Dark Room

some terrible things and we-that is I...'

He fell silent as Mrs. Harris's voice rose to a scream, her words carrying clearly through the open window.

'How dare you deny it? Did you think I didn't know how you lusted after her? Did you think she wouldn't tell me what you did to her? She couldn't wait to get out of this house, couldn't wait to get away from you. You made her what she was and you dare to accuse her now of weakness. You disgust me. You've always disgusted me.'

Charles Harris said something in a murmur which wasn't audible.

'Of course I'll tell the police. Why should I protect you when you never protected her? You disgusting man.' Her voice rose to a scream again. 'CHILD ABUSER!' There was the sound of a door slamming, followed by silence.

Frank looked at Simon's shocked face. 'None of that would be admissible in court, sir. I couldn't possibly swear that it was your mother I was listening to and not a radio program, so please don't worry unnecessarily. As you say, she's overwrought, and we all say things we don't mean when we're angry.'

'But you heard it.'

'Yes.'

'It's completely untrue. My father has never abused anyone in his life, and certainly not Meg. It's my mother who has the problem.' Anguish pinched his already drawn face. 'This is so awful. I keep asking myself why. What have we done to deserve it?'

Frank was spared an answer by the door opening behind Simon's back and his father putting an arm round the young man's shoulder and drawing him inside. 'Come in, Superintendent. You find us in turmoil, I'm afraid. Grief is often the most selfish of emotions.'

THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-12:30 P.M.

Alan smiled encouragingly as Jinx showed her first signs of faltering. 'You're doing very well. We can check all this with Dean later, but you've taken me up to Friday, the twenty-seventh of May, without any hesitation at all.' He consulted his diary. 'The following Monday, May the thirtieth, was a bank holiday. Does that help at all? You're unlikely to have gone to work, so maybe you took the opportunity for a long weekend away.'

'Friday was the last day of the Cosmopolitan fashion shoot.' She spoke slowly. 'Dean had tickets to a rock concert at Wembley and he had to meet his lover at five o'clock at the tube station, so he left me to develop the film. I wanted to get it done because-' She paused at the same place she'd paused before. 'I know it was urgent,' she said, 'but I can't remember why.'

'There were only four working days the following week because of the Bank Holiday Monday,' he pointed out, 'and you were spending the week after that at Hellingdon Hall. Perhaps you realized you were running out of time.'

She stared into the middle distance. 'Miles and Fergus came,' she said suddenly. 'It was after Angelica had left and they kept hammering on the studio door until I let them in. There was a cabdriver with them, demanding money. They were both pissed. They said they'd lost all their cash gambling, couldn't go home and needed beds for the night. I said why hadn't they gone to Richmond and waited for me there? And they said they had, but Leo had refused to pay the taxi fare and told them to come to the studio instead and make me pay for it. Which I did.' She took out a cigarette and lit it, watching the blue smoke spiral from its tip for a second or two before going on.

'I can remember now,' she said in a strange voice. 'I made them some coffee and told them to wait in the reception area till I'd finished what I was doing, but Miles was so drunk that he barged in on me in the darkroom and let the light in.'

'What happened then?'

'The film I was working on was completely buggered, so I did what my father does and beat the shit out of him.'' She gave a hollow laugh. 'I chased him into the studio and started hitting him with a plastic chair. I was so angry. And then Fergus came lurching in to find out what was going on, so I hit him as well. But the person I really wanted to have a go at was Leo. It was the last straw, sending them on to me, when he knew I was up to my eyes in work.'

'How did he know?'

'Because when Dean left I phoned to tell him. We were going to his parents for the weekend and he wanted to leave on the Friday evening. So I rang to suggest that he go on his own and leave me to follow on the Saturday, but he said he had things to do himself so it didn't matter.'

'And it was after the phone call that he sent Miles and Fergus on to you.'

She nodded.

'What happened then?'

'I made up my mind to call off the wedding. It was the money more than anything, the fact that he wouldn't pay their taxi fare.' Her lips thinned angrily. 'He'd been scrounging off me for so bloody long, and he wouldn't even pay one miserable taxi fare, and I thought, I'm mad. What the hell am I doing tying myself to this selfish bastard who doesn't give a toss for anyone except himself?' She looked at Alan. 'So I packed it in for the evening, got the boys into the car, and went back to have it out with him. And he wasn't there.' She shrugged. 'So I ordered a pizza, made the boys eat some, and sent them to bed to sleep it off.'

There was a short silence.

'Weren't Miles and Fergus angry when you hit them?'

'I think they were too shocked.'' She thought back. 'The funny thing is, I lost my temper with Fergus the other day and I thought it was the first time I'd ever done it, but it was nothing to the anger I felt that night. I remember screaming at them so much that I had a sore throat the next morning.' She smiled slightly. 'I didn't hit them very hard. It was the fact that I did it at all that shocked them. Miles burst into tears and said I was just like Adam, and I thought, for the first time I understand why Adam does it.'

'And why is that, Jinx?'

She looked at him. 'Because you're so bloody tired, you're working so bloody hard, you've tied yourself to a worthless parasite, and two immature drunks come along and ruin everything you've done because they think it's funny. I could have killed them all that night, every one of them. I got no sleep because I was so angry, and all I could think about was what hell the next week was going to be because I'd have to work late to catch up. And I kept worrying that the ruined film was the only film that was any good, and how was I going to explain to Cosmopolitan that we'd have to do the shoot all over again?'