The Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  ‘But didn’t you ask Josh about her and Leo’s relationship before that? I mean, he and Meg have worked together for years, he knows everything about her, so presumably he knew about the affair.’

  It was Fraser who answered. ‘He gave us the name of one man who featured seriously for two or three months at the beginning of this year, but he said Meg had hardly mentioned Leo at all, and he was surprised when she phoned to say they were planning to get married. He said Leo had been around for years, and they had an off-and-on relationship which resurrected itself whenever they were both at a loose end. But he’d never known them to stick together for more than a month or two because Meg always got so irritated with Leo’s’ – he sought for a suitable word – ‘selfishness. He said he told her she was mad to think it would be any different this time, and gave the relationship a month to run. He also told her she was a prize bitch and that the only reason she wanted Leo was because he was marrying you.’ He smiled sympathetically. ‘According to him, Meg was jealous of you. Apparently, she resented you inheriting Russell’s money on top of the money you will inherit from your father. She said Jinx always lands on her feet, while she ended up in the cesspit.’

  ‘Which is true in a funny sort of way. All Meg ever wanted was enough ready cash to give her the good times. She said it was so unfair that she had a vicar for a father when penury was the one thing she loathed. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t touch Adam for money at every opportunity.’

  Fraser echoed Protheroe’s scepticism of earlier. ‘I’m surprised you liked her.’

  ‘I don’t have many friends. In any case, she was fun. I suppose it was a case of opposites attracting. I take life too seriously. She gloried in it. She’s the only person I’ve ever known who lived entirely for the present.’ A tear fell on to her cheek. ‘I was far more jealous of her than she was of me.’

  ‘So would you say your jealousy extended to anger over her stealing of your men friends?’ asked Maddocks.

  Jinx stubbed out the butt of her cigarette. ‘No,’ she said tiredly, ‘it didn’t. I’m sorry, Inspector, but I really don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you.’

  Alan Protheroe was waiting by their car when they rounded the corner of the building. ‘I trust, gentlemen, that you showed Miss Kingsley rather more courtesy than you showed me when you pushed your way into my office.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I have extreme reservations about these bully-boy tactics of yours.’

  ‘We had a little chat, sir,’ protested Maddocks, ‘which you could have joined at any time, had you or Miss Kingsley wished it.’

  Alan shook his head in irritation. ‘You’re a type, Inspector, and it’s not a type I admire or even believe should be in the police force. Do you really need reminding that Miss Kingsley was in a coma less than a week ago? Or that your colleagues at Fordingbridge believe she has twice tried to kill herself?’

  ‘It’s a funny business that suicide attempt.’ Maddocks nodded towards Fraser. ‘She told the Sergeant here she thought someone was trying to kill her. What’s your reading of it, Doctor? Attempted suicide or attempted murder? Does Miss Kingsley strike you as the suicidal type? I can’t see it myself.’

  ‘But attempted murder convinces you?’

  Maddocks grinned. ‘I’d say that was a clutching at straws to lay the blame on someone else.’

  ‘So what are you left with if it was neither?’

  ‘A little piece of theatre, I think. She’s one hell of an actress, this patient of yours, but then I’m sure you know that already.’

  Alan nodded abruptly towards the front doors. ‘One of my security staff has something to show you. My view is it should be handed to the Salisbury police, who I understood were dealing with the assault on me, but they appear to be passing the buck to you.’ He led the way inside and gestured towards the sledgehammer, which was lying on top of the reception desk with a polythene bag neatly attached to its head. ‘Harry Elphick,’ he said, introducing the security officer. ‘He found it in one of the outhouses. It has flakes of red paint on the metal which might have come from my Wolseley.’

  Maddocks smiled appreciatively. ‘Good man, Harry. What made you go looking for it?’

  Harry, who prided himself on his judgement, recognized a good’un when he saw one. ‘Well, sir, it was like this. Begging the doctor’s pardon, I don’t set as much store by the youngsters here as he does.’ He launched into a rambling account of his reasoning processes, finishing with: ‘So, as I always say, when you’re looking for an answer, look for the obvious, and the obvious in this case is that one of the little tykes on the premises thought he’d chance his arm.’

