Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  Blake looked from the photographs to Miles's drained, white face. "It would certainly seem to," she agreed.

  Kennedy smiled coldly at his client. "Your father's outside, Miles. I suggest we don't make him wait any longer than we need to."

  Miles shrank into his seat. "I'm not going," he said. "He'll kill me."

  "Your mother and Fergus are with him. I'm sure they'll both be very pleased to see you." He gestured towards the door. "Your father's most aggrieved by all of this, Miles, and he gets very angry when he's aggrieved, as you know. You wouldn't want your mother and brother to bear the brunt of his anger, would you?"

  Miles looked terrified. "No," he said, lurching to his feet. "It was my idea. Mum and Fergus were just trying to help. I thought if we put the shares up as collateral, we could get out from under once and for all. So it's me he should blame, not them."

  Blake watched the young man pull the remnants of his courage together and thought he was braver than she'd given him credit for. But what the hell sort of man was Adam Kingsley to inspire such fear in his twenty-six-year-old son?

  *21*

  WEDNESDAY, 29TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-5:00 P.M.

  Dr. Protheroe stood in Jinx's open doorway, watching her. She was speaking on the telephone, body rigid with tension, fingers clenching the receiver, shoulders unnaturally stiff. Her father, he guessed, for he doubted anyone else could elicit so much nervous energy. He remembered another woman standing in just this way listening to a voice at the other end of the line. His wife, hearing her own death sentence. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Protheroe. How long? It's difficult to say. How long? Twelve months-eighteen, if we're lucky.

  Jinx watched him while she spoke. "What's wrong?" she asked as she replaced the receiver.

  He shook his head. "Nothing. I was thinking of something else. Bad news?"

  "No, good," she said dispiritedly. "They've let Miles go."

  "With or without charges?"

  "Without." She climbed onto her bed and sat cross-legged in the middle of it. "Kennedy was able to prove he was somewhere else."

  "You don't seem very happy about it."

  "Adam was on his mobile. I could hear Betty crying in the background. I think the sword has finally snapped its thread."

  "Are we talking about the sword of Damocles?"

  She nodded. "Adam's had it hanging over their heads for years. The trouble is..." She lapsed into one of her silences.

  "They were too stupid to realize it," he suggested.

  She didn't say anything.

  "So what was Miles really doing that night?"

  She pressed her hands flat on the counterpane, then released them, apparently intrigued by the depressions they'd made. "Cocaine," she said suddenly. "In between gambling his nonexistent fortune away. He and Fergus are in hock up to their eyeballs." She was silent for a moment, stroking and pummeling the bed. "Adam paid off fifty thousand pounds on their gambling debts in March, and he said if they ever gambled again he'd throw them out and disinherit them. He's had them watched for the last four weeks."

  Alan took up her favorite position against the dressing table. "Why?"

  "Because Betty sold the last of her shares halfway through May and he guessed it was to cover their losses."

  "So why didn't he make good his threat then?"

  She smiled rather grimly. "I imagine he wanted to know who he'd be dealing with when the boys failed to pay up."

  "They're over twenty-one," said Alan dispassionately. "He's not responsible for their debts."

  "You're back in your ivory tower again," she said, two spots of angry color flaring in her cheeks. "Do you honestly believe anyone would bother to take Adam Kingsley's sons to the cleaners if they didn't think they'd get their money? You've seen what Miles is like. Now imagine what he and Fergus will have said about Adam and Franchise Holdings while high on cocaine. There'll be a video somewhere full of damaging allegations."

  Alan folded his arms. "He can't have a worse press than he's had in the last couple of days, so what does it matter what your brothers might have said?"

  "It would have mattered four weeks ago," she said through gritted teeth. "Four weeks ago he was planning a society wedding and he couldn't afford any scandal, not if his precious Jinx was to have her day. Miles was right. It is my fault. If I'd had the sense to tell them I didn't want to go through with the bloody thing, well..." She fell silent again.

  He watched her for a moment. "As a matter of interest, why didn't he kick them out at twenty-one and tell them to fend for themselves?"

  She didn't answer immediately. "Because they'd have done this anyway," she said at last. "If he'd turned them loose, he'd still be expected to pay their debts. I think he hoped that by keeping them close he could check their worst excesses." She bent her head so that he couldn't see her expression. "They've always wanted to throw his money in his face the way I do, but get-rich-quick schemes were all they could think of."

  Was that her subtle revenge, he wondered, pissing publicly on what her father valued most, his self-made wealth?

  "He's making good his threat now," she went on flatly. "He's going to turn them off without a penny and divorce Betty."

  "Do you blame him?"

  "No."

  "What will happen to them?"

  "I don't know. I doubt he can leave Betty penniless because the courts won't allow it"-she pressed her forehead into her clasped hands-"but I'm not sure about Miles and Fergus. He says he doesn't care anymore."

  She was more upset than he would have expected. If she had any love for her stepmother and her two brothers, she had always hid it well. "There is a bright side," he said after a moment. "If your father's had them watched for the last four weeks, then presumably one thing you can be sure of is that neither of them is guilty of the murder of Leo and Meg, or for that matter responsible for the attack on me."

