The Doll's House

by Tania Carver

  Sperring tried to shrug. ‘Sure. Whatever.’

  ‘No. Not whatever. It means we put aside what we might think of each other. It means you don’t piss about or rock the boat or try to undermine what I say or the way I do things. It means you’re either on my team or you’re not. Got that?’

  Sperring gave a mock salute. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Phil realised that was the best he could hope for from his DS. Not for the first time or, he imagined, the last, he wished he had his old team back with him.

  They drove the rest of the way without speaking, Warren Zevon the only thing to puncture the silence.

  23

  T

  he Firebird. Stravinsky. It was playing in the Arcadian’s head. Soon it was playing in his living area, too. As loud as he dared, balancing attracting attention to himself with outwardly expressing the joy his soul was experiencing.

  And the joy was for one reason only. He had his next victim all lined up.

  The voice had spoken and he had listened. Guided him and he had followed. Or he would follow. Soon. He was preparing. Getting his tools ready. Deciding on his approach.

  That had been the most thrilling thing so far. The anticipation. The preparation.

  This one was going to be different from the last. Very different. Far away from the other one, both psychologically and geographically. When he’d realised that, his soul sank with disappointment. He almost called it off. But he didn’t. And the more he thought about it, the gladder he was that he hadn’t done so. Because the more he allowed the plan to percolate through his consciousness, coalesce inside his head, the more he grasped how he could make it work.

  The trick, he thought, would be to find enjoyment in it even though it wasn’t what he would have done given the choice. To find satisfaction while doing a thorough job, but – and this, he felt, was the important thing – to show he could be professional too. Yes. That was it. That was what he would do.

  He had read interviews with film directors saying the same thing. They would do one personal project, one for the studio. One personal, one for the studio. Alternate, like that. That was what he would do. The doll was his personal project; this one would be his in-house studio job. He would bring the same degree of care and attention to it, of planning and preparation, of execution.

  He smiled at the unintentional pun. No, maybe it had been intentional. He smiled some more at his own cleverness.

  He would use this as a calling card. To let them know he was serious. That he could turn his hand to whatever was required. Because it was all very well doing what he had done with the doll. But that was all passion, desire. With this one he had to show detachment. There would be no time to savour his handiwork like last time. It would be a quick in-and-out job. He had wondered whether he was up for that and had actually hesitated in considering whether to do it.

  But he had decided yes. Yes. Definitely yes.

  It was to be a man this time. Nothing special about him, not like last time. Something else for him to be disappointed at. But after thinking it through, he had soon overcome the disappointment.

  ‘Gives it a… degree of symmetry,’ he had said, and he was pleased with that response. Showed he wasn’t biased, sexist. The phrasing showed his erudition, too. Never a bad thing.

  And there was something else. Something practical to consider. This wouldn’t link him to the doll’s death. Apart from the end result, there would be no similarities. By not sticking to the serial killer’s usual signature, he would run rings round the police. How brilliant.

  The Arcadian felt a delicious shivery thrill run through his body. He smiled once more, checked his tools. Heard the music both inside and outside his head.

  The Firebird. It wasn’t just a piece of music to him. No. It was more than that. He knew all about it. Hadn’t just listened to it, but had researched it as well. He remembered a music teacher at one of the schools he had briefly attended telling the class that music was understood through intelligence. The rest of the class had ignored him, went on listening to whatever pop shit was in the charts that week. But the Arcadian had listened. Started listening to classical music. Going to the library, getting out CDs. Then getting out books to go with them, ones talking about the composers’ lives. Reading them while listening. Trying to understand what made them come up with the music they did in the way they did. He didn’t always get it, didn’t always understand. In fact, if he was honest, he hardly understood at all. And that made him angry. That made him think he wasn’t intelligent, that he wouldn’t be able to appreciate the music, that he was just like the rest of them. So he persevered. Kept on listening, kept on reading. Made himself understand, made himself enjoy it.

