The Dark Room (18 page)

Cheever fingered the cassette for a moment, then picked it up, swivelled in his chair and pushed it into a tape-deck on the shelf behind him. He sat with bowed head, listening to the
recorded messages, only stirring when Jinx’s ended. He pressed
Rewind
, listened to hers again, then rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as he pressed
Stop
. ‘She says she
can’t remember anything since June the fourth,’ he pointed out.

‘Which tallies with the Fordingbridge report,’ said Maddocks. ‘According to that, the concussion after the accident left her with amnesia.’

‘Agreed, but it doesn’t mean she didn’t know about the deaths. Do you follow what I’m saying? She could have wiped the knowledge from her memory.’ He
tapped a finger on the desk. ‘I think it would be extremely foolish to assume anything on the basis of this one recording.’

‘I’m not arguing with you, sir, but it strikes me this is our best opportunity to question her without raising anyone’s hackles, least of all her
father’s.’ He leaned forward. ‘Look, we are simply trying to trace the whereabouts of Miss Harris. Her credit cards have come into the possession of the police after the arrest of
a thief, but repeated attempts to contact her at her address in London have failed to produce a response. Hammersmith police, concerned for her welfare, have entered the flat in order to trace her
family and friends, only to discover that the flat has been cleared out. The one lead they came up with is Miss Kingsley because she was the only caller who left her telephone number. We have been
asked by Hammersmith to interview Miss Kingsley with a view to tracing Miss Harris.’ He spread his hands. ‘Are you going to give me a shot at her on that basis? It’s a legitimate
approach.’

The Superintendent steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him and stared the other man down. ‘You do realize I’ll have your hide if you make a mess of
it.’

Maddocks grinned. ‘Trust me, sir.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I hate people who say that. Just make sure you get the consent of her doctor before you talk to her. In fact, you can go further, and ask him to be present
while you put your questions. I do not want this force accused of bullying a sick young woman.’

‘Do me a favour, sir,’ said Maddocks plaintively, ‘I wouldn’t know how to begin. I like women.’

Frank’s eyebrows beetled into a ferocious frown. It was common knowledge that Maddocks had been the subject of sexual harassment complaints by three different female officers,
although, predictably, nothing had come of them. ‘You’ve been warned,’ was all he said.

Canning Road Police Station, Salisbury – 8.00 p.m.

WPC Blake stuffed a photocopy under the nose of the sergeant, as she came in at the end of her shift, and shook it vigorously. ‘Read that, Sarge. It’s a dead ringer for
Flossie Hale’s experience. Same MO, same refusal to talk, same injuries.’

He took it in both hands and placed it squarely on his desk. ‘It may come as a surprise to you, Blake, but I have A-one vision. As yet, I do not require documents to be held
half an inch from my eyes in order to read them.’ He then scanned the page.

Incident report

Officers attending: PC Hughes and PC Anderson.

23.3.94. Disturbance reported 23.10 at
54 Paradise Avenue.

Woman banging on neighbour’s door and causing a nuisance.

On investigation, woman found to be in need of urgent medical treatment. Severe bruising to the face and lacerations of the rectum.

Name: Samantha Garrison. Known local prostitute. Claimed assailant was her husband but believed to be lying.

Refused to co-operate further.

‘Have you followed this up with Hughes and Anderson?’ he asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘Talk to them tomorrow.’ He spread a broad palm across the sheet. ‘Then have a word with Samantha, assuming you can find her, and keep me posted. Good girl. I think
you could be on to something. Let’s see you nail this bastard.’

Blake flushed a rosy-red. At twenty-one, she was still untouched by cynicism, so other people’s approbation mattered.

Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 11.30 p.m.

Time had no relevance. An hour spent reading a book passed in a minute. A minute of agony lasted an hour. Only fear was eternal for fear fed itself.
Whose fear?
Yours?
Theirs? Ours? Mine? His? Hers?
Everyone’s.

Even the dark was fearful.

Confusion . . . confusion . . . confusion . . .

Forget . . . forget . . . forget . . .

A moment of clarity.

Why am I here? What am I doing?

MEG WAS A WHORE
!
booms the great voice of reason.
My father made me evil.

Chapter Ten

Sunday, 26 June, Wiltshire – 2.10 p.m.

