A Suitable Vengeance

Nancy spun towards the sitting room. “Help him!” she cried to Lynley. “He didn’t kill Mick. You’re a policeman. You can help. You must.” Uselessly she twisted the front of her housedress in her hands.

Even as he went to her side, Lynley reflected upon how little he could actually do to help. He had no jurisdiction in Cornwall. Boscowan seemed a highly capable man, one unlikely ever to need assistance from New Scotland Yard. Had Constable Parker been in charge of the case, the Met’s ultimate involvement would not have been long in doubt. But Parker wasn’t in charge. And since Penzance CID looked perfectly competent, the investigation had to remain in their hands. However, he still wanted to say something, even if the only possible result was that form of purgation which comes from reliving the worst part of a nightmare.

“Tell me what happened tonight.” He led her back to the rocking chair. Deborah rose from her place and covered Nancy’s shoulders with a blanket that lay on the back of the couch.

Nancy stumbled through the story. She’d gone to do the drinks for the play, leaving the baby with Mick. Mick had been working at the sitting room desk, getting ready to do the pay envelopes for the newspaper staff. She’d placed Molly in a playpen nearby. She’d left them at seven o’clock.

“When I got back to the cottage, I could hear Molly crying. I was angry that Mick would let her go ignored. I shouted at him as I opened the door.”

“The door was unlocked?” St. James asked.

It was, she told them.

“You didn’t notice Mick’s body?”

She shook her head and clutched the blanket closer round her thin shoulders. One elbow stuck out. It was bony and red. “The sitting room door was closed.”

“And when you opened it, what did you notice at first?”

“Him. Mick. Lying…” She gulped for a breath. “Then all round him, the papers and notebooks and such.”

“As if the room had been searched,” St. James said. “Did Mick ever work on stories at home?”

Nancy rubbed her hand along the nap of the blanket and nodded a bit too eagerly. “Often, yes. At the computer. He wouldn’t want to go back to the office after dinner, so he’d work a bit at home. He kept lots of notes for his stories at the cottage. Sort through this lot, Mickey, I’d tell him. We must throw some things away. But he didn’t like to because he never knew when he’d need to look up some little detail in a notebook or a journal or his diary. Can’t toss it out, Nance, he’d tell me. The first thing I throw away will be exactly what I need. So there were always papers. Scraps of this and that. Notes on paper napkins and on matchbook covers. It was his way. Lots of notes. Someone must have wanted…or the money. The money. We mustn’t forget that.”

It was a difficult recital to listen to. Although the facts seemed relevant—the presence of material on the floor, the evidence of a hasty search—it did not appear that their connection to Mick Cambrey’s profession was foremost on his wife’s mind, no matter her attempt to make it seem so. Rather, she appeared to be concerned with an entirely different matter connected to the search.

She verified this by concluding with, “You know, I did talk to Dad after the interval. Perhaps at half past ten. From a call box.”

No one replied. Despite the room’s warmth, Nancy’s legs shook, causing the blanket that covered them to tremble. “I telephoned. I spoke to Dad. He was here. Lots of people must’ve seen me make the call. Ask Mrs. Swann. She knows I spoke to Dad. He was here. He said he’d not been out all evening.”

“But Nancy,” Lynley said, “your father was out. He wasn’t here when I phoned. He only just walked in a few minutes after we did. Why are you lying? Are you afraid of something?”

“Ask Mrs. Swann. She saw me. In the call box. She can tell you—”

A blast of rock and roll music shattered the mild night noises outside the house. Nancy leaped to her feet.

The front door opened and Mark Penellin entered. A large portable stereo rode upon his shoulder, blaring out “My Generation,” nighttime nostalgia with a vengeance. Mark was singing along, but he stopped in midphrase when he saw the group in the sitting room. He fumbled incompetently with the knobs. Roger Daltrey roared even louder for an instant before Mark mastered the volume and switched the stereo off.

“Sorry.” He placed the unit on the floor. It had left an indentation in the soft calfskin jacket he wore, and as if he knew this without looking, he brushed his fingers against the material to rejuvenate it. “What’s going on? What’re you doing here, Nance? Where’s Dad?”