Dark Room

*9*

SATURDAY, 25TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-6:00 P.M.

Jinx had resumed her vantage point under the beech tree, dark glasses firmly in place, anonymity restored. To observers, she was an object of curiosity, this thin, gaunt woman who sat alone and used the protective fronds of the hanging branches to hide behind. Almost, thought Alan Protheroe, watching her from the French window in his office, like a bird in a cage, for it was her loneliness that impressed him most. He wondered if it was advisable or possible to unlock the iron control that she exercised upon her emotions, for he was doubtful that happiness was a condition to which Jinx aspired. She couldn't bear to be so vulnerable.

"I'm relieved," she said when he asked her if she was happy that her bandages had been removed. "Only children know how to be happy."

"And were you happy as a child, Jinx?"

"I must have been. The smell of baking bread always puts me in a good mood." She smiled slightly at his frown of puzzlement. "My father wasn't always a rich man. I remember being a small child and living in a two-up, two-down in London somewhere. My mother did all her own cooking and baked all her own bread, and I can't smell warm bread now without wanting to turn somersaults."

"Which mother was that? Your real mother or your stepmother?"

She looked confused suddenly. "I suppose it was my stepmother. I was too young to remember anything my mother did."

"Not necessarily. We begin to store emotions at a very young age, so there's no reason why you shouldn't remember happiness from when you were a toddler, particularly if it was followed by a period of unhappiness."

She looked away. "Why should it have been?"

"Your mother died, Jinx. That must have been an unhappy time for you and your father."

She shrugged. "If it was, I don't remember it. Which is sad in itself. Death should make an impact, don't you think? It's awful how quickly we forget and move on to something new."

"But very important that we do," he replied. "Otherwise we become like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations and sit forever at an empty table."

She smiled. "If I remember my Dickens, poor old Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiance on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in her bridal gown with the remains of the banquet all around her. Hardly the most tactful parallel you could have drawn. In the circumstances, wedding plans are not a subject I particularly want to dwell on."

"Then let's talk about something you would like to dwell on. What makes you feel alive?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I prefer the peacefulness of feeling nothing. For every up there's a down and I hate the sadness of disappointment."

"Relationships don't have to be disappointing, Jinx. Far more often than not, they represent the sort of fulfillment most of us long for. Do you not think that's a goal worth pursuing?"

"Are we talking marriage and children, Dr. Protheroe?" she asked suspiciously. "Did Josh Hennessey tell you he fancied me?"

He chuckled. "Not in so many words, but he seems fond of you."

"He's far fonder of Meg than he is of me," she said dismissively. "Too fond, really. She treats him like a brother because business and pleasure don't mix, when all he wants to do is fuck her. Also, he was fond of his wife when he married her," she added tartly, "but he walked out on her four years later because he claimed she was boring. Is that the kind of fulfilling relationship you want me to have?"

"I doubt he'd find you boring, Jinx, but in any case, that's a side issue. What I think we're talking about is contentment."

She gave a low laugh. "Well, I'm a good photographer, and that makes me content. If I'm remembered for just one photograph, then that will be immortality enough. I don't need any other. It's a birth of sorts, you know. Your creation emerges from the darkness of the developing room with just the same sense of achievement as a baby emerging from the womb."

"Does it?"

She shrugged again. "I think so. Admittedly, the only birth I can compare it with was a rather messy business in the lavatory, but I imagine that going to term and producing a living child is somewhat more rewarding. Yes, I'd say the sense of achievement in those circumstances is not dissimilar." Her face was devoid of expression. "By the same token, I imagine there's the same sense of disappointment when the result of your hard work is less than you hoped for. Works of art, be they children or photographs, can never be perfect." She hesitated a moment. "I suppose if you're lucky, they might be interesting."

After that she had excused herself politely and walked outside, leaving Protheroe to wonder if she was talking about her own hopes of the child she had lost or her father's hopes of her. Although perhaps she was talking about neither. He reflected on the two unmarried brothers who still lived at home and who, if Jinx's closed expression when their names were mentioned was any guide, had little love for their intellectually gifted sister.

