A Suitable Vengeance

  The two men climbed the old stone steps, their feet sliding into shallow grooves which spoke of the thousands of entries and exits made during the time that the mill was in operation. Its paint long ago faded and storm-washed to nothing, the door hung partially open. Its wood was swollen from seasons of rain, so the door no longer fit neatly into position. It gave way with a shriek at Lynley's push.

  They entered, paused, took stock of what they saw. The bottom floor was nearly empty, illuminated by streaky shafts of sunlight that gained access through gaps in the shuttered windows. Against a far wall, some sacking lay in a disintegrating heap next to a stack of wooden crates. Beneath one of the windows, a stone mortar and pestle were cobwebbed over, while nearby a coil of rope hung from a peg, looking as if it hadn't been touched in half a century. A small stack of old newspapers stood in one corner of the room, and Lynley watched as St James went to inspect them.

  'The Spokesman,' he said, picking one up. 'With some notations in the text. Corrections. Deletions. A new design for the masthead.' He tossed the paper down. 'Did Mick Cambrey know about this place, Tommy?'

  'We came here as boys. I expect he hadn't forgotten it. But those papers look old. He can't have been here recently.'

  'H'm. Yes. They're from a year ago April. But someone's been here more recently than that.' St James indicated several sets of footprints on the dusty floor. They led to a wall ladder that gave access to the mill loft and the gears and shafts which drove its great grindstone. St James examined the ladder-rungs, pulled on three of them to test their safety, and began an awkward ascent.

  Lynley watched him make his slow way to the top, knowing quite well that St James would expect him to follow. He could not avoid doing so. Nor could he any longer avoid the force of reminiscence that the mill - and, more so, the loft above him - provoked. For, after ages of searching, she'd found him up there, where he had hidden from her and from the knowledge that he had come upon unexpectedly.

  Dashing up through the garden from the sea, he'd only had a glimpse of the man passing before a first-floor window, a glance that gave him the impression of height and stature, a glance in which he saw only his father's paisley dressing-gown, a glance in which he hadn't bothered to think how impossible it was that his father - so ill - would even be out of bed, let alone sauntering round his mother's bedroom. He didn't think of that, only felt instead a sunshot bolt of joy as the words cured cured cured sang out in his mind and he ran up the stairs - pounded up the stairs calling to them both - and burst into his mother's room. Or at least tried to. But the door was locked. And, as he called out, his father's nurse hurried up the stairs, carrying a tray, admonishing him, telling him he would awaken the invalid. And he got only as far as saying, 'But Father's . . .' before he understood.

  And then he called out to her in such a savage rage that she opened the door and he saw it all: Trenarrow wearing his father's dressing-gown, the covers on her bed in disarray, the clothing discarded hastily on the floor. The air was heavy with the pungent odour of intercourse. And only a dressing room and bath separated them from the room in which his father lay dying.

  He'd flung himself mindlessly at Trenarrow. But he was only a slender boy of seventeen, no match for a man of thirty-one. Trenarrow hit him once, a slap on the face with his open palm, the sort of blow one uses to calm a hysterical woman. His mother had cried, 'Roddy, no!' and it was over.

  She had found him in the mill. From the one small window in the loft, he watched her coming through the woodland, tall and elegant, just forty-one years old. And so very beautiful.

  He should have been able to maintain his poise. The eldest son of an earl, after all, he should have possessed the strength of will and the dignity to tell her that he'd have to return to school and prepare for exams. It wouldn't matter whether she believed him. The only object was to be off, at once.

  But he watched her approach and thought instead of how his father loved her, how he shouted for her - 'Daze! Darling Daze!' - whenever he walked into the house. His life had revolved round making her happy, and now he lay in his bedroom and waited for the cancer to eat away the rest of his body while she and Trenarrow kissed and clung and touched and . . .

  He broke. She climbed the ladder, calling his name. He was more than ready for her.

  'Whore,' he screamed. 'Are you crazy? Or just so itchy that anyone will do? Even someone with nothing more on his mind than sucking you a good one and laughing about it with his mates in the pub when he's done. Are you proud of that, whore? Are you fucking proud?'