FOR VARIOUS REASONS
, DS Sean Fraser was none too happy about accompanying Maddocks to the interview with Jane Kingsley, and he sat in gloomy silence in the passenger
seat as the car headed for Salisbury. He had made himself a hostage to fortune by rashly promising his wife and two young daughters that he would take them to the beach at Studland that Sunday, and
their tears and recriminations at the cancelled treat lay heavily on his conscience. His gloom was exacerbated by Maddocks’s disgusting cheerfulness at the thought of a possible collar which
he chose to express through a tuneless and repetitive rendering of ‘The sun has got his hat on, Hip-hip-hip-Hooray . . .’

‘Give over, Guv,’ he said at last. ‘It’s worse than having a tooth extracted.’

‘You’re a miserable creature, Fraser. What’s eating you, anyway?’

‘It’s a Sunday, Guv, so it’s going to be a waste of time. You realize her entire family will probably be there visiting her, which means we won’t get a look
in, not unless we want Kingsley on our backs as well.’

‘Nn-nn.’ Maddocks gave a self-satisfied grunt. ‘I sent Mandy Barry over to chat up the nurses this morning and find out who’s been visiting Jane and when.
According to her, Kingsley hasn’t been near his daughter since she was admitted, the stepmother’s been in once and doesn’t look like showing again, and the two brothers came
independently and left in sulks. The word is there’s no love lost between any of them, so the chances of them giving up their Sunday for her are non-existent.’

‘You’re round the flaming bend,’ said Fraser angrily, seeing himself cast as co-conspirator in Maddocks’s unorthodox methods. ‘By the book, the Super
said. He’ll flip if he finds out you’ve had Mandy sneaking around behind people’s backs.’

‘Who’s going to tell him?’ said Maddocks carelessly. ‘I’d be even more round the bend if I went in cold.’ He swung the car on to the main road and
accelerated up the hill. ‘Look, lad, you’ve got to find some backbone from somewhere. You’ll never get anywhere in this business if you can’t act on your own initiative
occasionally.’ He broke into his tuneless dirge again.

Fraser turned away to gaze out of the passenger window. What really riled him about Maddocks was that the bastard was more often right than he was wrong. Initiative in
Maddocks’s vocabulary meant taking shortcuts and using methods that wouldn’t stand scrutiny for a minute under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, but he got away with it because, in
his own terminology, ‘he could smell guilt’. Privately, Fraser put this down to the fact that the Inspector was as ethically bankrupt as the people he arrested – he had heard more
than one whisper that Maddocks had taken bribes in the past – but this raised troubling questions about the effectiveness of policemen and, as Fraser was a thoughtful man, the whole issue
worried him. For there was an intrinsic absurdity about forcing the police to follow every rule, when criminal behaviour, which was dedicated to rule-breaking, remained unchanged.

Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 2.30 p.m.

Alan Protheroe listened to what the two detectives had to say with a frown creasing his amiable face. ‘Presumably there’s more to this than meets the eye,’ he
suggested. ‘If the Hammersmith police only wanted the address of Miss Harris’s parents, why didn’t they telephone Miss Kingsley and ask her for it?’

‘Because, in the message she left on Harris’s answerphone, she refers to this clinic as a nutters’ hospital,’ said Maddocks easily, ‘and, as I’m
sure you know, there are rules governing the police in the way they question the mentally disturbed. So, before they approached her direct, Hammersmith asked us to find out why she was here, and we
discovered very quickly from our colleagues in Fordingbridge that she had been admitted following a suicide attempt after her fiancé deserted her for Miss Harris. We have no desire to upset
her unnecessarily, so it was felt that any questions should be asked by plainclothes policemen.’

Alan took exception to his references to ‘nutters’ and ‘the mentally disturbed’. More, he took exception to Maddocks himself, disliking the man’s
over-powering personality which thrust into the room like a bad smell. ‘Why didn’t you ring
me
?’ he said suspiciously. ‘I would have been happy to ask the questions
for you.’

Maddocks spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘All right, I’ll be honest with you, sir. The problem is not Miss Kingsley but Miss Kingsley’s father. The
orders from above are very clear. Do not give Adam Kingsley any excuse to sue the Hampshire police for alleged insensitivity towards his sick daughter. We haven’t a clue what her reaction
will be to questions about the woman who seduced her fiancé. For all we know, the mere mention of Meg Harris’s name will have her climbing the walls, and we have enough difficulty
paying our policemen without squandering the budget on court battles with a tetchy millionaire who’s already worried about his daughter’s state of mind.’ He turned his hands palms
down. ‘And with good reason, it would seem. By her own admission, she’s in a nutters’ hospital and she’s shit-scared she’s going round the bend. Her words, sir, not
mine.’

