Kennedy looked at Miles with dislike, refused the chair that was offered him, and instead placed two photographs on the table. The first showed Miles entering a hotel foyer, the second showed him getting into his Porsche. 'My client's sister informs me that you are inquiring into an assault on a prostitute in Lansing Road, Salisbury, at around eight o'clock on Wednesday, June the twenty-second. Is that correct?'
'Yes,' agreed Blake.
Kennedy tapped the photographs, indicating the printed times and date in the bottom right-hand corners. 'My client, Miles Kingsley, entered the Regal Hotel, Salisbury, at five-thirty p.m. on Wednesday, June the twenty-second. He returned to his car at eight forty-five p.m. that same evening and drove to the Nightingale Clinic to visit his sister. While at the Regal he spent three and a quarter hours in room number four-three-one, leaving it only once to meet a man in the lobby.' He placed another photograph on the table, of Miles, head down, talking to someone whose back was to the camera. 'That was at seven o'clock. He remained with this man for three minutes before visiting the gentlemen's lavatory in the lobby. He returned to room four-three-one at seven-fifteen. He was followed, photographed, and watched from midday until midnight on June the twenty-second by one Paul Deacon, who can be contacted on this number and at this address.' He placed a card beside the photographs. 'I trust this clears my client of any suspicion in connection with the assault in Lansing Road.'
Blake looked from the photographs to Miles's drained, white face. 'It would certainly seem to,' she agreed.
Kennedy smiled coldly at his client. 'Your father's outside, Miles. I suggest we don't make him wait any longer than we need to.'
Miles shrank into his seat. 'I'm not going,' he said. 'He'll kill me.'
'Your mother and Fergus are with him. I'm sure they'll both be very pleased to see you.' He gestured towards the door. 'Your father's most aggrieved by all of this, Miles, and he gets very angry when he's aggrieved, as you know. You wouldn't want your mother and brother to bear the brunt of his anger, would you?'
Miles looked terrified. 'No,' he said, lurching to his feet. 'It was my idea. Mum and Fergus were just trying to help. I thought if we put the shares up as collateral, we could get out from under once and for all. So it's me he should blame, not them.'
Blake watched the young man pull the remnants of his courage together and thought he was braver than she'd given him credit for. But what the hell sort of man was Adam Kingsley to inspire such fear in his twenty-six-year-old son?
*21*
WEDNESDAY, 29TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-5:00 P.M.
Dr. Protheroe stood in Jinx's open doorway, watching her. She was speaking on the telephone, body rigid with tension, fingers clenching the receiver, shoulders unnaturally stiff. Her father, he guessed, for he doubted anyone else could elicit so much nervous energy. He remembered another woman standing in just this way listening to a voice at the other end of the line. His wife, hearing her own death sentence.
Jinx watched him while she spoke. 'What's wrong?' she asked as she replaced the receiver.
He shook his head. 'Nothing. I was thinking of something else. Bad news?'
'No, good,' she said dispiritedly. 'They've let Miles go.'
'With or without charges?'
'Without.' She climbed onto her bed and sat cross-legged in the middle of it. 'Kennedy was able to prove he was somewhere else.'
'You don't seem very happy about it.'
'Adam was on his mobile. I could hear Betty crying in the background. I think the sword has finally snapped its thread.'
'Are we talking about the sword of Damocles?'
She nodded. 'Adam's had it hanging over their heads for years. The trouble is...' She lapsed into one of her silences.
'They were too stupid to realize it,' he suggested.
She didn't say anything.
'So what was Miles really doing that night?'
She pressed her hands flat on the counterpane, then released them, apparently intrigued by the depressions they'd made. 'Cocaine,' she said suddenly. 'In between gambling his nonexistent fortune away. He and Fergus are in hock up to their eyeballs.' She was silent for a moment, stroking and pummeling the bed. 'Adam paid off fifty thousand pounds on their gambling debts in March, and he said if they ever gambled again he'd throw them out and disinherit them. He's had them watched for the last four weeks.'
Alan took up her favorite position against the dressing table. 'Why?'
'Because Betty sold the last of her shares halfway through May and he guessed it was to cover their losses.'
'So why didn't he make good his threat then?'
She smiled rather grimly. 'I imagine he wanted to know who he'd be dealing with when the boys failed to pay up.'
'They're over twenty-one,' said Alan dispassionately. 'He's not responsible for their debts.'
'You're back in your ivory tower again,' she said, two spots of angry color flaring in her cheeks. 'Do you honestly believe anyone would bother to take Adam Kingsley's sons to the cleaners if they didn't think they'd get their money? You've seen what Miles is like. Now imagine what he and Fergus will have said about Adam and Franchise Holdings while high on cocaine. There'll be a video somewhere full of damaging allegations.'
