Dark Room

'Among other things.' She sat up and linked her arms around her raised knees. 'Do you know that the only man I have ever been able to talk to on an equal basis is my next-door neighbor in Richmond, and he's in his eighties. I've been trying to remember all afternoon whether there's ever been anyone else, and I haven't come up with a single person.'

'What about your people at the studio? Dean and Angelica. Surely you talk to them on an equal basis. As a matter of interest, have you called either of them since you arrived?' He knew she hadn 't. There had only been two calls out, and neither of them had been to her studio.

'There'd be no point. We only ever talk about work, and I trust them to get on with it. Besides, I don't find it easy discussing my private life.'

He'd noticed. 'Josh? Can't you talk to him?'

She made a face. 'When I see him, which isn't very often. In any case, I usually end up apologizing for being Meg's friend. God only knows why he ever went into business with her. She can be very unreliable at times.'

For the moment, he let Meg go. 'What about Russell? Couldn't you talk to him on an equal basis?'

She stared beyond him out of the window. 'He was like my father. He was possessive, he was jealous, and he thought I was wonderful.' She fell silent, lost in the past somewhere. He was about to prompt her again, when she continued of her own accord. 'It was a classic case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. The odd thing is, he was fine as long as we weren't married. It was ownership that changed him. He became like my father.'

'Why do you feel your father owns you, Jinx?'

'I don't. That's how Adam sees it. He thinks he can control us all.' She glanced at him. 'You, too, Dr. Protheroe.'

He frowned. 'Because he's paying this clinic to look after you? That's hardly control.'

She smiled. 'But if push came to shove, whose interests would you put first? Your own and your daughter's, or mine and the other patients'?'

He found that amusing and gave a short bark of laughter. 'That's like asking me if I'd rather be the Archbishop of Canterbury or Jack the Ripper. Why should I be faced with such a dramatic choice?'

'Because if you do something my father doesn't like, you'll probably find yourself out of a job,' she said bluntly. 'Why do you think that, at the age of forty, Russell suddenly left a comfortable well-paid career in Oxford to buy a down-at-heel art gallery in London? Not through choice, believe me.' She smiled grimly. 'To coin a phrase, my father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.'

Interesting use of words, he thought. 'What was the offer?'

'Leave voluntarily, or leave in disgrace.'

'You'll have to explain, I'm afraid.'

'Adam doesn't play by civilized rules. He uses information to destroy people who get in his way.' She shrugged. 'He paid fifty thousand pounds for the information on Russell, and that's discounting what he paid his team of investigators to unearth the fact that it existed at all. He doesn't mess about.'

He hid his skepticism. 'Am I allowed to know what this piece of information was?''

She looked at him. 'You don't believe me, do you?' She could see that he didn't. 'Then it'll be your funeral, Dr. Protheroe. Everybody underestimates Adam. He encourages people to believe they're dealing with a gentleman when they're not. You see, he's not like Betty. You can't tell his origins by looking at him or speaking to him. He's far too clever for that.'

Protheroe felt he was being drawn once again towards a choice between her and her father, and chose to sidestep the issue. 'I neither believe nor disbelieve,' he said. 'I am merely wondering what Russell could have done that was so bad. Even ten years ago, and particularly at a liberal university like Oxford, leaving in disgrace seems a somewhat old-fashioned concept.'

'Not if you go to jail it isn't.' She sighed. 'Russell went to Europe every summer on lecture tours. When he came back he'd bring upwards of fifty kilos of cannabis packed into the chassis of his car. It was a straightforward transaction. He made the collection in Italy and was paid on delivery in England. He used the money to fund his art collection. He had no conscience about it. His view was that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes and that the government was mad to criminalize its use. But the penalty for smuggling is prison. Adam offered him resignation or prosecution. Russell chose resignation.'

'Did you know he was smuggling drugs?'

She shook her head. 'Not till afterwards.'

'How did Adam find out?'

'According to Russell, he traced the contact in Italy and bought him off. Adam works on the principle that everyone has a chink in his armor, and if he keeps going long enough, he'll find it. I think what probably happened is that his people calculated the value of Russell's collection, realized he couldn't have afforded it on his salary, and started digging into the trips abroad.'

'Presumably it was Russell who told you about it, not your father.'

'Yes.'

'Did he explain why your father wanted him to leave Oxford?'

'To get him away from me.'

'Then why did Russell marry you, Jinx? Why didn't the blackmail hold good after he'd left? Presumably he was no keener to go to prison afterwards than he was before.'

She gave a hollow laugh. 'You sound as though you think I'm making this up.'

'Not at all. I'm just trying to understand.'

She didn't believe him. 'I've told you before, Dr. Protheroe. We got married without my father's knowledge. I