The Dark Room (5 page)

She couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she managed. ‘I don’t think I am either. Will you give Mrs C and Goebbels a hug from me?’

‘Certainly will. Coming home soon, I trust?’

‘I’d like to but I’m bandaged to the hilt at the moment. You should see me, Colonel. I look like Boris Karloff in
The Mummy
.’

‘Hah!’ he harrumphed again. ‘Kept your sense of humour, I see. Visitors keeping you chirpy, dare say.’

‘No,’ she said honestly. ‘It’s talking to you that’s cheered me up. Thank you for getting me out of my car. I’ll ring you the minute I’m
demobbed and give you my ETA.’

‘We’ll be waiting for you, dear girl. Meanwhile chin up and best foot forward, eh?’

‘Will do. Goodbye, Colonel.’

Jinx cut the line but held the receiver to her chest for several minutes as if, by doing so, she could maintain the link with him, for the comfort that the conversation had given her
was all too ephemeral. Depression swept in behind it like an engulfing tide when it occurred to her that, of all the people she knew, the only one she had felt able to telephone was a man whose
first name she was too shy to use.
Had she felt as lonely as this a week ago? Could she have done it? God help her if she had . . .

‘Your brother’s come to see you, Miss Kingsley,’ said a black nurse, pushing wide the half-open door. ‘I’ve told him ten minutes. Visitors out by nine
o’clock, that’s the rule, but as it’s your brother and he’s come all the way from Fordingbridge, well – just so long as you don’t make too much noise.’ She
noticed Jinx’s pallor suddenly and clicked her tongue anxiously. ‘Are you all right, my lovely? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘OK,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Not too much noise, then, or my job will be on the line.’

Miles, exuding his usual boyish charm, took the nurse’s hand in his and smiled into her face. ‘I really appreciate this, Amy. Thank you.’

Her dark skin blushed. ‘That’s all right. I’d best be getting back to the desk.’ She withdrew her fingers from his with clear reluctance and closed the door
behind her.

‘God,’ he said, flopping into the armchair, ‘she really thought I fancied her.’ He eyed Jinx. ‘Ma tells me you’re back in the land of the living,
so I thought I’d come and check for myself. You look bloody awful, but I expect you know that.’

She reached for her cigarettes. ‘I’d hate to disappoint you, Miles.’

‘She says you can’t remember anything since the fourth. Is that true?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Which means it is.’ He giggled suddenly. ‘So you don’t remember the week you spent at the Hall?’

She eyed him coldly as she felt for her lighter.

‘You borrowed two hundred quid off me that week, Jinxy, and I want it back.’

‘Bog off, Miles.’

He grinned. ‘You sound pretty on the ball to me. So what’s with this amnesia crap? You trying to get yourself off the hook with Dad?’

‘What hook?’

‘Whatever it is you’ve done that you shouldn’t have done.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He shrugged indifferently. ‘Then why did you try to top yourself? Dad’s been worse than usual this last week. You might have thought of that before you started playing
silly buggers.’

She ignored him and lit a cigarette.

‘Are you going to talk to me or have I wasted my time coming here?’

‘I doubt you’ve wasted your time,’ she said evenly, ‘as I imagine seeing me was the last thing on your list.’ She was watching his face, saw the flash
of intense amusement in his eyes, and knew she was right. ‘You must be mad,’ she continued. ‘Adam wasn’t bluffing when he said you’d be out on your ear the next time.
Why on earth do you do it?’

‘You think you know everything, don’t you?’

‘When it comes to you, Miles, I do.’

He grinned. ‘OK then, it gives me a buzz. Come on, Jinxy, a couple of hands of poker in a hotel bedroom, it’s hardly major gambling. And who’s going to tell Dad
anyway? You certainly won’t and neither will I.’ He giggled again. ‘I scored’ – he tapped his jacket pocket – ‘so no lectures, all right? I’m not
planning to run up any more debts. The old bastard’s made it clear enough he won’t bail me out again.’

He was more hyped up than usual, she thought, and wondered how much he’d won. She changed the subject. ‘How’s Fergus?’

