The Red Room by Nicci French

Author:Nicci French [French, Nicci]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Psychological, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780141034157
Google: MppUtrTVfacC
Amazon: B002RI90RC
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

The next morning, very early, the phone rang. It was Oban. "Get a paper." "What do you mean? What paper?" "One of the tabloids. Any of them. Fuck it." And he put the phone down. Five minutes later after a breathless run down to the man outside the tube station, a selection of the day's tabloid newspapers was spread out on my table. The familiar, slightly eager, slightly dazed expression of Michael Doll was staring up at Julie and me out of a mess of huge, raucous headlines: ARREST IN PIPPA MURDER. "I'M INNOCENT" SAYS PIPPA SUSPECT. PIPPA SUSPECT'S "WEIRD" PAST. Pippa. That name again. The right length for a headline. And where was Lianne? Who cared about her? I scanned the papers. It was all 303 there. The questioning, a suspiciously detailed account of what had been obtained by Colette's wire, the release on what were described as "technical grounds." There was a sketchy account of his life and times: children's home, reformatory, minor sexual offenses. A young woman from the Daily News had managed to get an "exclusive" interview, as if there was any problem in getting this pathetically lonely man to talk to a young woman. Here, at least, Lianne was mentioned. Doll boasted that he had been close by. To make things worse, he tried to deny that he had been a suspect. No, not at all, he said, he was an important witness, he was the only person who had actually seen anything. There was a photograph of him in his room looking proud of himself. That room. There was a description of the room by the journalist--a rich, clever young woman coming face to face with a desperate, poor, fucked-up man--that was a form of accusation in itself. The article ended on a note of caution that looked as if it had been composed with a lawyer looking over the writer's shoulder: "We do not suggest that Mickey Doll has any involvement in the crime. He is not a suspect. No evidence has been found linking him to the tragic murders of Lianne and young mum Philippa Burton. Yet men like Mickey Doll, with his porn-fueled fantasies and his criminal record, are an obvious threat to the community, to our families, to our children. In identifying a man like Doll, in printing his photograph, in revealing where he lives, we are not, of course, recommending any actions against him by members of the public. That would be illegal, however understandable, however legitimate the concerns of ordinary people. It is time for the politicians to act." Julie took away the interview and read it with her coffee and a bowl of the fruit she ate for her breakfast. "Hmm," she said, when she had finished. "It doesn't really capture his full charm." But the following day Oban told me, rather casually, I thought, that Doll was in hospital. A concerned citizen had walked up to him in a pub and smashed him in the face with a broken bottle.

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