Dark Room

*14*

TUESDAY, 28TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-1:00 A.M.

The two constables surveyed the shattered windshield and the crushed Wolseley trunk with unfeigned disgust. It was parked forlornly by the front door, where Alan had driven it when he realized that without some very prompt action, his dislocated shoulder would require reduction under general anesthetic at the nearest emergency room. He had blared the horn with all the vigor of the angels and archangels sounding the last trump, and sobbed with relief when the night security officer emerged to rescue him, and Veronica Gordon, using strong hands and a steady nerve, guided the bones back into place. Even so, it had been a close call. After fifteen minutes, the joint had been so swollen that the pain was unbearable.

"That's criminal," said one policeman, lighting the damage with his torch. "How many times did you say he hit it, sir?"

"Only once," said Alan, cradling his left elbow in the palm of his right hand, unconvinced that the sling he was wearing was reliable. "I smashed the back in when I was reversing away from him. I'm rather more interested in the fact that he had at least two swipes at me."

"Still, sir," said the other ponderously, "he seems to have done more damage to your car."

"Remind me to show you some pictures of dislocated joints thirty minutes after the event," he said dryly. "Then tell me he did more damage to my car." He led the way into his office, padding wearily to his desk and hitching a buttock onto the edge. "I suppose it's occurred to you he might still be out there."

"Highly unlikely, sir-not with all the activity that's been going on."

The police car had arrived within ten minutes of the 999 call, and, following Dr. Protheroe's description of events-namely, that he had glimpsed a face in his headlights and stopped to investigate-the policemen worked on the logical assumption that an intruder had come with the intention of burglary and the doctor had had the misfortune to get in his way. A thorough check of all the doors and windows, however, had failed to discover any signs of a break-in.

"We can't fault your security, sir," said the larger of the two constables, with a perplexed frown, "which makes me doubt this fellow had cased the clinic very thoroughly. If he was planning a burglary, he can't have known how difficult it was going to be to break in. So are you sure you didn't recognize him? Otherwise, I don't understand why he bothered to attack you. He clearly hadn't committed a crime at that point, not unless he entered and left by the front door, which your security officer says is impossible because he's been at the reception desk since ten o'clock."

"I'm sure. In any case I was beginning to think I'd made a mistake about seeing anyone at all until I felt the hammer brush my arm. I had no idea he was so close to me. I certainly didn't hear him, but as I'd left the car engine running, that wasn't really surprising."

"And you can't think of any reason why someone would want to attack you?"

Alan shook his head. "Unless he knew I was a doctor and thought I had drugs in the car. I've been racking my brains but I can't think of anything else." There would be time enough tomorrow, he thought, to decide whether it had been Jinx's face he saw in the headlamps, or whether his imagination had put her there because she had been on his mind.

"An ex-patient, perhaps, who would recognize your car?"

"I wouldn't have thought so. It's one of the first things I make clear when they arrive. We have a limited supply of drugs on the premises and they're always locked away in that safe over there."

He jerked his head towards the solid Chubb in the corner. "They certainly know I never carry anything in my car."

The constable lowered himself onto a chair and took a notebook from his pocket. "Well, let's get some details down. You say he ran away after smashing the windshield, so you must have had a pretty good look at him then."

Alan plucked a Kleenex from a box on his desk and dabbed at his face, which was still bleeding from where tiny shards of glass had embedded themselves in his skin. "Not really. I was having a hell of a job trying to find reverse with my right hand, so I was concentrating on that."

"Will you describe him for me, please?"

"He was a bit shorter than I am, say about five ten or eleven. I suppose you'd describe him as medium build-he certainly wasn't fat-and he was dressed in black."

The policeman waited for him to continue, pencil poised over notebook on knee. When he didn't, he looked up. "A slightly fuller description would be more helpful, sir. For example, what skin color was he?"

"I don't know. I think he was wearing a ski mask. All I saw was a man dressed in black from head to toe wielding a sledgehammer."

"Fair enough. Then perhaps you could give me some details of his dress. What was he wearing on his top?"

Alan shook his head. "I don't know." He saw impatience in the constable's eyes. "Look," he said with a flash of anger, "it's very dark. I get out of my car and the next thing I know, some bastard is trying to make mincemeat out of me. Frankly, taking in the minutiae of his dress is the last thing on my mind."

