A Suitable Vengeance

“I’ve not blamed you.”


“You don’t need to do so. I blame myself.” He turned off New Oxford Street and they began another series of side street and back alley runs, edging them closer to the City and to Whitechapel which lay just beyond it. “But at least I must let go of blaming myself for Peter if I’m not to go mad. The best step I can take in that direction at the moment is to swear to you that no matter what we find when we get to him, it shall be Peter’s responsibility, not mine.”

They found the building on a narrow street directly off Brick Lane, where a shouting group of Pakistani children were playing football with a caved-in ball. They were using four plastic rubbish sacks for goal posts, but one sack had split open and its contents lay about, smashed and trodden under the children’s feet.

The sight of the Bentley called an abrupt halt to the game, and St. James and Lynley climbed out of the car into a curious circle of faces. The air was heavy, not only with the apprehension that accompanies the appearance of strangers in a closely-knit neighbourhood but also with the smell of old coffee grounds, rotting vegetables, and fruit gone bad. The shoes of the football players contributed largely to this pungent odour. They appeared to be caked with organic refuse.

“Wha’s up?” one of the children murmured.

“Dunno,” another replied. “Some motor, that, i’n it?”

A third, more enterprising than the others, stepped forward with an offer to “watch the motor f’r you, mister. Keep this lot off it.” He nodded his head towards the rest of the crew. Lynley raised his hand slightly, a response which the boy seemed to take as affirmation, for he posted himself with one hand on the bonnet, the other on his hip, and one grubby foot on the bumper.

They had parked directly in front of Peter’s building, a narrow structure five floors high. Originally, its bricks had been painted white, but time, soot, and lack of interest had dirtied them to a repellent grey. The woodwork of windows and front door appeared to have been untouched for decades. Where handsome blue paint had once made a pleasing contrast to the white of the bricks, mere flecks remained, azure spots like freckles on a skin being eaten by age. The fact that someone on the third floor had tried to ease the aspect of the building by planting freesias in a splintered window box did nothing to combat the general feeling of poverty and decay.

They climbed the four front steps to the door. It stood open. Above it, the words last few days had been sprayed onto the bricks with red paint. They seemed a suitable epigraph.

“He said he’s on the first floor,” Lynley said and headed for the stairs.

Once covered with a cheap linoleum, they were worn through in the centre to their black backing, and the edges that remained were crusted with a combination of old wax and new dirt. Large, greasy discolourations splodged the stairway walls which were pockmarked with bolt holes where once a handrail had been mounted. Handprints covered them, as well as an enormous gravylike stain which oozed down from an upper floor.

On the landing, a dusty pram tilted on three wheels, surrounded by several sacks of rubbish, two tin pails, a broom, and a blackened mop. A gaunt cat, ribs showing and an ulcerated sore in the middle of its forehead, slunk by them as they climbed upward, assailed by the odour of garlic and urine.

In the uncarpeted first floor corridor, the building came to life. Televisions, music, voices raised in an argument, a baby’s sudden wail—the discordant sounds of people going about the daily business of living. This was not the case in Peter’s flat, however, which they found at the far end of the corridor where a grimy window admitted a weak shaft of light from the street. The door was shut, but neither closed nor latched, so when Lynley knocked, it swung inward to reveal a single room whose windows—closed and covered by bedsheets—seemed to entrap the odours of the entire building, mingling them with the stronger stench of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes.

Although the room was not altogether much smaller than the bed-sit they had just left in Paddington, the contrast was unnerving. There was virtually no furniture. Instead, three large, stained pillows lay on the floor among discarded newspapers and open magazines. In lieu of either wardrobe or chest of drawers, a single chair held a pile of unfolded clothing which spilled down to four cardboard cartons in which more clothing lay. Upended fruit packing crates served as tables, and a shadeless floor lamp provided the room with light.