Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  He shrugged indifferently. "Then why did you try to top yourself? Dad's been worse than usual this week. You might have thought of that before you started playing silly buggers."

  She ignored him and lit a cigarette.

  "Are you going to talk to me, or have I wasted my time coming here?"

  "I doubt you've wasted your time," she said evenly, "as I imagine seeing me was the last thing on your list." She was watching his face, saw the flash of intense amusement in his eyes, and knew she was right. "You must be mad," she continued. "Adam wasn't bluffing when he said you'd be out on your ear the next time. Why on earth do you do it?"

  "You think you know everything, don't you?"

  "When it comes to you, Miles, I do."

  He grinned. "Okay, then it gives me a buzz. Come on, Jinxy, a couple of hands of poker in a hotel bedroom, it's hardly major gambling. And who's going to tell Dad anyway? You certainly won't and neither will I." He giggled again. "I scored"-he tapped his jacket pocket-"so no lectures, all right? I'm not planning to run up any more debts. The old bastard's made it clear enough he won't bail me out again."

  He was more hyped up than usual, she thought, and wondered how much he'd won. She changed the subject. "How's Fergus?"

  "About as pissed off as I am. A couple of days ago, Dad reduced him to tears. You know what my guess is-the worm'll turn when Dad least expects it and then it'll be your precious Adam who gets the thrashing." He was fidgeting with the lapels of his jacket, brushing them, smoothing them. "Why did you do it? He hates you now, hates us, hates everyone. Poor old Ma most of all."

  Jinx lay back and stared at the ceiling. "You know as well as I do what the solution is," she said.

  "Oh God, not more bloody lectures. Anyone would think you were forty-four, not thirty-four." He raised his voice to a falsetto, mimicking her. " 'You're old enough to stand on your own two feet, Miles. You can't expect your mother to give you Porsches all your life. It's time to move out, find your own place, start a family.' "

  "I don't understand why you don't want to."

  "Because Dad refuses to ante up, that's why. You know the score. If we want to live in reasonable comfort, we stay at home where he can keep his eye on us. If we want out, we do it the hard way and graft for ourselves."

  "Then welcome to the human race," she said scathingly. "What the hell do you think the rest of us do?"

  His voice rose again, but this time in anger. "You damn well never had to graft. You stepped straight into Russell's money without lifting a finger. Jesus, you're so bloody patronizing. 'Welcome to the human race, Miles.' You piss me off, Jinx, you really do."

  She was dog-tired. Why didn't the nurse come back to rescue her? She stubbed out her cigarette and turned to look at him. "Surely anything has to be better than letting Adam treat you like dirt. When did he last beat you?" There was something wrong with him, she thought. He was like an addict waiting for a fix, twitched, unable to sit still, fidgeting, fingering, eyes overbright. Oh God, not drugs ... not drugs... But as she fell asleep, she was thinking that yes, of course it was drugs, because self-indulgence was the one thing Miles was good at. If nothing else, his father had taught him that.

  ODSTOCK HOSPITAL, SALISBURY-9:00 P.M.

  The emergency room doctor was barely out of medical school and nothing in his training had prepared him for this. He smiled tentatively at the woman in the cubicle. It was worse than the elephant man, he was thinking, as he took his place beside the nurse whose hand the wretched woman was clutching. Her face was so swollen that she looked barely recognizable as a human being. She had given her name as Mrs. Hale. "You've been in the wars," he said vacuously.

  "My husband-belt-" she croaked through lips that could hardly move.

  He looked at the bruising on her throat where the marks of someone's fingers were clearly visible. "Is it just your face that's been hurt?"

  She shook her head and, with a pathetic gesture of apology, raised her skirt and revealed knickers saturated with blood. "He"-tears squeezed between her swollen lids-"cut me."

  Three hours later, a sympathetic policewoman tried to persuade her to make a statement before she was transferred to the operating room for surgery to her rectum. "Look, Mrs. Hale, we know your husband didn't do this. We've checked and he's currently serving eighteen months in Winchester for handling stolen property. We also know you're on the game, so the chances are that the animal responsible was one of your customers. Now, we're not interested in how you make your money. We're only interested in stopping this bastard doing the same thing to some other poor girl. Will you help us?''

