A Suitable Vengeance

“I have. Yes.” She moved from behind the desk and went to a ladder-back chair that stood beneath a wall map of the estate. Here she sat, her hands curled into tight balls in her lap.

At the end of the corridor, the outer door banged against the wall as someone shoved it open too recklessly. Footsteps sounded against the tiled floor. Nancy braced herself against the back of her chair, as if in the hope of hiding from whoever had come into the house. Instead of approaching the estate office, however, the footsteps turned left at the stillroom and faded on their way. Nancy exhaled in a nearly imperceptible sigh.

Lynley went to sit in her father’s chair. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you came by.”

She moved her large grey eyes to the windows, speaking to them rather than to him. “I need to ask you something. It’s difficult for me. How to begin.”

“Have you been ill? You’ve got awfully thin, Nancy. The baby. Has it—” He was mortified to realise that he had no idea of the baby’s sex.

“No. Molly’s fine.” Still, she would not look at him. “But I’m eaten by worry.”

“What is it?”

“It’s why I’ve come. But…” Tears rose to her eyes without spilling over. Humiliation mottled her skin. “Dad mustn’t know. He can’t.”

“Then it’s between us, whatever we say.” Lynley fished out his handkerchief and passed it across the desk. She pressed it between her hands but did not use it, controlling the tears instead. “Are you at odds with your father?”

“Not I. Mick. Things’ve never been right between them. Because of the baby. And me. And how we married. But it’s worse now than before.”

“Is there some way I can help? Because if you don’t want me to intercede with your father, I’m not sure what else…” He let his voice drift off, waiting for her to complete the sentence. He saw her draw her body in, as if she were garnering courage before a wild leap into the abyss.

“You can help. Yes. With money.” She flinched involuntarily as she said the words but then went bravely on with the rest. “I’m still doing my bookkeeping in Penzance. And Nanrunnel. And I’m working nights at the Anchor and Rose. But it’s not been enough. The costs…”

“What sort of costs?”

“The newspaper, you see. Mick’s dad had heart surgery a year ago last winter—did you know?—and Mick’s been running the paper for him ever since. But he wants to update. He wants equipment. He couldn’t see how he’d be spending the rest of his life in Nanrunnel on a weekly paper with broken-down presses and manual typewriters. He has plans. Good plans. But it’s money. He spends it. There’s never enough.”

“I’d no idea Mick was running the Spokesman.”

“It’s not what he wanted. He only meant to be here a few months last winter. Just till his dad got back on his feet. But his dad didn’t recover as quick as they thought. And then I…”

Lynley could see the picture well enough. What had probably begun as a diversion for Mick Cambrey—a way to make the time at his father’s newspaper in Nanrunnel less boring and onerous—had evolved into a lifelong commitment to a wife and child in whom he no doubt had little more than a passing interest.

“We’re in the worst possible state,” Nancy was continuing. “He’s bought word processors. Two different printers. Equipment for home. Equipment for work. All sorts of things. But there’s not enough money. We’ve taken Gull Cottage and now the rent’s been raised. We can’t pay it. We’ve missed the last two months as it is, and if we lose the cottage”—she faltered but again drew herself together—“I don’t know what we’ll do.”

“Gull Cottage?” It was the last thing he had expected her to say. “Are you talking about Roderick Trenarrow’s old place in Nanrunnel?”

She smoothed the handkerchief out along the length of her leg, plucking at a loose thread on the A embroidered at one corner. “Mick and Dad never got on, did they? And we needed to move once the baby came. So Mick made arrangements with Dr. Trenarrow for us to take Gull Cottage.”

“And you find yourselves overextended.”

“We’re to pay each month. But these last two months, Mick hasn’t paid. Dr. Trenarrow’s phoned him, but Mick isn’t bothered a bit. He says money’s tight and they’ll talk about it when he gets back from London.”

“London?”

“A story he’s been working on there. The one he’s been waiting for, he says. To set him up as a journalist. The kind he wants to be. He thinks he can sell it as a free-lance piece the way he used to. Maybe even get a television documentary made. And then there’ll be money. But for now there’s nothing. I’m so afraid we’ll end up on the streets. Or living in the newspaper office. That tiny room in the back with a single cot. We can’t come back here. Dad wouldn’t have it.”

“I take it your father knows nothing about all this?”