  Maddocks glanced towards Alan with a malicious smile. ‘Or her arm,’ he murmured. ‘I hadn’t realized until Miss Kingsley stood up in your room just how tall she is. Five feet ten would be my guess.’

  Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 10.00 p.m.

  Veronica Gordon heard the commotion from the front hall as she was sipping her cup of tea in the staff sitting room. She walked out and frowned angrily at the sight of Betty Kingsley trying to wrestle free of Amy Staunton. ‘Black bitch,’ Betty was shouting. ‘Get your hands off me. I want to see my daughter!’

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ Veronica asked icily, laying a hand on the older woman’s collar and yanking her back with surprising strength. ‘How dare you speak to one of my nursing staff in those terms? I won’t tolerate it, not from anyone, and most especially not from a drunk.’ She looked very angry. ‘What a disgraceful exhibition. Just who on earth do you think you are?’

  Betty’s face grew sullen as she shook the hand off. ‘You know who I am,’ she said aggressively. ‘I’m Mrs Adam Kingsley and I’ve come to see my daughter.’ But she was wilting visibly in the face of the sister’s sobriety and superior aggression.

  ‘That’s out of the question,’ Veronica snapped. ‘It’s ten o’clock at night and you’re in no condition to talk to anyone. I suggest you go home and sober up, and come back again tomorrow morning in a rather more presentable state than you are in at the moment.’

  Betty’s eyes bulged in her powdered face. ‘My husband’s going to hear about this. You’ve got a right nerve talking to me like that.’

  ‘What an excellent idea. Why don’t we phone Mr Kingsley now? I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that his wife has engaged in a drunken brawl with a nurse at the Nightingale Clinic.’

  Tears coursed down the grotesque face. ‘I need to see Jinx,’ she wept. ‘Please let me see my daughter.’ But she seemed to realize that tears weren’t going to win her any sympathy, so she took a deep breath, patted her hair and pulled her coat straight. ‘There you are. That’s better, isn’t it? I won’t cause no trouble, not if you let me see her.’ She dabbed her eyes and fixed a pathetically roguish smile on her lips. ‘Cheerful as anything. Don’t take no mind of what I said earlier.’ She patted Amy’s arm. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, dear. I’ve got a cruel mouth sometimes. Are you going to let me see Jinx? Please, it’s that important.’

  Veronica mellowed a little. ‘What is so important that it can’t wait till tomorrow, Mrs Kingsley?’

  ‘Meg and Leo,’ she said. ‘Me and the boys read they’d been murdered but her Daddy’s refusing to do anything about it. Seems to me someone should give the poor kid a cuddle, even if it is only me.’

  Veronica agreed with her, and if she thought it a little odd that Betty had waited twelve hours and got herself drunk before she put the idea into practice, she didn’t say anything. Instead she sent Amy down to find out if Jinx was still awake, before escorting Betty to number twelve and leaving the two women together with the door wide open. ‘I’ll be just along the corridor,’ she informed them. ‘You have fifteen minutes, Mrs Kingsley, and I do not expect to hear any raised voices. Is that understood?’

  Betty waited till she’d gone then gave a disparaging sniff. ‘She’s a right bitch, that one.’ She staggered to a chair and collapsed into it, staring morosely at he
r stepdaughter who was already in bed. ‘I suppose some-one’s told you Meg and Leo are dead.’

  Jinx hid her dismay. ‘Who brought you, Betty?’

  ‘I made Jenkins do it.’ She waved a meaty hand towards the door. ‘He’s waiting outside.’

  ‘Does Adam know you’ve come?’

  ‘Course not.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s in London. The shares have been sliding all day. He’s trying to repair the damage.’

  ‘I saw it on the news.’

  ‘Oh, my, my. You’re a cool one. Always were.’ She blew her nose. ‘D’you know why they’re sliding? Because Leo’s dead and Russell’s dead, and fingers are pointing.’

  Jinx watched her for a moment. ‘It won’t affect you or the boys,’ she said calmly. ‘The company’s sound and Adam won’t let the slide continue indefinitely. Your shares will go back up again, so you won’t lose out.’

