A Suitable Vengeance
Series: Lynley [4]
Published: 2007
Tags: Mystery
Mysteryttt
* * *
SUMMARY:
Award-winning author Elizabeth George gives us an early glimpse into the lives of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James, and Lady Helen Clyde in a superlative mystery that is also a fascinating inquiry into the crimes of the heart. Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton, has brought to Howenstow, his family home, the young woman he has asked to be his bride. But the savage murder of a local journalist is the catalyst for a lethal series of events that shatters the calm of a picturesque Cornwall village and embroils Lynley and St. James in a case far outside their jurisdiction—and a little too close to home. When a second death follows closely on the heels of the first, Lynley finds he can't help taking the investigation personally—because the evidence points to a killer within his own family.From the Paperback edition.
ELIZABETH GEORGE
A SUITABLE VENGEANCE
NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY
Hodder & Stoughton
Copyright © 1991 Susan Elizabeth George
First published in Great Britain in 1991 by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers
This New English Library edition published in 2003 A division of Hodder Headline
The right of Elizabeth George to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 340 83135 9
Typeset in Plantin Light by Phoenix Typesetting, Burley-in-Wharedale, West Yorkshire
Printed and bound by Mackays of Chatham Ltd, Chatham, Kent
Hodder & Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH
For my husband, Ira Toibin, in gratitude for twenty years of patience, support, and devotion
And for my cousin, David Silvestri
Acknowledgements
A certain amount of research goes into the creation of any novel, but I am particularly indebted to several people who assisted me with background information for this book.
Dr Daniel Vallera, Professor and Director of the Section of Experimental Cancer Immunology, Department of Therapeutic Radiology, at the University of Minnesota, fielded countless lengthy telephone calls on countless aspects of medical research. I deeply appreciate his good-humoured ability to explain the inexplicable in a hundred different and creative ways.
Dr L.L. Houston of CETUS Corporation in San Francisco, California, spent a patient and thorough conversation walking me through all the steps of the development of a drug, from its initial 'discovery' to its final marketing.
Inspector Michael Stephany generously provided me with information from the Orange County Narcotics Squad.
And Virginia Bergman first made me aware of the potential uses of a drug called ergotamine.
Beyond those people, I thank Julie Mayer, my finest and most devoted critic; Vivienne Schuster, Tony Mott, and Georgina Morley, who make valiant attempts to keep me true to my subject; Deborah Schneider, the most supportive literary agent I could possibly hope for; and Kate Miciak, my editor and advocate at Bantam.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
And love the offender, yet detest th' offence?
How the dear object from the crime remove,
Or how distinguish penitence from love?
ALEXANDER POPE
Part One
SOHO NIGHTS
Prologue
Tina Cogin knew how to make the most of what little she had. She liked to believe it was a natural talent.
Some floors above the rumble of night-time traffic, her naked silhouette gargoyled against the wall of her half-darkened room, and she smiled as her movements made the shadow shift, creating ever new forms of black upon white like a Rorschach test. And what a test, she thought, practising a gesture of come-hither quality. What a sight for some psycho!
Chuckling at her talent for self-deprecation, she went to the chest of drawers and affectionately appraised her collection of underwear. She pretended hesitation to prolong her enjoyment before reaching for an appealing arrangement of black silk and lace. Bra and briefs, they'd been made in France, cleverly designed with unobtrusive padding. She donned them both. Her fingers felt clumsy, largely unused to such delicate clothing.
She began to hum quietly, a throaty sound without identifiable melody. It served as a paean to the evening, to three days and nights of unrestricted freedom, to the excitement of venturing out into the streets of London without knowing precisely what would come out of the night's mild summer-time promise. She slid a long, painted fingernail under the sealed flap of a package of stockings, but when she shook them out they caught against skin that was more work-hardened than she liked to admit. The material snagged. She allowed herself a single-word curse, freed the stocking from her skin, and examined the damage, an incipient ladder high on the inner thigh. She would have to be more careful.
As she pulled on the stockings, her eyelids lowered, and she sighed with pleasure. The material slid so easily against her skin. She savoured the sensation - it felt just like a lover's caress - and heightened her own pleasure by running her hands from ankles to calves to thighs to hips. Firm, she thought, nice. And she paused to admire her shape in the cheval glass before removing a black silk petticoat from the chest of drawers.
The gown that she took from the wardrobe was black. The neck high, the sleeves long, she had purchased it solely for the manner in which it clung to her body like a midnight liquid. A belt cinched in its waist; a profusion of jet beadwork decorated its bodice. It was a Knightsbridge creation whose cost - mounting on all the other calls upon her finances - had finally precluded the indulgence of travel by taxi for the rest of the summer. But that inconvenience was no matter really. Tina knew that some things ultimately pay for themselves.