He was about to turn away from the French window and his contemplation of her seated, solitary figure when he noticed a man approaching across the lawn. Now where the hell had he come from? For no obvious reason, other than that he was responsible for Jinx's safety and she was clearly unaware that anyone was behind her, he felt a sense of imminent danger and, with a flick of his long fingers, turned the key in the lock and thrust the door wide. With farther to travel than the other, he raised his voice in a bluff bellow. "There you are, Jinx!" he called. "I've been looking for you."

Startled, she turned her head, saw her younger brother first, then looked beyond him to Protheroe. "God, you gave me a shock," she said accusingly as they both drew close. "Hello, Fergus." She nodded a welcome. "Have you two met? Fergus Kingsley, my brother-Dr. Alan Protheroe, my existentialist shrink. You're a very bad liar," she told Alan. "You've been watching me for the last ten minutes, so why the sudden panic?"

He shook Fergus by the hand. "Because I take my responsibilities seriously, Jinx, and for all I knew, your brother was a stranger to you." He folded his arms across his chest. "As a matter of interest," he said without hostility, "which way did you come in? It's a rule of the Nightingale Clinic that visitors seek permission at the front desk before approaching our guests. It's a simple courtesy but an important one, as I'm sure you'll agree."

Fergus reddened under the older man's stare. "I'm sorry." He looked very young. "I didn't realize." He gestured behind him to the other side of the lawn. "I parked by the gate at the bottom and walked up." He looked sullenly towards Jinx. "Actually, I was going to do the thing properly; then I saw you under the tree."

Jinx removed her dark glasses and squinted up at Protheroe with one blackened eye closed against the evening sunlight. "I don't recall my consent being sought before. It's a perverse rule that operates at the whim of the director."

He smiled affably. "But a rule, nevertheless. I shall have to make sure it's properly enforced in future." He nodded to them both. "Enjoy your visit. If you want some tea, your brother can order it from the desk and have it sent out." He raised a hand in farewell, then walked briskly back to his office.

Jinx stared after him. "I think he's madder than some of his patients," she said.

Fergus followed her gaze. "He fancies you," he said bluntly.

She gave a splutter of laughter. "Don't be an oaf! The man's not blind, and they do let me look in a mirror from time to time." She sobered suddenly and her eyes narrowed. "Actually, I hate the way he's always watching me. It makes me feel like a prisoner."

"Do you like him?"

"Yes."

"Is he married?"

"He's a widower." She frowned. "Why so interested?"

He shrugged. "You know what they say about psychiatrists and their patients. I was just wondering if he was going to be the next one in the Kingsley marriage stakes."

"Do me a favor, Fergus," she said crossly. "I don't intend to stay here long enough to develop anything more than a passing acquaintanceship with the man."

He leaned against the tree trunk. "So you're planning to come home."

"Go home," she corrected him. "Back to Richmond and back to the studio. Sitting around and doing nothing isn't what I'm best at."

"Is that supposed to be a dig at me?"

"No," she said mildly. "Oddly enough, Fergus, I am more interested in my own problems at the moment than I am in yours." She studied his sullen face, which was so like Miles's to look at but which lacked the charm that his older brother could switch on and off at will. "Did you have a reason for coming?"

He scuffed the grass with his foot. "I wondered how you were, that's all. Miles said you weren't too hot when he came, said you passed out when he was talking to you."

"It's just tiredness." She replaced her dark glasses so that he couldn't read the expression in her eyes. "Miles told me Adam made you cry. Is that true?"

He reddened again. "Miles is a bastard. He swore he wouldn't tell anyone. You know, sometimes I don't know who I hate more, him or Dad. They're such shits, both of them. I wish they'd drop dead. Everything would be okay if they were both dead."

It was the same childish cry she'd heard from him since he was five years old. Only the register of his voice was different. "Presumably Adam belted you again. So what did you do to make him angry?"

"It wasn't me who made him angry. It's you being in this place." He slid his back down the tree trunk to squat at the foot of it. "He just went overboard and started screaming and yelling at everyone. Miles cowered in the corner, as per bloody usual, and Mum sat and blubbered. Well, you know what it's like. You don't need me to tell you."

