The Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  she means leo leo’s imprisoned in simon’s boot dead already

  like jinx imprisoned in a box in chelsea, buried

  alive in her coffin, dead if Meg disobeys

  no one sees no one hears she begs for life too late too late

  please SIMON pretty please simon simon says NO

  forget forget forget forget forget forget forget forget forget

  simon says sorry

  Epilogue

  Friday, 1 July, Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 11.00 a.m.

  DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT CHEEVER and DS Fraser waited in silence while Jinx read the letter that Simon Harris had left behind on his desk before setting out to take his own life. It was a chilling document, not least because the sickness it revealed was echoed nowhere else in his house, except, perhaps, in a single cassock which, although it had been cleaned, still showed positive where blood had splattered the front. Despite this and the letter, however, there was considerable unease about Simon’s suicide, particularly in respect of the open petrol cans that had turned his car into a fireball, destroying all chance of forensic analysis, and the extraordinary order in his life that was in such contrast to the apparent disorder in his mind.

  The police had not been able to discover a single parishioner in Frampton who found their vicar’s homicidal tendencies even halfway credible. ‘He was a sweet man.’ ‘Nothing was ever too much trouble for him.’ ‘Father Harris wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ ‘He was the hardest working priest we’ve ever had.’

  There was circumstantial evidence to show that he had been absent from the vicarage from lunchtime on Sunday, 12 June, to the morning of Tuesday, 14 June, but it hardly stood up to close scrutiny. ‘I noticed Simon’s car wasn’t outside on the Sunday or Monday night,’ said his next-door neighbour, ‘but he used to park it in his garage sometimes, so it may have been in there. I don’t remember seeing him after morning service but that wasn’t unusual. We’re busy people and we don’t keep track of each other’s movements. The car was certainly there on Tuesday morning. I had a form for him to sign and I had to walk round it to reach the front door. No, I didn’t notice anything odd about him. He was in his usual good spirits.’

  Caroline Harris, quite destroyed by the disasters that had overtaken her family, swore that Simon had been with her and Charles on the Sunday and Monday night. She also claimed that he had been staying with them on June the twenty-seventh, when Protheroe was attacked. But when her husband was asked later to corroborate these stories he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m afraid neither is true.’ He had read his son’s letter without obvious emotion and handed it back to Cheever with a request that his wife should never see it. ‘I blame myself,’ he said. ‘I should have realized how damaging it was to grow up in a house where the sexual act was viewed as something degrading and disgusting. Selfishly, I thought it was only I who was affected but, clearly, Meg confused it with love and Simon confused it with hate . . .’

  To begin with, Flossie Hale and Samantha Garrison were doubtful that Simon was the man who assaulted them. ‘He didn’t wear glasses, you see,’ said Flossie, studying the photograph of the earnest young vicar, ‘and he was better looking.’ But when shown a snap-shot of a younger smiling Simon minus spectacles and in casual clothes, they were more confident. ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ said Flossie triumphantly, ‘and he’s not so different from the first one I picked out either. Same eyes. It’s the innocence. Gawd, I’ll remember never to be taken in by pretty blue eyes again.’

  DI Maddocks was liaising with the Metropolitan police in an attempt to discover whether any London prostitutes had suffered similar assaults to Hale’s and Garrison’s during the five years that Simon had worked there. If they could establish a prolonged pattern of criminal assault on prostitutes, it would ease police doubts over the meagre evidence pointing to Simon’s involvement in the murders of Landy, Wallader and Harris. For, as Maddocks said to Cheever when he’d read Simon’s letter: ‘Someone beat the crap out of him to make him write this, sir. It’s got bloodstains on it.’

  Frank watched Jinx lower the letter to her knees. ‘As you see, Miss Kingsley,’ he said, ‘there are one or two questions left unanswered. We’re still looking for the weapon, but there was a cassock in his house that appears to have bloodstains on it. However, it will be some time before we can say definitely that the blood was Meg’s and Leo’s. The likely scenario is that he removed the cassock after he killed your two friends, which would explain why we had no reported sightings of someone wearing bloodstained clothes. We believe he probably used the same method to kill your husband, donned his cassock in other words, to keep the blood off his clothes.’ She looked paler and more drawn than ever, he thought, and the hand that held the letter shook violently. ‘I don’t wish to upset you further, but we would be grateful for any details you can give us.’