She slid her feet into black high-heeled pumps before finally switching on the lamp next to the daybed to illuminate a simple bed-sitting-room with the sole delicious luxury of a private bath. On her first trip to London all those months ago - newly married and looking for a haven of escape - she had made the mistake of taking a room in the Edgware Road where she'd shared the bath with a floor of smiling Greeks, all eager to observe the ins and outs of her personal hygiene. After that experience, sharing so much as a washbasin with another human being had been inconceivable to her, and although the additional cost of a private bath had presented something of a challenge at first she had managed to surmount it in a competent fashion.
She made a final assessment of her make-up and gave approval to eyes correctly shadowed in order to accentuate their colour and correct their shape, to brows darkened and brushed into an arch, to cheekbones shaded artfully to soften what would otherwise be a rectangular face, to lips defined by both pencil and colour to express sensuality and invite attention. She shook back her hair -as black as her dress - and fingered the wispy fringe that fell across her brow. She smiled. She wou
ld do.
With a final glance round the room, she picked up the black handbag she had tossed on the bed, checking to make sure she carried only money, her keys, and two small plastic bags which contained the drug. That done, her preparations complete, she left.
A few moments in the lift and she was out of the building, breathing in the mixed perfumes of the city night, that teeming blend of machinery and humanity peculiar to this corner of London. As always, before heading towards Praed Street, she glanced fondly at the smooth stone exterior of her own building, her eyes gliding over the words Shrewsbury Court Apartments which served as epigraph above the double front doors. They opened upon her hideaway and harbour, the only place on earth where she could be herself.
She turned away, walking towards the lights of Paddington Station where she took the Circle Line to Notting Hill Gate, and from there the Central to Tottenham Court Road with its heady miasma of exhaust fumes and its pushing crowds of a Friday night.
She made her way quickly to Soho Square. Here, the patrons of nearby peepshows were milling about, their voices ringing with every possible accent as they exchanged lewd evaluations of the titillating sights they'd had of breasts and thighs and more. They were a surging mass of prurient thrill-seekers, and Tina knew that on another night she might have considered one or more of them as possibilities for an amusing encounter of her own.
But tonight was different. Everything was in place.
In Bateman Street, a short distance from the square, she saw the sign she was looking for, swinging above a malodorous Italian restaurant. Kat's Kradle, it announced, with an arrow pointing into an unlit alleyway next door. The spelling was absurd, an attempt to be clever that Tina always found especially repellent. But she had not been the one to select the rendezvous, so she made her way to the door and descended the stairs which, like the alley in which the club was housed, were gritty and smelt of liquor and vomit and plumbing gone bad.
In nightclub hours it was early yet, so the crowd in Kat's Kradle was small, confined to a scattering of tables that surrounded a postage-stamp dance-floor. At one side of this, musicians were taking up a melancholy piece of jazz on saxophone, piano and drums while their singer leaned against a wooden stool, smoking moodily and looking largely bored as she waited for the appropriate moment to make some sort of noise into a nearby microphone.
The room was quite dark, lit by one weak, bluish spotlight on the band, candles on the tables, and a light at the bar. Tina made her way to this, slid onto a stool, ordered a gin and tonic from the barman, and admitted to herself that, for all its grime, the location was truly inspired, the best Soho had to offer for a liaison meant to go unobserved.
Drink in hand, she began to survey the crowd - a first viewing that gleaned nothing but an impression of bodies, a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke, the occasional glitter of jewellery, the flash of a lighter or a match. Conversation, laughter, the exchange of money, couples swaying on a dance-floor. And then she saw him, a young man seated alone at the table farthest from the light. She smiled at the sight.
It was so like Peter to select this sort of place where he would be safe from the mischance of being seen by his family or any of his posh friends. He ran no risk of condemnation in Kat's Kradle. He faced no fear of trouble, of being misunderstood. He had chosen well.
Tina watched him. Anticipation curled in her stomach as she waited for the moment when he would see her through the smoke and the dancers. Oblivious of her presence, however, he looked only at the door, running his fingers through close-cropped blond hair in nervous agitation. For several minutes Tina studied him with interest, seeing him order and down two drinks in rapid succession, noting how his mouth became harder as he glanced at his watch and his need expanded. From what she could see, he was dressed quite badly for the brother of an earl, wearing a tattered leather jacket, jeans, and a T-shirt bearing the faded inscription Hard Rock Cafe. A gold earring dangled from one pierced earlobe, and from time to time he reached for this as if it were a talisman. He gnawed continually at the fingers of his left hand. His right fist jumped in spasms against his hip.
He stood abruptly as a group of boisterous Germans entered the club, but he fell back into his chair when it became apparent that the person he sought was not with them. Shaking a cigarette from a pack that he removed from his jacket, he felt in his pockets but brought forth neither lighter nor matches. A moment later, he shoved back his chair, stood, and approached the bar.
