The Doll's House (3 page)

T
he first thing Phil noticed was the smile. Wide and taut, fixed and immobile. Like the Joker from
Batman
, he thought. Or one of his victims.

The woman's face was overly made-up, with not a square centimetre of natural skin showing through, creating a barrier between decomposition and the outside world. Her eyes were highly coloured and elaborately lined, with huge false eyelashes. Her lips were shining bright red, her face powdered and pale, her cheeks almost as rosy as her lips.

‘Well overdone,' said Jo Howe. ‘Make-up like that can be seen from space.'

Phil kept gazing at the face, transfixed. ‘She looks like a doll…'

Once he had thought that, he couldn't get the idea out of his mind. He looked at her body. The make-up was consistent with her clothes. She was dressed like a doll too. Her dress was pink gingham with puffed meringue shoulders, in at the waist then out in a pleated skirt with ruffled white netted underskirts beneath. Her legs were covered in pink nylon, her shoes heeled and pink. Long pink satin gloves covered her forearms.

‘Is the pathologist here yet?' asked Phil.

‘On her way,' said Khan. ‘Shouldn't be long.'

‘She'll have her work cut out with this one,' said Sperring.

Phil stood back, still studying the body. She was sitting at a table laid for dinner. One arm was frozen in mid air, finger and thumb pressed together. A teacup lay on its side on the table nearby as if it had been dropped or fallen. He clocked the table.

Two place settings. And properly done: matching crockery, correct cutlery. Knives and forks for the first course on the outside, working inwards; plates and bowls in the right order, wine and water glasses at the side of the settings.

‘Check…' Phil heard his own voice. It sounded like it was coming from the wrong end of a telescope. ‘Check those glasses for DNA.'

He looked again at the body. The pink gingham and the white underskirt were splattered and stained a dark blackish red around the hem. He reached out a latexed hand, lifted the skirts. The pink stockings underneath were similarly coloured. He lifted them further.

‘Jesus Christ…'

She wore no underwear. And where there should have been genitals there was just a gaping hole.

Sperring and Khan knelt down beside him, looked also.

‘Aw, fuck…' Khan turned away, stood up.

Sperring kept looking. Phil watched his new DS. He was focused on what was in front of him, eyes hooded, expression once again impassive. Trying to be detached, Phil thought. Reacting and responding like a professional. Phil couldn't fault him on that, at least.

‘What d'you see?' he asked, kneeling next to the DS.

‘No blood,' Sperring said. ‘Or very little. Cleaned away. Or drained.' He peered in closer. ‘Minced flesh. God. But neatly cut. Well, considering what's been done to her.'

Phil let the skirts drop, straightened up. Sperring did likewise.

‘Hold on,' said Khan.

The other two turned. Behind them, the junior officer was swaying, eyes flickering. His face had turned bone white, as if he was suffering from a sudden deficiency of melanin.

‘Not in here,' said Phil. ‘Locard's exchange principle.'

Khan nodded, straightened himself up. Phil knew he wouldn't want to faint at a crime scene, where he could contaminate or destroy evidence.

‘I'm just…' Khan turned, left the room.

A look of amusement crossed Sperring's face, then it returned to its usual unreadable expression.

Phil waited until Khan had gone, then looked round the room and back at the body, trying to take it in as well as its surroundings. He glanced at his hands. They were shaking. Not wanting to go the way Khan had, especially not in front of Sperring, he turned away, gulping in air quickly, forcing his body to steady itself. This was his first test since coming back. He had told his superiors he was ready, that he could cope. Now he had to prove it.

He sucked down more air, focused his mind once more. Turned back to study the body, the layout. He looked down again.

‘Legs have been tied to the chair.' He glanced at Sperring. ‘What does that tell us?'

‘Staged? Left like this for a reason? From the lack of blood, the cutting wasn't done here.'

‘Right,' said Phil. ‘And that hand? The thumb and finger together? Must have been holding that teacup.'

‘Rigor?' said Sperring. ‘Never seen it like that before.'

‘Me neither. Jo, get your team to check through the rest of the house. Look for blood, a murder scene. I don't think he carried her too far; it should be in here.'

She nodded, did so.

Phil went back to looking at the body, trying to put himself in the victim's place. Unconsciously, his hands began to move. He found himself miming her actions, imagining what he would do if he had been in that situation. He put his hands up to his neck.

If someone was cutting me, I'd have fought. Tried to pull away. But I didn't, so
…

‘She was placed here, yes.' Phil spoke aloud. ‘One arm is down, the other…' He looked at the fallen cup, the rigid arm. ‘Here. Staged. And she's smiling…' He moved round to the other side of the table, bent down to get into her eyeline. ‘Smiling towards here…'

‘Whoever did it must have sat there,' said Sperring. ‘The other side of the table.'