  She glanced towards Alan Protheroe for support, then nodded.

  ‘Perhaps we could begin with Saturday, the eleventh of June, the day you phoned your father to tell him the wedding was off. Do you remember that day, Miss Kingsley?’

  ‘Most of it, yes.’

  ‘Do you remember going to Meg’s flat in the evening and being angry when she or Leo opened the door to you?’

  Jinx nodded.

  ‘Could you tell me about that? We assume they were supposed to be long gone, so what made you think they were still there? Why did you go?’

  ‘To collect Marmaduke and take him home with me,’ she said simply. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw Leo’s car parked outside. I was furious.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I’d gone to so much trouble and they just thought I was being paranoid.’

  ‘So you had a key to Meg’s flat?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was supposed to collect it from the neighbour. But I could see Leo in the sitting room, so I hammered on the door instead and let rip at them.’ She dabbed miserably at her eyes. ‘I wish I hadn’t now. It was the last time I really spoke to either of them and I was so bad-tempered. You see, I knew they were in danger. I had this feeling all the time that something terrible was going to happen.’

  Frank waited a moment till he felt she was back in control of herself. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Meg gave me this big spiel about Josh and how badly she was behaving towards him. She said it was my fault, that I was using Russell’s murder as a stick to beat her and Leo with because I wanted to make life as uncomfortable for them as I could. We really did have an awful row.’ She looked at her hands. ‘Well, that’s not relevant any more. I bullied them into going to Leo’s house in Chelsea until Monday. I said, at least they’d be safer there than in Hammersmith because I was the only other person who knew the address.’

  ‘Did they go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘I think it was around midnight. Meg insisted on leaving the flat spick and span so that prospective purchasers wouldn’t be put off when they went round it.’

  ‘So she was selling it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jinx again. ‘I was going to put it with an estate agent as soon as they left for France. That was part of the deal. Meg’s business needed an injection of cash, and I promised to try and raise it through the sale of her flat if she and Leo would agree to make themselves scarce for a while. The plan was for me to explain it to Josh after they’d left . . .’ She faltered. ‘But Meg got cold feet when she spoke to him on the phone on Saturday and decided to postpone the trip so she could tell him in person.’ She licked the tears from her lips. ‘Josh threatened to pull out of the partnership unless she gave him a few guarantees about her commitment, and they’d been going through such a rough patch recently that she believed he’d do it unless she took the trouble to calm him down.’

  Frank studied her bent head curiously. ‘I have some problems understanding why they were prepared to go along with all the secrecy, Miss Kingsley, particularly if, as you say, they thought you were being paran
oid.’

  She stared at him rather bleakly for a moment. ‘Meg had done the dirty on me twice. She was in no real position to argue. In any case, Leo was on my side. He was cock-a-hoop about being in France when the news broke. The last thing he wanted was to face the embarrassment of a cancelled wedding. He’d have gone immediately if Meg had been free to leave.’

  ‘Why wasn’t she?’

  ‘She had a client she didn’t want to lose, and a couple of meetings with the bank manager. She said he’d pull the plug on the business if she tried to cancel them. The earliest she could leave was the eleventh.’ She fell silent.

  ‘Then she reneged at the last minute?’

  Jinx nodded. ‘She only agreed to go along with it in the first place because Leo was in favour, but the minute Josh came down on her like a ton of bricks she dug her heels in, kept calling me neurotic and absurd.’ The tears ran down her cheeks again. ‘I think she wanted to say she was sorry afterwards, but she was too afraid of Simon to look at me. It was very sad.’

  ‘I understand.’ He waited again. ‘So they left for Chelsea at about midnight on the Saturday? Are you sure they went there?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I followed them. Leo parked in the garage, and I watched them both go inside. Then I went home.’

