The Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  ‘One of the complicating factors of a paranoid disorder,’ he went on, ‘is that, while it may impair your functioning on certain levels, particularly where relationships are concerned, your thinking remains clear and orderly and you can function normally within your job and the wider social environment. Which is why I told you it was important to recognize what Jinx was suddenly faced with that Sunday, and equally important that she recognizes it, too.’ He looked down at her bent head. ‘She’s been terrified of Simon ever since she started to remember what happened, but I’m afraid she feels she didn’t do enough to protect Meg and Leo. Isn’t that right, Jinx?’

  She didn’t answer, and Fraser, for one, thought he was being surprisingly insensitive.

  ‘She went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and she thinks Simon must have hit her on the head while she was doing it, but she doesn’t remember the blow. What she does remember is coming round to find herself lying on the floor with her hands tied to her feet behind her back. Simon then put a polythene bag over her head and said he would smother her if she didn’t tell him where Meg and Leo were. She couldn’t breathe and she believed him. So when he took the bag off her head, she told him the Chelsea address. The next thing she remembers is being pulled out of her car by her neighbour. She didn’t know how long she’d been there, how long it took her to clear her head, or find the number of Leo’s house in Chelsea, but by the time she phoned to tell Meg that Simon had just tried to kill her, Simon was already there. Am I right so far, Jinx?’

  Silence.

  ‘She was given a straightforward choice,’ Alan went on. ‘Simon said: Leo is in the same position you were in. In other words, he will be dead of asphyxiation in two minutes. Meg is tied up but can speak into the phone if I hold it to her mouth. If you do what I tell you, they will live. If you don’t, they will die.’ He brushed the back of her head with his fingertips. ‘She chose to help them live. She clung, as we would all have done, to the Simon she knew best. The vicar, the man who loved his sister, the man to whom she’d given her expensive key-ring for luck. It was her tragedy, and Meg’s, that they had only ever known and learnt to trust Simon’s false self, while his true self, the damaged self, had remained hidden. We all protect parts of ourselves – God knows it’s not unusual – but for most of us, the hidden self isn’t dangerous.’

  Jinx wiped her tears away. ‘I should have told Colonel Clancey. He’s always been the best friend I’ve ever had.’ She sucked in her anguish on a sob. ‘I know some people think he’s eccentric and stupid, and they make fun of him behind his back, but he would have made it all right.’ Her mouth worked as she sought for words. ‘I did it all wrong. I told the Clanceys everything was OK when it wasn’t. I thought, if I just do what Simon says – because, you know, we used to play that game all the time, Simon Says. But it was just arrogance – I thought I knew the right thing to do.’

  Fraser glanced at Protheroe for a permission he didn’t need. ‘It’s not arrogance to believe a threat, Miss Kingsley, particularly if you knew what Simon was capable of. I’m no expert admittedly, but it sounds to me as if you acted out of love, and I’d say that does you credit.’

  Alan nodded. ‘He said there wasn’t much traffic because it was a Sunday, and that she had twenty minutes to drive her car to Leo’s house in Chelsea. If she wasn’t there in twenty minutes, he’d know she’d spoken to the police and he would kill Meg and Leo. Then he put Meg back on.’

  ‘And Meg asked you to do as he said?’

  Jinx nodded.

  ‘What happened when you reached the house?’

  Alan took over again when she didn’t say anything. ‘She saw Leo briefly through an open doorway. He was lying on the floor and, from the way she describes him, he had probably died of asphyxiation before she got there, so whatever was done to him afterwards was done to disguise that fact. At least she gave Meg a chance to live by arriving when she did. Simon promised he wouldn’t hurt them because he never killed women. All he wanted to do was talk. He sat them beside each other against the wall, tied their hands and feet in front of them, and talked for hours. So long, in fact, that Jinx felt he was beginning to calm down.’

  ‘And?’ asked Frank Cheever, when neither of them spoke.

