A Suitable Vengeance

“Capable of functioning?”


“Impaired, but capable. Enough to get out there and take a tumble. Four vertebrae were broken. Spinal cord was severed.” She removed her spectacles and rubbed the bridge of her nose where they rested upon skin that was red and raw. Without them she looked curiously defenceless and somehow unmasked. “Had he lived, he’d have been a quadriplegic. So I wonder if we say he was lucky to have died.” Her glance dropped unconsciously to St. James’ bad leg. She pulled back fractionally into her chair. “I’m terribly sorry. Too many hours on the job.”

Less-than-perfect life versus no life at all. It was always the question, certainly one that St. James had asked himself many times in the years since his accident. He brushed off her apology by ignoring it altogether.

“Did he fall? Or was he pushed?”

“Forensic are combing both the body and the clothing to see if he may have grappled with someone. But as far as I can tell at the moment, it’s a straightforward fall. He was drunk. He was at the top of a dangerous cliff. Time of death seems to be round one in the morning. So it was dark. And there was a heavy cloud cover last night as well. I’d say an accidental fall is a safe conclusion.”

How relieved Lynley would be to hear that, St. James thought. Yet even as Dr. Waters gave her opinion, he felt tugged by a reluctance to accept it. Appearances suggested an accident, to be sure. But no matter the appearance of the death, Brooke’s presence at the cliff top in the middle of the night suggested a clandestine meeting that led to murder.



Outside the dining room, what had that morning been a summer storm was growing into a tempest, with gale-force winds howling round the house and rain striking the windows in angry flurries. The curtains were drawn, so the noise was somewhat muted, but an occasional blast shook the windows with enough force that they rattled ominously, impossible to ignore. When this happened, St. James found his thoughts torn from the deaths of Mick Cambrey and Justin Brooke and refastened upon the disappearance of the Daze. He knew that Lynley had spent the remainder of the day in a futile search for his brother. But the coastline was rugged and difficult to reach by land. If Peter had put the boat into a natural harbour somewhere to escape the worst of the storm, Lynley had not found him.

“I didn’t think to alter the menu,” Lady Asherton was saying in reference to the elaborate array of food with which they had been presented. “So much has been happening, I’ve forgotten how to think straight. There were supposed to be at least nine of us here. Ten, if Augusta had stayed. It’s a blessing she went home last night. Had she been here this morning when Jasper found the body…” She toyed with a spear of broccoli, as if suddenly aware how disjointed her comments actually sounded. Candlelight and shadows played against the turquoise dress she wore and softened the lines of worry that, with the advancing day, had grown more prominent between her eyebrows and from her nose to her chin. She hadn’t mentioned Peter since first being told he was gone.

“People ’ave to eat, Daze, and that’s all there is to it,” Cotter said, although he’d touched no more of his food than had the others.

“But we’ve not much heart for it, have we?” Lady Asherton smiled at Cotter, but her anxiety was palpable. It showed itself in her quick movements, in the fleeting glimpses she took of her older son who sat nearby. Lynley had been home only ten minutes prior to dinner. He had spent that time in the estate office making phone calls. St. James knew he had not spoken to his mother about Peter, and he did not have the look of a man who intended to speak about Peter now. As if she realised this, Lady Asherton said to St. James, “How’s Sidney?”

“Sleeping now. She wants to go back to London in the morning.”

“Is that wise, St. James?” Lynley asked.

“She doesn’t appear to be willing to have it any other way.”

“Will you go with her?”

He shook his head, fingered the stem of his wineglass, and thought about his brief conversation with his sister just an hour ago. Mostly he thought about her refusal to speak of Justin Brooke. Don’t ask me, don’t make me, she’d said, all the time looking ill, with her hair in soaked ringlets from a feverish dream. I can’t, I can’t. Don’t make me, Simon. Please.

“She says she’ll do well enough taking the train up alone,” he said.

“Perhaps she wants to speak to his family. Have the police contacted them?”