THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-4:00 P.M.
"What's the problem?" asked Alan Protheroe, reaching for Jinx's wrist and feeling for a pulse. He wondered who this man was and why he'd started so violently at the sound of the voice behind him.
"Well, look at her for God's sake," said Josh in desperation, laying her slack head on the pillow and lowering her gently onto the bed. "I think she's dying."
"No chance. Built like a tank, this one." He let the wrist go. "She's asleep." He looked at the man's pinched nostrils and frightened eyes. "You look in worse shape than she is."
"I thought she was dying." Josh leaned his hands on the side of the bed to steady himself. "Now I feel sick. Jesus, I'm not sure I can take much more of this. I haven't slept in days, not since Simon Harris phoned to say Jinx was dead."
"Why did he do that?"
"Because Betty Kingsley got rat-arsed and phoned Meg's mother. Told the poor woman her daughter was a murderer."
Alan gestured towards the terraced area beyond the windows. "Let's go and sit outside. I'm Dr. Protheroe." He took the man's arm and supported him.
"Josh Hennessey." He allowed Alan to lead him through the windows. "One minute she said she was fine, the next her eyes rolled up and-wham!" He slumped onto a wooden bench and buried his face in his hands. "I wish to hell she wouldn't keep pretending she's okay when she's not. She was the same when Russell was murdered. Kept saying, I'm fine, and then ended up in hospital."
"You've known her a long time?"
He nodded. "Twelve years. As long as I've known Meg. I'm Meg Harris's partner," he explained. "We run a recruitment consultancy." He bunched his fists angrily. "Or we did until she buggered off and left me high and dry with a bank manager baying for blood and work in progress with people I've never even heard of."
Alan could feel the stress flowing off him in waves of anger and nerves. "I see."
"Do you? I sure as hell don't. Presumably you know Meg's hijacked Jinx's fiance? I mean-have you any idea what that's doing to Meg's parents? First they get a phone call out of the blue to say Leo's jilted Jinx for her, then the next thing they hear is that Jinx has killed herself. Jesus! And on top of all that, I'm left in the bloody lurch, trying to run an office on my own while Meg's farting about in France with a prize bastard." His voice broke. "I don't know what the hell's going on." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm so fucking tired."
Alan watched him sympathetically for a moment or two. "If it makes you feel any better, I think you're worrying unnecessarily on Jinx's account. All things considered, she's doing well."
"Simon warned me she looked ill, but I wasn't expecting this." He jerked his head towards her room. "She's much worse than I thought she was going to be."
"She probably isn't, you know. Look, she took a heck of a crack on the head and she's forgotten a couple of weeks out of her life, but that's all. She's a tough lady. Give her another week or two and she'll be good as new. It's only a matter of time."
Josh stared at his hands. "You've probably never seen her with hair. She's a bit of a stunner. Very Italian-looking." He touched a hand to his shoulder. "Thick, black hair to here, and dark eyes. I've always thought it's crazy her being on the business end of the camera when she should have been in the frame." He fell silent.
"You sound fond of her."
"I am, but my timing's lousy. When I was free, she was married. When she was free, I was married." He looked away towards the trees bordering the lawn. "Then I got divorced and Leo muscled in on the act. Do you reckon she still loves him?"
"She says she doesn't."
Josh twisted his head to examine the older man's face. "Do you believe her?"
"I do, yes."
"Why?"
Alan shrugged. "She isn't angry enough with Meg." But you certainly are, he was thinking.
THE VICARAGE, LITTLETON MARY-4:00 P.M.
Charles Harris laid down his pen and folded his hands across the sermon he was writing. "This has to stop, Caroline. You're working yourself into hysterics over nothing. Meg will phone when she's ready. And let's face it," he added rather dryly, " 'when Meg is ready' are the operative words. Judging by the frequency of her calls and visits in the past, you and I could go to hell and back without her even being aware of it. She's always been far more interested in whichever man she has in tow than she's ever been in us."
Caroline looked at him with dislike. "That's what you hate, isn't it? The men."
"Don't be absurd," he snapped. There were times when he had to restrain himself from hitting her. "Must we go through this again?" he said, picking up his pen and returning to his sermon. "I do have work to do." He made a note in the margin.
"It shocked you to hear about her and Russell, didn't it?" she said spitefully.
"Yes, it did."
"Your little Meggy in the arms of a man old enough to be her father. She loved him, you know."
He kept his eyes on the page but found he couldn't write anything because his hand was shaking.
"Does it offend you to think of your daughter enjoying sex with old men when she can't even bear to be in the same house with you?"
"No," he said quietly, "what offends me is her shabbiness towards her best friend. Between us, you and I created a monster, Caroline."
*9*
SATURDAY, 25TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-6:00 P.M.
Jinx had resumed her vantage point under the beech tree, dark glasses firmly in place, anonymity restored. To observers, she was an object of curiosity, this thin, gaunt woman who sat alone and used the protective fronds of the hanging branches to hide behind. Almost, thought Alan Protheroe, watching her from the French window in his office, like a bird in a cage, for it was her loneliness that impressed him most. He wondered if it was advisable or possible to unlock the iron control that she exercised upon her emotions, for he was doubtful that happiness was a condition to which Jinx aspired. She couldn't bear to be so vulnerable.
"I'm relieved," she said when he asked her if she was happy that her bandages had been removed. "Only children know how to be happy."
"And were you happy as a child, Jinx?"
"I must have been. The smell of baking bread always puts me in a good mood." She smiled slightly at his frown of puzzlement. "My father wasn't always a rich man. I remember being a small child and living in a two-up, two-down in London somewhere. My mother did all her own cooking and baked all her own bread, and I can't smell warm bread now without wanting to turn somersaults."
"Which mother was that? Your real mother or your stepmother?"
She looked confused suddenly. "I suppose it was my stepmother. I was too young to remember anything my mother did."
"Not necessarily. We begin to store emotions at a very young age, so there's no reason why you shouldn't remember happiness from when you were a toddler, particularly if it was followed by a period of unhappiness."
She looked away. "Why should it have been?"
"Your mother died, Jinx. That must have been an unhappy time for you and your father."
She shrugged. "If it was, I don't remember it. Which is sad in itself. Death should make an impact, don't you think? It's awful how quickly we forget and move on to something new."
"But very important that we do," he replied. "Otherwise we become like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations and sit forever at an empty table."
She smiled. "If I remember my Dickens, poor old Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiance on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in her bridal gown with the remains of the banquet all around her. Hardly the most tactful parallel you could have drawn. In the circumstances, wedding plans are not a subject I particularly want to dwell on."
"Then let's talk about something you would like to dwell on. What makes you feel alive?"