A Suitable Vengeance

“Was that typical of him to be so secretive about a story?”


“Before we married, no. He talked of everything then. When we were lovers. Before the baby.”

“And after the baby?”

“He went away more and more. Always about some story.”

“To London?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he kept a flat there?” St. James asked.

When she shook her head, Lynley said, “But when your father spoke about Mick keeping other women, did you never think he might be keeping one in London? That would be a reasonable enough assumption, wouldn’t it, considering how often he was travelling up there?”

“No. There were…” The decision she faced evidenced itself in her hesitation. It was a choice between loyalty or truth. And a question of whether truth in this case really constituted a betrayal. She appeared resolved. She lifted her head. “There were no other women. Dad only thought that. I let him believe Mickey was having other women. It was easier that way.”

“Easier than letting your father discover that his son-in-law liked to wear women’s clothes?”

Lynley’s question appeared to release the young woman from months of secrecy. If anything, she looked monumentally relieved. “No one knew,” Nancy murmured. “For ever so long, no one knew but me.” She sank into the armchair next to the pram. “Mickey,” she said. “Oh God, poor Mickey.”

“How did you find out?”

She pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her housedress. “Right before Molly was born. There were things in his chest of drawers. I thought he was having an affair at first and I didn’t say anything because I was eight months gone and Mick and me couldn’t…so I thought…”

How reasonable it all was as she haltingly explained it. Pregnant, she couldn’t accommodate her husband so if he sought another woman she would have to accept it. She had, after all, entrapped him into marriage. She had only herself to blame if he hurt her as a result. So she wouldn’t confront him with the evidence of betrayal. She would put up with it and hope to win him back in the end.

“Then I came home one night, not long after I’d started serving behind bar at the Anchor and Rose. I found him. He was all dressed in my clothes. He’d put on makeup. He’d even got himself a wig. I thought it was my fault. See, I liked to buy things, new clothes. I wanted to be trendy. I wanted to look nice for him. I thought it would get him back. I thought at first he was making a scene to punish me for spending money. But I saw soon enough that…he got really…it made him excited.”

“What did you do after you found him?”

“Threw away my makeup. Every bit of it. Shredded my clothes. Went after them with a butcher knife in the back garden.”

Lynley remembered Jasper’s account of the scene. “Your father saw you doing it, didn’t he?”

“He thought I’d found things that someone left behind. So he believed Mick was having other women on the side. I let him believe it. How could I tell him the truth? Besides, Mick promised me that he’d never do it again. And I thought he could do it. I’d got rid of all my good clothes so he wouldn’t be tempted. And he tried to be good. He did try. But he couldn’t stop. He started bringing things home. I’d find them. I’d try to talk. We’d try to talk together. But nothing worked. He got worse. It was like he needed the dressing more and more. He even did it once at night in the newspaper office and his father caught him. Harry went mad.”

“So his father knew?”

“He beat him silly. Mick came home. He was bleeding and cursing. Crying as well. I thought then he’d stop.”

“But instead he took up a second life in London.”

“I thought he was better.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I thought he was cured. I thought we had a chance to be happy. Like when we were lovers. We were happy then.”

“And no one else knew about Mick’s cross-dressing? Not Mark? Not someone from the village? Or from the newspaper office?”

“Just me and Harry. That’s all,” she said. “Jesus God, wasn’t that enough?”



“What do you think? Was it enough, St. James?”

Jasper had gone on ahead. They were on the drive, walking the final distance to the house. Above them, the sky had given up its last vestiges of blue, turning to the colour of ageing pewter. Deborah walked between them, her hand through Lynley’s arm. He looked over the top of her head to St. James.

“The killing itself has looked like a crime of passion all along,” St. James said. “A blow to his jaw that sent him crashing against the overmantel. No one premeditates a death like that. We’ve always agreed that some sort of argument took place.”

“But we’ve been trying to tie it into Mick’s profession. And who sent us in that direction in the first place?”

St. James nodded in rueful acceptance. “Harry Cambrey.”

“He had opportunity. He had motive.”

“Rage over his son’s cross-dressing?”