The policeman waited a moment. "Except that you must have taken in a few more details when you were back in the car and he was running away."

"It happened very fast. All I can tell you is that he was dressed in black."

"It's not much to go on, sir."

"I'm aware of that," said Alan testily.

There was a short silence. "Yet you're very sure it was a man. Why? Did he say something to you?"

"No."

"Could it have been a woman?"

"Maybe, but I don't believe it was. Everything about him-body shape, strength, aggression-told me it was a man."

"You wouldn't be so convinced if you saw some of the women we deal with, sir," said the constable with heavy humor. "There's no such thing as a weaker sex these days."

Alan took a deep breath. "Look, would it be a problem if we left all this till tomorrow? I'm pretty tired and my shoulder's giving me hell."

The constables exchanged glances. "I can't see why not," said the one who had remained standing. "The place seems secure enough, and without a good description, there's not much we can do tonight anyway. We'll have one of the plainclothes lads come and talk to you tomorrow. Meanwhile, sir, you might make a list of where you've been today and who you've spoken to." He gave a courteous nod. "For what it's worth, I think your theory about drugs is the most likely explanation. Some junkie after morphine who found the clinic was too well guarded and preferred the softer target of you and your car. It was a good bet that anyone coming back after midnight was more likely to be a doctor than a visitor or a patient."

Alan stopped at the nurses' room on his way to bed. "Everything all right?" he asked.

Veronica Gordon, the only occupant, looked at his bloodied face. "Are you trying to play the martyr?" she demanded. "Is that why you won't let me do something about those cuts?"

"You're too ham-fisted, woman," he growled. "I'd rather do them myself, quietly and gently, in my own time. Any problems?"

"Good Lord, no," she said tartly. "Why would there be problems when a houseful of insecure drunks and drug addicts get woken in the middle of the night by security officers and policemen tramping about the gravel and shining torches through their windows? For your information, Amy and I are being run off our feet. She is currently responding to the three bells that rang just before you came in." A light began flashing on the board at her elbow. "There's another one. They're all too nosy for their own good. They want to know what's going on."

"What about Jinx Kingsley? Are you still running the half-hourly checks?"

She swung the night register round for him to look at. "Fast asleep, and has been since ten o'clock. Matter of fact, she's the only one who hasn't given us any trouble. Amy checked her just before you started blaring your horn, but it's not recorded because we haven't had time, not with all the hoo-ha going on. I've popped my head in once since then, but she's out like a light. Do you want us to go on with it?"

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Just in case. It makes me feel easier, knowing where she is."

It wasn't until after he'd gone that Veronica was struck by the inappropriateness of what he'd said. She intended to mention it to Amy Staunton, but it went out of her mind when the demands of another bell sent her off down the corridor. Had it not, and had Amy been encouraged to tell her that Jinx was fully dressed, she, like Sergeant Fraser, often wondered afterwards, how different might the end result have been?

Jinx's waxen cheeks lost their last vestiges of color when Alan Protheroe entered her room before breakfast the following morning, his left arm supported in a sling and his face scarred with tiny cuts and scratches. "Did Adam do that?"

He was visibly taken aback. Whatever reaction he'd expected from her, it certainly wasn't that. "Why would your father want to break my windshield?"

"He wouldn't," she said rapidly. "Forget I said it. It was silly. Is that what happened? Is that why the police were here last night?"

He smiled. "There now, and I was reliably informed you slept through the whole thing."

"I did."

"Then how do you know the police were here?"

"Matthew told me. He came in half an hour ago."

God damn bloody Matthew! He seemed to spend more time in this room than he did in his own. "Did he say what it was all about?"

Jinx shook her head. "He's on a trawl to see if anybody else knows."

She was a great liar because she understood the importance of being plausible. "I see." He perched on the end of the bed. "And you couldn't tell him because you don't know."

She held his gaze for a moment before looking away. "That's right."

"The police think it was an intruder after drugs." He examined her exhausted face. "For someone who slept through it all, you don't look very rested."