  ‘And how’s your precious Adam going to stop the slide?’ she hissed, her little eyes like flints. ‘You tell me that. There’s me and the boys worrying ourselves sick, while you and your daddy behave as if nothing’s happened.’

  ‘If necessary, he’ll resign.’ A small frown creased her forehead. ‘You know that as well as I do. It’s what he’s always said he would do in a crisis.’

  ‘And where will that leave us?’

  ‘With all the shares Adam gave you ten years ago.’

  Betty took out a compact and floured her ravaged face. ‘No,’ she said tightly, ‘it’ll leave me with no home to call my own. It’s not ours, remember, belongs to the company. An asset. That’s what they call it, isn’t it? Did you think of that when you brought this crisis on our heads? If your daddy resigns we lose the Hall. The boys’ll be out of a job, and none of us’ll have a roof over our heads. What’ve you got to say to that?’

  ‘I’d say it means you’ve sold your shares and you’re afraid Adam’s going to wash his hands of you.’ Jinx rested her head against her pillows. ‘And about time, too. He deserves better than three dead-weights who know only how to drag him down. You should all be standing by him, instead of whingeing about what’s going to happen to you.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Do you know what? When you came in, I thought, my God, one of them has come to hold my hand. One of them has come to say, we believe in you, Jinxy. We know you must be going through hell, but we’re here for you. What a mug, eh? Why on earth should I have imagined for one minute that you or your good-for-nothing bastards could change the habits of a lifetime?’

  ‘Don’t you call my sons bastards.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Jinx, pressing the bell beside her bed. ‘It’s what they are. You’ve never been a wife to my father.’

  Betty’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘I hated you the first time I saw you.’

  ‘I know. You always made that very clear.’

  ‘You hated me, too.’

  ‘Because you were so stupid.’ She turned to Veronica Gordon, who had appeared in the doorway. ‘My step-mother’s leaving,’ she said.

  ‘I did my best,’ said Betty. ‘I wanted to love you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You wanted to displace me. Jealousy is a disease with you. You knew damned well that Adam loved me far more than he would ever love you.’

  She smiled coldly, and Veronica found herself reassessing every opinion she’d ever had of the young woman. This was no dewy-eyed victim, she thought.

  MEMO

  From: Det Supt Cheever

  To: CC

  Date: Wednesday, 29 June, 1994

  Re: Wallader/Harris

  Detailed below is all relevant information, as of 09.00 hours today.

  • Despite extensive enquiries, we can find no witnesses to an individual wearing bloodstained clothes in the vicinity of Ardingly Woods on 12/13/14 June. No weapon has been found. Reports of several cars in the area, but no effective leads. (NB: Forensic examination of Jane Kingsley’s car reveals no bloodstains.)

  • Wallader’s and Harris’s personal effects have been located at 35, Eagleton Street, Chelsea.

  • Wallader’s two cars have been located. One at Eagleton Street and the other in a rented garage in Camden. Harris’s car was located in the street outside number 35. All three cars are undergoing forensic examination today, but a preliminary examination revealed nothing of significance.

  • A reading of Harris’s diaries, in conjunction with the evidence of friends and relations, suggests that Harris and Wallader had an ongoing, if spasmodic, sexual relationship for some 11 years. In addition, it is now clear that Harris was sexually involved with Russell Landy both before and during his marriage to Jane Kingsley.

  • There is evidence that Harris had an abortion in February, 1984, some five days after Landy’s murder, although it is unclear who the father was. Some indication that it may not have been Wallader or Landy. Her diaries reveal a promiscuous personality, as borne out by her brother’s evidence.

  • There remain question marks over the Harris family. Clear indication of tension. Neither Simon nor Rev H had much time for Meg, with both expressing preference for Jane Kingsley (bizarre in the circumstances); Mrs H, on the other hand, seems overly fond of Meg and angry/ jealous (?) of Jane.

  • A twenty-five-year-old psychological assessment of Wallader, supplied by his mother, describes a child with a severe personality disorder.