  ‘Meg offered to have sex with him,’ said Alan into the silence. ‘She thought that’s what he was after. It probably was, but he didn’t want to be reminded of it.’ He shook his head. ‘To be honest, I shouldn’t think it mattered a damn what Meg said. Whichever role she chose – sister, mother, lover, friend – he would still have gone off the deep end.’ He glanced at Jinx’s fluttering hands. ‘But there’s nothing Jinx can tell you about what happened to Meg and Leo after that,’ he went on. ‘Simon went berserk at that point, grabbed Jinx by the ankles to pull her away from Meg, then put a polythene bag over her head and taped it to her neck. All she remembers is Meg screaming and drumming her heels on the floor before she lost consciousness.’

  There was another silence. ‘Can you tell us what happened to you, Miss Kingsley?’ asked Frank. ‘Or would you prefer Dr Protheroe to do it?’

  Her huge eyes searched his face, looking for understanding. ‘I truly don’t remember very much,’ she said unsteadily, ‘except that I woke up at some point. There was a hole in the bag where my mouth was and, because my hands were crammed up under my chin, I was able to make the hole bigger. But that’s all I could do. I was wedged into a sort of box and every time I tried to move it was so painful I gave up.’ She plucked at her lip. ‘I thought he’d buried me alive, and I just wanted to die.’ She paused, lost in some private hell. ‘Then the engine started and I knew I was in the boot of my car. The funny thing is, I felt better knowing that. It didn’t seem so frightening.’ She gave an odd little laugh. ‘But he was so angry,’ she said. ‘He kept kicking me and saying, get up, get up. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t dead. You should be dead. You should have died in your garage and you should have died in your boot. Why does God love you?’

  ‘Where was that?’ asked Frank.

  She looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t know. Somewhere outside. I woke up and I was lying on the ground, but I couldn’t move because I was so stiff. There was a black dustbin bag round me and it smelt because I’d’ – she glanced at Alan – ‘I think I must have been in it for hours.’

  ‘So do you know what time it was?’

  ‘No, but it was getting dark.’

  ‘Do you remember him giving you something to drink?’

  ‘I think so. He talked about sacrifices,’ she said in some confusion, ‘and Jesus.’

  ‘Which is probably when you drank the wine, although if you’d been there for hours then you were probably very dehydrated, and I doubt you drank as much as your blood sample implied. What happened next?’

  She stared down at the letter, which she’d abandoned in her lap. ‘I don’t remember anything else.’ She crumpled the photocopy into a tight ball. ‘I don’t remember anything else,’ she said on a rising note of alarm. ‘I think I remember him putting me into the car seat, but after that – I don’t remember anything else.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Frank with a smile of encouragement. ‘I think we can work out the rest. You obviously have a very strong will to live, Miss Kingsley. I envy you your courage, and whichever guardian angel is watching over you, because I can’t believe that courting couple arrived by accident.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘Dr Protheroe tells me Simon came to visit you the day after you regained consciousness. Did you know then that he was responsible?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you remember?’

  She kept her head down. ‘Yesterday morning,’ she said, ‘when the policewoman asked me about the key-ring.’

  ‘Not before?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you tell your father that Simon had murdered Meg and Leo, Miss Kingsley?’

  Her head snapped up, eyes huge with surprise. ‘No, of course I didn’t. Why would I d
o that?’

  Cheever nodded. ‘Your brothers? Your stepmother?’

  ‘No.’

  Alan Protheroe frowned. ‘Why do you ask, Superintendent?’

  Frank Cheever gave a small shrug. ‘Just tying up loose ends, Doctor. We don’t want accusations floating around afterwards about the’ – he sought for a word – ‘convenience of Simon Harris’s suicide. One might almost say the poetic justice of how he met his end. Our problem is there’s only this letter and the bloodstains on the cassock linking him to the murders and, as the cassock had been cleaned recently, it may not produce the material evidence we’re looking for. We assume Simon took Leo and Meg in his own car to Ardingly Woods but, as it was completely burnt out yesterday, we’re very doubtful of being able to prove anything from a forensic examination. We’ve also examined your car, Miss Kingsley, and I have to tell you there’s nothing to show you spent twelve to eighteen hours in the boot.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be,’ said Alan. ‘Not if he wrapped her in black polythene before he put her in there.’

