A Suitable Vengeance

He kissed her, feeling the immediacy of her response to him and wondering if everything else he had seen was merely the product of pathetic insecurity. He told himself that this was the case. Nonetheless he still said, “If you’ve more work to do, you don’t need to go with us.”


“I want to go. The photographs can wait.” And, with a smile, she kissed him again.

All the time with Deborah in his arms, Lynley was acutely aware of St. James. During the journey to Cornwall, he was aware of them both. He studied every nuance in their behaviour towards him, in their behaviour towards each other. He examined each word, each gesture, and remark under the unforgiving microscope of his own suspicion. If Deborah said St. James’ name, it became in his mind a veiled avowal of her love. If St. James looked in Deborah’s direction, it was an open declaration of commitment and desire. By the time Lynley taxied the plane to a halt on the Land’s End airstrip, he felt tension coiling like a spring in the back of his neck. The resulting pain was only a secondary consideration, however. It was nothing compared to his self-disgust.

His roiling emotions had prevented him from engaging in anything other than the most superficial of conversations during the drive to Surrey and the flight that followed it. And since not one of them was gifted with Lady Helen’s capacity for smoothing over difficult moments with amusing chatter, their talk had ground itself down to nothing in very short order so that when they finally arrived in Cornwall, the atmosphere among them was thick with unspoken words. Lynley knew he was not the only one to sigh with relief when they stepped out of the plane and saw Jasper waiting with the car next to the tarmac.

The silence during their ride to Howenstow was broken only by Jasper telling him that Lady Asherton had arranged to have two of the farm lads waiting at the cove “at half-one like you said ’at you wanted.” John Penellin was still being held in Penzance, he confided, but the happy word had gone out to everyone that “Mister Peter be found.”

“Her ladyship’s looking tenyers younger this morning for knowing the lad’s safe,” Jasper concluded. “She was wacking her tennis balls at five past eight.”

They said nothing more. St. James riffled through the papers in his briefcase, Deborah watched the scenery, Lynley tried to clear his mind. They met neither vehicle nor animal on the narrow lanes, and it wasn’t until they made the turn onto the estate drive that they saw anyone at all. Nancy Cambrey was sitting on the front steps of the lodge. In her arms, Molly sucked eagerly at her bottle.

“Stop the car,” Lynley said to Jasper, and then to the others, “Nancy knew about Mick’s newspaper story from the first. Perhaps she can fill in the details if we tell her what we know.”

St. James looked doubtful. A glance at his watch told Lynley that he was concerned about getting to the cove and from there to the newspaper office before much more time elapsed. But he didn’t protest. Nor did Deborah. They got out of the car.

Nancy stood when she saw who it was. She led them into the house and faced them in the entry hall. Above her right shoulder, an old, faded sampler hung on the wall, a needlepoint scene of a family picnic, with two children, their parents, a dog, and an empty swing hanging from a tree. The wording was nearly obscure, but it probably had spoken, with well-meaning inaccuracy, of the constant rewards of family life.

“Mark’s not here?” Lynley asked.

“He’s gone to St. Ives.”

“So your father’s still said nothing to Inspector Boscowan about him? About Mick? About the cocaine?”

Nancy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She merely said, “I don’t know. I’ve heard nothing,” and walked into the sitting room where she placed Molly’s bottle on top of the television and the baby herself into her pram. “There’s a good girl,” she said and patted her back. “There’s a good little Molly. You sleep for a bit.”

They joined her. It would have been natural to sit, but none of them did so at first. Instead, they took positions like uneasy actors who do not yet know how their play will be blocked: Nancy with one hand curled round the push bar of the pram; St. James with his back to the bay window; Deborah near the piano; Lynley opposite her by the sitting room door.

Nancy looked as if she anticipated the worst from this unexpected visit. Her glance went among them skittishly.

“You’ve news of Mick,” she said.

Together, Lynley and St. James laid out both facts and conjectures. She listened to them without question or comment. Occasionally, she seemed struck by fleeting sorrow, but for the most part she seemed deadened to everything. It was as if, far in advance of their arrival, she had anaesthetised herself against the possibility of feeling anything more, not only about her husband’s death but also about some of the less-than-creditable aspects of his life.

“So he never mentioned Islington to you?” Lynley asked when they had concluded their story. “Or oncozyme? Or a biochemist, Justin Brooke?”

“Never. Not once.”