Authors: Minette Walters
But, in the circumstances, the Hampshire police had preferred the more tortuous route of arriving at Wiltshire via Hammersmith.
A tortoiseshell cat greeted them with undisguised pleasure as they let themselves into the narrow hallway, rubbing its sleek head and ears against their legs, purring ecstatically at
the thought of food. Fraser nudged it gently with the toe of his shoe. ‘I hate to be the one to tell you, old son, but you’re an orphan now. Mummy’s dead.’
‘Jesus, Fraser,’ said Maddocks crossly, ‘it’s a cat, for Christ’s sake.’ He opened the door into what was obviously the living room and took stock
of the off-white Chinese rug with its embroidered floral pattern of pale blues and pinks which covered the varnished floorboards in front of the fireplace. ‘A cat and an off-white rug,’
he murmured. ‘The boffins will be even more unbearable after this.’ He went inside, took a pen from his jacket pocket and manipulated the buttons on the answerphone.
‘Hello darling,’
said a light female voice.
‘I presume you’re going to phone in for your messages so ring me as soon as you can. I read in the
newspaper today that Jinx was in a car accident. I’m very worried about what to do. Should I try and phone her? I’d like to. You were such friends after all, and it seems churlish to
ignore her just because . . . well, well, enough said . . . no more rows, we promised . . . Ring me the minute you get this message and we’ll talk about it. Goodbye, darling.’
‘Hi, Meg, where the hell are you?’
A man’s belligerent voice.
‘You swore on your honour you’d come into the office before you left. Damn it,
it’s Wednesday, there’s a mound of sodding messages here and I can’t make head nor tail of them. Who the fuck’s Bill Riley? Most of them are from him. Ring me before you
ring anyone else. This is urgent.’
‘Meg.’
The same man’s voice.
‘Ring me. Immediately. Damn it, I’m so angry I feel like belting you one. Do you realize Jinx has tried to kill
herself? I’ve had your wretched parents on the phone every day asking for news. They feel bloody about this and so do I. Phone, for Christ’s sake. It’s Friday, seventeenth of
June, eight-sodding-thirty, no breakfast and I haven’t slept a wink. I knew Wallader would be nothing but trouble.’
‘It’s Simon.’
A different, cooler man’s voice.
‘Look, Mum and Dad are going spare. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and pretend
nothing’s wrong. I’m sure you know Jinx has tried to kill herself. It’s been in all the newspapers. Mum says you’re refusing to answer your messages, but at least ring me if
you won’t ring her. I’m going to visit Jinx, see how she’s coping. One of us ought to show some interest.’
‘Darling, it’s Mummy again. Please, please ring. I really am awfully concerned about Jinx. They say she tried to commit suicide. I can’t bear to think of her
being so unhappy because of you and Leo. Someone should talk to her. Don’t forget how ill she was after Russell was killed. Please ring. I’m so worried. I do hope you’re all
right. You’re usually so good about phoning.’
‘For your information, Bill Riley is now planning to sue us. He claims we’re in breach of contract. Why the hell did you agree to work with him if you weren’t
prepared to see it through? Message timed at nine-thirty p.m., Thursday, June twenty-third. If I don’t hear from you in the next twenty-four hours, consider our partnership terminated.
I’m pissed off with this, Meg, I really am.’
‘Hello, Meg.’
A deeper woman’s voice.
‘It’s Jinx. Look, I know this is probably politically incorrect’
– a low laugh –
‘I ought to be ripping your first editions to pieces or something – but I really would like to talk to you. Things are a bit complicated this end – well, you’ve probably
heard about it. . .’
A pause.
‘They say I drove my car at a concrete post – deliberately. Can you believe that? The bugger is I’ve lost my memory, can’t
remember anything since Saturday the fourth, so everyone’s jumping to the conclusion that I was upset about you and Leo.’
Another laugh, rather more forced this time.
‘It’s the pits, old thing, which is why I need to talk to you both. You may not believe me, but I swear to God I am not harbouring grudges, so if you can bear the embarrassment, ring
me on Salisbury two-two-one-four-two-zero. It’s a nutters’ hospital and I’m shit-scared of going round the bend here. Please ring.’
The rest of the tape was blank.
Maddocks raised an eyebrow at Fraser. ‘Genuine?’ he asked. ‘Or planted for the police to hear after they found the bodies?’