  When she hit him, the blow came completely by surprise because she had stood there, immobile, and accepted his abuse. But with his last question she struck him so hard with the back of her hand that he staggered against the wall, his lip split open by her diamond ring. Her face never changed. It was blank, carved in stone.

  'You'll be sorry!' he screamed as she climbed down the ladder. 'I'll make you sorry! I'll make both of you sorry. I will!'

  And he had done so, over and over again. How he had done so. 'Tommy?'

  Lynley looked up to find St James watching him over the edge of the loft.

  'You might want to see what's up here.'

  'Yes. Of course.'

  He climbed the ladder.

  It had only taken a moment for St James to evaluate what he found in the loft. The mill shaft, its tremendous gears and its grindstone took up much of the space, but what was left gave mute evidence of the use to which the mill had been put most recently.

  In the centre of the room stood a rusting card-table and one folding chair. This latter held a discarded T-shirt, long ago metamorphosed from white to grey, while on the surface of the former an antique postage scale measured the weight of a tarnished spoon and two dirty razor blades. Next to this was an open carton of small plastic bags.

  St James watched as Lynley joined him and inspected these items, his features becoming more settled as he reached his own inescapable conclusion.

  'Mick's been here more recently than last April, Tommy,' St James said. 'And I dare say his visits had nothing to do with the Spokesman.' He touched the postage scale lightly, watched the movement of the arrow that indicated weight. 'Perhaps we have a better idea why he died.'

  Lynley shook his head. His voice was dark. 'This isn't Mick,' he said.

  13

  At half-past seven that evening, St James knocked on Deborah's bedroom door and entered to find her stepping back from the dressing table, her forehead wrinkled as she studied her appearance.

  'Well,' she said doubtfully, 'I don't know.' She touched the necklace at her throat - a double strand of pearls - and her hand fell to the neckline of her dress where she fingered the material experimentally. It appeared to be silk, and its colour was an odd combination of grey and green, like the ocean on an overcast day. Her hair and skin were a contrast to this, and the result was more striking than she appeared to realize.

  'A success,' St James said.

  She smiled at his reflection in the mirror. 'Lord, I'm nervous. I keep telling myself that it's only a small dinner party with Tommy's family and a few of their friends. I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter in the least. But then I have visions of fumbling round with all this silverware. Simon, why on earth does it always come down to silverware?'

  'The worst nightmare of a genteel society: which fork do I use when I eat the shrimp? The rest of life's problems seem inconsequential by comparison.'

  'What shall I say to these people? Tommy did tell me there'd be a dinner tonight, but at the time I didn't think much about it. If I were only like Helen, I could chat amusingly about a thousand and one different topics. I could talk to anyone. It wouldn't even matter. But I'm not like Helen. Oh, I wish I were. Just for tonight. Perhaps she can pretend to be me and I can fade into the woodwork.'

  'Hardly a plan to please Tommy.'

  'I've managed to convince myself that I'll trip on the stairs or spill a glass of wine down the front of my dress or get caugh
t on the table-cloth and pull off half the dishes when I get out of my chair. Last night I had a nightmare that my face had broken out in blisters and hives and people were saying, "This is the fiancee?" in funereal tones all round me.'

  St James laughed at that and joined her at the dressing table where he peered into the mirror and studied her face. 'Not a blister anywhere. Not a hive in sight. As to those freckles, however . . .'

  She laughed as well, such a pure sound, such a pleasure. It shot him back through time to memory. He stepped away.

  'I've managed . . .' He reached in his jacket pocket for the photograph of Mick Cambrey which he handed to her. 'If you'll have a look at him.'

  She did so, carrying the picture to the light. It was a moment before she answered.

  'It's the same man.'

  'Are you certain?'

  'Fairly. May I take this with me and show it to Tina?'