She forced a cheerful smile. "It's my skinhead look. It doesn't do me any more favors than it does your average convict. But it's not really designed to, is it? Hair is the original fashion accessory."

"Are you cold?" he asked her. "You're shivering."

"It's nerves."

"Why are you nervous of me, Jinx?"

"I'm not."

"Then what are you nervous of?"

"I don't know," she said. "I can't remember."

He grinned broadly. "I had a dream about you last night. I dreamed I was lying on my back on a cliff edge when a hand came up, grabbed my ankle, and started to pull me towards the brink. As I was sliding over, I looked down and saw your face staring up at me, and you were smiling."

She frowned. "Is that supposed to mean something?"

"Yes," he said, standing up. "It means you were pulling my leg."

It was a Detective Constable Hadden of the Wiltshire police who took up where the two uniformed policemen had left off the previous night. He was a bluff middle-aged man who was there to pay lip service to police procedure but without any obvious intention of pursuing the matter further. Rather to Alan's annoyance, he arrived with the newspaper, which put paid, for the moment anyway, to Alan's attempts to substantiate what Simon Harris had told him over the telephone.

"Frankly, sir," confided DC Hadden, pushing his ample bottom into the sculptured recesses of the leather sofa, "I'm inclined to go along with the junky theory unless you've remembered anything overnight that points to something more concrete. You see our dilemma. We'd have more success looking for a needle in a haystack than scouring the countryside for this man you've described. It would be different if you could give us a name or if he'd stolen something-there'd be a slim chance of tracing him through the goods-but as it is"-he shook his head-"needle-in-haystack stuff, sir. I'm sure you understand the problem."

"Then this list I made of the people I spoke to yesterday was a complete waste of time," Alan snapped irritably. "I could have had another half hour in bed, which would have done me rather more good than attempting to assist the police in an inquiry they aren't even interested in." He snatched the list from the coffee table and prepared to roll it into a ball.

"Now I didn't say that, sir," said Hadden, holding out his hand for the piece of paper. "We will, of course, look at any information you give us, but the report of last night's incident emphasizes very strongly that you did not believe the attack was personal. Perhaps you've reconsidered?"

Alan shook his head. "What I said was, I can't think of anyone who would have wanted to do it, but I did make the point that the man took another swing at me even after I'd shut myself in the car. If drugs were what he was after, why didn't he give up then?"

Hadden glanced down the list as he spoke. "Because these types don't act logically, sir, as I'm sure you know. His mind was set on whatever you had in the car, so he smashed the windshield to get at it. Hospitals lose thousands of pounds' worth of stock every week. Sooner or later, someone was bound to think a place like this was worth a hit." He thumbed the corner of the page. " 'Mr. Kennedy, solicitor to Adam Kingsley,' " he read slowly. "Would that be Adam Kingsley of Franchise Holdings?"

Alan nodded.

The transformation from bored indifference to alert interest was startling. "May I ask why his solicitor came to see you, sir?"

"Mr. Kingsley's daughter is a patient here."

"I see." The detective frowned. "Why send his solicitor? Is there some dispute between you?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Then what did you talk about? Was it an amicable discussion?"

"Perfectly amicable. We discussed Miss Kingsley's progress."

"Is that normal, sir? Discussing a patient's progress with her father's solicitor?"

"Not in my experience, no, but Mr. Kingsley's a busy man. Perhaps he trusts his solicitor to keep confidential information confidential."

The other man's frown deepened. Clearly, he found the episode as inexplicable as Alan had done. "Have you met Mr. Kingsley himself.''

"No. We correspond by fax and telephone."

"So you can't say what sort of a man he is?" Alan shook his head. "There's a Fergus Kingsley on your list. Would that be a relation?"

"The younger son. Miss Kingsley's half brother."

"And was your conversation with him amicable?"

He thought of Fergus's hand on his arm. The gesture had been annoying, but not hostile. "Yes, it was amicable."

DC Hadden folded the page and stuffed it into his pocket. "You said your guy was carrying a sledgehammer. No question about that?"

"None."

"Okay." He stood up. "We'll see what we can do, sir."

Alan raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Why the sudden change of heart? Two minutes ago, you were quietly going to drop the whole thing; now you're raring to go. What's Kingsley got to do with this?''