‘You mean hers?’ Fraser shrugged. ‘I’d guess genuine. The pissed-off partner made his last call two days ago, so hers must have been pretty recent.’
‘How does that make it genuine?’
‘Because she couldn’t know when the bodies would be found. If it was a bluff, she’d have phoned sooner to make sure we got the message.’
Maddocks was more sceptical. ‘Unless she’s been following the newspapers.’ He turned to a bookcase along the wall and plucked a book at random from the shelves.
‘The reference to first editions was genuine. Look at this. A signed Graham Greene.’ He ran his finger along the spines. ‘Daphne du Maurier, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ruth Rendell, Colin
Dexter, P.D. James, John le Carré. She’s even got an Ian Fleming. I wonder who she’s left them to.’
‘Probably her friend Jane Kingsley,’ said Fraser, opening a door to the right of the fireplace and disclosing a neat white kitchen with slate-grey worktops and pale grey
units. He turned to the two London policemen. ‘Do you fancy tackling this? Chances are there’ll be papers in some of these drawers. I’ll take her bedroom.’
He moved across the hallway to a door on the other side, clicked it open and surveyed the room. Like the rest of the flat, it was clean and meticulously tidy – so tidy, in
fact, that he decided it was a spare bedroom and went to the only door he hadn’t yet opened and found the bathroom. Apart from a pair of fluffy white towels that were folded with measured
precision over the rail, there was nothing to indicate that the room had ever been used – no sponge, no soap, no toothpaste. He lifted the latch on the cabinet above the basin and stared
thoughtfully at the meagre contents. A bottle of disinfectant, a packet of Disprin and a clean tooth mug. Meg Harris was unreal, he thought. No one was this tidy, not even when they went away on
holiday. And where was Leo’s presence? Surely something should remain to show a man had lived there on and off. He lifted the lid of the laundry basket, but it was empty.
He retreated into the hall again where he noticed the cat’s bed beneath a small radiator and wondered why Meg had bothered to keep a companion when she was clearly so
house-proud that its movements had to be thoroughly restricted whenever she was absent. Tidiness appeared to be an obsession with her. Back in the bedroom, he opened the wardrobe and sorted through
the few clothes hanging there. Only women’s, he noted, no men’s. The same was true of all the drawers. He searched for anything that might give a clue to the woman’s personality,
but it was like searching a hotel bedroom where a guest was staying just one night. Her clothes were neatly folded away, some odds and ends of costume jewellery and make-up lay in ordered rows in
her dressing-table drawer, a small bowl of pot-pourri on the bedside table gave off a faint scent. But if there had ever been anything of a personal nature in that room she had taken it with
her.
Maddocks looked up from a book as Fraser rejoined him. ‘Last year’s diary,’ he said, ‘but there’s not a single phone number or address in it. Any luck
your end?’
Fraser shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just a few clothes. It looks as if she took everything that mattered to her, which is odd if she was only going away for a couple of weeks. I
couldn’t find any suitcases.’
Maddocks abandoned the diary and stared about the living room with a frown. ‘I don’t get it. It’s so damn clinical. Have you noticed there aren’t any
photographs about? I’ve been looking for an album but I can’t find one. You’d think there’d be at least one photograph of her family, wouldn’t you?’
‘What about papers?’ suggested Fraser. ‘House insurance, mortgage details, a will? Where are they?’
Maddocks jerked his head towards a pine bureau in the corner. ‘In there for what it’s worth, but there’s no will, just one folder with “house insurance”
written across the front. There aren’t even any letters, no indication at all who her friends were or what the family address is. It’s bizarre. Most people have a few letters littered
about the place.’ He moved across to the kitchen door. ‘What about you two? Have
you
found anything?’
The older man shook his head. ‘Tell you what, sir, it reminds me of those cottages you rent in the summer. There’s cutlery and crockery here and it’s all clean, but
there’s no food anywhere, the fridge is empty, dishwasher’s empty, new plastic bag in the pedal bin. Either she rented it and was about to move out or she was planning to move out and
let it to somebody else.’ He gestured towards a peg board on the wall. ‘Even her notice board’s empty but you don’t do that when you’re off on holiday. I’d say
she’s got another place somewhere.’
