"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 plastic 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 neighbor. 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 was fond of his sister, the man to whom she'd given her expensive keyring for luck. It was her tragedy, and Meg's, that they had only ever known and learned 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 okay 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?"
When she didn't say anything, Alan took over again. "She saw Leo briefly through an open doorway. He was lying on the floor, and from the way she described him, he had probably died of asphyxiation before she even 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 plastic 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 that I gave up and went to sleep." 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 trunk 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 trunk. 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 garbage bag round me and it smelled 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 evidence we're looking for. We assume Simon took Leo and Meg in his own car to Ardingly Woods, but as it was completely burned 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 trunk."