The Dark Room (49 page)

‘Didn’t it occur to her he might be ill?’

Her expression clouded. ‘She asked me once if I’d noticed anything odd about him, and I said: What sort of thing? I think he pretends, she said. I’m sure he hates
our parents, Mother in particular, but he never says anything unkind about her or to her. I’m the exact opposite. I’m always rude about her because she’s a square peg in a round
hole and won’t do anything to change it, but I’m actually quite fond of the old bag, and all right, Dad’s a sanctimonious old buzzard, but I wouldn’t have him any
different.’ She pressed her lips into a thin line to stem her tears. ‘She wondered if I’d ever got the impression that Simon hated them but, as I never had, she let it drop. I
know she always thought he was far too withdrawn, but I think she put that down to religious fanaticism. I’m sure it never occurred to her that he had anything to do with Russell’s
death.’ She laced her fingers nervously. ‘Well, it never occurred to anyone.’

‘That’s very clear, thank you. Let’s move on. Tell us about the Sunday afternoon and this incident in your garage. What was that all about? Presumably the reference
he makes in his letter to the birds having flown, and the phrase “it was a secret but Simon made Jinx tell” had something to do with it?’

Her hands began to tremble so violently again that she gripped them in her lap until the knuckles shone white. ‘It’s what he says. I told him where they were. He knew
they’d left Hammersmith, you see, because Meg didn’t answer the phone.’ She stared at Cheever in desperation. ‘It was – he thought they’d gone to France –
but he made me – I was the only one who knew.’ She brought herself back under control with an effort. ‘He came after lunch to apologize for what Meg had done,’ she managed.
‘He said he’d prayed for me during services that morning but realized prayers weren’t enough and he needed to come and commiserate in person. So I laughed’ – her voice
broke again – ‘and said there was nothing to commiserate about. I said if anyone needed commiseration it would be poor old Meg in a few months’ time when she discovered
she’d tied herself to a mean, self-serving bastard.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. I think he guessed I’d known about it for a while. He was so
angry – kept talking about secrets – called Meg a whore . . .’ She tailed off into a long silence.

‘What did he do then?’ asked Frank gently.

She shook her head.

‘I think it might be easier if I tell you,’ said Alan. ‘When the news came through yesterday that Simon was dead, Jinx told me as much as she could remember of what
happened.’ He squatted down and pressed a warm, protective hand to the nape of her neck. ‘Would you like me to do that, Jinx?’

She looked into his face, for a moment, then looked away again. Why couldn’t he see what he was doing to her? She was far too emotionally disturbed to survive an Alan Protheroe
undamaged. She wished he would take his hand away. She wished he would go to the other side of the room.
Oh, God, she wished
. . . ‘If you’re allowed to,’ she said
curtly.

The Superintendent nodded. ‘I have no problem with that, Doctor.’

Alan straightened. ‘Then I think it’s important you understand how terrifying it is to be confronted with an individual whom you’ve known for years as a
mild-mannered non-entity, but who, without any warning at all, becomes dangerously psychotic. This was Jinx’s experience that Sunday afternoon. It’s difficult to say what Simon’s
diagnosis would have been if he’d ever been examined, but it seems clear that he was suffering from some very extreme paranoid disorder, probably of a sexual origin, either centred on his
mother or his sister, or both. I think this hatred he had of God may well have been a more general hatred of any dominant male figure because he seems to have seen the sexual act as a degenerate
exercise. Only whores enjoyed it, therefore for a man to enjoy it he must either employ whores or make respectable women miserable.’ He looked enquiringly at the Superintendent. ‘Which
may have been something his mother instilled in him. If she persuaded him that nice women found sex disgusting, then he would have had a very ambivalent attitude towards it in later life,
particularly if his adored sister flaunted her libido while he curbed his by choosing voluntary celibacy within the Anglo-Catholic church.’

‘His mother clearly has problems in that area but I doubt she set out deliberately to destroy her son.’