‘About as pissed off as I am. A couple of days ago, Dad reduced him to tears. You know what my guess is? The worm’ll turn when Dad least expects it and then it’ll
be your precious Adam who gets the thrashing.’ He was fidgeting with the lapels of his jacket, brushing them, smoothing them. ‘Why did you do it? He hates you now, hates us, hates
everyone. Poor old Ma most of all.’

Jinx lay back and stared at the ceiling. ‘You know as well as I do what the solution is,’ she said.

‘Oh, God, not more bloody lectures. Anyone would think you were forty-four not thirty-four.’ He raised his voice to a falsetto, mimicking her. ‘You’re old
enough to stand on your own two feet, Miles. You can’t expect your mother to give you Porsches all your life. It’s time to move out, find your own place, start a family.’

‘I don’t understand why you don’t want to.’

‘Because Dad refuses to ante-up, that’s why. You know the score. If we want to live in reasonable comfort we stay at home where he can keep his eye on us. If we want out,
we do it the hard way and graft for ourselves.’

‘Then welcome to the human race,’ she said scathingly. ‘What the hell do you think the rest of us do?’

His voice rose again, but this time in anger. ‘You damn well never had to graft. You stepped straight into Russell’s money without lifting a finger. Jesus, you’re
so bloody patronizing. “Welcome to the human race, Miles.” You piss me off, Jinx, you really do.’

She was dog-tired. Why didn’t the nurse come back to rescue her? She stubbed out her cigarette and turned to look at him. ‘Surely anything has to be better than letting
Adam treat you like dirt. When did he last beat you?’ There was something wrong with him, she thought. He was like an addict waiting for a fix, twitched, unable to sit still, fidgeting,
fingering, eyes overbright.
Oh, God, not drugs . . . not drugs . . .
But as she fell asleep, she was thinking that, yes, of course it was drugs, because self-indulgence was the one thing
Miles was good at. If nothing else, his father had taught him that.

Odstock Hospital, Salisbury – 9.00 p.m.

The Casualty doctor was barely out of medical school and nothing in his training had prepared him for this. He smiled tentatively at the woman in the cubicle. It was worse than the
Elephant Man, he was thinking, as he took his place beside the nurse whose hand the wretched woman was clutching. Her face was so swollen that she looked barely recognizable as a human being. She
had given her name as Mrs Hale. ‘You’ve been in the wars,’ he said vacuously.

‘My husband – belt . . .’ she croaked through lips that could hardly move.

He looked at the bruising on her throat where the marks of someone’s fingers were clearly visible. ‘Is it just your face that’s been hurt?’

She shook her head and, with a pathetic gesture of apology, raised her skirt and revealed knickers saturated with blood. ‘He’ – tears squeezed between her swollen
lids – ‘cut me.’

Three hours later, a sympathetic policewoman tried to persuade her to make a statement before she was transferred to the operating theatre for surgery to her rectum. ‘Look,
Mrs Hale, we know your husband didn’t do this. We’ve checked and he’s currently serving eighteen months in Winchester for handling stolen property. We also know you’re on
the game, so the chances are that the animal responsible was one of your customers. Now, we’re not interested in how you make your money. We’re only interested in stopping this bastard
doing the same thing to some other poor girl. Will you help us?’

She shook her head.

‘But he could kill next time. Do you want that on your conscience? All we need is a description.’

A faint laugh croaked in her throat. ‘Do me a favour, love.’

‘You’ve got two fractured cheekbones, severe bruising of the throat and larynx, a dislocated wrist, and internal bleeding from having a hairbrush rammed up your back
passage,’ said the policewoman brutally. ‘You’re lucky to be alive. The next woman he attacks may not be so lucky.’

‘Too right. It’ll be yours bloody truly if I open my mouth. He swore he’d come back.’ She closed her eyes. ‘The hospital shouldn’t have called
you. I never gave them leave, and I’m not pressing no charges.’

‘Will you think about it at least?’

‘No point. You’ll never pin it on him and I’m not running scared for the rest of my life.’

‘Why won’t we pin it on him?’

She gave another croak of laughter. ‘Because it’ll be my word against his, love, and I’m a fat old slag and he’s little Lord Fauntleroy.’

