A Suitable Vengeance

“She’s taken it badly. Will you see to her, Helen? Tomorrow night? When she’s back?”


“Of course. Don’t worry. Don’t give it a thought.” She hesitated momentarily. Again, the music came over the line, delicate and elusive, like a fragrance in the air. Then she said, “Simon, wishing didn’t make it happen, you know.”

How well she knew him. “When I saw him on the beach, when I knew that he was dead—”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I could have killed him, Helen. God knows I wanted to.”

“Which of us can say we’ve never felt the same? Towards someone at some time. It means nothing, my dear. You need some rest. We all do. It’s been a dreadful time.”

He smiled at her tone. Mother, sister, loving friend. He accepted the ephemeral absolution which she offered. “You’re right, of course.”

“So go to bed. Surely we can depend upon nothing else happening before morning.”

“Let’s hope so.” He replaced the receiver and stood for a moment watching the storm. Rain lashed the windows. Wind tore at the trees. Somewhere a door banged open and shut. He left the office.

He considered climbing the southwest stairway to spend the rest of the evening in his room. He felt drained of energy, incapable of thought, and unwilling to face the task of making polite conversation that deliberately avoided the topics foremost on everyone’s mind. Peter Lynley. Sasha Nifford. Where they were. What they had done. Still, he knew that Lynley would be waiting to hear about Lady Helen’s call. So he headed back towards the dining room.

Voices drifting down the northwest corridor arrested his attention as he approached the kitchen. Near the servants’ hall, Jasper stood conversing with a rugged-looking man who dripped water from a brimming sou’ wester onto the floor. Seeing St. James, Jasper motioned him over.

“Bob’s found ’r boat,” he said. “Broke up on Cribba Head.”

“It’s the Daze, all right,” the other man put in. “No mistakin’ ’er.”

“Is anyone—”

“There don’t appear to be anyone with ’er. Don’t see how ’tis possible. Not in the shape she be in.”





CHAPTER 17


St. James and Lynley followed the fisherman’s rusty Austin in the estate Land Rover. Their headlamps illuminated the havoc created by the continuing storm. Newly dismembered rhododendrons lined the drive, round them a thick carpet of purple flowers which the vehicles crushed beneath their tyres. A large sycamore branch, sheared from a tree, nearly bisected the road. Leaves and twigs hurtled in every direction while tremendous gusts of wind lashed pebbles from the drive and fired them like bullets against the cars. At the lodge, shutters banged angrily against the stone walls. Water streamed down eaves and gushed from rainpipes. Climbing roses, ripped from their trellis, lay in sodden heaps on the flagstones and the ground.

Lynley braked the Rover, and Mark Penellin dashed out to join them. Framed in the doorway, Nancy Cambrey watched, a shawl clutched to her throat and the wind whipping her dress round her legs. She shouted something that was lost in the gale. Lynley lowered his window a few inches as Mark climbed into the car’s rear seat.

“Any word of Peter?” Nancy caught the front door as the wind drove it against the wall. Over the sound of her voice came the baby’s thin, faint wail. “Shall I do something?”

“Stay by the phone,” he shouted back. “I may need you to go on to the house. To Mother.”

She nodded, gave a wave, and slammed the door home. Lynley shifted gears. They lurched onto the drive, through a pool of water and a bank of mud.

“She’s at Cribba Head?” Mark Penellin asked. His hair was slicked back, drenched from the rain.

“According to what we know right now,” Lynley replied. “What’s happened to you?”

Mark tentatively touched his fingers to a fresh plaster above his right eyebrow. Abrasions covered his knuckles and the back of his hand. He shook his head self-effacingly. “I was trying to fix the shutters so the baby’d stop crying. Nearly knocked myself out in the process.” He turned up the collar of his oilskin and buttoned it at the throat. “You’re sure it’s the Daze?”

“It seems to be.”

“And no word of Peter?”

“None.”

“Bloody fool.” Mark took out a pack of cigarettes, offering it to both Lynley and St. James. When they refused, he lit one for himself but only smoked for a minute before crushing it out.

“You’ve not seen Peter?” Lynley asked.

“Not since Friday afternoon. At the cove.”

St. James glanced at the boy over his shoulder. “Peter said he didn’t see you then.”