  She shook her head.

  "But he could kill next time. Do you want that on your conscience? All we need is a description."

  A faint laugh croaked in her throat. "Do me a favor, love."

  "You've got two factured cheekbones, severe bruising of the throat and larynx, a dislocated wrist, and internal bleeding from having a hairbrush rammed up your back passage," said the policewoman brutally. "You're lucky to be alive. The next woman he attacks may not be so lucky."

  "Too right. It'll be yours bloody truly if I open my mouth. He swore he'd come back." She closed her eyes. "The hospital shouldn't have called you. I never gave them leave, and I'm not pressing no charges."

  "Will you think about it at least?"

  "No point. You'll never pin it on him and I'm not running scared for the rest of my life."

  "Why won't we pin it on him?"

  She gave another croak of laughter. "Because it'll be my word against his, love, and I'm a fat old slag and he's little Lord Fauntleroy."

  THURSDAY, 23RD JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-3:30 A.M

  As he did every night at about this time, the security guard emerged from the front door of the Nightingale Clinic and strolled towards a bench on the moonlit lawn. It was a little treat he gave himself halfway through his shift, a quiet smoke away from the nagging lectures of the nursing staff. He wiped the seat with a large handkerchief, then lowered himself with a sigh of contentment. As he fished his cigarettes from his jacket pocket he had the distinct impression that someone was behind him. Startled, he glanced round, then lumbered awkwardly to his feet and went to investigate the trees bordering the driveway. There was no one there, but he couldn't rid himself of a sense that he was being watched.

  He was a phlegmatic man, and put the experience down to the cheese he'd eaten at supper. As his wife always said, too much cheese wasn't good for anyone. But he didn't linger over his smoke that night.

  Jane Kingsley was floating in dark water, eyes open, straining for the sunlight that dappled the surface above her. She wanted to swim, but the desire was all in her mind and she was too weary to make it happen. A terrible hand was upon her, pulling her down to the weeds below-insistent, persuasive, compelling. She opened her mouth to let death in...

  She burst out of sleep in a threshing frenzy, sweat pouring down her back. She was drowning ... Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus, somebody help her! The moon beamed through a gap in her curtains, lighting a path through the room. Where was she? She didn't know this place. She stared in terror from one dark shadow to the other until she saw the lilies beside her, gleaming white and pure against the black of the carnations. Memory returned. Jane was her mother ... she was Jinx ... Jane was her mother ... she was Jinx...

  With shaking fingers, she switched on her bedside light and looked on things she recognized-the door to the bathroom, television in the corner, mirror against the wall, armchair, flowers-but it was a long time before the thudding of her heart slowed. She slid slowly down between the sheets again, as rigid and wide-eyed as a painted wooden doll, and tried to stem the fear that grew inside her. But it was a vain attempt because she couldn't put a name to what she was afraid of.

  Two miles away, in another hospital bed, her terror had its haunting echo in the battered face of a prostitute who had supped with the devil.

  A Case of Caveat Invest
or?

  If anyone needed a reminder that investmenis can go down as well as up, they received it yesterday when Franchise Holdings (FH), the property development group, suffered a temporary drop in the value of its shares, following a rumor that Adam Kingsley, 66, founder and chairman, was about to resign. FH has been a rare success story amidst the spectacular property group failures of the nineties.

  The rumor was apparently generated by a remark made by Kingsley in a BBC interview on Tuesday night. Referring to his daughter, Jane's, recent car accident, he said: "There are always times in one's life when one asks, has it all been worth it?" But Kingsley, nicknamed the Great White Shark when he snapped up Charford Gordon Associates eight years ago, has now sunk his jaws into the BBC.

  It is his policy to make private tape recordings of interviews, and he has issued a typescript of the one on Tuesday. This includes a follow-up sentence which was edited out of the broadcast. "This is not one of those times," he went on to say. The matter is under investigation by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

  However, the extraordinary episode has highlighted City fears about the long-term future of Franchise Holdings. As one analyst said: "Adam Kingsley is a master juggler. No one knows how many balls there are in the air at any one time. Frankly, it's difficult to imagine who will catch them safely when he finally leaves the stage."