  ‘What about the cat? What happened to him?’

  ‘We stuck with the original plan, but delayed it until Monday. We left poor old Marmaduke in the hall with some food and the cat tray, but he was only going to be there for thirty-six hours at the most. I would collect the key from the neighbour, rescue Marmaduke, and explain about the flat going on the market. Meg was supposed to call them the minute she got to France, tell them I was kosher and ask them to let me in.’

  ‘But why was it so necessary to keep Mr and Mrs Helms in the dark?’ asked Fraser. ‘You can’t have suspected them of being involved in Russell’s death.’

  ‘Of course not.’ There was a long silence. ‘I thought it was my father we needed to be afraid of,’ she said at last, ‘and I couldn’t be sure how much he already knew about Leo and Meg’s affair. I know he found out about Meg and Russell because Miles told me afterwards. That’s one of the reasons I thought he might have had Russell killed.’ She rubbed her head. ‘Leo swore his parents wouldn’t have said a word to anyone, but’ – she raised her hands in a small gesture of helplessness – ‘Adam has a way of finding out. If Mr and Mrs Helms knew anything in advance, they would tell the first person who asked them. In fact, Meg said it was worse, that Mrs Helms wouldn’t wait to be asked, she’d stand on the street corner and broadcast it to the world.’

  ‘Why weren’t you worried about Leo parking his car in Shoebury Terrace if you thought your father was having him and Meg watched?’ asked the Superintendent.

  She lifted her head to look at him and for the first time he understood some of the agonies she had been through. ‘I was. I tried to persuade him to leave it in Richmond but he wouldn’t go along with it. He said that was taking the whole thing to ridiculous lengths. But, you see, I knew what had been done to Russell and they didn’t. I spent a nightmare week at the Hall, worrying myself sick. I made Leo phone every day to let me know they were all right and to make my family think everything was normal. Then he phoned on the Friday afternoon to say they were leaving first thing the next morning, and it was safe to come back and make the announcements. And I thought, thank God, it’s all over. I’ve made a complete idiot of myself, but I don’t care.’ She held a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘I can’t explain it because I don’t believe in second-sight or precognition, but I knew the minute Leo told me he wanted to marry Meg that they were going to die. It was like having cold water thrown over me.’ She looked wretchedly towards Alan. ‘So I put two and two together and came up with Adam and, if I hadn’t, then maybe, just maybe, they’d still be alive.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It would have made no difference. At least Adam was a terrifying enough prospect to force them to listen to you. They’d have been dead a week earlier otherwise.’

  She held out Simon’s letter. ‘Except that I made them keep the secret,’ she said, ‘and that’s why he killed them. It was the secrecy that made him do it.’

  ‘No,’ said Alan, who had read the letter before he took the two policemen to Jinx’s room. ‘He was a very disturbed man, Jinx. It was his illness that made him do it, and nothing you could have done would have stopped that.’

  ‘The doctor’s right, Miss Kingsley,’ said Superintendent Cheever. ‘The only person who might have guessed that Simon murdered Russell was Meg. She was closer to him than anyone else, in all conscience. If it never occurred to her to be afraid of him, then there’s no reason why it should have occurred to you.’ He paused. ‘Did she ever show any fear of him?’

  ‘Not in the way you mean. She’s been afraid for him as long as I’ve known her. If only Simon were more like me, she always said, he’d be OK. She was worried that he was becoming a bit of a loner. He never seemed to have any friends. I remember her saying once, he never plays at anything except being a priest.’

  ‘Didn’t it occur to her he might be ill?’

  Her expression clouded. ‘She asked me once if I’d noticed anything odd about him, and I said: What sort of thing? I think he pretends, she said. I’m sure he hates our parents, Mother in particular, but he never says anything unkind about her or to her. I’m the exact opposite. I’m always rude about her because she’s a square peg in a round hole and won’t do anything to change it, but I’m actually quite fond of the old bag, and all right, Dad’s a sanctimonious old buzzard, but I wouldn’t have him any different.’ She pressed her lips into a thin line to stem her tears. ‘She wondered if I’d ever got the impression that Simon hated them but, as I never had, she let it drop. I know she always thought he was far too withdrawn, but I think she put that down to religious fanaticism. I’m sure it never occurred to her that he had anything to do with Russell’s death.’ She laced her fingers nervously. ‘Well, it never occurred to anyone.’

