Dark Room

age as forty-six and Samantha would never see forty again. There were other similarities too. They were both plump, both blond, and both extremely heavy-handed with near-white face powder. 'How did he contact you, Samantha? Did he pick you up off the street, or do you advertise somewhere?'

'Listen, love, I said I wouldn't make no promises and I meant it.'

'Flossie called me 'love.' You call me 'love.' Look, please don't take offense, but you and she are very alike. I'd describe you both as 'motherly.' ' She paused to collect her thoughts. 'The only reference Flossie made to her attacker was to call him Little Lord Fauntleroy, so I'm guessing he's much younger than both of you, probably well- spoken and probably handsome, and I'm guessing, too, that he didn't choose either of you by accident. Judging by the fact that you and Flossie are of similar age and similar appearance, he was clearly looking for a specific kind of prostitute. Which means he must have picked you up off the street or he wouldn't have known what you looked like. Am I right?'

'I'm long past walking the streets, love.' Samantha sighed again. 'Look, get me another double rum and Coke, then maybe-just maybe-I'll tell you.'

'I'm not shelling out again unless it's a definite maybe,' said Blake firmly. 'This isn't official, you know, it's my own hard-earned money I'm using.'

'More fool you, dear. No one thanks you for anything these days.'

'How much did he pay you to keep quiet?'

'Forty,' said Samantha, 'but it's not the money, love. It was him. He promised me another going-over if I opened my mouth, and I believed him. Still do, if it's of any interest to you. He was mad as a bloody hatter.'

'Forty,' Blake echoed in genuine astonishment. 'Christ! He must have money to burn. What do you normally charge? Ten?'

No answer. 'So he's a rich, well-spoken, handsome young man?' Again no answer. 'Come on, Samantha, how did he know what you looked like? Tell me that at least. It means I can put the word out among the other girls to be careful in future.'

The woman nudged her glass towards the WPC. 'I reckon you've got it back to front, love. I reckon he was expecting something young and pretty, and found a fat old slag instead. All I know is, he rang me on the number on my card-and the card's in that many shop windows I wouldn't know which one he saw-made an appointment to visit, climbed onto my sodding bed and went berserk. Claimed I was old enough to be his mother and that I'd no business to be advertising under false pretenses. Now give us a fill-up, there's a good girl.'

Blake took the glass and stood up. 'So you think he's a regular round the prostitutes but only lashes out at the older ones?'

The heavy shoulders rose in a shrug. 'Thinking's never been my strong point, dear. If it had, I'd have been a brain surgeon. Mind, I reckon his father beats up on his ma. 'Tell 'em your old man did it,' he said, 'and they'll believe you.' '

*11*

SUNDAY, 26TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-7:00 P.M.

There was no pattern to Jinx's thoughts. Bits of remembered conversation plagued her weary brain. Do your brothers resent you? Yes, yes, YES! You were so condescending she wanted to slap you... She had been seven years old. A baby still... the perfect child already in residence with pictures of her perfect mother all over the walls... Was it her fault that her father had begun to despise his second wife within months of the wedding? Relationships don't have to be disappointing, Jinx. She had never known one that wasn't. She had married Russell because she felt sorry for him, and discovered too late that pity is a bad basis for marriage. Yet, without the wisdom to predict events before they happened, could anyone in her shoes have done better? So what are you saying? I don't know, I don't know, I DON'T KNOW! Something terrible happened ... Russell's dead...

Dr. Protheroe looked in on her at seven o'clock. 'How's it going?'

She was propped up on her pillows. 'I'm a mess,' she said honestly, feeling again that ridiculous urge to be plucked from the bed and held in the comfort of his arms. Oh God, she had never felt so alone.

He leaned over her and she could smell the soap on his hands. 'When the Sergeant called me in, you told me the police hadn't upset you, but I think you were lying. What did they really want to talk to you about?'

She fixed on the hairs that were sprouting from his shirt where the button was missing, funny little black tendrils that poked wickedly out and made a mockery of his position as clinic director. Adam would have fired him a long time ago pour encourager les autres, but then Adam rated presentation above content, and Adam was a bully. 'They just wanted a few details about Meg,' she said. 'And they didn't upset me. I'm just very tired at the moment.'

He pulled the chair forward and sat in it. 'Okay. So what's this mess you're in? Physical? Mental?'

A tear glittered along her lid. 'Life,' she said. 'I've made a mess of life, and I don't know how to put it right.'

What a very seductive combination it was, he thought, this switch from tough-minded independence in the company of policemen to tearful vulnerability when alone with her doctor. He wished he felt more confident that the tear was genuine. As Veronica Gordon, one of the nursing sisters, had said to him that morning: 'She has a way with her, Alan. I think it's those extraordinary eyes. They say one thing and her voice says another.' 'What do the eyes say?' he'd asked her. 'Help,' she said succinctly, 'but it's the one thing she never asks for.'

'Perhaps life has made a mess of you,' he suggested now.

'No,' said Jinx flatly. 'That's the excuse I've always used, but it's not true. I allow things to happen instead of controlling them. Like this place, for example. I don't want to be here, but I am. And the only reason I stay is because my father will pursue me to London and put pressure on me to go home with him, and I want that even less than I want this.' She raised the sheet to her eyes to wipe away her tears. 'I'm only just beginning to realize how passive I am.'

'Why? Because you don't want to do battle with your father?'