"When was this?"
"It was the bank holiday weekend at the end of May."
Cheever frowned. "Yet, according to the evidence we have, the last thing Miss Kingsley remembers is saying good-bye to Leo on June the fourth when she set off to stay with her parents. Why was he still in her house a week after he said he was planning to marry her best friend?"
"We don't know," said Sir Anthony. "They left our house furious with each other, then Leo telephoned later that evening to ask us not to say anything to anyone until he gave us permission. But he didn't explain why and he didn't call until nearly two weeks later. It was the Saturday, June the eleventh, and he said he and Meg were making themselves scarce until the fuss died down." His brows drew together in an angry frown. "I accept Leo had his faults but he was a damn good catch for the daughter of an East End crook. My view is, Jinx wasn't going to let him go that easily. She flared up the May weekend for no good reason and then changed her mind. That's how I see it. Kept him with her till she went to Fordingbridge, then lost him back to Meg while she was away. I mean to say, if she was planning to back out of the whole thing, then why didn't she tell her father to send out cancellation notices during the week she spent at the Hall? That would have been the obvious time to do it. You see, it doesn't add up."
"Yes," said Cheever slowly, "I see your point."
*15*
TUESDAY, 28TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-11:30 A.M.
When Alan Protheroe summoned Jinx to his office to break the news of Meg's and Leo's deaths, she drew away from him into the corner of the wide leather sofa in his office, a distant expression on her gaunt face. He wondered if she was even listening, or if, like so much in her life, she was choosing to blank out what she didn't want to hear. She, for her part, refused to be soothed by the sympathy in his voice or the look of compassion in his eyes, both of which she felt were false. Dr. Protheroe was not a man to take on trust, she thought.
"Bar the identities of the two bodies, I doubt many of the other details in the newspaper are true," he finished quietly. "It reads to me as if Leo's father has made some sweeping statements in a moment of grief which he will probably come to regret, but I'm afraid we can expect another visit from the police and I didn't want you to hear about this from them."
She favored him with a tight little smile. "I've known since Sunday night. But you knew that already, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"Who told you?"
"Simon Harris. He phoned yesterday afternoon. He wanted to warn me that the story would break today."
A look of relief crossed her face. "Simon?" She searched his face. "Why would he bother to do that?"
"I think he and his father feel this sort of treatment"-he tapped the newspaper on his lap-"isn't justice. He talked about his mother and Sir Anthony whipping up a kangaroo court."
"Caroline doesn't like me at all," she said disconsolately. "For some reason she's always blamed me for Meg's behavior. She thinks Meg fell into bad company. I suppose she looked at Adam and decided, like father like daughter."
"It's not uncommon. We all blame other people for our children's failings." He paused. "Why didn't you tell me the police visit upset you?''
She rubbed her eyes. "I don't trust the police," she said, "but it's a form of paranoia that I'm not particularly happy about. I might have been imagining things. There was no sense in worrying you unnecessarily until I knew for certain."
"You could have told me yesterday."
"Yesterday I was paranoid about what my father was planning."
He raised his hands in a gesture of despair. "How am I supposed to help you if you keep everything to yourself?"
"You're a very arrogant man," she said without hostility. "Hasn't it occurred to you that I might not want your help?"
"Of course," he said curtly, "but that doesn't mean I have to stop offering it. Do you think my other patients want my help any more than you do? They begin with good intentions, but within hours, most of them are climbing the walls to get out for their next fix. The only arrogance I see is on your side, Jinx."
"Why?"
"You think you're clever enough to outwit me, the police, and your father combined."
She shifted her gaze back to his. "I'm certainly contemptuous of fools who shut themselves away in their ivory towers, and close their eyes to the madness outside," she snapped. "Russell was murdered. For ten years I avoided any sort of serious involvement. Then, when I thought the dust had settled, I let myself go and fell for Leo. Now he's dead too, along with the only real friend I've ever had. So precisely what sort of help are you offering me? Help in remembering the deaths of my husband, my friend, and my lover?" She looked very angry. "I like it the way it is. I don't want to remember anything. I don't want to know anything. I don't want to feel anything. I just want to be allowed to take surrealistic photographs where all my repressed fears and desires jostle for expression in an idiosyncratic juxtaposition of purity and corruption." She bared her teeth at him in a ferocious smile. "And that's a direct quote from a review of my work in The Sunday Times. It's pretentious rubbish, but it sounds great."
He shook his head impatiently.' 'You know perfectly well it's not rubbish. I've looked at some of your published work, and that same theme appears over and over again." He leaned forward. "You seem to see the world in extraordinarily stark terms. Black and white. Good and evil. For every kindness, a cruelty; for every positive, a negative. Why are there are no gray areas for you, Jinx?''
"Because perfection can only exist in an imperfect setting. In a perfect setting it becomes ordinary."
"So it's perfection that fascinates you?"
She held his gaze for a moment but didn't reply.
"No," he said, answering for her, "it's imperfection that fascinates you. You're more attracted by the black than by the white." He studied her face closely. "The backgrounds to your pictures are always more compelling than the subjects, except in the few instances where you've turned the idea on its head by making ugliness the subject and beauty the setting."
She shrugged. "I expect you're right. Black humor certainly appeals to me."
"As in Schadenfreude?"
"Yes."
"You're wrong, woman. You experience anguish on behalf of others while the only person you laugh at is yourself." He quoted her own words back at her. " 'My education was a waste of time.' 'The Sunday Times writes pretentious rubbish about my art.' 'I won't get out of bed in front of you because you'll turn me into a golfing club joke.' " He paused. "Are you laughing at Leo now? You should be if you enjoy Schadenfreude. There's no blacker joke than the timely comeuppance of someone who's done you wrong."
"I can think of several," she said flatly. "Like when you wake up one morning in a police cell and remember it was you who dealt the death blow. That's going to be a gut wrencher when it happens. Ho ho ho! We'll all be splitting our sides." She looked towards the window, cutting herself off, symbolically extending the space between them.
"I don't think that's very likely to happen."
"Somebody killed them. Why shouldn't it have been me?"
"I'm not quibbling over whether or not you did it, Jinx. I'm quibbling with your waking up in a police cell one morning and remembering it was you. That's what's unlikely. Amnesia doesn't vanish overnight, so you'll know long before the police arrest you whether they' ve got good cause to do it.'' He watched her.' 'Have they?''
She continued to stare out of the window for several seconds before finally, with a sigh, turning back to him. "I keep seeing Meg on her knees, begging," she said, "and last night I remembered going to her flat and feeling terrible anger because Leo was there. I have nightmares about drowning and being buried alive, and I wake up because I can't breathe. I can remember feeling strong emotions." She fell silent.