A Suitable Vengeance

Lady Helen spoke again. “I’ve begun to think about Justin Brooke’s death.”


She didn’t need to say more. St. James’ own thoughts had made that same leap forward the moment she had told him that his sister had still not turned up. Again, he cursed himself for allowing Sidney to leave Cornwall alone. If she had walked into danger, if she was hurt in any way…He felt the fingers of his right hand dig into his palm. He forced them to relax.

“Has Tina Cogin returned?”

“Not yet.”

“Then perhaps we ought to make certain about the key.” He looked at Lynley. “Have you brought them?”

“Brought them?” Lady Helen asked blankly.

“Harry Cambrey’s managed to get us Mick’s set of keys from Boscowan,” Lynley explained. “We wanted to see if one of them might unlock Tina’s door.”

He kept them in suspense only as long as it took to get to the next flat, to insert and turn the proper key in the lock. He swung the door open. They walked inside.

“All right. He had his own key,” Lady Helen said. “But, really, Tommy, where does that get us? It can’t be a surprise. We already knew he’d been here. Deborah told us that. So all we know beyond that fact is that he was special enough to Tina Cogin to merit a key to her door.”

“It changes the nature of their relationship, Helen. This obviously isn’t a call girl and her client. Prostitutes don’t generally give out their keys.”

From his position near the tiny kitchen, St. James was scrutinising the room. Its furnishings were expensive, but they told little about the inhabitant. And there were no personal objects on display: no photographs, no mementoes, no collection of any kind. Indeed, the entire bed-sitting-room had the look of having been put together by a decorator for a hotel. He walked to the desk.

The red light of the answering machine was blinking, indicating a message. He pushed the button. A man’s voice said, “Colin Sage. I’m phoning about the advert,” and he gave a number for a return call. A second message was much the same. St. James wrote down the numbers and gave them to Lady Helen.

“An advertisement?” she asked. “That can’t be how she makes her arrangements.”

“You said there was a savings book?” St. James replied.

Deborah came to his side. “Here,” she said. “There’s this as well.”

From a drawer she took both the savings book and a manila folder. He looked at the latter first, frowning down at the neatly typed list of names and addresses. Mostly London. The furthest was Brighton. Behind him, he heard Lynley going through the chest of drawers.

“What is this?” Meditatively, St. James asked the question of himself, but Deborah replied.

“We thought of clients at first. But of course, that can’t be. There are women on the list. And even if there weren’t any women at all, it’s hard to imagine anyone managing to…” She hesitated. St. James looked up. Her cheeks had coloured.

“Service this many men?” he asked.

“Well, of course, she’s indicated on the tab that they’re just prospects, hasn’t she? So at first we thought that she was using the list to…before we actually opened up the file and saw…I mean, how exactly would a prostitute build up a clientele? Through word of mouth?” Her colour deepened. “Lord. Is that a dreadful sort of pun?”

He chuckled at the question. “What did you imagine she was doing with this list, sending out brochures?”

Deborah gave a rueful laugh. “I’m so hopeless at this sort of thing, aren’t I? A hundred clues shrieking to be noticed and I can’t make sense of a single one.”

“I thought you’d decided she wasn’t a prostitute. I thought we’d all decided that.”

“It’s just something about the way she talked and her appearance.”

“Perhaps we can let go of whatever her appearance might have suggested,” Lynley said.

Across the room, he stood at the wardrobe with Lady Helen at his side. He had taken down the four hatboxes from the top shelf, had opened and placed them on the floor in a line. He was bending over one of these, separating the folds of white tissue paper. From the centre of the nest which the paper created, he withdrew a wig. Long black hair, wispy fringe. He balanced it on his fist.

Deborah gaped at it. Lady Helen sighed.

“Wonderful,” she said. “The woman actually wears a wig? So what little we know of her—not to mention Deborah’s description—must be virtually meaningless. She’s a chimera, isn’t she? False fingernails. False hair.” She glanced at the chest of drawers. Something seemed to occur to her, for she went to them, pulled one open, and fingered through the undergarments. She held up a black brassiere. “False everything else.”

St. James joined them. He took the wig from Lynley and carried it to the window where he opened the curtains and held it under the natural light. The texture told him that the hair was real.

“Did you know she wore a wig, Deb?” Lynley asked.