‘I’m sure she didn’t, and I’m sure there were other factors involved. For example, he hated being laughed at. That seems to have been one of the triggers of
his paranoia. It may have been why he chose to enter the church, because he was more likely to be taken seriously inside it than he was outside. Another clear trigger was secrecy. As long as he
knew what was going on, or thought he did, he could keep his paranoia under control, but the minute he discovered he had good reason to be paranoid, then the control deserted him. It’s
interesting what close tabs he kept on everything. Jinx says he used to phone her or Josh quite regularly, and I suspect he continued to do that after Meg and Leo were dead. He certainly phoned me
to try and find out what information I had.’ He rubbed his shoulder thoughtfully.

‘One of the complicating factors of a paranoid disorder,’ he went on, ‘is that, while it may impair your functioning on certain levels, particularly where
relationships are concerned, your thinking remains clear and orderly and you can function normally within your job and the wider social environment. Which is why I told you it was important to
recognize what Jinx was suddenly faced with that Sunday, and equally important that she recognizes it, too.’ He looked down at her bent head. ‘She’s been terrified of Simon ever
since she started to remember what happened, but I’m afraid she feels she didn’t do enough to protect Meg and Leo. Isn’t that right, Jinx?’

She didn’t answer, and Fraser, for one, thought he was being surprisingly insensitive.

‘She went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and she thinks Simon must have hit her on the head while she was doing it, but she doesn’t remember the blow. What she
does remember is coming round to find herself lying on the floor with her hands tied to her feet behind her back. Simon then put a polythene bag over her head and said he would smother her if she
didn’t tell him where Meg and Leo were. She couldn’t breathe and she believed him. So when he took the bag off her head, she told him the Chelsea address. The next thing she remembers
is being pulled out of her car by her neighbour. She didn’t know how long she’d been there, how long it took her to clear her head, or find the number of Leo’s house in Chelsea,
but by the time she phoned to tell Meg that Simon had just tried to kill her, Simon was already there. Am I right so far, Jinx?’

Silence.

‘She was given a straightforward choice,’ Alan went on. ‘Simon said: Leo is in the same position you were in. In other words, he will be dead of asphyxiation in two
minutes. Meg is tied up but can speak into the phone if I hold it to her mouth. If you do what I tell you, they will live. If you don’t, they will die.’ He brushed the back of her head
with his fingertips. ‘She chose to help them live. She clung, as we would all have done, to the Simon she knew best. The vicar, the man who loved his sister, the man to whom she’d given
her expensive key-ring for luck. It was her tragedy, and Meg’s, that they had only ever known and learnt to trust Simon’s false self, while his true self, the damaged self, had remained
hidden. We all protect parts of ourselves – God knows it’s not unusual – but for most of us, the hidden self isn’t dangerous.’

Jinx wiped her tears away. ‘I should have told Colonel Clancey. He’s always been the best friend I’ve ever had.’ She sucked in her anguish on a sob. ‘I
know some people think he’s eccentric and stupid, and they make fun of him behind his back, but he would have made it all right.’ Her mouth worked as she sought for words. ‘I did
it all wrong. I told the Clanceys everything was OK when it wasn’t. I thought, if I just do what Simon says – because, you know, we used to play that game all the time, Simon Says. But
it was just arrogance – I thought I knew the right thing to do.’

Fraser glanced at Protheroe for a permission he didn’t need. ‘It’s not arrogance to believe a threat, Miss Kingsley, particularly if you knew what Simon was capable
of. I’m no expert admittedly, but it sounds to me as if you acted out of love, and I’d say that does you credit.’

Alan nodded. ‘He said there wasn’t much traffic because it was a Sunday, and that she had twenty minutes to drive her car to Leo’s house in Chelsea. If she
wasn’t there in twenty minutes, he’d know she’d spoken to the police and he would kill Meg and Leo. Then he put Meg back on.’

‘And Meg asked you to do as he said?’

Jinx nodded.

‘What happened when you reached the house?’

Alan took over again when she didn’t say anything. ‘She saw Leo briefly through an open doorway. He was lying on the floor and, from the way she describes him, he had
probably died of asphyxiation before she got there, so whatever was done to him afterwards was done to disguise that fact. At least she gave Meg a chance to live by arriving when she did. Simon
promised he wouldn’t hurt them because he never killed women. All he wanted to do was talk. He sat them beside each other against the wall, tied their hands and feet in front of them, and
talked for hours. So long, in fact, that Jinx felt he was beginning to calm down.’

‘And?’ asked Frank Cheever, when neither of them spoke.