  And now he loved it. He knew everything about it. Everything. Even the Polonsky poem The Firebird was based on.

  ‘And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf’s back,’ he recited aloud, ‘Riding along a forest path/To do battle with Kaschei.’ He smiled, into the music, the moment. ‘In that land where a princess sits under lock and key/Pining behind massive walls./There gardens surround a palace all of glass;/There Firebirds sing by night/And peck at golden fruit…’

  He spread his arms wide at the final few lines, as if expecting applause. But only the single doll in the doll’s house looked back at him.

  Kaschei. The Immortal. The Deathless. He could only be killed one way. By capturing his soul. And that was well hidden. In a needle which was in an egg which was in a duck which was in a hare which was in an iron chest which was buried under an oak tree on the island of Buyan. If the chest were to be dug up, the hare would run away. If it was caught, the duck would escape from it and fly away. If the duck was caught, though, Kaschei was in trouble. Because then they could crack the egg and take out the needle. And if that was broken, he would die.

  He looked at his doll’s house. His doll, sitting there looking perfectly happy. He thought of the butterfly. Smiled.

  ‘We don’t need to go to all that trouble, do we?’ he said to the doll.

  She stared at him, smiling. Unblinking.

  ‘You’re getting some company soon,’ he said. ‘A gentleman friend. Would you like that?’

  The doll kept smiling.

  He looked at her sitting all alone. Although she had him for company, it couldn’t be much fun. All those empty chairs in empty rooms. He felt the overwhelming urge to provide her with company, to fill the house with other dolls.

  He checked his tools once more.

  ‘And I will,’ he said aloud. ‘Soon.’

  24

  T

  he house was small, boxy, in a curling crescent of other small, boxy houses. It looked like a place where if dreams didn’t necessarily die, they were comprehensively contained.

  ‘So, er, you didn’t have any, any idea he was, you know, your husband, dressing up in, like, women’s clothing?’ Sperring was leading the questioning. Phil wanted to show there were no hard feelings. But Sperring was uncomfortable and he was letting it show. Phil took a sliver of unprofessional satisfaction from that.

  The woman sitting opposite them looked like she was in shock. Eyes wide and staring, red-rimmed from the ghosts of tears. Face so pale it could have been bleached. Expression blank, like she had suffered so much pain it had left her numb. Phil recognised her reactions; he had given the death message to relatives before. But that didn’t mean it ever got any easier.

  Kimberley Penman, the family liaison officer, sat on the other armchair in the room. She had broken the news to Julie McGowan before they had arrived. It had gone down as well as could be expected. Which wasn’t well at all.

  Julie McGowan managed to make eye contact with both of them for a few brief seconds, then looked away. ‘I don’t… It’s like… I’m being punished. I just… just don’t understand…’

  Sperring sat back, looking physically exhausted. He gave Phil the nod. Phil leaned forward, voice low, eyes solicitous. ‘We know this is a difficult time for you, Mrs McGowa
n, Julie, but if there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all that might give us some clue as to why your husband… that might have contributed to your husband’s state of mind, please tell us.’

  Julie McGowan looked like she was about to burst into tears once more, but she stopped herself, shook her head. Her hands unconsciously twisted a paper tissue into fluttery, powdery pieces. ‘He never told me,’ she said. ‘That he used to like dressing up. And then…’ she sighed, ‘I found out. Came home early, caught him doing it.’ Another sigh. ‘Almost a cliché, isn’t it?’

  ‘But you stayed with him,’ said Phil, keeping eye contact, ‘didn’t you, Julie? You stayed with him. Tried to work it out.’

  She nodded. ‘For the kids. I started thinking it was my fault. I was doing something wrong, failing in some way, that it was my fault, I was being punished…’ Another sigh that threatened to turn into a sob. She controlled herself. ‘But then I realised no, it wasn’t me. It was him. And I tried to understand, to let him go out to his… things. Clubs and that. I tried.’