  • The Walladers mention an argument on Monday, May 30, during which Leo claimed he planned to marry Meg instead. He phoned later that evening to warn his parents not to say anything until he gave them the go-ahead. In the event, the go-ahead was not given until Saturday, June 11, although Sir Anthony and Lady W cannot account for the delay.

  • Current estimate of Wallader’s wealth, held in property, stocks and shares, and gold: £1.1 million. According to his solicitor, Wallader consistently refused to make a will so there is none in existence.

  • Harris informed her parents of events on Saturday, June 11. On the same day she also phoned her business partner and two friends with the information. We can find no one who was privy to the facts prior to Saturday, June 11. She told her business partner she would be in the office on Monday, June 13. (NB: Harris’s diary entries are erratic. There are empty weeks, followed by a day, or days, fully recorded. There are no entries after Monday, May 18, and no mention of Leo Wallader, by name, since December, 1993, when she writes that after all these years she has finally introduced Leo to Jinx.)

  • According to her partner, she did not visit her office on Monday, June 13.

  • NB: Entry in Harris’s diary, following Kingsley’s marriage to Landy, reads as follows: ‘Since becoming unattainable, Russell is so much more attractive.’ Echoed, in April, 1994, by the following: ‘Jinx tells me she is taking the plunge again. I knew I would live to regret that introduction.’

  • According to Mr and Mrs Kingsley’s statements of Tuesday, June 14 (following Jane Kingsley’s accident), they were informed by telephone of their daughter’s cancelled wedding on Saturday, June 11. This is supported by the evidence of Colonel Eric Clancey who stated, also at the time of the accident, that Jane Kingsley told him about her changed wedding plans on June 11.

  • The evidence of Mr and Mrs Kingsley (taken after the accident) is that Jane spent the week from Saturday, June 4 to Friday, June 10 at Hellingdon Hall. She appeared to be in good spirits, made no mention of the row with Leo and discussed preparations for the wedding as if it were going ahead.

  • Jane Kingsley’s own evidence in an interview conducted 28.6.94 is that she cannot remember anything since June 4. She admits to knowing about Harris’s affair with Landy, though claims she only learnt about it after Landy’s death. She claims not to remember being told about Wallader and Harris but this is disputed by the Wallader parents’ testimony, which states Leo told her on the afternoon of Monday, May 30 (i.e. prior to memory loss from June 4). DI Maddocks is convinced she remembers more than she says, and this would seem to be borne out by the above.

  • Miss Kingsley
admits she believes her father could have ordered Landy’s death but does not believe he did so. She can offer no evidence in support, other than her own conviction that he would not have allowed her to find the body. There is some merit in this argument if Kingsley is fond of her.

  • A possibly related incident occurred at the Nightingale Clinic during the night of Monday June 27. Dr Protheroe, the clinic’s director, was attacked by an intruder with a sledgehammer. Miss Kingsley has been a patient of his for some ten days, and in addition Dr Protheroe was visited by Kingsley’s solicitor during the afternoon of June 27.

  • Protheroe escaped relatively unscathed, however the weapon was found later in an outhouse at the Nightingale by a member of the security staff who states it belongs to the clinic. This is supported by preliminary forensic tests which have found no blood/hair/tissue on the hammer head but some paint from Protheroe’s car, which was badly damaged during the assault. This would suggest his assailant was well acquainted with the layout of the clinic grounds and points to a past or present patient, or possibly a visitor. Protheroe described his attacker as male, 5’ 10” or 5’ 11” and of medium build. The assailant was dressed in black and wearing a ski-mask or similar.

  • Miss Kingsley is 5’ 10” and slim build. However (1) the attack was at night, (2) DI Maddocks is of the opinion that Protheroe is doing his utmost, for whatever reason, to protect his patient, (3) Miss Kingsley could have worn padding. One pointer that may be worth considering, assuming the incident to be related to the Landy/Wallader/Harris murders, is that Miss Kingsley is unquestionably weak following her accident and Protheroe had little trouble fighting off the attack. Dr Clarke does not rule out a woman being capable of the attacks on Wallader and Harris. In addition, the heel marks on the bank near where the bodies were found do seem to imply that a woman was present at the scene.