Hadden shrugged noncommittally. "I seem to have given you a false impression, sir. The Wiltshire police take all assaults seriously. Presumably, if we need to come back to you, we'll find you here. You're not planning to go away in the next day or so?"

"No."

"Thank you for your help. I'll be off then."

Alan watched him leave, then with a thoughtful frown, reached again for the newspaper. The piece about Leo and Meg was on an inside page, and when he read it, he understood why mention of sledgehammers in the context of the name Kingsley had galvanized so indolent a man as DC Hadden into activity.

ROMSEY ROAD POLICE STATION, WINCHESTER-10:00 A.M.

An hour later and twenty miles away in Winchester, Frank Cheever listened to what his opposite number in Salisbury told him over the telephone, and smiled for the first time in twelve hours. It had been a bastard of a night, beginning with the call from The Times seeking confirmation of identity and continuing with a bombardment from other journalists demanding to know if the implications in The Times piece had any basis in fact. Sir Anthony Wallader, it seemed, had been very specific in his accusations against Kingsley and his daughter, and while none of the newspapers was foolish enough to print his statement verbatim, they had all followed The Times's lead by mentioning Landy's death and quoting Frank's own refusal to specify whether a sledgehammer had been used. They had also flirted with Wallader's other accusation, which was that Kingsley was using his influence to suppress the investigation in his home county of Hampshire, leaving their readers to tease out all the damning implications.

Frank's ears were still smarting from a deeply critical dressing-down by the Chief Constable for his failure to keep Sir Anthony and Mrs. Harris informed of developments. Frank had pointed out, but to no effect, that Meg's body had not been formally identified until a few hours previously and that Sir Anthony's complaint to the newspapers was very specific, namely that Hampshire police had not immediately arrested and/or charged Adam or Jane Kingsley. The Chief Constable was unimpressed by such niceties of distinction. Frank should have addressed the Wallader and Harris concerns at the outset and never allowed this climate of distrust to develop.

"It must have occurred to you that the two sets of parents would get together. Why on earth didn't you go back to the Walladers the minute the Harrises had left? Of course they're going to suspect the worst if we can't be bothered to keep them informed. I'm organizing a press conference for this afternoon and I expect you to have pacified both families in the meantime. No one is to be left in any doubt at all that Hampshire police are pursuing this inquiry with vigor and commitment, irrespective of who may or may not be involved."

Frank glanced at his watch as he replaced the receiver. Sir Anthony and Lady Wallader were due in less than ten minutes. The Harrises had declined the invitation, but had agreed to see Detective Superintendent Cheever in their home at midday. The press conference was scheduled for three-thirty. He picked up the telephone again and ordered DI Maddocks into his office immediately.

"Sir," said Gareth, presenting himself sixty seconds later, as anxious not to annoy the Superintendent as Frank was anxious not to further annoy the Chief Constable. The pecking order had been viciously active since seven o'clock the previous evening.

"I've had a call from Salisbury. Dr. Alan Protheroe at the Nightingale Clinic was attacked last night with a sledgehammer. He avoided serious injury by raising the alarm and attracting help, but-and this is the interesting bit-Salisbury say Protheroe had a visit from Kingsley's solicitor yesterday afternoon. I want you to go to Salisbury, take Fraser with you, talk to Detective Superintendent Mayhew and a Detective Constable Hadden, and then go on to the Nightingale Clinic to interview Dr. Protheroe. Get me a complete rundown of his day, the names of everyone he spoke to and what was said. The solicitor's visit can't be coincidence."

Sir Anthony Wallader was in no mood to be placated. He denounced the Kingsleys as murderers, repeated his accusations of police lethargy, demanded to know why Russell Landy's death had gone unpunished, and insisted that if the police had done their job over that, then Leo and Meg would still be alive. He seemed unable to contain his grief or deal with it, and three days had brewed in him an anger that needed to lash out at anyone who could be blamed for his loss. Lady Wallader, by contrast, sat with bowed head and said nothing.

Frank, too, sat in silence until the storm abated.