  ‘I accept that, but it’s a problem nevertheless. It would’ve helped if you had been able to identify him as your attacker.’

  Alan nodded towards the crumpled photocopy in Jinx’s hands. ‘But you’ve got a written confession. Doesn’t that count for anything? Presumably you’ve verified that it’s Simon’s handwriting?’

  ‘Certainly we have, but the original is being tested at the moment for the blood and mucus stains on it. We believe Simon was bleeding from his nose when he wrote it. And that means he may have been coerced into doing it.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir, which is why we’re interested in finding out when Miss Kingsley began to remember and whether she told anyone about it.’ He glanced at Jinx. ‘It would be very unfortunate if doubts about Simon’s guilt began to circulate.’

  Alan rubbed his jaw aggressively, his fingers rasping through the thick stubble. ‘Are you suggesting Jinx is lying about what happened, Superintendent?’ he demanded. ‘Because if you are, then I begin to understand why she has such a low opinion of Britain’s policemen. Goddammit, man, imagine if the murdering little bastard was still alive, and she tried to tell you he was guilty. She wouldn’t stand a chance. You’d still be sitting there smugly, giving us this garbage about lack of evidence. Well, thank God she didn’t remember before is all I can say, because she’d have been signing her own death warrant by naming him. He was obviously a psychotic with paranoid delusions, but he was quite clever enough to convince you of his innocence while he did away with the woman he held responsible for his murderous binges.’

  Cheever shrugged. ‘You’ve encapsulated our dilemma rather well, sir. Personally, I have no doubts that Miss Kingsley is telling the truth. I am also hopeful that we will find other prostitutes in London who will identify Simon Harris as the client who assaulted them, which, in turn, will point to a pattern of serial criminal behaviour. However, in the short term, we have a rather timely suicide on our hands which, in view of Harris’s undoubted cleverness, to which you yourself referred, and his past determination to throw the blame on Miss Kingsley, raises rather too many doubts for comfort. I am sure Miss Kingsley does not want this story to run and run, any more than we do’ – he turned his attention to Jinx and held her gaze with his – ‘so anything she can tell us now that will result in the coroner bringing in an unequivocal verdict of suicide would be helpful.’

  Jinx nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said, glancing towards the open notebook on Fraser’s lap. She thought for a moment. ‘I did not remember anything until the policewoman asked me about the key-ring yesterday, then it all came back to me in a rush and I was violently sick, as she will testify. I have been told since that Simon had been dead for some hours before I gave her his name. Because I did not remember who tried to kill me, I could not tell anyone who it was. Dr Protheroe, whom I trust implicitly and whom I would have told had I been able to remember, will testify that at no time did I ever give him a name or even hint at a name. Had I been able to remember, I would, of course, have told the Hampshire police. From the outset of the investigation they have made it clear to me that, while I was a suspect, media speculation would not be allowed to cloud their judgement. As a result, I have always had confidence in Superintendent Cheever and his team and have given them all the time and assistance I could.’

  She looked enquiringly at Frank, saw the tiny encouraging lift of his eyebrows and went on. ‘I believe Simon, through his telephone calls to my friends, my doctor and my relations, learnt that the Hampshire police had refused to take anything at face value and realized he would be arrested the minute my memory returned. I have known him a long time, and knew him to be very fond of his parents. It is my own conviction that he would have done anything to avoid putting his mother and father through the trauma of his trial, and I am saddened but not surprised that he took his own life.’

  ‘I doubt he’d want his colleagues or his parishioners to be subjected to that sort of trauma either, do you?’ Cheever prompted.

