Dark Room

wretched boy in your silly games? He's not responsible for what's happened to me.'

Why couldn't she see that the room he wanted her to leave was the one in her mind? What was keeping her there? 'I agree, but I didn't involve him, he involved himself.' He tapped the Do Not Disturb notice taped to the wall beside her door. 'Don't you think it's a little patronizing to refer to him as a 'wretched boy,' Jinx? He's twenty-eight and doesn't require protection from me or from you.' He grinned broadly. 'And one last point: as a matter of policy, I never instruct anyone to do anything. You either do things willingly, or you don't do them at all. My credibility's at stake here. I can't have people refusing. It would undermine everything I stand for.'

'Then please tell Matthew thank you very much and yes, I'd love to have lunch with him.' She reached up and tore off the notice, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at him. 'As a good existentialist, Dr. Protheroe, I'm sure you know why I did that.'

His thundering laugh boomed along the corridor as he walked away, tossing the ball into the air and catching it again. 'Because you enjoyed it,'' he said over his shoulder.

She was wheeled around the gardens like a highly prized pig in a wheelbarrow, with her lanky escort showing her off with pride to anyone who was interested. She loathed every minute of it, spent the entire time chain-smoking, and ground her teeth at what she regarded as a Protheroe-inspired hijack. She perked up when, at the end of a tour of the boundary wall, they came to the main gate and paused by the gatekeeper's box. He glanced at them briefly through the window, then resumed his reading of the newspaper. Jinx gestured towards the unrestricted exit. 'Why don't we just keep going?' she suggested. 'You can get some smack and I can take a taxi home.'

'Sure,' said Matthew. 'You take it over then.'

She squinted up at him. 'Take over what?'

He made pushing motions with his hands. 'The wheels. It's no skin off my nose if you want to scarper. You're not my responsibility.' He squatted down beside her. 'But if you want out, why don't you just tell the doc and phone for a taxi from your room?''

She shrugged. 'Probably for the same reason you don't.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Reckon the guy from the band's got it about right. What he says is, when you've flung yourself into the ultimate abyss and you're still alive when you reach the bottom, it's probably worth asking yourself what the hell you're doing down there. So, do you want lunch? Or do you want out?'

'Both,' said Jinx, 'but I'll settle for lunch. You're not a rebel at all, are you?'

Matthew grinned. 'That depends,' he said.

'On what?'

'Cui bono? If it's me who gains, then I might be interested. What's the deal?'

'I don't know yet,' she said thoughtfully, 'but I'll tell you this for free. If you ever manage to kick the habit, you could make millions. You're even more manipulative than my father.'

'It takes one to recognize one,' he said, spinning her round. 'You're not exactly backward in that direction yourself. Hold tight now. Let's see how fast this contraption will go.' He bent down to press her back into the seat, and as he did so, she turned her head to smile at him.

The shock of deja vu was so extreme that she flung her hand out instinctively and caught him a glancing blow across the face. Meg and Russell ... Meg and Leo ... BLOOD ... Whore ... whore ... WHORE.

*7*

At the outset Bobby Franklyn had been careful with the four stolen credit cards, all of which carried the flamboyant signature that was so easy to copy. He had started in a modest way with purchases under thirty pounds to avoid incurring the inevitable telephone checks, but after two days he was seduced by a leather jacket at one hundred and fifty pounds and caution gave way to greed. He sweated under the beady eye of the shop manager while the call for authorization was made, only to hit an adrenaline high when the jacket was handed to him and he knew that the cards had still not been reported missing. In the next five days, using each in turn, he bought goods to the value of six thousand pounds without, apparently, ever reaching any of the credit ceilings. He had yet to touch the woman's cards.

Of course, he grew careless. It was the nature of the beast to proclaim his cleverness and flaunt his newfound wealth, for there was no forward thinking in Bobby's intellectual makeup, merely a childlike need to gratify immediate appetites and demonstrate that he was a cut above his peers. He strutted his stuff with increasing arrogance, provoking jealousy and resentment, and was grassed up by an old school friend, turned police informant, for a smoke and the price of a beer.

FRIDAY, 24TH JUNE, ROMSEY ROAD POLICE STATION, WINCHESTER, HAMPSHIRE-12:15 P.M.

At about the same time that Jinx was considering absconding, DS Sean Fraser tapped on the open door of DI Maddocks's office. 'You remember what the Super said about a third party nicking our couple's IDs and money? Well, I took a look at the charge sheets for the last week and came up with a cracker. It's too bloody neat to be coincidence, Governor. A lad by the name of Bobby Franklyn was brought in this morning by the uniformed boys. He lives on the Hawtree Estate, single-parent family, five kids all running wild. He's the eldest. Seems he's been using stolen credit cards to buy electrical goods and clothes to the tune of six thousand quid in five days. When they prised up the floorboards in his bedroom, they found four cards in the name of Mr. Leo Wallader and two in the name of Miss M. S. Harris. He claims he found them in a shopping bag in the High Street, but when Ted Garrety phoned through to find out when they'd been reported missing, he was told that as far as the companies who issued them are concerned, they're still kosher. Ted's been trying to contact the two cardholders. Wallader's registered address is Twelve Glenavon Gardens, Richmond, and Harris's is Forty-three-A Shoebury Terrace, Hammersmith. Two London numbers with no answer at either end. What do you reckon?'

The permanent scowl on Maddocks's heavy face smoothed into alert interest. 'Is Franklyn still here?'

Fraser nodded. 'He's a nasty piece of work. Seventeen years old, and knows his rights. We've hauled him in before but this is the first time he's been old enough to charge. According to Garrety, he had five televisions, half a dozen stereo systems still in their boxes beside his bed, and a quantity of brand-new flashy clothing in his closet.'

'Does he have a brief with him?'

'A young woman from Hicks and Hicks. She's advised him to keep his mouth shut.'