A Suitable Vengeance

“Good God. Roderick.”


“Trenarrow’s housekeeper told Cotter that he spends a great deal of time visiting at a convalescent home in St. Just. I didn’t think much of it at the time except Trenarrow himself told me that experimental drugs are often used on terminal patients. Look at how those two pieces of information fit together to explain what’s been going on. A small clinic in St. Just where Trenarrow sees a select group of patients, filtered his way by Mick Cambrey. An illegal clinic—posing as a very private convalescent home—where people pay a hefty fee to be injected with oncozyme. And then the profits get divided three ways: Cambrey, Brooke, and Trenarrow.”

“Mick’s bankbook in London?”

“His share of the pickings.”

“Then who killed him? Why?”

“Brooke. Something must have gone wrong with the deal. Perhaps Mick got greedy. Or perhaps he made a slip of the tongue in Peter’s presence that put them all in jeopardy. Perhaps that’s the reason Brooke was after Peter.”

Lynley paused momentarily, gripped St. James’ arm. “Peter told me that Mick made a remark. Blast, I can’t remember it exactly. Peter threatened to blackmail him about his cross-dressing and about cocaine. But Mick didn’t care. He advised Peter to look for another source. He said something about people being willing to pay a hell of a lot more to stay alive than to have a secret kept.”

“And Justin heard that, didn’t he? He must have known that Mick was inches away from telling the tale to Peter.”

“He wanted to leave the cottage. He wanted Peter to leave.”

“You can see why. Brooke stood to lose everything if Mick started playing fast and loose with their secret. His career, his reputation as a scientist, his job at Islington. He stood to go to jail if it all came out. He must have returned to the cottage after Peter left. He and Mick must have got into it. Things escalated between them—God knows they were both breaking enough laws to be as tightly strung as the devil—and Justin took a swing at him. That did it.”

“And Trenarrow?” Lynley paused once again opposite the primary school grounds.

St. James looked past him. The stage of the open air theatre was still set up. Performances of one sort or another would continue through the summer. Now, however, the grounds were sodden by rain. “Trenarrow knows about everything. I’d wager he’d known the moment he was introduced to Brooke at Howenstow on Saturday night. I should guess he’d never actually seen Brooke before then. Why should he have when Mick was playing the middleman? But the moment he was introduced, he must have put together the rest. Mick’s death, everything.”

“But why hold his tongue?”

St. James looked not at Lynley but at the school grounds as he replied. “You know the answer to that.”

Lynley gazed up the hill. From where they stood, just the roof of the villa and part of its white cornice showed against the grey sky. “He faced jail as well. The clinic, the drug, the payments people made. His career. His research.”

“And most importantly?”

“He stood to lose my mother.”

“I expect the payments people made for oncozyme allowed him to buy the villa in the first place.”

“A home he could be proud to offer to her.”

“So he said nothing.”

They continued their climb. “What do you suppose he intends now, with Brooke and Cambrey dead?”

“With Brooke dead, the source of oncozyme is dried up. He’ll have to close the clinic in St. Just and make do with what he’s managed to save from the profits.”

“And our part in all of this, St. James? Do we turn him over to the police? Do we phone his superiors? Do we take the opportunity to ruin him?”

St. James examined his friend. Broad shoulders wet, hair beginning to drip, mouth set in a line. “That’s the hell of this, isn’t it, Tommy? That’s the irony: to have the foulest wish you’ve ever possessed granted in spades. Just at the moment when, I expect, you no longer wish it.”

“Are you leaving it up to me?”

“We’ve got Brooke and Cambrey tied together well enough. We’ve got Mick’s visits to Islington, we’ve got Peter and Justin together at Gull Cottage, we’ve got Justin’s lie about being in the Anchor and Rose afterwards, we’ve got Justin’s use of cocaine. As far as the police need to know, Mick was his supplier, a deal went bad, and Justin killed him. Sasha as well. So, yes. The rest is yours. You’re the policeman.”

“Even if it means letting part of the truth go, letting Roderick go?”

“I’ll not stand in judgement. At the bottom of it Trenarrow was trying to help people. The fact that they paid him for the help makes it ugly, but at least he was trying to do something good.”