‘Romantic little dinner party. Lovely.'

‘Didn't go quite according to plan.'

Phil stood up, looked round the room once more, back to the dining table. Chair covers with tie-backs, table runner, matching crockery. All the same colour, all pink. He moved in close, examined the crockery. It looked new. There was something on both sets of plates. Red and brown lumps; congealed blood as sauce.

‘We'd better get that analysed,' he said. ‘I wouldn't want to even speculate on what it is.'

He turned once more, looked round the rest of the room. The living room was open-plan, all one big space, the kitchen off to the side. The walls were a light shade of pink, the carpet darker. The furniture was covered in throws of differing shades of pink with both matching and complementing cushions. There were even a few pink stuffed animals dotted around the place. It all looked new, fresh. Clean.

He crossed to the wall the sofa backed on to. Leaned in close, smelled the wall. Turned back to Sperring.

‘How long did you say this house had been rented out for?'

‘Couple of weeks, something like that. Short-term let, they said.'

Phil nodded. ‘This wall's just been painted. Very recently.' He knelt down. ‘The carpet's new too. Still shedding the pile.'

He moved slowly through the living area, careful to walk lightly, not to disturb any potential evidence. The sofa had been sat on; the throw and cushions reflected that. He looked closer. More than just sat on: lain on.

He straightened up. Looked back at the dining area. Tried to piece together what had happened. Back at the living room. A TV sat in one corner, DVD player underneath. A few DVDs were piled neatly at the side. He checked the spines.

A couple of Hollywood blockbusters, a bit of Formula One and some unmarked ones that looked home-made.

‘Let's get those checked out,' he said.

Something else in the room jarred. He realised what it was. No Christmas decorations. No tree, not even a small plastic one. But there were cards on the mantelpiece. He opened them, began reading.

He checked over some others, found the same kind of greeting to the same sole person. Glenn. No woman's name.

He found a large one, picked that up.
To Glenn
, it said in blue felt tip followed by a printed greeting and a jumble of mismatching signatures. A works card. He checked the company name: Allard Tec Ltd, Coventry. Made a mental note, replaced it.

At the far end of the room, by the window, something caught his eye. He crossed to it, knelt down. A doll's house. He turned back to Sperring, back to the doll's house. No FSIs around. He touched it carefully, opening the front.

It was fully decorated. He glanced round once more. The toy living room was a miniature facsimile of the real one.

‘Is that a doll's house?' asked Sperring, coming to join him.

‘It is,' said Phil, eyes still searching it. ‘But it's empty.'

‘No doll,' said Sperring.

Phil looked at the body sitting at the table.

‘Apart from the one over there,' he said.

T
he doll was in his pocket. He kept putting his hand in, touching it as he walked, unable to help himself. Stroking her hair, smoothing down her tiny pink gingham dress. Running his thumb gently along her smiling face, over her nose and eyes, the plastic indentations caressing his skin, making it tingle.

She had looked so lonely sitting on the shelf, in her pink dress and little pink shoes, her smile red, wide and blank, that he couldn't leave here there. And he couldn't stay in either, he had to go out. So she had to go with him.

Now he walked down Hurst Street in the city centre, the muted techno thud pounding from the bars and clubs matching his footfall, matching his heartbeat. Plugged into the city, alive with it.

His hand in his pocket all the time, stroking.

He had always done that. Even when he was a boy. If there had been something he found exciting, that obsessed him, he would take it with him wherever he went. Carry it round no matter what he was doing. Especially books. He could remember going clubbing with a copy of Thomas Harris's
Silence of the Lambs
in his pocket, taking it out and reading a chapter in the strobe-lit darkness if there was no action happening before him, being transported to a world of serial killers and then looking up, disappointed to find that, no matter who was looking at him, giving him the glad eye, reality was mundane alongside it. Before that it had been Robert Bloch's
Psycho
. Sometimes he didn't read it; just took it out to stare at the lurid cover painting depicting a blood-dripping blade reflecting a pair of mad killer's eyes. He could stare into those eyes for hours. And had done. Many times.

And now he had the doll. And he couldn't stop touching her.

He stopped and looked round. Breathing in the smells of stale beer and cheap fried food on the cold night air, feeling the thump and hum of the music penetrate him down to his bones. He was humming with electricity, like an overhead cable. If someone touched him, sparks would fly from his fingertips. If he held someone, pressed his fingers against them, he could burn them. He could incinerate. That was how powerful he felt. He carried life and death within him.

There had been questions afterwards:
What was it like? What did it
feel
like?
Was it as good as you thought it would be?
And he had answered honestly:
No
. Shock and surprise had greeted the word. He had continued.
It was better
.

