Maddocks chuckled softly. "You have an answer for everything, don't you?"
She studied him with a remarkably cool gaze. "All I'm doing is telling you the truth, Inspector."
"And let's face it, girl, you've had ten whole years to get it right."
One of the security staff at the clinic, Harry Elphick, after learning about the assault on Dr. Protheroe, made a detour on his departure to check the outbuildings near the staff parking spaces. He remembered some weeks back seeing a sledgehammer in one of them, and it occurred to him that it might be worth a second look. He reasoned, quite logically, that the most likely person to take a swipe at Dr. Protheroe was one of the more aggressive junkies in his care, and he went on to reason that because the Nightingale was not a prison, then any observant patient had the same opportunities as he to notice the sledgehammer. Harry would have considered it naive rubbish to assume that none of them would bother to attack Dr. Protheroe because they knew he didn't carry drugs in his car. Harry, ex-Army and past his middle years, had little time for the sort of overprivileged dregs that Dr. Protheroe treated, and it was with some satisfaction that he opened an outbuilding door and, after a cursory search, found a sledgehammer with red Wolseley paintwork ground into its head.
"When did you first discover that Leo and Meg were having an affair?"
Jinx stared at her hands for a moment before reaching for her cigarette packet. "When I came round a few days ago. My stepmother told me."
Maddocks frowned. "Are you saying that's the first you knew about it?"
She leaned back in her chair to light a cigarette. "I don't know," she said. "I can't remember anything much from before the accident."
"What do you remember?"
She stared at the ceiling. "I remember saying good-bye to Leo at breakfast on the morning of June the fourth. I was coming down to Hampshire to stay with my parents for a few days."
"That's a very precise memory."
"Yes."
"When did you find out they were dead, Miss Kingsley?"
She toyed with another lie, then thought better of it. She was too fond of Dean to drop him in this bastard's shit. "Sunday," she said. "I knew you were lying about what had happened to them, so I asked a friend to phone the Walladers. Anthony told him they were dead and the friend rang me back to tell me."
"Which friend?"
"Is that important?"
"It depends whether you want me to believe you or not. This friend might confirm that you were genuinely shocked when you heard the news. Otherwise I'm having some difficulty trying to understand how a woman whose best friend and fiance have been brutally butchered can retain such extraordinary composure."
"My number two at the studio. Dean Jarrett."
"Thank you. Were you upset when your stepmother told you Leo had left you for Meg?"
She shook her head. "Not particularly. I was more relieved than upset. I think I made it clear to you on Sunday that I had severe doubts about Leo. I am sure in my own mind that I had no intention of marrying him, irrespective of whether he was having an affair with Meg."
"Then why did you try to kill yourself?"
"I wish I knew." She smiled suddenly. "It seems very out of character for someone with extraordinary composure." She flicked ash from her cigarette. "So out of character that I don't think I did."
"You were drunk and you drove your car at full speed towards the only structure of any substance on a deserted airfield. What other explanation is there?"
"But I didn't kill myself," she pointed out.
"Because you were lucky. You were thrown clear."
"Perhaps I threw myself clear," she said. "Perhaps I didn't want to die."
"Meaning what, precisely?"
Her eyelashes grew damp but she held the tears in check. "I don't know, but I've had far more time to think about this than I have about Leo and Meg, and it seems to me that if I wasn't trying to kill myself, then the only other explanation is that someone else was trying to kill me." She abandoned any attempt to persuade Maddocks and turned instead to Fraser's more open face. "It would be so easy. My car was an automatic. All anyone would have to do was aim it at the post, put it into drive, wedge the accelerator at full throttle, and then release the hand brake. If I was unconscious and belted in, I'd have been crushed in the wreckage. That might have happened, don't you think? It's a possibility, isn't it?"
"If you'd been belted in, how could you have been thrown clear?"
"Then maybe I wasn't belted in," she said eagerly. "Maybe the idea was to have me go through the windshield. Or maybe I came round in time and released myself."
He would have liked to believe her, but he couldn't. "Then this hypothetical murderer would have seen what had happened and finished you off. He couldn't afford to leave you alive if he'd just tried to kill you."
From her pocket she took the newspaper clipping that Betty had given her and pressed it into his hands. "According to this, I was found by a young couple. He wouldn't have had time to finish me off if he saw them coming."
"Look, Miss Kingsley," said Maddocks, "I hate to be cruel but facts are facts. According to your neighbors in Richmond, this wasn't the first time. Your first attempt was on the Sunday. Whether you like it or not, indeed whether you remember it or not-and by your own admission you have a habit of blocking out anything that disturbs you-something so terrible happened that you primed yourself with Dutch courage and then had a second go at finishing it all."
Something terrible happened... "I've never been drunk in my life," she said stubbornly. "I've never wanted to be drunk."
"There's always a first time."
She shrugged. "Not as far as I'm concerned, Inspector."
"You had consumed the equivalent of two bottles of wine when you had your accident. Miss Kingsley. The bottles were found on the floor of your car. Are you telling me you can absorb that amount of alcohol without being what the rest of us would term drunk?"
"No," she said. "I'm saying I would never have wanted to drink that much."
"Not even if you had done something you were ashamed of?"
She fixed him with her steady gaze. "Like what?"
"Been party to a murder perhaps?"
She shook her head. "Do you not see how illogical that argument is? As I understand it, Meg's and Leo's bodies were found near Winchester, which means that whoever murdered them must have worked out some fairly complicated logistics. I can't find out from the newspapers whether they were killed in the wood or taken there after they were dead, but whichever it was, someone went to a great deal of trouble to get them there. But why would anyone go to those lengths if they were so ashamed of what they'd done that they then tried to kill themselves? It doesn't make sense. On the one hand you're describing a very calculating personality who set out to get rid of two people; on the other, you're describing a weak personality who may have struck out in a moment of anger but was then so appalled by what he'd done that he tried to make amends by killing himself.''
"You really have given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"
The huge black eyes filled again. "As you would have done, if you were in my place. I'm not a fool, Inspector."
Maddocks surprised her by acknowledging this with a nod. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, Point taken, but he checked himself in time. "There's no logic to murder, Miss Kingsley, not in my experience anyway. It's usually the last people you'd expect who do it. Some of them show remorse early, some of them show it when they're convicted, and some of them never show it at all. Believe me, it is not uncommon for a calculating individual to plan a murder, carry it out, dispose of the body, and then have an attack of conscience. We see it over and over again. There's no reason why this case should be any different."