"Please accept my apologies for any insensitivity that I and my team have shown you, and your wife, Sir Anthony," he said quietly. "Our difficulty was tracing Meg's parents and, as I'm sure Mrs. Harris told you, it wasn't until yesterday morning that they were able to make the formal identification. Clearly, I should have telephoned you immediately afterwards to acquaint you with developments and I regret intensely that I did not."

"At the very least, someone should have been sent to comfort my wife. Why wasn't that done? The Reverend Harris tells me you sent a policewoman to support his wife."

"We did offer support and counseling, sir, but if you remember, you said it would only make it worse to have strangers in your house."

"Well, I'm not going to let it rest. I'm making an official complaint. In my view you should be taken off the case immediately and replaced with someone more competent." Tears gathered in his eyes. "My son has been murdered, and what are you doing about it? Nothing. Any more than anything was done after Russell Landy's murder."

"I do assure you, sir, we have done a great deal in the few days we've had. For example, we've located your son's London house where we expect to find most of his and Miss Harris's possessions." He checked the time. "A team of detectives was due in there this morning, accompanied by your son's solicitor. We have in addition requested the French police to enter his house in Brittany, although, as it seems clear he and Meg died without ever leaving England, we are not hopeful of anything material coming back across the Channel. There is also the condominium in Florida, but again, we think it unlikely that a search will bear fruit." He paused for a moment, pretending not to see the hurt bewilderment on the older man's face. "We are still trying to locate his two cars. His solicitor is sure that one of them, at least, is in the garage of the Chelsea house, and he has given us the address of another garage in Camden which Leo rented for several years. Mr. Bloom has agreed to take the detectives there after they have finished in the house. There are, in addition, two safety deposit boxes which we will apply to search, and several bank accounts that may tell us something when we can gain access to them. I regret that these efforts had to be delayed until today, but we were only given Mr. Bloom's name on Sunday afternoon. We contacted him yesterday and arranged for the searches to be made this morning."

"But this is outrageous," spluttered Wallader. "We should have been told all this immediately."

"In fact, this information was only confirmed for us late yesterday afternoon in a fax from Mr. Bloom's office," said Frank. "It took some time to assemble because of the complexity of your son's affairs." He folded his hands in front of him. "I do regret the turn events have taken, sir. Please believe that Mr. Bloom had agreed to accompany me to Guildford after the searches of your son's premises in order to clarify and explain what he knows of Leo's estate. Wrongly perhaps, I thought it would be more appropriate for you to hear the details from a solicitor. It seems your son had considerable assets which, from the little you were able to tell us on Saturday, I gather you and your wife knew nothing about."

Lady Wallader looked up at Cheever. "He had a flat in Kensington which he had to sell in '88 to pay off his debts," she said tiredly. "He lost everything in the stock market crash and had to live in rented accommodation in Kew for five years until he met Jinx and moved in with her."

Frank consulted the fax from Bloom. "Would that be a flat in Kensington Garden Road?"

She nodded.

"It makes up part of his estate, Lady Wallader, together with three flats in Kew and two in Hampstead. His list of properties are as follows: a five-bedroomed house in Chelsea which was let until April of this year, at which point he instructed Bloom and his agents to keep it vacant; the flat in Kensington which is currently empty but with instructions to let; two flats in Hampstead which are currently let; a three-storied house in Kew which was converted to three flats four years ago, all of which are currently let; a house in Brittany which is let during the holiday season when Leo himself doesn't require it; and a condominium in Florida which is let year-round to holiday tenants. Offhand, can you remember where he said his rented flat was?''

"The Avenue, Kew," she whispered.

"Tremayne, The Avenue, Kew?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"He bought the entire property eight years ago for two hundred and eighty thousand pounds, Lady Wallader. Perhaps you misunderstood what he meant by rented accommodation."

"No," she said. "He led us both to believe he was finding it difficult to make ends meet, but I knew he was lying. If I hadn't, I might have done what he asked and lent him some money." She stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Was it Jinx who gave you Mr. Bloom's name?"

"Yes," he told her.

"Does that mean she's better? I spoke to her stepmother on the telephone and she told me Jinx had lost her memory. I was very sorry to hear that."

"I understand it's only partial amnesia, Lady Wallader. Two of my detectives spoke to her on Sunday, and most of what she can't recall relates to events in the two weeks preceding her accident."