He stood still. People moved all round him, flowed like a human river. He ignored them. His hand on the doll in his pocket, reliving the experience.

Everything about it had been exquisite. From the time he turned up on her doorstep to leaving with her doll, the whole thing had been perfect. Gentle and loving. Just like they had both agreed. Her smile as she greeted him. Then the foreplay. Then deep, intense loving. Exploring her body. Playing. There was a moment when he thought she would back out, crumble. Not have the courage to go through with what she had agreed to. What she had said she wanted to do. That had angered him. He was ready just to take the blade and slash. See what she made of that. Or rather, what it made of her. But he hadn't. He had been controlled. He had explained, put her at her ease. And it had all been fine after that.

He had gone to work with the drugs, just as they had agreed. Then the blades. Cutting slowly, expertly. Clinical and precise, like the internet tutorials had shown him, but also tenderly, lovingly. Then the meal. He could still taste it, still summon up the aromas, the flavours. He felt he always would. It was the best thing he had ever eaten.

She had been too weak to eat hers. Despite his best efforts, she had started to slip away. He had placed her where she wanted to be and waited. And watched. Eventually, with a final kiss and a smile for him, she had gone.

But not before she thanked him. For making her dreams become reality.

Something had happened then. At first he had thought it was an illusion, a fantasy. His mind playing tricks on him. But the more he thought about it, the more he decided it was real. When she had finally slipped away, her soul leaving her body, her mouth had opened and out had flown a beautiful, brightly coloured butterfly. He had seen it. And eventually he worked out what it meant. Her body was just the chrysalis, the husk. The butterfly was her beautiful soul, finally freed. And he had done that for her. He had made that happen.

The exquisiteness of the moment had moved him to tears as he cradled the doll in his arms and cried and cried.

Once he had regained control of himself, it had been a simple matter of honouring her wishes, arranging her how she wanted to be left. He should have left then. That was what they had agreed on. But he couldn't. When he saw her sitting there, the doll in her doll's house, just like they had both wanted, her perfect apotheosis, he couldn't bring himself to leave. He just wanted to stay there with her, not let go, cling on to the special time they had spent together, relive every moment.

So he had done. Revisiting the places they had been, reliving the experiences they had shared, eating once more from her plate. And then, when the memories were used up and there was nothing left but the doll before him, he had settled down and slept.

When he woke, it was light and he was still lying on the living room floor. At first he didn't know where he was or even
who
he was, but his memory soon returned. Though he didn't know how long he had been there or what day it was. His first impulse had been to run, but he had stopped himself. That would have been a stupid thing to do. He would wait until dark, then leave as quietly as possible. He looked at the doll. Until then…

When he had left, he had taken the plastic doll with him. He wished he could take the whole doll's house, put her in her proper place, where she belonged, but it would have attracted too much attention. The neighbours might have thought he was a burglar and called the police. And that was the last thing he wanted.

Once he had left, there hadn't been a single second he didn't wish he was back there, reliving the whole experience. He had wanted to climb on to the roof of the tallest building in the city and scream about what he had done, over and over and over. But he hadn't. Just contented himself with his memories.

For now.

‘Arcadian.' He blinked and found himself back on Hurst Street once more. The voice that had spoken had been his.

That had been happening more often: zoning out, getting lost in his thoughts and memories, not knowing where he was when he returned. It didn't worry him. He had just lived through the most extreme, most beautiful experience of his life. Only natural he would want to relive it.

He recognised where he was now. Outside the Arcadian. An apologetically eighties collection of bars, restaurants and clubs, though he knew the real meaning of the word. Of course he did, he wasn't thick. Arcadian. A resident of Arcadia, the most perfect paradise ever. He smiled. Thought of his doll. She was his Arcadia. He was the Arcadian.

He became aware of men all around him. All shapes, all sizes. All looking for the same thing. Some stopped, their eyes roving up and down his body, smiling, nodding, gesturing. He didn't return any of their looks. He had thought coming here would be a good idea. Meet someone, go off with them, feel the friction and burn of their body against his. But the doll in his pocket just reminded him of what he had done. Who he had become. He had the power of life and death. Electricity, not blood, coursed through his body. Compared to those around him, he was a god.

But he had to go somewhere. He didn't want to go home alone, so he walked, stopped at a pub. The Village Inn was festooned with rainbow banners, a poster on the side advertising it as the city's number one cabaret venue. There was a long line of airbrushed images beneath, the faces wigged and made-up but none managing to hide the essential masculinity beneath.

None were nearly as beautiful as his doll had been.

Not Arcadian, but they would have to do. It would be like going back to eating kebabs after dining on filet mignon, but he knew that their friction and burn, their pounding, their need to stave off loneliness would be better than nothing. For now.

Caressing the doll once more, he opened the door and went inside.

Singing the body electric.