Dark Room

to your neck in it. All I know for certain is that my father's paying you to look after me, that for some reason he sent his solicitor over to talk to you on Monday afternoon, and that shortly afterwards you ordered half-hourly checks on me before disappearing.' A glint-of humor?-appeared in her eyes. 'Then, when you finally reappear, you're attacked with a sledgehammer and the police come down on me like a ton of bricks.'

Thoughtfully, he scratched his beard. 'You've run those facts into a related sequence when my interpretation is there's no relation between them at all.'

'Why did Kennedy come and see you then?''

'Assuming there were no hidden agendas at work, to remind me that I promised your father you wouldn't be subjected to therpy you didn't want. Kennedy taped our conversation, and as I haven't heard anything since, I've concluded that I said the right things in response and not the wrong things.'

'What did you say?' she shot at him.

'I suggested it was Adam and not you who didn't want you remembering anything.' He noted her alarmed expression. 'I also said he'd misread your character entirely and that he was worrying unnecessarily about any rehashing of Russell's murder because you didn't share his anxieties on the subject. Mind you, at that stage I was unaware that Meg and Leo were dead, or that you knew about it.' Her alarm deepened. 'If I had, I'd have been even more forceful in my remarks on his misreading of your character, because I've never met anyone, man or woman, who was as self-reliant as you are.'

She plucked at the counterpane. 'It's something you learn very quickly when you find yourself on the wrong end of a murder inquiry,' she said. 'You never stop watching your back.'

'Yet, you're so adept at getting everyone else to watch it for you,' he said mildly. 'Amy for one, Matthew for another.'

She smiled grudgingly. 'Poor Amy is watching her own back. She's terrified of getting the sack, but you can't use what I've told you as an excuse. You're my doctor and everything I've said was said in confidence.' She changed tack. 'According to Matthew, the police think the sledgehammer that was used to attack you belongs to the clinic. Is that right?''

'What a mine of information that young man is.'

She ignored that. 'Is he right?'

'Yes.'

'Is there any doubt about it?'

'I don't think so. One of our security officers went looking for it because he knew we had one. It was abandoned in an outbuilding with paint from my Wolseley on the head.'

She sat in deep thought for several seconds. 'Could your security officer have been mistaken?' she asked suddenly. 'I mean, it seems such an odd thing to leave to chance. How could he rely on a sledgehammer being here?' She searched his face eagerly. 'He must have brought one with him. It doesn't make sense otherwise.'

He found himself moved by the terrible yearning in her amazing eyes. Were Matthew and Amy as easily moved? 'Meaning there's another sledgehammer out there somewhere?'

She nodded.

'Okay. If it's there, I'll do my best to find it, but wouldn't it be easier just to tell me who he is?'

Her face took on a closed expression. 'Whoever hit you.'

He straightened with a sigh. 'No, Jinx, it was whoever tried to kill me. You're not the only one watching your back at the moment. Think about that.'

Matthew Cornell was lounging against the front porch, smoking a cigarette, when Alan went outside. Alan toyed with the idea of tearing his arms off, then abandoned it as a nonstarter. All in all, he was growing increasingly fond of his ginger-haired convert.

'How's it going, Matthew?'

'Pretty good, Doc. How's the shoulder?'

'So-so.' He eased the muscles gently. 'Could have been a lot worse.'

'Yeah. You could be dead.'

Alan watched him out of the corner of his eye. 'Any ideas who might have done it? One theory is it was a junky after drugs.'

'That's not the way I heard it.'

'Is it not?'

'There's only one person in the frame and it sure as hell isn't a junky.'

'You mean Miss Kingsley.'

'She's the only one with sledgehammers in her background.' He ground his cigarette out under his heel.

'Except she doesn't fit the bill. It was a man I saw in my headlights.'

'You sure, Doc? You've got a loud voice and I was sitting by my window Monday night, having a quiet smoke. I didn't get the impression you thought it was a man.'

'And you told her all about it the next morning.'

Matthew grinned at him. 'Didn't seem fair not to. It's a mean old world, Doc, and how was I to know you weren't going to tell the police? I knew she was out there. She lit up her face every time she had a fag. I was watching her for about an hour before you came back and got clobbered. You should remember where my room is, upstairs on the corner, with windows facing both ways.'

'Are you saying you saw everything that happened?'