‘Meg offered to have sex with him,’ said Alan into the silence. ‘She thought that’s what he was after. It probably was, but he didn’t want to be
reminded of it.’ He shook his head. ‘To be honest, I shouldn’t think it mattered a damn what Meg said. Whichever role she chose – sister, mother, lover, friend – he
would still have gone off the deep end.’ He glanced at Jinx’s fluttering hands. ‘But there’s nothing Jinx can tell you about what happened to Meg and Leo after that,’
he went on. ‘Simon went berserk at that point, grabbed Jinx by the ankles to pull her away from Meg, then put a polythene bag over her head and taped it to her neck. All she remembers is Meg
screaming and drumming her heels on the floor before she lost consciousness.’

There was another silence. ‘Can you tell us what happened to you, Miss Kingsley?’ asked Frank. ‘Or would you prefer Dr Protheroe to do it?’

Her huge eyes searched his face, looking for understanding. ‘I truly don’t remember very much,’ she said unsteadily, ‘except that I woke up at some point.
There was a hole in the bag where my mouth was and, because my hands were crammed up under my chin, I was able to make the hole bigger. But that’s all I could do. I was wedged into a sort of
box and every time I tried to move it was so painful I gave up.’ She plucked at her lip. ‘I thought he’d buried me alive, and I just wanted to die.’ She paused, lost in some
private hell. ‘Then the engine started and I knew I was in the boot of my car. The funny thing is, I felt better knowing that. It didn’t seem so frightening.’ She gave an odd
little laugh. ‘But he was so angry,’ she said. ‘He kept kicking me and saying, get up, get up. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t dead. You should be dead. You should
have died in your garage and you should have died in your boot. Why does God love you?’

‘Where was that?’ asked Frank.

She looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t know. Somewhere outside. I woke up and I was lying on the ground, but I couldn’t move because I was so stiff. There was a black
dustbin bag round me and it smelt because I’d’ – she glanced at Alan – ‘I think I must have been in it for hours.’

‘So do you know what time it was?’

‘No, but it was getting dark.’

‘Do you remember him giving you something to drink?’

‘I think so. He talked about sacrifices,’ she said in some confusion, ‘and Jesus.’

‘Which is probably when you drank the wine, although if you’d been there for hours then you were probably very dehydrated, and I doubt you drank as much as your blood
sample implied. What happened next?’

She stared down at the letter, which she’d abandoned in her lap. ‘I don’t remember anything else.’ She crumpled the photocopy into a tight ball. ‘I
don’t remember anything else,’ she said on a rising note of alarm. ‘I think I remember him putting me into the car seat, but after that – I don’t remember anything
else.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Frank with a smile of encouragement. ‘I think we can work out the rest. You obviously have a very strong will to live, Miss Kingsley. I
envy you your courage, and whichever guardian angel is watching over you, because I can’t believe that courting couple arrived by accident.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘Dr
Protheroe tells me Simon came to visit you the day after you regained consciousness. Did you know then that he was responsible?’

‘No.’

‘When did you remember?’

She kept her head down. ‘Yesterday morning,’ she said, ‘when the policewoman asked me about the key-ring.’

‘Not before?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Did you tell your father that Simon had murdered Meg and Leo, Miss Kingsley?’

Her head snapped up, eyes huge with surprise. ‘No, of course I didn’t. Why would I do that?’

Cheever nodded. ‘Your brothers? Your stepmother?’

‘No.’

Alan Protheroe frowned. ‘Why do you ask, Superintendent?’

Frank Cheever gave a small shrug. ‘Just tying up loose ends, Doctor. We don’t want accusations floating around afterwards about the’ – he sought for a word
– ‘
convenience
of Simon Harris’s suicide. One might almost say the poetic justice of how he met his end. Our problem is there’s only this letter and the bloodstains
on the cassock linking him to the murders and, as the cassock had been cleaned recently, it may not produce the material evidence we’re looking for. We assume Simon took Leo and Meg in his
own car to Ardingly Woods but, as it was completely burnt out yesterday, we’re very doubtful of being able to prove anything from a forensic examination. We’ve also examined your car,
Miss Kingsley, and I have to tell you there’s nothing to show you spent twelve to eighteen hours in the boot.’