"But you must have done something," she said. "He might be angry about me and"-she gestured towards the building-"all this, but he's never belted you without good reason. So what did you do?"

"I borrowed twenty pounds," he muttered. "You'd think it was a hanging offense the way he carried on."

She sighed. "Who from this time?"

"Does it matter?" he said angrily. "You're as bad as bloody Dad. I was going to pay it back." His mouth thinned unattractively. "What nobody ever seems to recognize is that I wouldn't have to borrow money if Dad treated me like a human being instead of a slave. It's really degrading having to admit you're the son of Adam Kingsley when everyone knows you're earning peanuts. I keep telling him, if he'd only pay me a decent whack, I wouldn't have to resort to borrowing. I'm the boss's son. That should stand for something. Why do Miles and I have to start at the bottom?"

"You know," she said with sudden impatience, "if you called a spade a spade occasionally, you'd be halfway to earning Adam's respect. It's the lies that you and Miles tell that really fire him up. Can't you see that? You're a thief"-she fixed him with a scornful stare-"and everybody knows it, so why bother with this garbage about borrowing? Who did you steal from this time?"

"Jenkins," he muttered, "but I was going to pay him back."

"Then I'm not surprised Adam belted you," she said tiredly. "I wouldn't enjoy having to apologize to my gardener after my twenty-four-year-old son had stolen money from him. I suppose you thought Jenkins wouldn't have the nerve to say anything and you'd get away with it. That's almost worse than stealing from him in the first place."

"Oh, leave it out, Jinxy. I've had all this from Dad, and you're both wrong, anyway. I really was going to pay him back. If he'd had a word with me, I'd have sorted it out, but, oh no, he had to go running to the old man and make a bloody mountain out of a molehill."

Something fundamental snapped inside Jinx's head. She would always think of it afterwards as the blood bond which had tied her physically to a family that in any other circumstance she would have avoided like the plague. Suddenly, she found herself free to acknowledge that she didn't like them. More, she had only contempt for them. Ultimately, in fact, she agreed with what everyone knew Adam thought but had never put into words: Miles and Fergus were their mother's sons and, like Betty, saw Adam Kingsley only in terms of their meal ticket. She smiled savagely. "You know, I'm going to tell you things that I've never told a soul in my life. First, I despise your mother. I always have from the minute she came into our house. She's a fat drunk with an extraordinarily low IQ. Second, she married my father because she wanted to be a lady, and she had enough cunning to persuade him that while she could never fill my mother's shoes, she could at least be a comfortable slipper for him at the end of a long day. He was lonely and he fell for it, but what he actually saddled himself with was a vulgar, money-grubbing tart." She held up three fingers. "Third, it might not have been so bad if she hadn't lumbered him with you and Miles. Even your names are an embarrassment. Adam wanted to call you something straightforward like David or Michael, but Elizabeth wanted something befitting the sons of a rich lady."

Her voice took on the accent of her stepmother. "It has to be something posh, Daddy, and 'David' and 'Michael' are so common." She drew an angry breath. "Fourth, Adam finds himself father to two of the laziest, most unintelligent, most dishonest sons a man could have. Every gene you have has come to you straight from your mother. You are incapable, either of you, of contributing anything worthwhile to your family. Instead, you are only interested in bringing Adam and me down to your own shabby levels. Fifth, how the hell can you begin to justify stealing off a gardener who works day in day out to fund his very modest house and his very modest car while you, you little bastard," she spat at him, "swan around in your swank Porsche so that you can pick up any little tart who's stupid enough to think the Kingsley name means something? Will you explain that to me? Can you explain it to me?"

He stared at her. It was a shock to him to see his father mirrored in the set of her chin and the fury in her voice, but he had spent years playing on her conscience and, like Miles, he was a master at it. "We've always known you were a snobbish bitch, Jinx," he said idly. "What the hell do you suppose it was like for Mum moving into a house with the perfect child already in residence and pictures of her perfect mother all over the walls? She says you were so condescending she wanted to slap you. I wish she had, as a matter of fact. If you'd been treated the way Dad's treated us, then maybe things would have been better for us all."

