been sedated, so I couldn’t check with him, but the police assured me that no one else had been in the car. By the time he was better Rufus had no recall of the accident at all, so I didn’t bring the subject up again.’
‘What happened afterwards?’ asked Jo, her heart thumping.
‘Rufus had been doing a Fine Art course, so the neurologist encouraged him to paint as therapy. It worked. When he was well enough my sister took him off to Italy to convalesce, and Rufus decided to resume his studies there instead of returning to Oxford. He’s very talented. But for him that entire night, the events that led up to it, and most of his stay in hospital still remain a complete blank.’ March thrust a hand through his hair, frowning as he saw the look on her face. ‘I’m sorry, Joanna. I didn’t mean to put a damper on our evening.’
‘Did you search for this friend you mentioned? Do you think he was to blame?’
‘No. I simply thought if I could set Rufus’ mind at rest about the friend it would help him recover.’
She braced herself. ‘What was the name he kept repeating?’
‘Joe Logan.’
Although she’d known, deep down, what his answer would be, the words struck her like a blow to the heart.
March eyed her with concern. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m afraid that’s me.’ She met his eyes bravely. ‘I’m Jo Logan.’
‘What?’ March stared blankly.
‘I’m Jo Logan,’ she repeated unhappily.
‘You said your name was Sutton!’
‘No, I didn’t. You saw that in my school book. Sutton was the name of my adoptive parents. When I was thirteen they died, and I came to live with Kate. When she married Jack Logan I took his name.’
March’s eyes suddenly hardened. ‘So you knew Charles Peel, the driver?’
Jo nodded miserably. ‘Oh, yes, I knew Charlie. He was my boyfriend at the time. I was supposed to be in the car that night, too, but I wouldn’t set foot in it because Charlie was well over the limit. As usual. I did everything I could to make him see sense, even fought him physically for the keys, but we had such a blazing row he pushed me away and roared off in a rage to pick up a friend. I knew his friend as Red…’ Jo halted, biting her lip.
Chapter Four
‘THAT was the name my brother went by at Oxford.’ March shook his head as though to clear it. ‘You, of all people, are Jo Logan? My God! It never occurred to me that the missing link was a girl.’ He took in a deep breath, his eyes suddenly arctic. ‘After the accident I went to see the driver. But Charles Peel categorically denied knowing any man called Joe Logan—which was true, of course. You are not a man.’
‘I don’t blame you for feeling angry,’ she said unhappily.
‘I’m not angry, exactly. I just wish it hadn’t been you,’ he said harshly. ‘In the end the police decided not to press charges, and young Peel was utterly frantic with anxiety about my brother, and so desperately guilt-ridden and penitent we felt he’d been punished enough.’
Jo smiled cynically. ‘Charlie always did really great penitence.’
March frowned as he resumed his place on the sofa. ‘That’s very cold.’
‘I speak from experience.’ She gave a mirthless little laugh. ‘If you’d tracked me down I would have given you a rather different take on the accident. I wondered why Charlie asked if anyone had been in touch with me. He tried to convince me that he’d turned over a new leaf. He even cried and swore he was on the wagon for keeps. But he’d done the dramatic penitent act before, so I didn’t believe him.’ Jo took in a deep breath. ‘I haunted the hospital for a while, for information on how Red—your brother—was doing. I knew I couldn’t get in to see him, but one of the girls on my staircase in college had a relation in Admissions there, who made enquiries for me and reported back. I was desperate to go home, but there was no way I could leave Oxford until I knew Red had been discharged.’ She paused to look at March. ‘Though I have no idea why he was muttering my name. I didn’t know him very well. We weren’t even in the same college.’
He shrugged. ‘He seemed convinced you’d been in the car and injured, even killed. I suppose I should have asked later, but I was so damned relieved when he started getting better I couldn’t risk prodding his memory into life in case it put him back to square one. And of course I knew there’d been no one else in the car.’
She shivered. ‘I suffered agonies of guilt afterwards because I’d failed to get Charlie’s keys away from him,’
‘Were you in love with him?’ asked March, surprising her.
Jo thought it over. ‘It’s hard to believe now,’ she said wearily, ‘but I thought I was at the time.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘I was straight out of a girls’ school. Charlie was quite a bit older. If you met him you know he was rather good-looking. My head was turned when he singled me out. At first I thought his drinking was the usual student stuff, but it soon became obvious that Charlie was well on the way to becoming an alcoholic.’
‘Were you lovers?’
Jo flushed. ‘Not a word I would use. We did sleep together once or twice, but it was the first time for me and not—not very successful. All my fault, according to Charlie.’
March mouth tightened. ‘The idiot’s drink problem was to blame, not you. What happened to him afterwards?’
‘I refused to return his calls after the accident, so he wrote to me eventually, saying he’d dried out in some clinic. He was starting work at Peel Plastics, a small company owned by his father. Charlie loathed the idea, but knew he had no hope of graduating after what had happened.’ Jo’s eyes dulled. ‘Neither had I. He’d put an end to all possibility of that for me as well as himself.’
‘And you wanted to graduate?’
‘Of course I did! It was what I’d worked so hard for at school, and Jack and Kate were so proud when I got to Oxford.’ Her mouth twisted in disgust. ‘But I blew the whole thing. Someone made of sterner stuff than me would have stopped blaming Charlie, I suppose, and knuckled down to get a degree. But the whole Oxford experience was ruined for me—academically and every other way.’
March nodded slowly. ‘It’s dawned on me at last why you looked familiar the first time I spotted you. I must have seen you outside the hospital.’
‘Very probably. I was there often enough.’
He frowned. ‘When I referred to you as Miss Sutton, why the hell didn’t you put me right there and then?’
Jo’s colour rose. ‘I had my reasons.’
He was silent for a while, eyeing her closely. ‘Your name is Logan and your father is Jack. Would he, by any chance, be the moving force behind Logan Development?’
Her chin lifted. ‘Yes.’
‘Ah. Not just a builder, but a well-known developer and conservationist.’