  He thought about this. Last night it had seemed an innocent plan to have Deborah verify Mick Cambrey's presence in London through the simple expedient of having Tina Cogin identify his photograph. But after today's conversation with Harry Cambrey, after seeing the cryptographic paper from the Talisman Cafe, after considering the potential motives behind the crime and how Tina Cogin fitted into any or all of them, he was not so sure about the role Deborah could play - or any role he wanted her to play - in investigating the crime and contacting those most closely caught up in it. Deborah seemed to sense his hesitation and presented him with a fait accompli.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Tommy about it,' she said. 'To Helen as well. We thought we'd take the train up in the morning - Helen and I - and go directly to the flat. So we should know something more about Mick Cambrey by the afternoon. Surely that shall be of help.'

  He couldn't deny this, and she seemed to read agreement in his face. She said, 'Right. Good,' and put the photograph in the drawer of the bedside table with a that's that movement. As she did so, the bedroom door opened and Sidney wandered in, reaching with one hand over her shoulder to fiddle with the zip on her dress while with the other she aimlessly attempted to rearrange her tousled hair.

  'These blasted Howenstow maids,' she was muttering. 'They flutter through my room - God knows they mean well - and I can't find a thing. Simon, will you . . . ? Good Lord, you look wonderful in that suit. Is it new? Here. I can't seem to manage this blasted thing on my own.' She presented her back to her brother and, as he finished what she had begun with the zip, she looked at Deborah. 'And you look stunning, Deb. Simon, doesn't she look stunning? Oh, never mind. Why on earth would I ask you when the only thing you've found stunning in years is a patch of blood through a microscope? Or perhaps a bit of skin from beneath the fingernail of a corpse.' She laughed, turned, and patted her brother's cheek before going to the dressing table where she studied herself in the mirror and picked up a bottle of Deborah's perfume.

  'So the maids have straightened everything up' - she continued with her original thought - 'and, of course, I can't find a thing. My perfume is utterly gone -may I borrow a splash of yours, Deb? - and just try to find my shoes! Why, I almost had to borrow a pair from Helen until I found them tucked in the very back of my wardrobe as if I'd no intention in the world of ever wearing them again.'

  'An odd place for shoes,' St James pointed out sardonically. 'In the wardrobe.'

  'He's laughing at me, Deborah,' Sidney said. 'But, if he didn't have your father keeping him together, there's no doubt in my mind what the result would be. Chaos. Complete. Utter. Infinite.' She bent and brought her face closer to the glass. 'The swelling's gone, thank God, although the scratches are stunning. Not to mention the bruise beneath my eye. I look just like a street brawler. D'you think anyone will mention it? Or shall we all just concentrate on keeping our upper lips stiff and our manners impeccable? You know the sort of thing. Eyes forward and no groping at anyone's thighs beneath the tablecloth.'

  'Groping at thighs?' Deborah asked. 'Simon, you never told me. And I've been worrying about the silver!'

  'The silver?' Sidney looked round from the mirror. 'Oh, you mean all the forks and knives? Pooh. Unless people start throwing them, don't give it a thought.' Unbidden, she fluffed up Deborah's hair, stepped back, frowned, played with it again. 'Where's Justin, d'you know? I've not seen him for ages today. He's probably worried I shall bite him again. I can't think why he reacted the way he did yesterday. I've bitten him before, although, now I think, the circumstances were a bit different.' She laughed light-heartedly. 'Well, if the two of us get into another row tonight, let's hope it's at the dinner-table. With all those knives and forks, we'll have plenty of weapons.'

  Lynley found Peter in the smoking room on the ground floor of the house. Cigarette in hand, he was standing by the fireplace, his attention fixed upon a red fox that was mounted in a glass case above it. A compassionate taxidermist had thoughtfully poised the animal in the act of flight, just inches from a burrow that would have saved him. Other vulpine trophies had not been so fortunately enshrined, however. Their heads hung from plaques fastened intermittently between photographs on the room's panelled walls. Since the only light came from an arabesque brass chandelier, these latter foxes cast long shadows, accusatory wedges of darkness like reverse spotlights that emphasized a devotion to blood sports which no-one in the family had actually felt since before the First World War.

  Seeing his brother's reflection in the glass case, Peter spoke without turning around. 'Why do you suppose no-one's ever taken this awful thing down from the mantel?'

  'I think it was Grandfather's first successful hunt.'

