Dark Room

Hello, Meg. A deeper woman's voice. It's Jinx. Look, I know this is probably politically incorrect-a low laugh-I ought to be ripping your first editions to pieces or something. But I really would like to talk to you. Things are a bit complicated this end-well, you've probably heard about it ... A pause. They say I drove my car at a concrete post-deliberately. Can you believe that? The bugger is, I've lost my memory, can't remember anything since Saturday the fourth, so everyone's jumping to the conclusion that I was upset about you and Leo. Another laugh, rather more forced this time. It's the pits, old thing, which is why I need to talk to you both. You may not believe me, but I swear to God I am not harboring grudges, so if you can bear the embarrassment, ring me on Salisbury two-two- one-four-two-zero. It's a nutters' hospital and I'm shit-scared of going round the bend here. Please ring.

The rest of the tape was blank.

Maddocks raised an eyebrow at Fraser. 'Genuine?'' he asked. 'Or planted for the police to hear after they found the bodies?'

'You mean hers?' Fraser shrugged. 'I'd guess genuine. The pissed-off partner made his last call two days ago, so hers must have been pretty recent.'

'How does that make it genuine?'

'Because she couldn't know when the bodies would be found. If it was a bluff, she'd have phoned sooner to make sure we got the message.'

Maddocks was more skeptical. 'Unless she's been following the newspapers.' He turned to a bookcase along the wall and plucked a book at random from the shelves. 'The reference to first editions was genuine. Look at this. A signed Graham Greene.' He ran his finger along the spines. 'Daphne du Maurier, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, P. D. James, John le Carre. She's even got an Ian Fleming. I wonder who she's left them to.'

'Probably her friend Jane Kingsley,' said Fraser, opening a door to the right of the fireplace and disclosing a neat white kitchen with slate-gray worktops and pale gray units. He turned to the two London policemen. 'Do you fancy tackling this? Chances are there'll be papers in some of these drawers. I'll take her bedroom.'

He moved across the hallway to a door on the other side, clicked it open and surveyed the room. Like the rest of the flat, it was clean and meticulously tidy-so tidy, in fact, that he decided it was a spare bedroom and went to the only door he hadn't yet opened and found the bathroom. Apart from a pair of fluffy white towels that were folded with measured precision over the rail, there was nothing to indicate that the room had ever been used-no sponge, no soap, no toothpaste. He lifted the latch on the cabinet above the basin and stared thoughtfully at the meager contents. A bottle of disinfectant, a packet of Disprin, and a clean toothmug. Meg Harris was unreal, he thought. No one was this tidy, not even when they went away on holiday. And where was Leo's presence? Surely something should remain to show a man had lived there on and off. He lifted the lid of the laundry basket, but it was empty. He retreated into the hall again, where he noticed the cat's bed beneath a small radiator and wondered why Meg had bothered to keep a companion when she was clearly so house-proud that its movements had to be thoroughly restricted whenever she was absent. Tidiness appeared to be an obsession with her. Back in the bedroom, he opened the wardrobe and sorted through the few clothes hanging there. Only women's, he noted, no men's. The same was true of all the drawers. He searched for anything that might give a clue to the woman's personality, but it was like searching a hotel bedroom where a guest was staying one night. Her clothes were neatly folded away, some odds and ends of costume jewelry and makeup lay in ordered rows in her dressing table drawer, a small bowl of potpourri on the bedside table gave off a faint scent. But if there had ever been anything of a personal nature in that room, she had taken it with her.

Maddocks looked up from a book as Fraser rejoined him. 'Last year's diary,' he said, 'but there's not a single phone number or address in it. Any luck your end?'

Fraser shook his head. 'Nothing. Just a few clothes. It looks as if she took everything that mattered to her, which is odd if she was only going away for a couple of weeks. I couldn't find any suitcases.'

Maddocks abandoned the diary and stared about the living room with a frown. 'I don't get it. It's so damn clinical. Have you noticed there aren't any photographs about? I've been looking for an album but I can't find one. You'd think there'd be at least one photograph of her family, wouldn't you?''

'What about papers?' suggested Fraser. 'House insurance, mortgage details, a will? Where are they?'

Maddocks jerked his head towards a pine bureau in the corner. 'In there for what it's worth, but there's no will, just one folder with 'House Insurance' written across the front. There aren't even any letters, no indication at all who her friends were or what the family address is. It's bizarre. Most people have a few letters littered about the place.' He moved across to the kitchen door. 'What about you two? Have you found anything?'

The older of the two London policemen shook his head. 'Tell you what, sir, it reminds me of those cottages you rent in the summer. There's cutlery and crockery here and it's all clean, but there's no food anywhere, the fridge is empty, dishwasher's empty, new plastic bag in the garbage can. Either she rented it and was about to move out or she was planning to move out and let it to somebody else.' He gestured towards a pegboard on the wall. 'Even her notice board's empty, but you don't do that when you're off on holiday. I'd say she's got another place somewhere.'

Fraser agreed with him. 'That's got to be it, Gov. It doesn't make sense otherwise. Have you ever seen a flat as devoid of personality as this one is?'

'Why did she leave her first editions behind?'

'Because the insurance policy here probably specifies and covers the collection, which would make this the most sensible place to leave them unattended. What's the betting she moved all her personal stuff before the holiday, left the cat behind because she had a neighbor who would feed it, and was planning to come back for the books, the rest of her clothes, and the cat on her return? She was moving in with Leo-it's the only logical scenario.'

'Goddammit,' said Maddocks ferociously, 'everything points to him moving in with her. If he had a place of his own, why the hell was he shacked up in Glenavon Gardens with the Kingsley woman? Frank'll go mad over this. It's my guess the only person who knows anything is Jane Kingsley.'

THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-3:30 P.M.

Minus her bandage and dressed in black sweater and trousers, Jinx sat on a bench in the shade of a weeping beech tree and studied the comings and goings on the gravel sweep in front of the clinic. She felt herself to be comfortably anonymous behind a pair of mirrored glasses, and for the first time in several days she allowed her tired body to relax.

The memory that she had known about Leo and Meg's affair pierced her brain like a needle. My God! Leo himself had told her in the drawing room of his parents' house with