A Suitable Vengeance

Lady Helen fingered the Talisman wrapper, as if with the resolution of making yet another effort to put Lynley’s mind at rest. “Yet Harry was sure it was a story.”


“It might have been a story. We’ve still got the connection to Islington-London.”

“Perhaps Mick was investigating a drug of some kind,” Deborah offered, “A drug that wasn’t ready to be marketed yet.”

Lady Helen took up her thought. “One with side effects. One that’s already available to doctors. With the company pooh-poohing the possibility of problems.”

Lynley came back to the table. They looked at one another, struck by the plausibility of this bit of idle conjecture. Thalidomide. Thorough testing, regulations, and restrictions had so far precluded the possibility of another teratogenic nightmare. But men were greedy when it came to fast profits. Men had always been so.

“What if, in researching an entirely different subject, Mick got wind of something suspicious,” St. James proposed. “He pursued it here. He interviewed people here at Islington-London. And that was the cause of his death.”

In spite of their efforts, Lynley did not join them. “But the castration?” He sank down onto the day bed, rubbing his forehead. “We can’t seem to turn in any direction that explains it all.”

As if to underscore the futility behind his words, the telephone began to ring. Deborah went to answer it. Lynley was back on his feet an instant after she spoke.

“Peter! Where on earth are you?…What is it?…I can’t understand…Peter, please…You’ve called where?…Wait, he’s right here.”

Lynley lunged for the phone. “Damn you, where have you been! Don’t you know that Brooke…Shut up and listen to me for once, Peter. Brooke’s dead as well as Mick…. I don’t care what you want any longer…What?” Lynley stopped, frozen. His body was rigid. His voice all at once was perfectly calm. “Are you certain?…Listen to me, Peter, you must pull yourself together…I understand, but you mustn’t touch anything. Do you understand me, Peter? Don’t touch anything. Leave her alone…. Now, give me your address…All right. Yes, I’ve got it. I’ll be there at once.”

He replaced the phone. It seemed that entire minutes passed before he turned back to the others.

“Something’s happened to Sasha.”



“I think he’s on something,” Lynley said.

Which would explain, St. James thought, why Lynley had insisted that Deborah and Helen remain behind. He wouldn’t want either of them to see his brother in that condition, especially Deborah. “What happened?”

Lynley pulled the car into Sussex Gardens, cursing when a taxi cut him off. He headed towards the Bayswater Road, veering through Radnor Place and half a dozen side streets to avoid the worst of the afternoon crush.

“I don’t know. He kept screaming that she was on the bed, that she wasn’t moving, that he thought she was dead.”

“You didn’t want him to phone the emergency number?”

“Christ, he could be hallucinating, St. James. He sounded like someone going through the D.T.’s. Damn and blast this bloody traffic!”

“Where is he, Tommy?”

“Whitechapel.”

It took them nearly an hour to get there, battling their way through a virtual gridlock of cars, lorries, buses, and taxis. Lynley knew the city well enough to run through countless side streets and alleys, but every time they emerged onto a main artery, their progress was frustrated again. Midway down New Oxford Street, he spoke.

“I’m at fault here. I’ve done everything but buy the drugs for him.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I wanted him to have the best of everything. I never asked him to stand on his own. What he’s become is the result. I’m at fault here, St. James. The real sickness is mine.”

St. James gazed out the window and sought a reply. He thought about the energy people expend in seeking to avoid what they most need to face. They fill their lives with distraction and denial, only to find at an unexpected eleventh hour that there is in reality no absolute escape. How long had Lynley been engaged in avoidance? How long had he himself done the same thing? It had become a habit with both of them. In scrupulously avoiding what they needed to say to each other, they had learned to adopt evasion in every significant area of their lives.

He said, “Not everything in life is your responsibility, Tommy.”

“My mother said practically the same thing the other night.”

“She was right. You punish yourself at times when others bear equal responsibility. Don’t do that now.”

Lynley shot him a quick look. “The accident. There’s that as well, isn’t there? You’ve tried to take the burden from my shoulders all these years, but you never will, not completely. I drove the car, St. James. No matter what other facts exist to attenuate my guilt, the primary fact remains. I drove the car that night. And when it was over, I walked away. You didn’t.”