Fraser had to admire Maddocks’s psychology. Whatever Protheroe’s suspicions about their motives for being there, he was side-tracked into defending his clinic and his
patient. ‘I would prefer it, Inspector, if you ceased referring to the Nightingale Clinic as a nutters’ hospital,’ he said tartly. ‘Jinx has a healthy cynicism about
everything, coupled with a dry sense of humour. She was clearly joking. I have no concerns at all about her mental equilibrium. Nor, I am sure, has she. She has limited loss of memory following her
accident, but is otherwise mentally acute.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Maddocks. ‘It’ll be all right for us to talk to her then?’

‘Assuming she agrees, then, yes, I see no reason why not.’ He stood up and led the way to the door, noticing with interest that Sergeant Fraser appeared to find Detective
Inspector Maddocks as uncongenial as he did. The body language spoke volumes, principally in the younger man’s attempts to keep daylight between himself and his superior. He took them down
the corridor. ‘I think it would be better if I remained during the interview,’ he said, tapping on the door of number twelve.

‘I see no reason why not, sir, assuming Miss Kingsley agrees,’ said Maddocks with derisory emphasis.

Jinx, in her turn, listened to the Inspector’s explanation for being there. She sat in the chair by the window and, bar wishing the two policemen ‘good afternoon’
when they came in, said nothing until Maddocks had finished. Even then she didn’t answer immediately, but eyed him in silence for a moment or two with curiously little expression on her pale
face. ‘Meg’s parents live in a village near Warminster called Littleton Mary,’ she said finally. ‘Her father’s the vicar there. I’m afraid I can’t give you
the telephone number because it’s in my address book and I don’t have that with me, but I should imagine it’s in the book. Her father’s initial is C for Charles and he and
Meg’s mother live in the vicarage.’

She reached towards the cigarette packet on the table, then changed her mind and left it where it was. She found herself reluctant suddenly to draw attention to the tremors in her
hands, and doubted her ability to hold the flame steady long enough to light a cigarette. ‘But Meg won’t be there,’ she continued in her deep voice. ‘She’s on holiday
in France at the moment.’

‘Well, that would explain why we’ve had difficulty contacting her,’ said Maddocks, as if hearing this information for the first time. He glanced towards Alan
Protheroe. ‘In fact, Doctor, I really don’t think we need keep you, not unless Miss Kingsley feels nervous at being left on her own.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Do you, Miss
Kingsley?’

She shrugged indifferently. ‘Not in the least.’

‘Then thank you very much, sir. We won’t be long.’ Maddocks stood by the open door.

Alan frowned at him angrily, well aware that he was being rail-roaded. ‘I’d rather stay, Jinx,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your father would expect me
to.’

She gave her low laugh. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but as you keep trying to persuade me, Dr Protheroe, I call the shots, not my father. Thank you anyway. I think I
can manage a few questions on my own.’

‘Well, you know where I am if you need me.’ He allowed himself to be closed out by Maddocks’s firm hand on the door, but he wished he knew what the hell was going
on. It was obvious that Jinx was as reluctant as the policemen to let him listen in on the conversation.

Inside the room, Maddocks beamed encouragingly at Jinx. ‘Any idea which part of France, Miss Kingsley?’

She shook her head. ‘No, but I can probably guess. I know the man she’s gone with. His name’s Leo Wallader and he has a cottage on the south coast of Brittany. The
address is Les Hirondelles, rue St Jacques, Trinité-sur-mer. There is a telephone, but again’ – she gave a small shrug – ‘the number’s in my address
book.’

Maddocks nodded. ‘But if you know she’s in France,’ he said with a puzzled frown, ‘why did you telephone her London number?’

Jinx looked at him for a moment, then picked up her cigarette packet and tapped a cigarette into her fingers. Nicotine was more important than pride. She reached for the lighter but
Fraser was there before her, holding the flame steady beneath the wavering tip. She thanked him with a smile. ‘Meg can ring her answerphone and listen to her messages,’ she said.
‘I assumed that’s what she’d do.’