Dark Room

thirty. 'I ordered the lot,' she said with a weak smile. 'Have you seen what's happening?'

He nodded. 'I watched the breakfast news. The shares started sliding again as soon as the market opened.'

'Poor Adam, it's very unfair,' she said bitterly. 'They've been dying to cut him down to size for years and now they've been given the chance.' She clenched her hands in her lap. 'You know what makes me maddest of all? It's this garbage about no obvious successor. It's a cheap way to parade the family failings. Three of the present board are perfectly capable of taking over if anything happens to Adam, and the City knows it. There was never any question of Miles, Fergus, or me stepping into his shoes. He wouldn't have it. He's worked too hard to watch his children destroy what he built.' She sighed. 'Well, we're destroying it anyway, between us. It wouldn't matter a tuppenny damn what I'd done if either Miles or Fergus could stand up and be counted.'

'What have you done, Jinx?'

'How about this for starters?' she said sarcastically. 'I managed to choose three murder victims as husband, fiance, and best friend. It does rather imply there's something rotten in the state of Denmark when three corpses litter the doorstep, don't you think?'

'Yes.'

There was a short silence. 'Do you know why I hated Stephanie Fellowes so much, and why I wouldn't engage in any of her psychocrap?' said Jinx coldly. 'Because she couldn't believe I had nothing to do with Russell's death. Did she put that in her notes?'

'No.'

'Are you putting your skepticism in your notes?' Would it hurt so much if she liked him less?

'No.'

'But you are keeping notes?' He nodded. 'Then what are you writing about me, Dr. Protheroe?'

'They're just private ones.' The sexual fantasies of a man going mad from celibacy ... Okay, so Russell pressed the right buttons but did he turn you on?... What are you like in bed, Miss Kingsley?... 'Yesterday, for example, I wrote: 'It's a pity Jinx doesn't smile more. It suits her.' '

She promptly frowned. 'Instead of saying yes just then, why couldn't you have said: 'The odds against you or your family being involved aren't good, Jinx, but they do exist'? What makes you think I'm so fucking hard that I don't need reassurance, even if it is from a bastard like you?'

He grinned. 'Because you'd probably have torn strips off me for being patronizing. We both know you're not a fool and we both know you're up against it. All I can do, in the absence of something concrete to work on, is to point out the pitfalls. It's up to you how you choose to negotiate them.'

'It's patronizing to say smiling suits me.'

'It wasn't intended to be, but if that's how you choose to see it, then so be it.'

'I hate existentialism.'

'Sure you do,' he said. 'Which is why you're such a master of it.' He touched the newspapers with the toe of his shoe. 'What will happen to Franchise Holdings?'

'If they can't stop the slide, then Adam will resign,' she said matter-of-factly. 'He certainly won't stand idly by while receivers are sent in. In fact, if you've any spare cash, now's the time to gamble on some shares. They're a bargain at the moment. I guarantee the price will start back up again the minute the panic subsides.'

'What about the rumors of financial irregularities?'

'I'm certain there aren't any, or none that can be proved. Adam once said that if 'Nipper' Read of Scotland Yard couldn't get anything on him, then no one could.'

'Are you going to buy some shares?'

Her eyes gleamed wickedly. 'I already have. I phoned my stockbroker this morning. He's selling everything in my portfolio to buy into Franchise Holdings.'

'What if you're wrong and you lose the lot?'

'It'll be in a good cause,' she said. 'At least I'll know I nailed my colors to the mast when it really mattered.'

'Is the motive really as pure as that?'

She looked at him suspiciously. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Veronica Gordon tells me your stepmother came last night. I just wondered if there was a little malice mixed in with the altruism.' Veronica had been shocked by Jinx's cruelty, far more than she had by Betty's drunkenness: 'I think I've underestimated her, Alan. My guess is, she's as ruthless as her father.'

'What sort of malice?'

'The sort that jumps up and down and says: 'Look at me, Adam, I'm supporting you. Look at her, she's not.' '

Jinx lit a cigarette. 'Chance would be a fine thing, wouldn't it? Will I ever get the opportunity to do that? I don't remember Adam coming here, but perhaps that's something else I've forgotten.'

'Have you invited him?'

She gave her faint smile. 'I didn't invite Simon Harris, but he still came. I didn't invite Miles or Fergus, but they came. Why does Adam require an invitation, Dr. Protheroe? Surely loving fathers visit their sick daughters as a matter of course.'

'Perhaps he's afraid of rejection, Jinx.'

'I doubt it. If he were, he wouldn't be so quick to reject everyone else.' She returned to his questioning of her