'Your brothers?'
'No.'
'Do they hug their mother?'
'No. We're a very undemonstrative family.'
'Is there any love at all in that house, Jinx?'
'There's passion,' she said. 'They fight like cats and dogs for Adam's approval.'
'But you don't join in?'
'I don't need to,' she said dismissively. 'I already have it. Adam paid good money to transform his most intelligent child into something he could be proud of. The fact that I am incapable of making sensible decisions about my personal life is a minor irritation.' Angrily, she turned away from him, propping her chin on her hand and staring into the mirror. 'He made a lady out of me and he's besotted with her.'
'Is that why you call him Adam? To prove you aren't a lady?'
'I don't follow.'
'I assume it's a statement of equality. 'You and I are no different, Adam. If you can't behave like a gentleman, then I can't be a lady.' Something like that?'
She continued to stare into the mirror. 'You really do assume far too much, you know. In normal circumstances, I hardly think of Adam at all, and never in such analytical terms.'
'You said earlier that the best relationships were the ones without a sexual content,' he reminded her, 'yet you clearly don't have a good relationship with your father. Should I infer from that that you and he have had a sexual relationship?'
'No,' she said calmly, 'you should not infer any such thing. I will not allow you to foist some tacky child-abuse theory onto me because it happens to be in vogue at the moment. Anyway, what would you know about any of this? I thought you said you weren't a psychiatrist.'
He could feel her anger. 'Why so defensive? Is it because you recognize that but for his self-control, you and he might have had a sexual relationship? Perhaps the desire wasn't all one-sided.'
She closed her eyes suddenly. 'I really do urge you to remember what my father does to people he doesn't like, Dr. Protheroe. You'd be quite mad to make an enemy of him.'
Now why, he wondered, did he get the feeling she was talking about herself?
With an effort of concentration she remembered Dean Jarrett's home telephone number. 'Dean?' she said when he picked up the receiver at the other end. 'Look, I'm really sorry to bother you at home-
'Who is it?'
'It's Jinx.'
'Oh my God!' screamed his well-remembered voice. She could picture him so clearly. The telephone was in the sitting room, an art deco excrescence, amongst all the other art deco excrescences in his vibrant and colorful living space. He would be lying on the chaise longue, she thought, his peroxided silver head propped against the ornate tracery at the end of it, receiver in one hand, glass of champagne in the other. Dean performed even when he was alone, and she loved him for it because she couldn't do it herself.
'We've been worried sick,' he rattled on. 'I said to Angelica, 'Angelica sweetheart, supposing we've lost her?' We didn't know what to do-face the dread prospect of phoning that awful man who passes for your father and puts the fear of God into us, or sit tight and rely on you to come round eventually. You know he phoned and spoke to Angie, and he was most fearfully rude, all but called her a nigger, but he wouldn't say where you were. Just said you were unconscious in hospital and told us to get on with what we were paid to do. Then the fuzz came rushing round asking questions, and we nearly
She smiled. 'I know, that's why I haven't been worried.'
'You should have phoned,' he said. 'We've been that upset. We wanted to send you some flowers. Angelica's been sobbing her heart out, said someone ought to be visiting you.'
'I'm sorry. The trouble is'-she paused-'well, to be honest. I'm only firing on about half a cylinder at the moment. I gave myself a hell of a crack on the head and ended up with galloping amnesia.' She forced a laugh. 'Can't remember much about the last three or four weeks. Silly, isn't it? Look, I'll give you the details of where I am, and then you can get in touch when you want to.' She gave him the address and telephone number of the clinic. 'But I don't intend to stay here much longer,' she said. 'As soon as I can find the energy, I'm hopping on the first train back to London.'
He clucked like a mother hen. 'Stay as long as you need. No sense in coming back before you're ready. Everything's tickety-boo this end, or it will be when I pass on the good news that I've spoken to you. Actually, my darling, you sound great even if the memory is a bit dicky. Is it worrying you?'
'Yes.' She took a deep breath. 'Have I spoken to either of you between the fourth of June when I left for Hampshire, and now? Can you remember? I mean, did I phone you at all while I was with my parents, or did I come into work on the Monday after I got back? That would be the thirteenth.'
'No,' he said apologetically. 'That's what the police kept asking when they came to the studio. Had we seen you? Had we spoken to you? Did we know why you'd gone back to Hampshire on the Monday? And we told them the truth. Not a cheep out of you since Friday the third. Angelica phoned over and over again on the thirteenth when you didn't come into work, and all she got was your answering machine. We were girding our loins to contact Hell Hall on the Tuesday morning when the devil himself phoned with the awful news that you were unconscious. Since which time we've been tearing our collective hair out.' He was silent for a moment. 'Do you really not remember anything since the fourth?''
She heard the note of concern in his voice. 'No, but it's all right,' she said with a light laugh. 'I've been told the important stuff, like the wedding's off, Leo's scarpered with Meg, and I tried to kill myself. I just don't remember any of it.'
'Well, for what it's worth, dear, neither of us believes the crash was deliberate. You were making it clear as