Thursday, 23 June, Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 3.30 a.m.

As he did every night at about this time, the security guard emerged from the front door of the Nightingale Clinic and strolled towards a bench on the moonlit lawn. It was a little
treat he gave himself halfway through his shift, a quiet smoke away from the nagging lectures of the nursing staff. He wiped the seat with a large handkerchief then lowered himself with a sigh of
contentment. As he fished his cigarettes from his jacket pocket he had the distinct impression that someone was behind him. Startled, he glanced round, then lumbered awkwardly to his feet and went
to investigate the trees bordering the driveway. There was no one there, but he couldn’t rid himself of a sense that he was being watched.

He was a phlegmatic man, and put the experience down to the cheese he’d eaten at supper. As his wife always said: Too much cheese isn’t good for anyone. But he
didn’t linger over his smoke that night.

Jane Kingsley was floating in dark water, eyes open, straining for the sunlight that dappled the surface above her. She wanted to swim, but the desire was all in her mind and she
was too weary to make it happen. A terrible hand was upon her, pulling her down to the weeds below – insistent, persuasive, compelling – she opened her mouth to let death in . . .

She burst out of sleep in a threshing frenzy, sweat pouring down her back.
She was drowning . . . Oh, Jesus, sweet Jesus, somebody help her!
The moon beamed through a gap in
her curtains, lighting a path through the room.
Where was she? She didn’t know this place.
She stared in terror from one dark shadow to the other until she saw the lilies beside her,
gleaming white and pure against the black of the carnations. Memory returned.
Jane was her mother . . . she was Jinx . . . Jane was her mother . . . she was Jinx . . .

With shaking fingers, she switched on her bedside light and looked on things she recognized. The door to the bathroom, television in the corner, mirror against the wall, armchair,
flowers – but it was a long time before the thudding of her heart slowed. She slid slowly down between the sheets again, as rigid and as wide-eyed as a painted wooden doll, and tried to stem
the fear that grew inside her. But it was a vain attempt because she couldn’t put a name to what she was afraid of.

Two miles away, in another hospital bed, her terror had its haunting echo in the battered face of a prostitute who had supped with the devil.

Chapter Five

Thursday, 23 June, Canning Road Police Station, Salisbury – 9.00 a.m.

‘
LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY,
’ echoed a sceptical sergeant the next morning. ‘You think that’s relevant, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said WPC Blake stoutly. ‘I reckon he’s a lot younger than she is and probably quite well spoken, otherwise why would she have chosen that analogy? She
obviously thinks he’d make a far better impression in court than she would.’

‘It’s not much to go on.’

‘I know. So I thought – if I went through the files, I might find someone else. The chances are high he’s done it before. If I could get two of them to support each
other’ – she shrugged – ‘they might find the confidence to talk to us and give us a description. You should see her, Guv.’

He nodded. He’d read the report. ‘You’ll be doing it in your own time, Blake,’ he warned, ‘because there’s no way I’m going to explain to
them upstairs why you’re shirking your other responsibilities to chase a prosecution that doesn’t exist.’ He winked at her. ‘Still, have a go and see how you get on.
I’ve been nicking Flossie’s old man for years. She never bears grudges. She’s a good old soul.’

Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 10.30 a.m.

Jinx had been abandoned in an armchair by the window. ‘Time you were up and about, dear,’ coaxed a terrifying nurse with the hair of Margaret Thatcher and the nose of
Joseph Stalin. ‘You need to get some of those muscles working again.’

Jinx smiled falsely and promised to have a little walk later, then lapsed into quiet contemplation of the garden when the bossy woman had gone. Her ginger-haired visitor of yesterday
– he of the fox obsession – made signs to her from a bench on the lawn, but she moved her head to stare in a different direction and he abandoned his half-hearted attempts at
communication. She could see a wing of the building, projecting out at the far end of the terrace, and she guessed she was in a Georgian mansion, built for some wealthy family of two centuries
earlier. What had become of them? she wondered. Had they, like the family who had built and inhabited Hellingdon Hall, simply faded away?