  "I never thought they were," she muttered at the bed.

  "Didn't you?" he said, injecting surprise into his voice. "They've always struck me as likely candidates. They're self-centered, not overly bright, and very used to getting their own way, usually through you or their mother. I can imagine both seeing murder as a solution to a problem."

  "It never occurred to me," she said stubbornly.

  Of course it didn't, because you've always known who the murderer is. "I wish you'd tell me why you don't trust me," he said in a carefully impassive voice. "What have I ever said or done to make you feel you can't?"

  She rested her chin on her hand and regarded him just as impassively. "How do you know it wasn't me who attacked you?"

  He took the sudden switch in his stride. "It didn't look like you."

  "Matthew says it was dark, the person was dressed in black, and the only description you could give was five feet ten and medium build."

  "How does Matthew know what I said?" asked Alan.

  "Everyone knows."

  "Veronica Gordon," he murmured. "One of these days that woman's going to talk herself out of a job." He watched her curiously for a moment. "Look, there are plenty of compelling reasons why it couldn't have been you. You're too weak to wield a sledgehammer. You've no reason to want to attack me. You didn't know when I was coming back, and I'd ordered half-hourly checks to be made on you before I left. If you'd been out of your room, Amy or Veronica would have noticed."

  "Except that I was out of my room."

  He made no attempt to pretend surprise.

  "After Sister Gordon did her nine o'clock rounds," she went on, "Amy took over. I was in bed with my light out the first time she came. The second time, I was in the bathroom in darkness, and she didn't bother to check whether the pillow I'd stuffed down in the bed was me or not. After that, I got dressed and went outside. I was wearing black jeans and a black sweater. I'm five feet ten, and before the crash I weighed ten stone, so my clothes can easily take some padding."

  "Go on," he said.

  "I wanted to know why Adam had sent Kennedy over,
so I thought I'd waylay you. I waited under the beech tree until I was so tired I couldn't wait any longer; then I went back to bed and fell asleep with my clothes on. I was having a nightmare when Amy found me. I'm amazed she didn't report it. She was scared stiff I'd been doing something I shouldn't and might be held responsible." She examined his face. "Or perhaps she did report it and you haven't told me."

  He shook his head. "No."

  "Then obviously she trusts me more than she trusts you, Dr. Protheroe."

  He lifted an eyebrow. "Is that what this was? A lesson in who's trustworthy and who isn't?"

  "More or less," she said, refusing to look at him. "You already knew I was outside-Matthew heard you calling my name-but you've never mentioned it, not to me anyway."

  Damn Matthew to hell and back! He was going to shred the little toe-rag the first chance he got. "Only because I realized I'd made a mistake. I thought I saw you at the side of the road as I drove in, but as it wasn't you who attacked me, I saw no point in mentioning it. Does that set your mind at rest?"

  "No," she said bluntly. "You talk about trust as if it can be had for the asking. Well, it can't, not when you're up to your neck in it. All I know for certain is that my father's paying you to look after me, that for some reason he sent his solicitor over to talk to you on Monday afternoon, and that shortly afterwards you ordered half-hourly checks on me before disappearing." A glint-of humor?-appeared in her eyes. "Then, when you finally reappear, you're attacked with a sledgehammer and the police come down on me like a ton of bricks."

  Thoughtfully, he scratched his beard. "You've run those facts into a related sequence when my interpretation is there's no relation between them at all."

  "Why did Kennedy come and see you then?''

  "Assuming there were no hidden agendas at work, to remind me that I promised your father you wouldn't be subjected to therpy you didn't want. Kennedy taped our conversation, and as I haven't heard anything since, I've concluded that I said the right things in response and not the wrong things."

  "What did you say?" she shot at him.

  "I suggested it was Adam and not you who didn't want you remembering anything." He noted her alarmed expression. "I also said he'd misread your character entirely and that he was worrying unnecessarily about any rehashing of Russell's murder because you didn't share his anxieties on the subject. Mind you, at that stage I was unaware that Meg and Leo were dead, or that you knew about it." Her alarm deepened. "If I had, I'd have been even more forceful in my remarks on his misreading of your character, because I've never met anyone, man or woman, who was as self-reliant as you are."

  She plucked at the counterpane. "It's something you learn very quickly when you find yourself on the wrong end of a murder inquiry," she said. "You never stop watching your back."

  "Yet, you're so adept at getting everyone else to watch it for you," he said mildly. "Amy for one, Matthew for another."

  She smiled grudgingly. "Poor Amy is watching her own back. She's terrified of getting the sack, but you can't use what I've told you as an excuse. You're my doctor and everything I've said was said in confidence." She changed tack. "According to Matthew, the police think the sledgehammer that was used to attack you belongs to the clinic. Is that right?''

  "What a mine of information that young man is."

  She ignored that. "Is he right?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there any doubt about it?"

  "I don't think so. One of our security officers went looking for it because he knew we had one. It was abandoned in an outbuilding with paint from my Wolseley on the head."