"How bloody convenient for her," said Sir Anthony furiously. "You realize she's probably lying."

Frank ignored him. "Did you like her, Lady Wallader?"

"Yes, I did," she said quietly, "but she was angry the last time we saw her and I guessed Leo was up to his tricks again. It's difficult to be objective about your children, Superintendent. For all their sins you go on loving them, and however much you wish they would, the sins don't go away."

Her husband's hand descended on her arm in an iron grip. "You're being disloyal," he said angrily.

There was a short silence.

"I'm telling the truth, Anthony," she said quietly. "It doesn't mean I loved Leo any less. You know that." She ignored his hard fingers digging into the flesh of her arm.

"The only truth that matters now is that your son was murdered," he grunted. "Do you want his murderer to get away with it?"

She looked at him. "No," she said, "which is why it's important that the Superintendent knows the truth."

"You're hurting your wife, Sir Anthony," said Frank calmly.

The haggard face turned blankly towards him.

"Your hand, sir. I think you should remove it."

Obediently, he unclenched his fist.

"Tell me why Jinx was angry the last time you saw her."

"Oh, because she'd had enough of his lies and deceits," said Lady Wallader matter-of-factly. "Like every other girlfriend Leo ever had. In the end they all discovered that the charm and the good looks disguised a very selfish personality." She glanced briefly at her husband. "He couldn't share, you see, even as a child. He became quite violent whenever another child borrowed something of his, so in the end we took him to a psychologist, who diagnosed a personality disorder. She told us there was nothing we could do about it, but that he would probably learn to control his aggression better as he got older."

"And did he?"

"I suppose so. He stopped using his fists, but I can't say hand on heart that he felt any less angry inside about having to share what he had. He was very immature."

"Miss Kingsley described him as excessively secretive. Is that how he solved the problem, do you think? By refusing to divulge what he was worth?"

"Yes." She gestured towards the fax. "Well, clearly, that's true. We had no idea he owned so many properties. I did recognize that he was much better off than he said he was, but not to this extent. I'm sure we must seem very gullible, Superintendent, but life with Leo was so much calmer when he was allowed to keep his secrets."

Frank waited a moment. "You said Jinx had had enough, Lady Wallader. Does that mean it was she who called off the wedding?"

It was her husband who answered. "No," he said firmly. "She was very abusive to us all, though to what purpose remains a mystery. At no point did she say she wouldn't go through with it. It was Leo who told her there wasn't going to be a wedding, when she finally stopped shouting."

"Did he explain why?"

"He said he'd been having an affair with Meg Harris and was going to marry her."

"And what was Jinx's reaction?"

"Shock," he said. "It was the last thing she'd expected and she stared at him in complete shock."

"Would you agree, Lady Wallader?"

She looked up. "Yes," she admitted, "I would. She didn't say anything, but she clearly hadn't expected a response like that. I got the impression she was very angry, but I think she was more angry with Meg than Leo. It's difficult now to say for certain. We were all very distressed, and frankly, Anthony and I were relieved when they left."

"When was this?"

"It was the bank holiday weekend at the end of May."

Cheever frowned. "Yet, according to the evidence we have, the last thing Miss Kingsley remembers is saying good-bye to Leo on June the fourth when she set off to stay with her parents. Why was he still in her house a week after he said he was planning to marry her best friend?"

"We don't know," said Sir Anthony. "They left our house furious with each other, then Leo telephoned later that evening to ask us not to say anything to anyone until he gave us permission. But he didn't explain why and he didn't call until nearly two weeks later. It was the Saturday, June the eleventh, and he said he and Meg were making themselves scarce until the fuss died down." His brows drew together in an angry frown. "I accept Leo had his faults but he was a damn good catch for the daughter of an East End crook. My view is, Jinx wasn't going to let him go that easily. She flared up the May weekend for no good reason and then changed her mind. That's how I see it. Kept him with her till she went to Fordingbridge, then lost him back to Meg while she was away. I mean to say, if she was planning to back out of the whole thing, then why didn't she tell her father to send out cancellation notices during the week she spent at the Hall? That would have been the obvious time to do it. You see, it doesn't add up."

"Yes," said Cheever slowly, "I see your point."