  ‘I knew him to be a very dedicated clergyman,’ she resumed obediently, ‘who must have been appalled, when lucidity returned, to realize that the burden of his guilt would fall on the people who loved him. He was an ill man, not a bad one.’

  Cheever held out his hand to her as he stood up. ‘It’s hardly appropriate to say this, Miss Kingsley, but I’ve enjoyed crossing swords with you. I’m only sorry we had to meet in such tragic circumstances. You may be required to appear at the inquest but, if you give your evidence there as clearly as you’ve just given it to us, there shouldn’t be a problem. In my experience, a little generosity goes a long way. Suicide is always easier to accept if there’s a good reason for it.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘If Simon had made my car crash look like an accident, then I’d have been a little more worried. You see, I could always accept I might have killed Meg and Leo. They really did behave like bastards. I just couldn’t accept I’d kill myself.’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘So you weren’t quite as indifferent as you led us to believe?’

  ‘I have my pride, Superintendent.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘After all, I am Adam Kingsley’s daughter.’

  Fraser turned the car into the main road. ‘So what’s the verdict, sir?’ he asked. ‘Do you still reckon she got her old man to take Harris out?’

  ‘I do,’ said the Superintendent mildly. ‘She was afraid it would be her word against Simon’s, didn’t trust us to believe her, so turned to her father to sort something out.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure. She strikes me as being dead straight, sir.’

  ‘But, as she said herself, Sean, she’s Adam Kingsley’s daughter.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I don’t see what difference that makes.’

  ‘You would, if you’d ever met the breed.’ Frank looked out of the window on to sunlit countryside. ‘They’re effective. They get things done.’

  ‘They weren’t too effective when Landy was murdered.’

  ‘People rarely are when they’re at cross purposes.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I suspect he became convinced that she killed Russell, and she became convinced that he did. If they both learnt about the affair afterwards, then they both knew there was a motive for the other one to commit the murder. Divided they fell, united they stand.’

  ‘It seems odd that Miss Kingsley didn’t tell the police, though. You’d think she’d want her husband’s murderer punished, and, let’s face it, it’s not as though she’s very fond of her father.’

  ‘You think so, do you?’

  ‘She certainly doesn’t go out of her way to express affection for him.’

  Cheever smiled but kept his thoughts to himself.

  ‘So are you going to charge Adam Kingsley with Simon’s murder, sir?’

  The Superintendent closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face. ‘I don’t think I heard you right, Sergeant.
Did you say something about a murder?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you reckon . . .’ Fraser broke off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 12.45 p.m.

  Matthew Cornell opened his eyes to find Alan Protheroe looming over him where he lay sprawled on a bench in the clinic gardens. ‘Hi, Doc.’ He shielded the sun’s glare with a raised hand, then swung his legs off the seat and sat up, lighting a cigarette.

  Alan lowered himself on to the vacant piece of bench. ‘The police have come up with a bizarre theory about Simon Harris’s suicide,’ he said in a conversational tone. ‘They seem to think Jinx might have given his name to her father in order to have him dealt with once and for all.’ He glanced sideways. ‘However, she’s persuaded them that she didn’t remember anything until yesterday morning, which means neither she nor any of her friends here could have passed the information on to Adam Kingsley.’

  Matthew looked straight ahead. ‘Why are you telling me?’

  ‘Because I know how you like to keep abreast of the facts.’

  The young man turned to grin at him. ‘Plus, as an existentialist, you want to be sure I continue to act in good faith. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Matthew.’

  ‘Well, I reckon good faith is all about justice.’ Matthew turned the cigarette between his fingers. ‘Have you ever wondered what a murderer’s victims would demand if their voices hadn’t been silenced? At the very least they would ask to be heard as loudly as their killers, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘There’s a difference between justice and revenge, Matthew.’

  ‘Is there? The only difference I see is that justice comes damned expensive. If it didn’t, my father couldn’t afford to keep me here.’