A Suitable Vengeance

“Oh, Simon, please. I couldn’t. When it came down to it, I couldn’t do it to him. Can you try to understand?”


“The saltwater would have ruined them anyway. But at least you’d have had something to remind you of your success in America. Besides Tommy, of course.” She stiffened. He knew he had hurt her and felt a whisper of triumph at his power to do so. It was replaced almost immediately by a roar of shame. “That was unforgivable. I’m sorry,” he said.

“I deserve it.”

“No. You don’t deserve it.” He walked away from her, giving his attention back to the cove. “Tell them to finish, Tommy,” he shouted. “The cameras aren’t there.”

Below, the two boys were surfacing once more. This time, however, one of them clutched an object in his hand. Long and narrow, it glinted in the dull light as he handed it to Lynley. Wooden handle, metal blade. Both bearing no sign of having been in the water more than a few days.

“What’s he got?” Deborah asked.

Lynley held it up so that they both could see it from the top of the cliff. St. James felt a quick rush of excitement.

“A kitchen knife,” he said.





CHAPTER 26


A lazy rain had begun to fall by the time they reached the harbour car park in Nanrunnel. It was no precursor of a Cornish southwester, but rather the herald of a brief summer shower. Thousands of gulls accompanied it, screaming in from the sea to seek havens on chimney tops, along the quay, and upon the decks of boats secured to the harbour walls.

On the path that skirted the circumference of the harbour, they passed overturned skiffs, lopsided piles of fishing nets redolent with the odours of the sea, and waterside buildings whose windows reflected the unchanging grey mask of the weather. Not until they reached the point at which the path inclined between two buildings as it led into the village proper did any of them speak. It was then that Lynley noticed that the cobbled pavement was already slick with rain. He glanced uneasily at St. James.

The other man answered his look. “I can manage it, Tommy.”

They’d talked little about the knife. Just that it was obviously a kitchen utensil, so if it had been used on Mick Cambrey and if Nancy could identify it as having come from the cottage, it served as further evidence that the crime against her husband had not been planned. Its presence in the cove did nothing to absolve Justin Brooke from blame. Rather, the knife merely changed his reason for having gone there in the first place. Not to rid himself of Deborah’s cameras but to rid himself of something far more damning.

Thus the cameras remained a piece still not tucked into position in the jigsaw of the crime. They all agreed that it was reasonable to continue to conclude Brooke had taken them from Deborah’s room. But where he had disposed of them was once again as elusive a location as it had been two days ago.

Rounding the corner of an antique silver shop on the Lamorna Road, they found the streets of the village deserted. This was an unsurprising summertime phenomenon in an area where the vicissitudes of the weather often forced holiday makers to be flexible in matters concerning how they spent their time. Where sun would see them strolling the village streets, exploring the harbour, and taking pictures on the quay, rain usually provoked a sudden need to try their luck in a game of chance, a sudden hunger for tucking into a fresh crab salad, a sudden thirst for real ale. An inclement afternoon was a welcome boon to the proprietors of bingo parlours, restaurants, and pubs.

This proved to be the case at the Anchor and Rose. The pub teemed with fishermen forced to shore by the weather as well as day visitors seeking shelter from the rain. Most of them were packed into the public bar. The formal lounge beyond it was largely empty.

In any other circumstances, two such diverse groups, inhabiting the same watering hole, would hardly be likely to blend into a cohesive unit. But the presence of a teenaged mandolin player, a fisherman conversant with the Irish whistle, and a pale-legged man wearing running shorts and playing the spoons had broken the barrier of class and experience, melding what should have been motley into montage.

In the wide bay window overlooking the harbour, a leather-skinned fisherman—backlit by the dull light outside—engaged a fashionably clad tot in a game of cat’s cradle. His weathered hands held out the string to the child; his broken teeth flashed in a grin.

“Go on, Dickie. Take it. You know how to play,” Mummy coaxed the little boy.

Dickie cooperated. Approving laughter ensued. The fisherman rested his hand on the child’s head.

“It’s a photograph, isn’t it?” Lynley said to Deborah in the doorway where they stood watching.

She smiled. “What a wonderful face he has, Tommy. And look how the light just barely strikes the side of it.”