Dark Room

stage.'

Daily Tetegraph-23rd June

*5*

THURADAY, 23RD JUNE, CANNING ROAD POLICE STATION, SALISBURY-9:00 A.M.

'Little Lord Fauntleroy,' echoed a skeptical 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, Gov.'

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.'

THE 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 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 halfhearted 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?

'Hello, Jinx,' said a quiet voice from the open doorway into the corridor. 'Can you stand a visitor, or should I make polite excuses and leave?'

Her shock was so extreme that her heart surged into frantic activity.

Fear ... fear ... FEAR! But what was there to be afraid of?

She recognized the voice and turned away from the window. 'Oh God, Simon,' she said angrily, 'you gave me such a fright. Why on earth would I want you to leave?' She held a hand to her chest. 'I can't breathe. I think I'm having a panic attack. Don't you ever dare do that to me again.'

'I'd better call someone.'

'No!' She waved him inside and took deep breaths. 'I'm okay.' She leaned back, drawing the air into her lungs. 'I don't know why, but I'm really on edge at the moment. I keep thinking-no, forget it, it doesn't matter. How are you?'

Simon Harris stood half in and half out of the doorway, looking irresolutely down the corridor. 'Let me call someone, Jinx. I really think I should. You don't look at all well.' He had the fine-boned, rather ascetic face of the clergyman he was, and he was as different from his sister as chalk was from cheese. Meg would have told her: 'Sod it, sweetheart, be it on your own head. Don't blame me if you die.' Simon could only peer through his glasses with well-meant but impotent concern.

'Sit down, Simon,' she said wearily. She wanted to scream. 'I'm okay. Why wouldn't I want to see you?'

Reluctantly, he abandoned the doorway and made his way to the other chair. 'Because it struck me as I was walking along the corridor that I had deliberately shut my eyes to the potential embarrassment my visit might cause.'

Why do you always have to be so pompous, Simon? 'To you or to me?''

'To you,' he said. 'I'm more angry than embarrassed. I still can't believe my sister would steal her best friend's fiance.'

'Well, I'm neither embarrassed nor angry, just very lethargic and rather sore.' She eyed his dog collar and cassock with disfavor. 'Mind you,' she grumbled, 'I don't go a bundle on the uniform. Couldn't you have worn jeans and a T-shirt like everyone else? They all think I'm suicidal as it is, so having a vicar visit me will destroy any credibility I've managed to salvage.'

He smiled, reassured by her feeble attempts at humor. 'No choice, I'm afraid. I'm doing an official stint in the cathedral in approximately two hours, so if I wanted to visit you as well, I wasn't going to have time to change.'

'How did you know I was here?'

'Josh Hennessey told me,' he said, squeezing his knees with bony fingers. 'I managed to get through to Betty once during the week but she hung up as soon as I said who it was. The name Harris is nomina non gratis at Hellingdon Hall at the moment,' he finished ruefully, 'and I can't say I'm altogether surprised.'

'Then how did Josh persuade her? She knows quite well he's Meg's partner, not mine.'

Simon pulled a face. 'He got the same treatment I did until he realized deception was the better part of valor. He lied, said he was Dean Jarrett and needed to talk to you urgently on business.'

Dean was Jinx's number two at the photographic studio, and he played his homosexuality for all it was worth because it amused him. Jinx massaged her aching head. 'She must have been drunk as a skunk to fall for that. Josh doesn't sound anything like Dean.'