  She sat in deep thought for several seconds. "Could your security officer have been mistaken?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, it seems such an odd thing to leave to chance. How could he rely on a sledgehammer being here?" She searched his face eagerly. "He must have brought one with him. It doesn't make sense otherwise."

  He found himself moved by the terrible yearning in her amazing eyes. Were Matthew and Amy as easily moved? "Meaning there's another sledgehammer out there somewhere?"

  She nodded.

  "Okay. If it's there, I'll do my best to find it, but wouldn't it be easier just to tell me who he is?"

  Her face took on a closed expression. "Whoever hit you."

  He straightened with a sigh. "No, Jinx, it was whoever tried to kill me. You're not the only one watching your back at the moment. Think about that."

  Matthew Cornell was lounging against the front porch, smoking a cigarette, when Alan went outside. Alan toyed with the idea of tearing his arms off, then abandoned it as a nonstarter. All in all, he was growing increasingly fond of his ginger-haired convert.

  "How's it going, Matthew?"

  "Pretty good, Doc. How's the shoulder?"

  "So-so." He eased the muscles gently. "Could have been a lot worse."

  "Yeah. You could be dead."

  Alan watched him out of the corner of his eye. "Any ideas who might have done it? One theory is it was a junky after drugs."

  "That's not the way I heard it."

  "Is it not?"

  "There's only one person in the frame and it sure as hell isn't a junky."

  "You mean Miss Kingsley."

  "She's the only one with sledgehammers in her background." He ground his cigarette out under his heel.

  "Except she doesn't fit the bill. It was a man I saw in my headlights."

  "You sure, Doc? You've got a loud voice and I was sitting by my window Monday night, having a quiet smoke. I didn't get the impression you thought it was a man."

  "And you told her all about it the next morning."

  Matthew grinned at him. "Didn't seem fair not to. It's a mean old world, Doc, and how was I to know you weren't going to tell the police? I knew she was out there. She lit up her face every time she had a fag. I was watching her for about an hour before you came back and got clobbered. You should remember where my room is, upstairs on the corner, with windows facing both ways."

  "Are you saying you saw everything that happened?"

  "Not everything. I watched Jinx for a while, then some time later I heard you calling and looked out the other window. I saw your car parked, then-wham!-your windshield exploded and I saw a silhouette againt your headlights as you roared backwards and piled into the tree." He lit another cigarette. "I thought, shit, what the fuck is going on and what the fuck do I do about it? And by the time I'd made up my mind, all hell was breaking loose. You were driving up to the front door, blaring your horn, and all the lights were coming on. So I reckoned I'd keep my head down and see what panned out."

  "Thanks very much," said Alan tartly. "I could have been dead by the time you came to a decision. You're required to act in good faith, you know, not stick your head in the nearest bucket."

  He grinned again. "Yeah, well, I thought it was only your windshield that'd been smashed, not your shoulder, and no one dies of a broken windshield. You should have lights along the drive-then maybe I'd have seen a bit more."

  Alan glared at him. "So all you saw was a silhouette," he growled, "and you don't know, any better than I do, who it was."

  "That's about the size of it."

  "Are you planning to elaborate, or is that all I get?" he said curtly. "It may have escaped your notice, but I suffered an unprovoked attempt on my life two nights ago and I'm not keen for a repeat experience."

  Matthew blew a stream of smoke into the air. "It was hardly unprovoked, Doc. The way I remember it, you were threatening to stay there all night till Jinx showed herself. You're too convincing, that's your trouble. The bastard believed you."

  Alan had forgotten that. "So what was he doing there?"

  "Waiting." He flicked him a sideways glance.

  "What for?"

  Matthew shrugged. "For whatever he came here to do." He saw thunderclouds gathering on the doctor's face. "Look, Doc, I can guess, same as you can, but that's not to say either of us'd be right. Personally, I can't see that scarecrow in number 12 murdering anyone; t
herefore there's some maniac wandering around out there trying to shove the blame onto her. Strikes me he'll be shitting bricks in case she spills the beans, so my guess is, he was waiting to have another go at her."

  Alan considered this for a moment. "That can't be right. You said she was out there for an hour and you saw her face every time she lit a cigarette. If you saw her, then he must have seen her too, so why not finish her off then?"

  Matthew looked down the drive towards where Alan had stopped his car on Monday night. "Because he didn't expect to find her outside. She'd have screamed her head off if he'd crept up on her under the tree."

  "Not if he'd hit her from behind. She wouldn't have had time to scream. I didn't."

  "Jesus, Doc," said Matthew severely, "you don't have much imagination, do you? He wasn't going to make it look like murder, not after he went to so much trouble to fake suicide last time. He was going to trap her in her room, slit her wrists or string her up from the bathroom door, and you'd have had a suicide on your hands next morning, and the cops would have rubbed their hands and closed their files. My guess is, he's been waiting for days for an opportunity to slip inside and do the business, but he's up against it here. He probably didn't reckon on so many people being on the premises at night. You've got good security, Doc, but then you need to with the sort of fees you charge." He grinned. "There are too many rich bastards in here who'd do their nuts if intruders could walk in and out as they pleased."

  "Why did he have the sledgehammer if he didn't plan to hit her with it?"