"He didn't treat you any differently at the beginning from the way he treated me," she said coldly. "I can remember the first time he belted you, because it was the first time you and Miles were reported for stealing. You were nine years old and Miles was eleven, and you stole money from the till in the village shop. Adam paid over a hundred pounds to Mrs. Davies to hush the whole thing up, then took a strap to the pair of you to remind you what would happen if you ever did it again." She shook her head. "But it didn't work. You just went on doing it and he went on beating you, and it was me who had to try and calm him down, because Betty was always drunk. Do you think I enjoyed any of that?"

He shrugged. "I couldn't care less whether you did or not, and anyway you're exaggerating. Most of the time you were either at school or bloody Oxford, playing the family genius while Miles and I were being treated like Neanderthals. You should put yourself in our shoes once in a while. You know damn well he's always hated us. We only took that money from the shop because we thought he might notice us instead of mooning over his precious Jane." His mouth took on a sullen cast. "You don't know what it was like. When you were home for the holidays, he was only interested in you and what you were doing, and when you were away, he used to shut himself in his office with those bloody photographs of your mother."

She saw all that for what it was, the manipulative emotional blackmail of a selfish, twisted mind, but the habits of a lifetime die very hard and, as usual, she foundered on the hard certainty of Adam's obsession with her mother and herself. "But why will you never help yourselves?" she asked him. "Why do you go on doing what you know he hates? Why do you stay there and give him the opportunity to despise you? I just don't understand that."

"Because it's my home as much as his and I don't see why he should push me out," he said. "It's all right for you. You got Russell's money. You were lucky."

She experienced the strange sensation of a door slamming shut on a memory. For the briefest second, she had a glimpse of something remembered, but it was as transient as a puff of wind on a summer's day and the memory was lost. Had they had this conversation before? "You have some very warped ideas, Fergus. How can you regard anything to do with Russell's murder as lucky?" Why did Russell keep intruding into every conversation? She had banned him from her thoughts for so long, but now she was being forced into thinking about him all the time.

"Leave it out, Jinx. You weren't that fond of him and you ended up with all the loot." But it was said without conviction, because he, like she, had lost the energy to continue an argument that was going nowhere. Where trust had been sacrificed, knowledge was all, and it mattered very little whether thoughts were spoken or unspoken when everyone knew where they stood. Except... "You're wrong to slag off poor old Mum," he said with a halfhearted show of belligerence. "She's gone out and batted for you, which is more than Dad's done since you've been in here. She's given the Walladers and the Harrises a pasting for the way Leo and Meg have treated you. She called Sir Anthony 'a boil on the bum of society' and Caroline Harris 'a tight-arsed bitch."

Jinx lowered her head abruptly so that he wouldn't see the laughter in her eyes.

"Okay, she was drunk," said Fergus sulkily, "but she meant well. Actually, Miles and I thought it was quite funny."

So did Jinx. She had called Anthony "a parasite" but how much more astute was Betty's judgment...

ROMSEY ROAD POLICE STATION, WINCHESTER-7:30 P.M.

"You're going to have to let me talk to Miss Kingsley," said Gareth Maddocks, dropping wearily into a chair. "Seriously, sir, bar sitting by Miss Harris's phone and waiting for the damn thing to ring, I can't see how we're going to find out where her parents live."

"Did you try Sir Anthony again?"

Maddocks nodded. "He just keeps bleating 'Wiltshire' at us. All this guff he gave you about what a relief it was when Leo took up with a nice girl like Meg amounts to sweet fuck all. The only thing she had going for her, as far as I can make out, is that she wasn't Jane Kingsley. The impression I get is that if Leo had turned up with some old slag from the local pub and announced his intention of marrying her, the Walladers would have jumped for joy."

"Can't say I blame them," said the Superintendent dryly. "I wouldn't want Adam Kingsley for an in-law either."

"Well, for what it's worth, his daughter sounds fairly reasonable. She left a message on the answering machine. Nice voice, sense of humor, says she doesn't bear any grudges and wanted Meg to phone her."

Frank raised an eyebrow. "Have you got it with you?"