Fraser agreed with him. ‘That’s got to be it, Guv. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. Have you ever seen a flat as devoid of personality as this one is?’
‘Why did she leave her first editions behind?’
‘Because the insurance policy here probably specifies and covers the collection, which would make this the most sensible place to leave them unattended. What’s the
betting she moved all her personal stuff before the holiday, left the cat behind because she had a neighbour who would feed it, and was planning to come back for the books, the rest of her clothes
and the cat on her return? She was moving in with Leo – it’s the only logical scenario.’
‘Goddammit,’ said Maddocks ferociously, ‘everything points to him moving in with
her
. If he had a place of his own, why the hell was he shacked up in
Glenavon Gardens with the Kingsley woman? Frank’ll go mad over this. It’s my guess Jane Kingsley’s the only person who knows anything.’
Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 3.30 p.m.
Minus her bandage and dressed in black jumper and trousers, Jinx sat on a bench in the shade of a weeping beech tree and studied the comings and goings on the gravel sweep in front
of the clinic. She felt herself to be comfortably anonymous behind a pair of mirrored glasses, and for the first time in several days she allowed her tired body to relax.
The memory that she
had
known about Leo and Meg’s affair pierced her brain like a needle.
My God!
Leo himself had told her in the drawing room of his
parents’ house with Anthony and Philippa there as silent, horrified witnesses. She had screamed at them all –
why had she been screaming?
– and Leo had said: I’m
going to marry Meg –
and she had been so, so shocked. Meg and Leo . . . Meg and Russell . . .
But when? When had Leo told her?
She wrestled with the memory, desperate to hold on to it but, like a dream, it started to fragment and fade and, in confusion, she took the bunch of flowers that was being pressed on
to her lap and heard Josh Hennessey saying: ‘Jinxy, love, are you all right?’
She had forgotten he was coming and stared up at his anxious face, smiling automatically while she knitted back the fabric of her subconscious and let the memory go. ‘I’m
fine,’ she heard herself saying. ‘Sorry, I was miles away. How are you?’
But, oh God, she’d been so angry . . . she could remember her anger . . .
He squatted in front of her, his hands resting lightly on her knees, his eyes examining every inch of her face. ‘Pretty bloody depressed if I’m honest. How about
you?’ He seemed to be looking for a reaction and was disappointed –
surprised?
– when he didn’t get it.
She held a thin hand to her chest where her heart was beating frantically.
Something else had happened.
The knowledge weighed on her like a ton weight.
Something else had
happened . . . something so terrible that she was too frightened to search her memory for it . . .
‘I’d describe myself as being in a state of suspended animation,’ she said,
breathing in jerky, shallow breaths. ‘I exist, therefore I am, but as I can’t think straight it’s a fairly meaningless existence.’ She thought how unattractive he looked,
with fear and worry pinching his nose and mouth. ‘I suppose if you’re depressed, it means you haven’t got hold of Meg.’
He shook his head, and she saw with dismay that there were tears in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ She fingered the flowers on her lap, then laid them beside her. ‘It was kind of you to bring these.’
He lowered himself to the ground and withdrew his hands. ‘I feel so awful about this. Couldn’t you have phoned, told me you were in trouble? You know I’d have
come.’
‘You sound like Simon,’ she said lightly.
He ruffled his hair and glanced away from her gaunt, bruised face and shaven head. ‘Simon’s been on the phone almost every day. His parents are devastated, blaming each
other, blaming Meg, wanting to do something to make up . . . Well, I’m sure you can imagine how they feel. Simon tried phoning the Hall to find out where you were and got a mouthful of abuse.
It’s understandable, of course, but it didn’t make things any easier.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘but, oddly enough, Josh, it doesn’t make it any easier for me either, to have everyone blaming themselves because I drove
at a brick wall.’
He flicked her a quick glance but didn’t say anything.
‘Not that I did it deliberately,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘That car cost me a fortune, and I can think of a hundred better ways of killing myself than
writing off a perfectly good Rover.’
He plucked at a blade of grass. ‘I spoke to Dean last night,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘The poor chap was in tears, said if I managed to get hold of you, I was to
tell you business is fine but please call him the minute you feel up to it. I gave him the number here, but he’s afraid to call himself in case you’re too unhappy to talk to
him.’