  Daily Tetegraph-23rd June

  *5*

  THURADAY, 23RD JUNE, CANNING ROAD POLICE STATION, SALISBURY-9:00 A.M.

  "Little Lord Fauntleroy," echoed a skeptical sergeant the next morning. "You think that's relevant, do you?"

  "Yes," said WPC Blake stoutly. "I reckon he's a lot younger than she is and probably quite well spoken, otherwise why would she have chosen that analogy? She obviously thinks he'd make a far better impression in court than she would."

  "It's not much to go on."

  "I know. So I thought if I went through the files, I might find someone else. The chances are high he's done it before. If I could get two of them to support each other"-she shrugged-"they might find the confidence to talk to us and give us a description. You should see her, Gov."

  He nodded. He'd read the report. "You'll be doing it in your own time, Blake," he warned, "because there's no way I'm going to explain to them upstairs why you're shirking your other responsibilities to chase a prosecution that doesn't exist." He winked at her. "Still, have a go and see how you get on. I've been nicking Flossie's old man for years. She never bears grudges. She's a good old soul."

  THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-10:30 A.M.

  Jinx had been abandoned in an armchair by the window. "Time you were up and about, dear," coaxed a terrifying nurse with the hair of Margaret Thatcher and the nose of Joseph Stalin. "You need to get those muscles working again."

  Jinx smiled falsely and promised to have a little walk later, then lapsed into quiet contemplation of the garden when the bossy woman had gone. Her ginger-haired visitor of yesterday- he of the fox obsession-made signs to her from a bench on the lawn, but she moved her head to stare in a different direction and he abandoned his halfhearted attempts at communication. She could see a wing of the building projecting out at the far end of the terrace, and she guessed she was in a Georgian mansion, built for some wealthy family of two centuries earlier. What had become of them? she wondered. Had they, like the family who had built and inhabited Hellingdon Hall, simply faded away?

  "Hello, Jinx," said a quiet voice from the open doorway into the corridor. "Can you stand a visitor, or should I make polite excuses and leave?"

  Her shock was so extreme that her heart surged into frantic activity.

  Fear ... fear ... FEAR! But what was there to be afraid of?

  She recognized the voice and turned away from the window. "Oh God, Simon," she said angrily, "you gave me such a fright. Why on earth would I want you to leave?" She held a hand to her chest. "I can't breathe. I think I'm having a panic attack. Don't you ever dare do that to me again."

  "I'd better call someone."

  "No!" She waved him inside and took deep breaths. "I'm okay." She leaned back, drawing the air into her lungs. "I don't know why, but I'm really on edge at the moment. I keep thinking-no, forget it, it doesn't matter. How are you?"

  Simon Harris stood half in and half out of the doorway, looking irresolutely down the corridor. "Let me call someone, Jinx. I really think I should. You don't look at all well." He had the fine-boned, rather ascetic face of the clergyman he was, and he was as different from his sister as chalk was from cheese. Meg would have told her: "Sod it, sweetheart, be it on your own head. Don't blame me if you die." Simon could only peer through his glasses with well-meant but impotent concern.

  "Sit down, Simon," she said wearily. She wanted to scream. "I'm okay. Why wouldn't I want to see you?"

  Reluctantly, he abandoned the doorway and made his way to the other chair. "Because it struck me as I was walking along the corridor that I had deliberately shut my eyes to the potential embarrassment my visit might cause."

  Why do you always have to be so pompous, Simon? "To you or to me?''

  "To you," he said. "I'm more angry than embarrassed. I still can't believe my sister would steal her best friend's fiance."

  "Well, I'm neither embarrassed nor angry, just very lethargic and rather sore." She eyed his dog collar and cassock with disfavor. "Mind you," she grumbled, "I don't go a bundle on the uniform. Couldn't you have worn jeans and a T-shirt like everyone else? They all think I'm suicidal as it is, so having a vicar visit me will destroy any credibility I've managed to salvage."

  He smiled, reassured by her feeble attempts at humor. "No choice, I'm afraid. I'm doing an official stint in the cathedral in approximately two hours, so if I wanted to visit you as well, I wasn't going to have time to change."