  ‘Did you think he was gay, was that it?’ Sperring chipped in. Phil stared at him.

  ‘I… I hoped not. But… I don’t know. He said that when he was Amanda – that was his name for, for that – when he was Amanda, he thought like a woman. Felt like a woman. So…’ Another sigh.

  She fell into silence. Phil glanced round. The house looked ordinary. Stiflingly so. Department store furniture and decoration, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing too different. At least on the surface. But he knew, after years of doing this, that there was no such thing as normal. The fact that he was here was testament to that.

  ‘Your husband moved out,’ he said. ‘When was that?’

  ‘About… I don’t know. A year? Something like that? A year ago.’ She put her head back, thought. ‘Yes. Just after Christmas last year. This would have been the kids’ second Christmas without him…’

  A sob threatened to choke her up. Phil kept questioning, keeping her focused.

  ‘Where did he go, d’you know?’

  ‘He… he rented a flat.’

  ‘Here? In Coventry?’

  She nodded. The tissue came in for more punishment.

  Sperring leaned forward. ‘So why did he move to Birmingham?’

  She looked straight at him. ‘I don’t know. We weren’t… He didn’t tell me everything.’ She sighed. ‘He was slipping away by then. I’d almost lost him.’ Another sigh. Another twist of the tissue. ‘I’ve sent the kids to my mother’s,’ she continued. ‘God knows what’s going to happen to them when they go back to school, what the other kids’ll say…’

  ‘Kids can be cruel, Julie,’ said Phil, ‘but they’re resilient. Keep that in mind.’

  She nodded. The paper tissue disintegrated further.

  ‘Was there anyone he mentioned, any name that sticks out?’ Phil asked.

  She said nothing, lost in her own world.

  ‘Someone in Birmingham he might have moved to be nearer to?’

  She looked up. ‘There was that university thing he was doing.’

  Sperring and Phil exchanged a glance. ‘What university thing?’ asked Phil.

  ‘A book that some professor was doing. He wanted to speak to…’ she gestured, throwing the tissue around, ‘you know. People like Glenn. Ones that were…’

  ‘Transvestites?’ asked Sperring.

  She nodded. ‘That. And others. Ones that… weren’t right. Deviant psychopathology, Glenn said.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Said it was going to make him famous.’

  Phil frowned. ‘How come?’

  ‘Because it was that… him. That professor from the telly. The handsome one. Always got plenty to say. You know the one.’

  ‘From Birmingham?’ asked Sperring.

  Julie nodded.

  ‘Hugo Gwilym?’ said Sperring.

  ‘That’s him,’ she said.

  ‘And he was interviewing Glenn for a book? What kind of book? Case studies?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him that.’

  Phil made a note. ‘We will.’ He frowned once more, leaned further forward. ‘Would there have been anyone else he might have moved for? To be closer to? It seems quite drastic to go all that way just to be in a book.’

  ‘There…’ More tissue abuse. ‘I didn’t… didn’t want him to talk about it. Didn’t want to know. There might have been.’ Grief and revulsion were fighting for prominence on her features.

  ‘Can you tell us who? Give us a name, even?’

  Julie sighed, steeling herself to revisit unpleasant memories. ‘I found him on a website one night, a website for… for people like him. He was talking to men. Other men like himself, but also men who… who liked that kind of thing. Who met transvestites for sex.’

  ‘Any names?’ asked Sperring.

  She shook her head. ‘I… No, I…’ She looked up. ‘One. Yes. Ben, I think he called him. Ben. Yes.’

  Phil had his notebook out. ‘Ben? Last name?’

  Julie almost laughed. ‘This is the internet. Lucky to get a first name. And even then it might not be a real one.’

  ‘We’ve got his laptop,’ said Phil. ‘Would we be able to find this Ben through the website?’

  She nodded. ‘He never used a password. Always kept it open. Like he wanted me to find it. Like he was doing wrong but was too weak to stop. Like he wanted to be punished because of it.’

