referring casually to a friend in the next room.

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody’s interested in Philippa.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve got uniformed officers out directing the traffic and controlling the crowds around the area where she was found. We’ve had to install traffic lights and create a temporary car park. People are coming from all over the country and leaving notes and flowers. I’ve just had a Canadian forensic psychologist on the phone. He’s in London promoting a book and he was offering his services. I’ve got an astronomer. Is that right?” He looked inquiringly at a female officer who was sitting in a corner with a notebook.

  “Astrologer, sir.”

  “Astrologer. And a couple of psychics. One woman dreamed last month that the murder was going to happen. Someone else has said that they’ll be able to identify the murderer if we give them a piece of bloodstained clothing. The press are sniffing round. It’s like a circus down there. I’m a lucky man. Everybody wants to help me. And I’ve got nothing. And we’re fucking moving office so I haven’t even got a place to hide. Are you here to help me?”

  “I’m not specifically concerned with this case.”

  “I suppose I should be relieved. Oban says you’re involved in the case of a dead drifter found by the canal.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “No psychics have come forward about that one. Nobody cares.”

  “What do you want with Philippa Burton?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s not just that it’s a higher-profile case?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just want to inform you that I’ve already got a psychological adviser. Seb Weller—do you know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good man?”

  I paused for a moment. “I’m not here to compete,” I said tactfully.

  “Our problem is that we’ve only got one witness and she’s three years old.”

  “Has she said anything?”

  “Plenty. She likes strawberry ice-cream and The Lion King and small stuffed animals. She doesn’t like avocados or loud noises. We’ve got a child psychologist who spends her time making mud pies with her, or something. Woman called Westwood. Know her?”

  “Yes, I know Dr. Westwood.” My heart banged uncomfortably. I didn’t want to tell Renborn that actually Bella Westwood had taught me. We’d all revered her—a young, striking, intelligent and sardonic woman who sat on her desk swinging her slim legs when she taught—and it would always be hard for me to think of her as an equal. Once a teacher, always a teacher. When I was seventy and she was eighty she would still be the person who’d written in the margin of my project: “Beware of confusing instinct and hypothesis, Katherine.” Now, I was muscling in on her world, questioning her judgement, even.

  “So what do you want?” asked Renborn.

  “I’d like to talk to the husband. Maybe see the child, if possible.”

  He frowned. “I don’t see why not myself. But you’d better talk to Dr. Westwood about the child. I don’t know whether she’ll let you anywhere near her. There are complicated rules about what people are allowed to say to her. I don’t understand them, anyway.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Ask Dr. Westwood, and see what she says.”

  “All right,” said Renborn. “We’ll get back to you.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Renborn gave a grunt. “Well, then,” he said, “if you’d step outside, I’ll call her. Now.”

  I had barely had enough time to take a drink of water from the cooler outside when Renborn came out of his office looking puzzled, and not especially pleased. “Do you know Dr. Westwood?” he said.

  “I’ve met her,” I hedged.

  “Hmm,” he said. “I thought she was going to tell you to sod off. That’s what she’s said to everybody else. Got something on her, have you?” This last was said with a wry expression close to a smile, which was better than nothing.

  “So that’s all right, is it?”

  “She’ll take you this afternoon.”

  “Thanks very much,” I said, mentally rearranging my day.

  “Look,” he said, “I haven’t got a clue what you’re up to, but if you turn up anything, please tell me first. I’d be disappointed if I learn about it on the front page of the Daily Mail.”

  “I only want to help,” I said, which, come to think of it, was what I’d said to Pavic as well. My new catchphrase. It had a melancholy ring.

  “There you go,” Renborn said sadly. “You’re sounding like an astronomer again.”

  “Astrologer,” said the female officer.

  “I was testing you.”

  __________

  “How are you, Kit?” said Bella, looking at me with an expression of sympathy. She had sent me flowers in the hospital, I remembered, and a card of a charcoal-and-ink woman bending over and brushing her long hair; her writing was dashing and bold. I had kept the flowers long after they had started to turn brown. I had always wanted Bella to think well of me. You don’t have to be a genius to know that she and Rosa were my mother-figures, my figures of authority and of comfort.

  “Better, I think.”

  We were sitting in Bella’s battered old car, stuck in traffic, so she was able to turn and look at me without putting our lives at risk. She had a thin face, crow’s feet round her eyes now, tiny wrinkles forming above her lip, strands of gray in her curly brown hair that flowed everywhere. She was dressed in a deceptively nuanced way. In her dark trousers and light brown sweater she was smart enough to assert some sort of professional status, to show that she hadn’t just walked off the street and was making it up as she went along, but she was casual enough to be reassuring.

  “Thank you for letting me see Emily.”

  “I wouldn’t if I thought you’d be clumsy in your approach—but I must say I don’t know what it is you’re after here.” She put up a hand to stop me when I began to answer. “I don’t particularly mind, either, as long as you don’t confuse the child, or distress her, which I’m sure you won’t.” A warning was implicit in the sentence. She didn’t need to spell anything out. “My job is simply to talk to Emily and, if necessary, to offer her help. The police investigation is outside my area of expertise.” And yours, she didn’t need to add.

  “So what have you been doing with her?”

  “I asked her what she remembered.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Why not? I know what you’re thinking, that it sounds too simple and open-ended. Last year I had to talk to a four-year-old boy who had been in the flat when his mother was raped and murdered. He had spent eight hours alone with her body. He was severely traumatized, almost unable to speak. Remember the case?” I nodded. “There we had the problem of healing Damien as well as finding out what he had seen. That was a complex case involving a whole lot of oblique strategies. Games, drawing, telling stories, you know the kind of thing. But Emily wa
s just left by her mother at the playground. There’s no trauma, no evident distress. She wasn’t disturbed by being asked and it seems there was nothing to remember. She was playing with other girls and then her mother wasn’t there. That was the distressing part but she doesn’t seem to have witnessed anything of her mother’s disappearance, or abduction, or whatever it was.”

  “Three-year-olds aren’t very good at responding to direct questions.”

  Bella laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve played with her. I’ve watched her interacting with friends, playing with her Beanie Babies. Sometimes, painful as it is, we’ve got to admit that all the sensitivity and clever tricks don’t mean anything if there’s nothing there to find.”

  We drove up through Hampstead to the very top of the hill and then down the other side through opulent residential streets that were new to me. Bella turned into a quiet road and pulled up. “They’re staying with Philippa’s mother who lives nearby. For what it’s worth, it’s meant to be a secret.”

  “Do the police believe they’re under threat?”

  “From the press, I think.”

  Bella sat still for a moment, not getting out of the car. I looked at the large house. “Philippa’s mother must be pretty well off,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Very,” said Bella. She drummed her fingers on the steering-wheel. “Look, Kit, have you got anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked hard at me with an expression of just the mildest anxiety. She was trying to work me out. Could I have gone mad? Her jaw tightened and she opened the door.

  __________

  I talked to Jeremy Burton outside in his mother-in-law’s beautiful back garden, where the smooth lawn curved around well-tended beds. Bella had introduced me vaguely as an associate and left it at that. I knew that he had worked for some sort of software company. I think he owned it, or most of it. He was thirty-eight years old but looked older. His hair was graying, his face looked drawn, his eyes bloodshot. “Is there any progress?” he said.