Dark Room

Inside the room, Maddocks beamed encouragingly at Jinx. 'Any idea which part of France, Miss Kingsley?'

She shook her head. 'No, but I can probably guess. I know the man she's gone with. His name's Leo Wallader and he has a cottage on the south coast of Brittany. The address is Les Hirondelles, rue St. Jacques, Trinite-sur- mer. There is a telephone, but again'-she gave a small shrug-'the number's in my address book.'

Maddocks nodded. 'But if you know she's in France,' he said with a puzzled frown, 'why did you telephone her London number?'

Jinx looked at him for a moment, then picked up her cigarette packet and tapped a cigarette into her fingers. Nicotine was more important than pride. She reached for the lighter but Fraser was there before her, holding the flame steady beneath the wavering tip. She thanked him with a smile. 'Meg can ring her answering machine and listen to her messages,' she said. 'I assumed that's what she'd do.'

'Who told you she was in France?'

'Her partner, Josh Hennessey.' She gazed at him through the smoke. 'He phoned me on Wednesday.'

Maddocks glanced towards Fraser to see if he'd written that down. 'And has Meg called you back, Miss Kingsley?'

'Not yet, no.'

'Is this Mr. Hennessey in contact with her?'

'Not as far as I know. She didn't give him a contact number.'

He made a play of consulting his notebook. 'In fact, we know about Mr. Leo Wallader. He came up in connection with your car accident. I believe he was your fiance until a couple of weeks ago?'

She blew a stream of smoke into the air and watched it ripple towards the ceiling. 'That's right,' she said evenly.

'But he preferred your friend Meg Harris and left you for her.'

She smiled slightly. 'Right again, Inspector.'

'So perhaps Miss Harris is embarrassed to phone you,' he suggested, 'despite your insistence in your message that you don't bear grudges.'

She tapped ash into the ashtray. 'To tell you the truth,' she said slowly, 'I can't really remember what I said.' She looked at him with an inquiring expression in her dark eyes. 'You talked about political incorrectness, said you ought to be ripping her first editions to pieces, told her you'd lost your memory after driving at a concrete post, and asked her to phone you here if she could stand the embarrassment of talking to you. Does that ring any bells?'

'Only alarm ones,' she murmured. 'You were very precise in your introductory spiel. You said that Hammersmith police had listened to her messages, taken down this phone number, and then asked you to contact me here for her parents' address. You made no mention of listening to the tape yourself.' She pressed the palm of her hand against the side of her head where a pain was beginning. 'So either you were there when they listened, or they made a copy which they sent on to you.'

'They faxed us a transcript,' said Maddocks. 'Why does that alarm you?'

'May I see the fax?'

He glanced at Fraser again. 'Did we bring it with us, Sergeant? The last time I saw it, it was on your desk.'

The young man shook his head. 'Sorry, Gov. I didn't think we'd need it.' He turned to prop his notebook against the wall, hoping that his anger and unease were less obvious than they felt.

Jinx watched him for a moment. He was a poor liar, she thought, but then his complexion was against him. He was fair, like Fergus, and the blood ran too easily to his face. She felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He had a bully for a boss and she knew better than anyone that it took a peculiar kind of courage to stand up to bullies. 'As a matter of interest,' she said calmly, 'why didn't you phone Meg's business number and ask Josh these questions?'

'Because Hammersmith have been unable to locate it,' said Maddocks. 'As I explained at the beginning, she appears to be in the process of moving out. According to them, there's nothing left except a few first editions, some clothes, and the cat.'

She turned to Fraser. 'So who's looking after Marmaduke?'

'The neighbor, Mrs. Helms,' he answered obligingly.

There was a long silence.

'What exactly has happened to Meg?' asked Jinx quietly. 'I can't believe that Winchester CID would go all the way to London to search someone's flat just because her credit cards have been stolen.'

Maddocks, controlling an urge to show Fraser what a pillock he thought him, perched instead on the edge of Jinx's bed and leaned forward, hands clamped between his knees. 'It wasn't only hers that were stolen,' he admitted gravely, 'but Mr. Wallader's as well. The registered address for his cards is Twelve Glenavon Gardens, Richmond, which was already in the Hampshire police file as a result of your accident. Richmond police were able to give us the address and telephone number of Leo's parents because they retrieved that information from your house following the crash. However, when we contacted Sir Anthony to discover where Leo and Meg have gone, he couldn't tell us anything. And that worried us, because we couldn't understand why neither of them had notified the credit companies that their cards had been stolen. If they're in a cottage in Brittany, then perhaps that explains it, but I don't understand why Sir Anthony couldn't give us the address.'

She drew away from him into the back of her chair and tried to control the panic in her heart. Something else had happened ... something so terrible that she was too frightened to search her memory for it... 'He doesn't know it,' she said in an uneven voice which came back to her through the thudding, racing blood in her ears. 'He knows very little about his son. Philippa, too.'

Maddocks's heavy face drew closer, his shrewd little eyes fixed on hers. 'Are you all right, Miss Kingsley?'

'Yes, thank you.' Something else had happened ... Forget ... forget ... FORGET! 'As