  ‘And he met this Ben, did he?’

  ‘A few times. It was one of the main reasons I asked him to leave. Not just because of what he was doing to me and the kids, or the fact that I couldn’t get my head round it, but what he was bringing back into the house. What he was picking up from these… people.’

  ‘D’you know if it was just the one?’ asked Sperring. ‘Were there any others?’

  ‘There were others. But Ben was the main one. Apparently they always met in a bar on Hurst Street in Birmingham. Or a club, some club he went to round there.’ She paused. Looked down at the tissue. ‘Was… was it… D’you think it was this Ben who killed him? He was murdered, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He was,’ said Phil.

  ‘How… Did he suffer?’ Her voice sounded like it had been dropped from a great height.

  ‘He…’ Phil didn’t know what to say.

  ‘He went peacefully,’ said Sperring. ‘I don’t think he suffered.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Julie McGowan nodded.

  Phil looked at Sperring, surprised by his tact. The DS didn’t make eye contact.

  They stood up. The FLO did likewise.

  ‘This is… I’m sorry,’ said Phil, ‘but could we ask you to come and make an identification of the body? As next of kin it should be you, I’m afraid.’

  She nodded without speaking.

  ‘Thank you. Kim’s your family liaison officer. Would you like her to come along?’

  ‘If you like,’ Julie said, looking up. ‘But to be honest, I lost my husband ages ago. This is just… confirming he won’t be back.’ The tissue was no more.

  They left the house in darkness.

  25

  T

  he door was locked, bolted. The curtains drawn, the blinds closed. Marina wanted to keep the outside world as far away as possible. Just her, in the house, alone with her thoughts. Her fears.

  And what fears. She had gone straight home without picking up Josephina from Eileen. Let her grandmother enjoy her company for a little longer. She had been shaking so much she could hardly drive, her hands barely able to grip the wheel. The car had wandered into the wrong lane on the Belgrave Middleway, and only the angry horns of fellow drivers pulled back her concentration. And all the while Gwilym’s words rang round her head.

  I want to get to know you better. Much better…

  I doubt that your PC Plod hubby would want the world to know what a little slut wifey is…

  I brought along a little bit of proof…

  She felt inside her jacket pocket. Her panties were still there. The touch
of them triggered off something inside her and she ran into the bathroom, retching. She bent over the washbasin for what seemed like ages. Even though her body was empty, her stomach still kept spasming, trying to expel every bit of unpleasantness, vileness from her.

  Eventually it stopped and she looked up, gasping, at her face in the mirror. She didn’t recognise the scared, tousle-haired, mad-eyed woman staring back at her. She looked like she had aged a decade since leaving the house that morning.

  She splashed on cold water, towelled herself dry. Kept her face in the warm, soft fabric for as long as she could before reluctantly taking it away. She stared into the mirror. The water hadn’t improved her features. She still looked the same.

  She threw down the towel, went into the bedroom. With the doors secured tight and the blinds and curtains closed, she lay down on the bed, curled into a foetal ball, tried to block out everything else and think. Let her training kick in, not give in to her emotions. Easier said than done. She closed her eyes. Breathed deeply.

  Last night. The dinner. Sitting round the table, making polite conversation. She was still finding her feet with her new colleagues, sussing out who was an ally, who an enemy, who could be trusted, who couldn’t, who could be cultivated into a friend… then Hugo Gwilym had arrived.

  She tried to focus, concentrate harder. Relive every part of the conversation, every gesture. Try to work out just how much alcohol she had drunk.

  Answer: not much. Two glasses of red. That was it. Or as near to that as she could remember. Maybe her glass had been topped up by the serving staff and she hadn’t noticed, but it wouldn’t have been much more than that. Apart from Hugo, she thought with a shudder. He had been intent on filling her glass. But she hadn’t let him. Not too much. She had been determined not to get drunk. She was still on her best behaviour, didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of her colleagues. Didn’t want them forming a negative impression of her.