Dark Room

put her in here with such very precise instructions concerning her care? Adam was as anxious as she was, it seemed, that her memories lie dormant.

'I'm not sure I can believe that,' he said with his back to her. 'You described Russell to me only a couple of days ago as possessive and jealous. You said your marriage was stifling. Now you tell me he and your best friend were having an affair. That doesn't quite square, does it?'

'Russell believed in double standards,' Jinx said reasonably. 'If he was capable of cheating customs, do you not think he was equally capable of cheating his wife?'

'That's hardly an answer, you know. Obsession with one woman doesn't usually lead to philandering with others. Surely the two are mutually exclusive?'

'It depends what sort of obsession you're talking about. Russell was far more obsessed with himself than he was with me. I was little better than a trophy that he could show off to his middle-aged friends, the child bride who adored him so much she forsook fortune and fame to marry him. Meg was a different kind of trophy, the one that proved to himself he was still sexually active and attractive at forty-plus. But we had no more value to him than the paintings in his collection. He liked owning things.'

He turned round. 'My problem is, I have to take your word for that. Sadly for Russell, the dead can't speak for themselves.'

'Is there a reason why you shouldn't take my word?' She said it without hostility but there was anger in her eyes. 'Suddenly, you're a policeman, yet ten minutes ago you only wanted to help.' She made as if to get up. 'This is just a professional exercise for you, and I'm hungry anyway. I want some lunch.'

He refused to be intimidated. 'Don't be so childish,' he said sharply. 'Healthy skepticism and a wish to help are not mutually exclusive, Jinx. Arguably, the one strengthens the other. Convince the skeptic and you will have a stronger ally for the future. Perhaps if you changed your mind-set vis-a-vis the police in that area, you could shed your paranoia and make a positive attempt to help them find Meg and Leo's murderer. Or are you as disinclined to do that as you were to have Russell's murderer named?'

She looked at him with dislike. 'I'll phone Colonel Clancey and ask him to post Russell's diaries and letters to you. I keep them in my bookcase at home. For what it's worth, the entry on the day we got married went like this: 'Felt and looked great. Wore black velvet suit and white satin shirt. Speech afterwards was a triumph of wit and erudition. What a pity there were so few guests to enjoy it.' I interpret that as self-obsession but then, admittedly, I'm an arrogant woman and I was put out that his bride didn't rate a mention.'

'Still, I'm surprised you didn't mention the affair before. It's a little odd, don't you think, that Meg should have slept with both Russell and Leo? Was she in the habit of stealing your men friends?'

'If you want to be strictly accurate about it, I stole them from her. She had a six-month fling with Russell, got bored with him and introduced him to me. She did the same with Leo, told me he was a business acquaintance and said he and I would get on like a house on fire. It was only later that I realized 'business acquaintance' meant lover.'

'Didn't it upset you to get her castoffs?'

'Everybody's somebody's castoff. In some ways it's easier if you know your predecessor, because then you know you're not competing with Superwoman.'

He resumed his seat. 'You're avoiding the question. Were you upset?'

'Only in retrospect. Meg was a great deal more attractive than I am and completely careless of other people's feelings, particularly men's. She had no qualms about taking up with someone, then dumping him two or three months later for somebody else. The trouble is, I'm less adept at that so I got lumbered with the jerks when it suited her.'

'But she took up with them again later when that suited her.' He shook his head in genuine bewilderment. 'If this is true, Jinx, then I can't understand why you describe her as the only real friend you've ever had.'

'I'm not doing this very well,' she said, surprisingly sanguine about his disbelief. 'You'd have liked Meg.' She marshaled her thoughts. 'Look, when I say I got lumbered with them, that doesn't mean I hold her responsible for what happened afterwards. She kept telling me not to marry Russell, said I was mad to tie myself down at twenty- one, but by then it was too late. I couldn't just abandon him after what Adam had done, and that wasn't Meg's fault.'

Alan was highly doubtful that Meg Harris was a woman he would have liked. If Jinx had said one thing that was true, it was that she was unable to make sensible decisions about her personal life, particularly where her choice of friends was concerned. She appeared to be completely blind to their character flaws, and he wondered if she realized that it was only the egocentric personality that seemed to attract her. Was this because she found it difficult to differentiate between self-centeredness and self-confidence? She had so many mixed feelings about her domineering father that it wasn't surprising she found people impossible to read. 'I suppose it wasn't Meg's fault either that she had an affair with Russell after he was married?'

She looked at him for a moment. 'Not entirely, no. Presumably Russell had some say in it.' She shrugged. 'Anyway, they were very discreet. I didn't find out about it till after he was dead, and by then it was water under the bridge.'

'Who told you?'

'No one. She wrote him some letters which he'd hidden amongst a stack of old exam papers in the attic at Richmond. They were rather sweet,' she said, remembering. 'The sad thing is, I think she really did love him, but she couldn't bear the thought of being tied to one person. She was terrified of ending up in a country backwater like her mother and being the dutiful wife.'

'Did you ever talk to her about Russell?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'I couldn't see the point.'

'Did the police know about it?'

'If they did they never mentioned it.'