They sat in the drawing room in deep discomfort. Caroline Harris crouched on the sofa, misery etched into every line of her face. Charles sat as far away from her as he could, while Simon perched unhappily on a stool. Frank, overheated and tired, was offered a deep leather armchair which hurt his back.
"We've located Leo's house in Chelsea," he explained, "and according to the information phoned through before I left, there are several boxes and suitcases on the premises which appear to belong to your daughter. Preliminary searches have uncovered a photograph album which shows several snapshots of Meg and Leo together, taken in July 1983." He addressed his question to Mrs. Harris. "Were you aware they had known each other for at least eleven years?"
Her lips thinned to a narrow line. "No," she said.
"Was she a secretive person, Mrs. Harris?"
The woman glanced spitefully at her husband. "Not with me. She told me everything. It was her father she kept secrets from."
"That's not true," said Simon.
Frank glanced at him. "You'd say she was secretive."
"Very. She didn't want anyone to know anything about her life, least of all Mum or Dad. Particularly Mum, in fact. She knew how much Mum hated sex, so she didn't tell her until recently how many men she slept with, and she only did that because she was angry." He closed his eyes to avoid looking at his mother's pain. "She loved sex, saw it as a healthy expression of life, love, and beauty, and couldn't bear to have it treated as something dirty and disgusting.''
"You wanted her too, Simon," said Caroline in a whisper, "just like your father. Never mind she was your sister. You think I didn't notice. I saw how you looked at her."
A dull flush rose in Simon's face. "It was you who made her uncomfortable," he said quietly, "not Dad. Everything she did was the opposite of what you've done. She got herself a decent education, she rejected God, she loved sex, she stayed single, she dove into London life to get away from the sterility of village rectitude. She experienced more in her thirty-four years than you will experience in a whole lifetime." Tears glittered in his eyes. "She didn't strangle life, she glorified every minute as if it were her last. I wish to God the rest of us could do the same."
There was a desperate and terrible silence.
Frank cleared his throat. "One of the photographs has a somewhat cryptic caption underneath it. It reads"-he consulted a notebook-" 'Happiness AA.' I'm told Meg is sitting in Leo's lap on a beach." He looked up. "Do you know what 'AA' stands for? It seems unlikely that Automobile Association or Alcoholics Anonymous would fit the bill."
Simon looked towards his mother, but she had retreated into some internal world and was rocking herself tenderly on the sofa. "After Abortion," he said quietly. "Married couples always talk about their lives BC-Before Children. Meg always referred to life after her abortion as 'double-A time.' She said she'd never realized before just how awful it would be to have children and she thanked God she'd discovered early on that she wasn't cut out to be a mother."
"Was Leo the father?"
"I don't know. She never told me who it was, and I didn't ask."
"Did you know about Leo before your parents did?"
"Not by name. I knew she had a long-term lover who came and went between her other affairs. She was very fond of him, called him her old standby. I presume that was Leo if she'd known him eleven years."
"Did she ever say why she didn't marry him?"
Simon shrugged. "She said once that he was permanently broke, but the truth is, I don't think she wanted to get married. She certainly didn't want children." He glanced towards his father. "She always felt that I fitted into our family better than she did, and she was afraid of bringing a child into the world who didn't belong. She said it wasn't fair."
"It can't have been Leo," said his father. "Surely she wouldn't describe a man with a house in Chelsea as permanently broke."
Frank Cheever tucked his notebook into his pocket. "In fact, sir, he had several properties both in this country and abroad, but no one knew about them, not even his parents. He made a habit of pleading poverty when, according to his solicitor, he was worth a very tidy fortune. Miss Kingsley describes him as a parasite who was obsessively secretive about money. His mother describes a disturbed young man with a pathological dislike of sharing. He wasn't a straightforward character by any means, so it's highly probable he did give your daughter the impression he had no money."
"How very tragic." Charles Harris looked distressed. "One tends to think the type doesn't exist anymore, certainly not amongst the young. I suppose we must blame Dickens for creating so extreme an example that the rest pass unnoticed." He saw the Superintendent's perplexed expression. "Scrooge," he explained. "Misers. People who need to hoard wealth but can't bring themselves to spend it. You come across them in the newspapers from time to time, old people who've died in shocking squalor only to leave a fortune behind." He folded his hands in his lap. "As I say, not something one associates with youth, but presumably a miser is a miser all his life. Poor Leo. What a sad, sad state of affairs."
His wife began to scream. It was a piercing terrible sound that curdled sympathy and frayed nerves.
THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-12:45 P.M.
"Let's try a different tack," suggested Alan. "You said you and Leo were supposed to be staying with his parents for the weekend. Have you any recollection of doing that, or was the whole idea abandoned when you decided you weren't going to marry him?"
Jinx's expression cleared. "No," she said, "we did go. I had a row with them. I seem to have had rows with everyone that weekend."
"It's not surprising. You were under a lot of pressure. The wedding was only a few weeks away and you were having second thoughts about going through with it."
"But why did I go down there with him if I knew I wasn't going to marry him?" It was a puzzle, but not one she thought Protheroe could solve.
He recalled her acceptance of Matthew Cornell's invitation to lunch. "Presumably they were expecting you, so perhaps you thought it was the polite thing to do."
"Yes," she said in surprise. "I didn't think it would be fair to Philippa not to go."
"Tell me about the row."
"I remember it so clearly," she said. "It was after lunch on the Monday and I blew my stack when Leo asked his father for some money and Anthony said he was a bit short because he'd been forced to pay for some building work he'd had done." She shook her head. "The job had been completed six months before and he was angry because the builder had gone to a solicitor." She pulled a rueful face. "I'd been holding myself back for twenty-four hours, and I went berserk. I called him every synonym for 'skinflint' I could think of, then turned on Leo and let rip at him. Poor Philippa looked mortified, and I was sorry about that because she'd always been so sweet to me." She sighed. "I wish I'd had the sense not to go in the first place. It wasn't a very dignified display. I kept spitting saliva all over the place because I couldn't get the words out fast enough."
"Was that when you told Leo it was all off?"
A look of irritation crossed her face. "I never got the chance. I just made an awful lot of noise, screaming and yelling and calling them names. I don't know what I thought I was doing really except getting all the poison out of my system. It was Leo who said he wasn't going through with it." She gave a small laugh. "He said he'd been having an affair with Meg and was planning to marry her instead." She looked at him. "I did tell you I wouldn't have wanted to kill myself over Leo and Meg. Do you believe that now? I can remember my relief when he said it. Thank God, I thought. I'm off the hook."
"But it must have been a shock."
"I suppose it was. I never thought she'd do it again, not after what happened to Russell."
He was lost. "Do what again?"
She looked at him rather blankly. "It was history repeating itself," she said impatiently, as if it was something he ought to have known. "Meg was having an affair with Russell when he was murdered."