  ‘That’s very clear, thank you. Let’s move on. Tell us about the Sunday afternoon and this incident in your garage. What was that all about? Presumably the reference he makes in his letter to the birds having flown, and the phrase “it was a secret but Simon made Jinx tell” had something to do with it?’

  Her hands began to tremble so violently again that she gripped them in her lap until the knuckles shone white. ‘It’s what he says. I told him where they were. He knew they’d left Hammersmith, you see, because Meg didn’t answer the phone.’ She stared at Cheever in desperation. ‘It was – he thought they’d gone to France – but he made me – I was the only one who knew.’ She brought herself back under control with an effort. ‘He came after lunch to apologize for what Meg had done,’ she managed. ‘He said he’d prayed for me during services that morning but realized prayers weren’t enough and he needed to come and commiserate in person. So I laughed’ – her voice broke again – ‘and said there was nothing to commiserate about. I said if anyone needed commiseration it would be poor old Meg in a few months’ time when she discovered she’d tied herself to a mean, self-serving bastard.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. I think he guessed I’d known about it for a while. He was so angry – kept talking about secrets – called Meg a whore . . .’ She tailed off into a long silence.

  ‘What did he do then?’ asked Frank gently.

  She shook her head.

  ‘I think it might be easier if I tell you,’ said Alan. ‘When the news came through yesterday that Simon was dead, Jinx told me as much as she could remember of what happened.’ He squatted down and pressed a warm, protective hand to the nape of her neck. ‘Would you like me to do that, Jinx?’

  She looked into his face, for a moment, then looked away again. Why couldn’t he see what he was doing to her? She was far too emotionally disturbed to survive an Alan Protheroe undamaged. She wished he would take his hand away. She wished he would go to the other side of the roo
m. Oh, God, she wished . . . ‘If you’re allowed to,’ she said curtly.

  The Superintendent nodded. ‘I have no problem with that, Doctor.’

  Alan straightened. ‘Then I think it’s important you understand how terrifying it is to be confronted with an individual whom you’ve known for years as a mild-mannered non-entity, but who, without any warning at all, becomes dangerously psychotic. This was Jinx’s experience that Sunday afternoon. It’s difficult to say what Simon’s diagnosis would have been if he’d ever been examined, but it seems clear that he was suffering from some very extreme paranoid disorder, probably of a sexual origin, either centred on his mother or his sister, or both. I think this hatred he had of God may well have been a more general hatred of any dominant male figure because he seems to have seen the sexual act as a degenerate exercise. Only whores enjoyed it, therefore for a man to enjoy it he must either employ whores or make respectable women miserable.’ He looked enquiringly at the Superintendent. ‘Which may have been something his mother instilled in him. If she persuaded him that nice women found sex disgusting, then he would have had a very ambivalent attitude towards it in later life, particularly if his adored sister flaunted her libido while he curbed his by choosing voluntary celibacy within the Anglo-Catholic church.’

  ‘His mother clearly has problems in that area but I doubt she set out deliberately to destroy her son.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t, and I’m sure there were other factors involved. For example, he hated being laughed at. That seems to have been one of the triggers of his paranoia. It may have been why he chose to enter the church, because he was more likely to be taken seriously inside it than he was outside. Another clear trigger was secrecy. As long as he knew what was going on, or thought he did, he could keep his paranoia under control, but the minute he discovered he had good reason to be paranoid, then the control deserted him. It’s interesting what close tabs he kept on everything. Jinx says he used to phone her or Josh quite regularly, and I suspect he continued to do that after Meg and Leo were dead. He certainly phoned me to try and find out what information I had.’ He rubbed his shoulder thoughtfully.