  'Why blood him when you can give him the poor creature as a prize?'

  'That sort of thing.'

  Lynley noted that his brother had removed the swastika from his ear, replacing it with a single gold stud. He wore grey trousers, a white shirt, a loosely knotted tie - and although the clothes were overlarge, at least they were clean. And he had put on shoes, if not socks. This seemed cause enough for fleeting gratification, and Lynley briefly considered the value and the wisdom of confronting his brother - as he knew he had to be confronted eventually - at a moment when Peter's appearance suggested concession, compromise, and the promise of change.

  Peter tossed his cigarette into the fireplace and opened the drinks cabinet that was a hidden feature of the mantel beneath the fox.

  'This was one of my little adolescent secrets,' he chuckled as he poured himself a tumbler of whisky. 'Jasper showed it to me when I turned seventeen.'

  'He showed me as well. A rite of passage, I suppose.'

  'D'you think Mother knew?' 'I imagine so.'

  'What a disappointment. To think one's clever and to find out just the opposite.' He turned from the fireplace for the first time and held his glass up in a rakish salute. 'The best, Tommy. Weren't you lucky to have found her.'

  At that, Lynley noticed his brother's eyes. They were unnaturally bright. He felt a twinge of apprehension. Stifling it, he merely said thank you, and watched as Peter wandered to the desk that abutted the wide bay window. There, he began to play with the items arranged on the leather-edged blotter, spinning the letter opener on its ivory handle, lifting the top of an empty silver inkstand, joggling a rack of cherrywood pipes. Still sipping his whisky, he picked up a photograph of their grandparents and yawned as he idly studied their faces.

  Seeing this and knowing it for what it was - an attempt to construct a barrier of indifference - Lynley realized there was no point in temporizing. 'I'd like to ask you about the mill.'

  Peter replaced the photograph and picked at a worn spot on the back of the armchair that sat before the desk. 'What about the mill?'

  'You've been using it, haven't you?'

  'I haven't been there in ages. I've been by it, of course, to get down to the cove. But I've not been inside. Why?'

  'You know the answer to that.'

  Peter's face remained blank as Lynley spoke, but a muscle spasm pulled at the corner of his mouth. He made his way to a row
of university photographs that decorated one of the walls. He began gliding from one to the next as if he were seeing them for the very first time.

  'Every Lynley for one hundred years,' he remarked, 'crewing at Oxford. What a black sheep I've been.' He came to a blank spot on the wall and touched the palm of his hand to the panel. 'Even Father had his day, didn't he, Tommy? But of course we can't have his picture here. It wouldn't do if Father were able to look down from the walls and observe our wicked ways.'

  Lynley refused to allow the honeyed words to provoke him. 'I'd like to talk about the mill.'

  Peter threw back the rest of his whisky, put his glass on a lowboy, and continued his perusal. He stopped before the most recent photograph and flicked his index finger against his brother's picture. His nail snapped sharply upon the glass like a slap in miniature.

  'Even you, Tommy. You've fitted the mould. A Lynley to be proud of. You're a regular swell.'

  Lynley felt his chest tighten. 'I've no control over the kind of life you've chosen to lead in London,' he said, hoping to sound reasonable and knowing how poor a job he made of it. 'You've chucked Oxford? Fine. You've your own digs? Fine. You've taken up with this . . . with Sasha? Fine. But not here, Peter. I won't have this business at Howenstow. Is that clear?'

  Peter turned from the wall, cocking his head slightly. 'You won't have it? You drop into our lives once or twice a year to announce what you will and won't have, is that it? And this is just one of those momentous occasions.'

  'How often I'm here makes no difference to anything. I'm responsible for Howenstow, for every person in the grounds. And I've no intention of putting up with the sort of filth—'

  'Oh, I see. Some local drug action's going on at the mill, and you've placed me at the centre in your best DI fashion. Well. Nice job. Have you dusted for prints? Found a lock of my hair? Did I leave behind spittle for you to analyse?' Peter shook his head in eloquent disgust. 'You're a fool. If I want to use, I sure as hell won't go all the way down to the mill. I've nothing to hide. From you or from anyone.'