  "How did you know I was here?"

  "Josh Hennessey told me," he said, squeezing his knees with bony fingers. "I managed to get through to Betty once during the week but she hung up as soon as I said who it was. The name Harris is nomina non gratis at Hellingdon Hall at the moment," he finished ruefully, "and I can't say I'm altogether surprised."

  "Then how did Josh persuade her? She knows quite well he's Meg's partner, not mine."

  Simon pulled a face. "He got the same treatment I did until he realized deception was the better part of valor. He lied, said he was Dean Jarrett and needed to talk to you urgently on business."

  Dean was Jinx's number two at the photographic studio, and he played his homosexuality for all it was worth because it amused him. Jinx massaged her aching head. "She must have been drunk as a skunk to fall for that. Josh doesn't sound anything like Dean."

  "In vino absolutely, but don't be too harsh on her. Josh says she sounded genuinely upset for you."

  Sudden irritation seethed in Jinx's soul. Why shouldn't she be harsh on the silly woman? By what right did anyone suggest that she temper her scorn? "You will never speak about your stepmother like that again," her father had said when, at the age of ten, she had pointed out with genuine anxiety that Betty was so stupid she thought the moon orbited the sun and that Vietnam shared a border with America, which was why they were fighting a war there. "All she does is paint her fingernails and go shopping," she had told him severely.

  But all she said now was: "She was very sweet to me yesterday," before plucking a cigarette from the packet on the arm of her chair and lighting it. "So has Josh managed to track down Meg? I gather he's pretty annoyed with her for leaving him in the lurch."

  Simon shook his head. "Not as far as I know, but I haven't spoken to him since last night."

  She studied his face through the smoke from her cigarette and saw he'd been lying when he said he wasn't embarrassed. He looked deeply uncomfortable-almost as drained and wretched as she felt herself-with his thin fingers smoothing and pleating the black serge of his cassock and his eyes looking anywhere but at her. Her irritation mounted. "I couldn't give a toss about Leo," she said harshly. "If you want the truth,
he was beginning to get on my nerves." A tear glittered along her lashes. "The only thing that's upsetting me is the embarrassment of everyone thinking I tried to kill myself over him." She gave a hollow laugh. "I don't envy Meg at all. Believe me, Leo will be absolutely insufferable if he thinks I couldn't bear to lose him." Oh, stupid, stupid woman! No one will believe the grapes weren 't sour.

  Simon sighed. "Dad and Mum don't know which way to turn. They felt badly enough before your accident, but afterwards-well..." He lapsed into silence. "I don't know what to say to you, Jinx, except that I've never felt angrier with Meg than I do at the moment. God knows she's no angel, but none of us thought she'd do something like this." Mo<"Like what?" She took quick nervous drags on her cigarette.

  "All I've been told is that Leo said he wanted to marry her and that they then left for France. But does Meg want to marry him? If so, it'll be a first. She's never wanted to rnarry anyone else."

  "You really don't remember anything about it?"

  "No," she said grimly. "I've made a prize arse of myself by telling everyone I'd be prancing up the aisle on July the second." Tears threatened again. "Look, it's not important. Tell me what's been happening in the world in the last week. Is everyone still killing each other in Bosnia? Is the Queen still on the throne?''

  He ignored this and addressed himself to what she really wanted to know. "Meg phoned Mum and Dad a week ago last Saturday and sprang on them that she and your fiance had been having an affair for some time, that he wanted to marry her instead, and that they were off to France until the fuss died down because they thought it would be more tactful." He pulled a rueful face over the word "tactful." "Rather predictably, she and Dad had a flaming row about it. He accused her of being shameless, and she accused him of being holier-than-thou as per usual. Result, they hung up on each other. Mum threw an almighty wobbly, screamed at poor old Dad that it was his fault because he would insist on preaching at her, then phoned me. My view was that if Leo was prepared to jilt you so unceremoniously, then he was probably a scoundrel and would abandon Meg just as unceremoniously, and Mum got on the blower to her and said she wasn't to go anywhere until they'd met him. Meg told her she was worrying unnecessarily and that she'd bring Leo down the minute they got back from France. And that's all we knew until we read about your attempted suicide."