Right to Mamma, Tina thought with an inward smile. Some things in life are absolutely meant to be.
By the time her companion nosed the Triumph into a parking-space in Soho Square, Sidney St James could see for herself how finely strung his nerves had become. His whole body was taut. Even his hands gripped the steering-wheel with a telling control which was inches short of snapping altogether. He was trying to hide it from her, however. Admitting need would be a step towards admitting addiction. And he wasn't addicted. Not Justin Brooke, scientist, bon vivant, director of projects, writer of proposals, recipient of awards.
'You've left the lights on,' Sidney said to him stonily. He didn't respond. 'I said the lights, Justin.'
He switched them off. Sidney sensed - rather than saw - him turn in her direction, and a moment later she felt his fingers on her cheek. She wanted to move away as they slid down her neck to trace the small swell of her breasts. But instead she felt her body's quick response to his touch, readying itself for him as if it were a creature beyond her control.
Then a slight tremor in his hand, child of anxiety, told her that his caress was spurious, an instant's placation of her feelings prior to making his nasty little purchase. She pushed him away.
'Sid.' Justin managed a respectable degree of sensual provocation, but Sidney knew that his mind and body were taken up with the ill-lit alleyway at the south end of the square. He would want to be careful to hide that from her. Even now he leaned towards her as if to demonstrate that foremost in his life at the moment was not his need for the drug but his desire to have her. She steeled herself to his touch.
His lips, then his tongue moved on her neck and shoulders. His hand cupped her breast. His thumb brushed her nipple in deliberate strokes. His voice murmured her name. He turned her to him. And as always it was like fire, like loss, like a searing abdication of all common sense. Sidney wanted his kiss. Her mouth opened to receive it.
He groaned and pressed closer to her, touching her, kissing her. She snaked her hand up his thigh to caress him in turn. And then she knew.
It was an abrupt descent to reality. She pushed herself away, glaring at him in the dim light from the street-lamps.
'That's wonderful, Justin. Or did you think I wouldn't notice?'
He looked away. Her wrath increased.
'Just go buy your bloody dope. That's why we've come, isn't it? Or was I supposed to think it was for something else?'
'You want me to go to this party, don't you?' Justin demanded.
It was an age-old attempt to shift blame and responsibility, but this time Sidney refused to play along. 'Don't you hit me with that. I can go alone.'
'Then, why don't you? Why did you phone me, Sid? Or wasn't that you on the line this afternoon, honey-tongued and hot to get yourself laid at the evening's end?'
She let his words hang there, knowing they were true. Time after time, when she swore she'd had enough of him, she went back for more, hating him, despising herself, yet returning all the same. It was as if she had no will that was not tied to his.
And, for God's sake, what was he? Not warm. Not handsome. Not easy to know. Not anything she once dreamed she'd be taking into her bed. He was merely an interesting face on which every single feature seemed to argue with all the others to dominate the bony skull beneath it. He was dark, olive skin. He was hooded eyes. He was a thin scar running along the line of his jaw. He was nothing, nothing. . . except a way of looking at her, of touching her, of making her thin boyish body sensual and beautiful and fla
ming with life.
She felt defeated. The air in the car seemed stifiingly hot.
'Sometimes I think of telling them,' she said. 'They say that's the only way to cure it, you know.'
'What the hell are you talking about?' She saw his fingers curl.
'Important people in the user's life find out. His family. His employers. So he bottoms out. Then he—'
Justin's hand flashed, caught her wrist, twisted hard. 'Don't even think of telling anyone. Don't even think of it. I swear if you did, Sid ... if you do . . .'
'Stop it. Look, you can't go on like this. What are you spending on it now? Fifty pounds a day? One hundred? More? Justin, we can't even go to a party without you—'
He dropped her wrist abruptly. 'Then, get out. Find someone else. Leave me bloody well alone.'
It was the only answer. But Sidney knew she couldn't do it and she hated the fact that she probably never would.
'I only want to help.'
'Then, shut up, all right? Let me go down that sodding alley, make the buy and get out of here.' He shoved open the door and slammed it behind him.
Sidney watched him walk halfway across the square before she opened her own door. 'Justin—'
'Stay there.' He sounded calmer, not so much because he was feeling any calmer, she knew, but because the square was peopled with Soho's usual Friday-night throng and Justin Brooke was not a man who generally cared for making public scenes.
She ignored his admonition, striding to join him, disregarding the certain knowledge that the last thing she ought to be doing was helping him get more supplies for his habit. She told herself instead that if she weren't there, sharply on the lookout, he might be arrested or duped or worse.
'I'm coming,' she said when she reached him.