The DI reached into his pocket and took out a tape cassette. "We made copies at the Hammersmith nick, then took the original back to the flat." He put it on the desk in front of him. "Hers is the last message. I've listened to it several times now and I'm inclined to agree with Fraser that she has no idea Leo and Meg are dead."

Cheever fingered the cassette for a moment, then picked it up, swiveled in his chair, and pushed it into a tape deck on the shelf behind him. He sat with bowed head, listening to the recorded messages, only stirring when Jinx's ended. He pressed Rewind, listened to hers again, then rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as he pressed Stop. "She says she can't remember anything since June the fourth," he pointed out.

"Which tallies with the Fordingbridge report," said Maddocks. "According to that, the concussion after the accident left her with amnesia."

"Agreed, but it doesn't mean she didn't know about the deaths. Do you follow what I'm saying? She could have wiped the knowledge from her memory." He tapped a finger on the desk. "I think it would be extremely foolish to assume anything on the basis of this one recording."

"I'm not arguing with you, sir, but it strikes me this is our best opportunity to question her without raising anyone's hackles, least of all her father's." He leaned forward. "Look, we are simply trying to trace the whereabouts of Miss Harris. Her credit cards have come into the possession of the police after the arrest of a thief, but repeated attempts to contact her at her address in London have failed to produce a response. Hammersmith police, concerned for her welfare, have entered the flat in order to trace her family and friends, only to discover that the flat has been cleared out. The one lead they came up with is Miss Kingsley because she was the only caller who left her telephone number. We have been asked by Hammersmith to interview Miss Kingsley with a view to tracing Miss Harris." He spread his hands. "Are you going to give me a shot at her on that basis? It's a legitimate approach."

The Superintendent steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him and stared the other man down. "You do realize I'll have your hide if you make a mess of it."

Maddocks grinned. "Trust me, sir."

His eyes narrowed. "I hate people who say that. Just make sure you get the consent of her doctor before you talk to her. In fact, you can go farther, and ask him to be present while you put your questions. I do not want this force accused of bullying a sick young woman."

"Do me a favor, sir," said Maddocks plaintively. "I wouldn't know how to begin. I like women."

Frank's eyebrows beetled into a ferocious frown. It was common knowledge that Maddocks had been the subject of sexual harassment complaints by three different female officers, although, predictably, nothing had come of them. "You've been warned," was all he said.

CANNING ROAD POLICE STATION, SALISBURY-8:00 P.M.

WPC Blake stuffed a photocopy under the nose of the Sergeant as she came in at the end of her shift, and shook it vigorously. "Read that, Sarge. It's a dead ringer for Flossie Hale's experience. Same MO, same refusal to talk, same injuries."

He took it in both hands and placed it squarely on his desk. "It may come as a surprise to you, Blake, but I have A-one vision. As yet, I do not require documents to be held half an inch from my eyes in order to read them." He then scanned the page.

Incident report

Officers attending: PC Hughes & PC Anderson.

23.3.94. Disturbance reported 23.10 at 54 Paradise Avenue.

Woman banging on neighbor's door and causing a nuisance. On investigation, woman found to be in need of urgent medical treatment. Severe bruising to the face and lacerations of the rectum.

Name: Samantha Harrison. Known local prostitute.

Claimed assailant was her husband but believed to be lying. Refused to cooperate further.

"Have you followed this up with Hughes and Anderson?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"Talk to them tomorrow." He spread a broad palm across the sheet. "Then have a word with Samantha, assuming you can find her, and keep me posted. Good girl. I think you could be onto something. Let's see you nail this bastard."

Blake flushed a rosy red. At twenty-one she was still untouched by cynicism, so other people's approbation mattered.

THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-11:30 P.M.

Time had no relevance. An hour spent reading a book passed in a minute. A minute of agony lasted an hour. Only fear was eternal, for fear fed itself. Whose fear? Yours? Theirs? Ours? Mine? His? Hers? Everyone's.

Even the dark was fearful.

Confusion ... confusion ... confusion...

Forget ... forget ... forget...

A moment of clarity.

Why am I here? What am I doing?

MEG WAS A WHORE! booms the great voice of reason. My father made me evil.