Dark Room

a face, inches from the near-side wing, disembodied against the blackness of the trees bordering the drive. Shit! SHI-IT! His heart set up a sturdy gallop as he slammed his foot on the brake and brought the crawling car to an almost instantaneous halt. Half-hourly checks, he'd said, and she was out here dodging bloody cars.

'Jinx,' he called, fumbling open the door and hauling himself out and upright with a hand on the car roof. 'Are you all right?'

Silence.

'Look, I saw you.' God help him if he'd hit her. He used the red light thrown by his rear lamps to scan the grass verge behind the car, but there was no huddled body there. 'I know you can hear me,' he went on, staring into the trees, searching for her. He walked round to lean against the passenger door. Sooner or later she would have to move and he d see the flash of the white face again. 'I think you're a fraud, Jinx. The amnesia's crap and I don't believe for one second that you tried to kill yourself. It was a setup, pure and simple, designed to get your father on your side, and it sure as hell worked, even if you probably did yourself rather more damage than you intended. So are you going to tell me what it's all about?' He waited. 'I should warn you I'm feeling pretty bloody ratty at the moment, and my mood isn't improved by hanging around in my own sodding drive because one of my patients wants to play silly buggers. But don't expect me to give up tamely and leave you here. You move one muscle, girl, and I'll catch you. So are you going to show yourself, or are we going to wait this out till daylight? Your choice.'

There was a blur of movement, so quick and so close that he was completely overwhelmed by it. He lurched to one side but pain exploded in his shoulder as the solid metal head of a sledgehammer tore his arm from its socket. He ducked away from another arcing blow and scrambled round the hood of the car towards the open door of the driver's seat. With an instinct born of desperation, he threw himself behind the wheel and slammed the door. But as he reached across his chest to force the gear clumsily into reverse, the sledgehammer burst through the windshield towards his face.

Amy Staunton looked at her watch. 'What's Dr. Protheroe want half- hourly checks for anyway?' she grumbled. 'The girl's been fast asleep since ten o'clock.'

'Ours not to question why,' said Veronica Gordon. 'Ours just to do or die. Finish your tea. I can't see five minutes making much difference here or there.'

He didn't know if it was sweat or blood that was pouring down his face. As the car accelerated backwards, he only knew that he was in agony. With a sense of unreality he watched the figure-a man- vanish into the darkness before the Wolseley's back end piled into a solid oak tree. What the hell was going on?

The door handle of number 12 rattled and the door was pushed half open as the black nurse looked into the pitch-darkness inside. She heard something, and with a start of fear, she felt about for the light switch. 'Are you all right, love?' She flooded the room with light, glanced at the bed, where Jinx was threshing her sheets into a tumbled mess, then looked towards the French windows, where the curtains flapped in the breeze. Tut-tutting impatiently, she crossed the room to close and lock the window; then she went to the bed and placed a gentle hand on the woman's forehead.

As though galvanized by an electric shock, Jinx sat bolt upright in the bed, mouth sucking frenziedly for air. She couldn't breathe ... dear God, she couldn't breathe ... She clutched at her throat in a vain attempt to dislodge whatever was blocking her airway. But it was earth, filthy acrid earth ... and it was killing her ... NO-O-O! She flung herself off the bed and burst through the bathroom door, wrenching at the cold-water tap in the basin and ducking her head under the icy water. She drew in breath on a gasp of shock and let the sweet, sweet water wash the taste of death away.

'Oh good God, girl,' screeched the nurse, 'what's got into you? You being sick? What you been taking? What you doing with your clothes on? You was fast asleep last time I checked.'

Jinx slumped to the floor and stared at her from red-rimmed eyes. 'It was a dream, Amy,' she whispered. 'Only a dream.'

'Ooh, you're a wicked girl. I've never had such a fright in my life. You just wait till I tell Dr. Protheroe. I thought you'd done for yourself good and proper.'' She beat her chest. 'I could have had a heart attack. And why did you open your windows? Top panes only after nine o'clock, that's the rule. What you been up to?'

Jinx curled into a ball on the tiled floor. 'Nothing,' she said.

Bodies in Wood Identified

It was confirmed last night by Hampshire police that the two bodies discovered in Ardingly Woods near Winchester on Thursday have been identified as Leo Wallader, 35, of Downton Court, Ashwell, Guildford, and Meg Harris, 34, of Shoebury Terrace, Hammersmith, London. Police are treating their deaths as murder.

Information about the identity of the two victims came from Leo's father. Sir Anthony Wallader, 69, who is angry about what he calls police apathy over the affair. 'I identified my son's body on Saturday morning,' he claims, 'but have had no contact with the Hampshire police since. They tell me my son and his girlfriend were murdered some two weeks ago, yet there is no urgency to the inquiries. I have been contacted by Meg's mother, who lives in Wiltshire, and she is as upset by the police lethargy as I am. We feel it may have something to do with the fact that both sets of parents live outside the County. If this was a Surrey police investigation I would have more confidence.'

It is no secret that Leo Wallader was engaged to Jane Kingsley, daughter of Adam Kingsley of Hellingdon Hall, Hampshire, Chairman of FranchiseHoldings, but the wedding was canceled when Leo announced he wanted to marry Jane's friend Meg Harris.

Subsequently, Miss Kingsley was involved in a mysterious car crash on a disused airfield. Police believe this to have been a failed suicide attempt. Despite her testing positive for alcohol when she was rescued from her car, Hampshire police have still failed to charge Miss Kingsley with any offense.

Jane Kingsley's first husband, Russell Landy, was clubbed to death ten years ago with a sledgehammer but his murderer was never found. Hampshire police refused to comment on how Leo Wallader and Meg Harris died, but Sir Anthony said both victims had been brutally bludgeoned. 'It was terrible to see,' he said. 'I dread to think how Mrs. Harris feels.'

'We have very little to go on at this stage,' said Det. Supt. Cheever of Hampshire police, 'but we are pursuing every lead we have. I am sorry Sir Anthony feels as he does but I can assure him we are leaving no stone unturned to discover his son's killer.'

Supt. Cheever said he could not confirm that a sledgehammer had been used to murder the couple. 'The bodies lay undiscovered for some ten days,' he said, 'and it is always difficult in those circumstances to be precise about how and when the victims died.'

The Times-28th June