Neverwhere(10)

It was not a large bathroom. It contained a bathtub, a toilet, a sink, several bottles of shampoo, a bar of soap, and a towel. When Richard had left it, a couple of minutes before, it had also contained a dirty, bloody girl, a very bloody sink, and an open first aid kit. Now, it was gleamingly clean.

There was nowhere the girl could have been hiding. Mr. Vandemar stepped out of the bathroom and pushed open Richard’s bedroom door, walked in, looked around. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” said Richard. “But if you two don’t get out of my apartment this minute, I’m phoning the police.”

Then Mr. Vandemar, who had been in the process of examining Richard’s living room, turned back toward Richard, and Richard suddenly realized that he had never been so scared of another human being in his life.

And then foxy Mr. Croup said, “Why yes, whatever can have come over you, Mister Vandemar? It’s grief for our dear sweet sibling, I’ll wager, has turned his head. Now apologize to the gentleman, Mister Vandemar.”

Mr. Vandemar nodded, and pondered for a moment. “Thought I needed to use the toilet,” he said. “Didn’t. Sorry.”

Mr. Croup began to walk down the hall, pushing Mr. Vandemar in front of him. “There. Now, you’ll forgive my errant brother his lack of social graces, I trust. Worry over our poor dear widowed mother, and over our sister, whom even as we speak is wandering the streets of London unloved and uncared-for, has nigh unhinged him, I’ll be bound. But for all that, he’s a good fellow to have at your side. Is’t not so, stout fellow?” They were out of Richard’s apartment now, into the stairwell. Mr. Vandemar said nothing. He did not look unhinged with grief. Croup turned back to Richard and essayed another foxy smile. “You will tell us if you see her,” he said.

“Good-bye,” said Richard. Then he closed the door and locked it. And, for the first time since he had lived there, he attached the security chain.



Mr. Croup, who had cut Richard’s phone line at the first mention of calling the police, was starting to wonder whether he had cut the right cord or not. Twentieth-century telecommunications technology not being his strongest point. He took one of the photocopies from Vandemar, and positioned it on the wall of the stairwell. “Spit!” he said to Vandemar.

Mr. Vandemar hawked a mouthful of phlegm from the back of his throat and spat it neatly onto the back of the handbill. Mr. Croup slapped the handbill hard onto the wall, next to Richard’s door. It stuck immediately and stuck hard.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? it asked.

Mr. Croup turned to Mr. Vandemar. “Do you believe him?”

They turned back down the stairs. “Do I Hell,” said Mr. Vandemar. “I could smell her.”



Richard waited by his front door until he heard the main door slam, several floors below. He started to walk down the hall, back toward the bathroom, when the phone rang loudly, startling him. He sprinted back down the hall and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” said Richard. “Hello?”

No sound came out of the receiver. Instead, there was a click, and Jessica’s voice came out of the answering machine on the table next to the phone. Her voice said, “Richard? This is Jessica. I’m sorry you’re not there, because this would have been our last conversation, and I did so want to tell you this to your face.” The phone, he realized, was completely dead. The receiver trailed a foot or so of cord, and was then neatly cut off.

“You embarrassed me very deeply last night, Richard,” the voice continued. “As far as I’m concerned our engagement is at an end. I have no intention of returning the ring, nor indeed of ever seeing you again. Bye.”

The tape stopped turning, there was another click, and the little red light began to flash.

“Bad news?” asked the girl. She was standing just behind him, in the kitchen part of the apartment, with her arm neatly bandaged. She was getting out tea bags, putting them in mugs. The kettle was boiling.

“Yes,” said Richard. “Very bad.” He walked over to her, handed her the HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? poster. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “The photograph’s me.”

“And you are . . . Doreen?”

She shook her head. “I’m Door, Richardrichard-mayhewdick. Milk and sugar?”

Richard was feeling utterly out of his league by now. And he said, “Richard. Just Richard. No sugar.” Then he said, “Look, if it isn’t a personal question, what happened to you?”

Door poured the boiling water into the mugs. “You don’t want to know,” she said, simply.