A Suitable Vengeance

In conjunction with everything that had gone before, both her brother’s sudden appearance at the lodge and his questions seemed to destroy the inadequate defences which Nancy had raised to avoid the reality of her father’s behaviour that night. She fell back into the rocking chair.

“It’s your fault!” she cried. “The police have come for Dad. They’ve taken him and he’ll say nothing because of you.” She began to cry, reaching for her handbag which lay on the floor. “What’re you going to do to him next, Mark? What’ll it be? Tell me.” She opened her handbag and began fumbling through it, pulling out a crumpled tissue as she sobbed, “Mickey. Oh, Mick.”

Still at the doorway to the sitting room, Mark Penellin swallowed, looking at each of them in turn before returning his gaze to his sister. “Has something happened to Mick?”

Nancy continued to weep.

Mark brushed back his hair. He ran his knuckles down his jawline. He brought their worst fears to light. “Nancy, has Dad done something to Mick?”

She was out of the chair, her handbag flying, its contents spraying across the floor.

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare. You’re at the bottom of this. We know it. Dad and I.”

Mark backed into the stairway. His head struck a banister. “Me? What’re you talking about? This is crazy. You’re crazy. What the hell’s happened?”

“Mick’s been murdered,” Lynley said.

Blood flooded Mark’s face. He spun from Lynley to his sister. “And you think I did it? Is that what you think? That I killed your husband?” He gave a wild shriek of laughter. “Why would I bother, with Dad looking for a way to put him under for a year?”

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare! It was you!”

“Right. Believe what you want.”

“What I know. What Dad knows.”

“Dad knows everything all right. Lucky for him to be so bloody wise.”

He grabbed his stereo and flung himself up five stairs. Lynley’s words stopped him.

“Mark, we need to talk.”

“No!” And then as he finished the climb, “I’ll save what I have to say for the flaming police. As soon as my sister turns me in.”

A door crashed shut.

Molly began to wail.





CHAPTER 11


How much do you really know about Mark Penellin?” St. James asked, looking up from the paper on which he had been jotting their collective thoughts for the last quarter of an hour.

He and Lynley were alone in the small alcove that opened off the Howenstow drawing room, directly over the front entry to the house. Two lamps were lit, one on the undersized mahogany desk where St. James sat and the other on a marquetry side table beneath the windows where it cast a golden glow against the darkness-backed panes. Lynley handed St. James a glass of brandy and cupped his own in the palm of his hand, meditatively swirling the liquid. He sank into a wing chair next to the desk, stretched out his legs, and loosened his tie. He drank before answering.

“Not much in any detail. He’s Peter’s age. From what little’s been said about him in the past few years, I gather he’s been a disappointment to his family. To his father mostly.”

“In what way?”

“The usual way young men disappoint their fathers. John wanted Mark to go to university. Mark did one term at Reading but then dropped out.”

“Rusticated?”

“Not interested. He went from Reading to a job as a barman in Maidenhead. Then Exeter, as I recall. I think he was playing drums with a band. That didn’t pan out as he would have liked—no fame, no fortune, and most particularly no lucrative contract with a recording studio—and he’s been working here on the estate ever since, at least for the last eighteen months. I’m not quite sure why. Estate management never seemed to interest Mark in the past. But perhaps now he’s thinking along the lines of taking over as Howenstow land manager when his father retires.”

“Is that a possibility?”

“It’s possible, but not without Mark’s developing some background and a great deal more expertise than would come from the sort of work he’s been doing round here.”

“Does Penellin expect his son to succeed him?”

“I shouldn’t think so. John’s university-educated himself. When he retires—which is a good time away in the future—he wouldn’t expect me to give his job to someone whose sole experience at Howenstow has been mucking out the stables.”

“And that’s been the extent of Mark’s experience?”

“Oh, he’s done some time in one or two of the dairies. Out on several of the farms as well. But there’s more to managing an estate than that.”

“Is he paid well?”