A Suitable Vengeance

  '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.'

  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, sheered 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 on to 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 packet 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.'

  Mark raised a brow, winced, touched the plaster there. 'He saw me,' he replied, and with a cautious look at Lynley added, 'Maybe he forgot.'

  Following the Austin, the Rover crawled along the narrow lane. Aside from their vehicles' lights and the occasional glimmer from a cottage or a farmhouse window, the darkness was complete, and the gloom in conjunction with the storm made the going slow. Water filmed the road. Hedgerows bent perilously towards the car. Their headlamps glared upon the torrential rain. Stopping twice to clear the road of debris, they took fifty minutes to make what should have been a quarter of an hour's drive.

  Outside Treen they jolted over the uneven track to Cribba Head, pulling the cars to a halt some twenty yards from the path that led down to Penberth Cove. From the rear seat, Mark Penellin handed Lynley a fisherman's oilskin which he pulled on over his worn grey guernsey.

  'You'd best wait here, St James.' Even in the closed confines of the car, Lynley had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind and the roar of surf which pounded the shore below them. The Rover rocked ominously like a lightweight toy. 'It's a rough walk.'

  ‘I’ll come as far as I can.'

  Lynley nodded, shoving open his door. The three of them climbed out into the storm. St James found that he had to use the entire weight of his body to shut his own door once Mark Penellin hopped out.

  'Jesus!' The boy shouted. 'Some blow, this.' He joined Lynley in pulling ropes, life-jackets, and life-rings out of the car's boot.

  Ahead of them, the fisherman had left his headlamps burning, and they illuminated the distance to the cliff. Sheets of rain drove through the arc of light, angled by the bellowing wind. The fisherman began to trudge through weeds which clung to his trousers. He carried a coil of rope.

  'She be down in the cove,' he shouted over his shoulder as they approached. 'Some fifty yard from shore. Bow to stern, northeast on the rocks. Most o' the mast and yards 's gone, I fear.'

  Bent into the wind which was not only fierce but also icy cold, as if it took its inspiration from an Arctic storm, they struggled towards the cliffs edge. There, made slick and dangerous by water, a narrow path led steeply down to Penberth Cove where lights glimmered from small granite cottages at the water's edge. Torches bobbed and glittered near the surf where locals brave enough to contend with the storm were watching the broken sloop disintegrate. There was no way they could get to the boat. Even if a small skiff could have managed the surf, the reef that was destroying the Daze would have done as much for any other vessel. Beyond that, storm-driven waves impeded them, crashing upon a natural spur of granite, sending plumes of spray towering into the air.

  'I can't manage it, Tommy,' St James shouted when he saw the path. ‘I’ll have to wait here.'

  Lynley lifted a hand, nodded, and began the descent. The others followed, picking their way among the boulders, finding handholds and footholds in outcroppings of rock. St James watched them disappear into a patch of heavy shadow before he turned, fighting the wind and the rain to get back to the car. He felt weighted down by the mud on his shoes and the snarl of weeds that tangled in the heel-piece of his brace. When he reached the Rover, he was out of breath. He pulled open the door and threw himself inside.

  Out of the storm, he stripped off his Hl-fitting oilskin and sodden guernsey. He shook the rain out of his hair. He shivered in the cold, wished for dry clothes, and thought about what the fisherman had said. At first it seemed to St James that he hadn't heard him correctly. Northeast bow to stern on the rocks. There had to be a mistake. Except that a Cornish fisherman would know his directions, and the brief glimpse St James had had of the sloop acted as confirmation of the fact. So there was no mistake. That being the case, either the boat wasn't the Daze at all, or they needed to take a new look at their theories.

  It was nearly thirty minutes before Lynley returned with Mark at his heels, the fisherman a short distance behind them. Hunched against the rain, they stood at the Austin talking for a moment, the fisherman gesturing with hands and arms. Lynley nodded once, squinted towards the southwest, and with a final shouted comment he tramped through the mud and weeds to the Rover. Mark Penellin followed. They stowed their gear in the boot once again and fell rather than climbed inside the car. They were soaking.

  'She's destroyed.' Lynley was gasping like a runner. 'Another hour and there'll be nothing left.' 'It's the Daze?' 'Without a doubt.'

  Ahead of them, the Austin roared. It reversed, made the turn, and left them on the cliff-top. Lynley stared into the darkness which the Austin left behind. Rain pelted the windscreen.

  'Could they tell you anything?'

  'Little enough. They saw the boat coming in towards dusk. Apparently the fool was attempting to run through the rocks into the cove to be winched out of high water, as the other boats are.'

  'Someone saw it hit?'

  'Five men were working round the capstan winch on the slip. When they saw what was happening, they gathered a crew and went to see what could be done. They're fishing people, after all. They'd be unlikely to let anyone run aground without trying to help in some way. But when they finally got a clear sight of the boat no-one was on deck.'

  'How is that possible?' St James regretted the impulsive question the moment he asked it. There were two explanations, and he saw them himse
lf before Lynley and Mark put them into words.

  'People get swept overboard in this kind of weather,' Mark said. 'If you're not careful, if you don't wear a safety line, if you don't know what you're doing—'

  'Peter knows what he's doing,' Lynley interrupted.

  'People panic, Tommy,' St James said.

  Lynley didn't respond at once, as if he were evaluating this idea. He looked across St James to the passenger's window in the direction of the sodden path that led to the cove. Water from his hair trickled crookedly down his brow. He wiped it away. 'He could have gone below. He could still be below. They both could be there.'

  This wasn't an immediately untenable assumption, St James thought, and it fitted rather nicely with the position in which the Daze had gone aground. If Peter had been using when he'd made the decision to take the boat out in the first place - as was clearly indicated by the fact that he had done so in the face of a coming storm - his reasoning would have been clouded by the drug. Indeed, the effects of cocaine would probably have prompted him to see himself as invincible, superior to the elements, in full command. The storm itself would have been not so much a clear and present danger as a source of excitement, the ultimate high.

  On the other hand, taking the boat might have been a final act of desperation. If Peter needed to run away in order to avoid answering questions about Mick Cambrey and Justin Brooke, he may have decided the sea was his best means of escape. On land, he would have been noticed by someone. He had no transport. He would need to thumb a lift. And, with Sasha with him, whoever picked them up would be quite likely to remember them both when, and if, the police came calling. Peter was wise enough to know that.

  Yet everything about the position and the destruction of the boat suggested something other than flight.

  Lynley switched on the ignition. The car rumbled to life.

  'I'll get up a party tomorrow,' he said. 'We're going to have a look for any signs of them.'

  His mother met them in the north-west corridor where they were hanging their dripping oilskins and guernseys on the wall pegs. She didn't speak at first. Rather, she held one hand, palm outwards, between her breasts, as if in some way this would allow her to ward off a coming blow. With the other hand, she clasped a wrap she'd thrown on, a paisley stole of red and black that did battle with her colouring and the shade of her dress. She appeared to be using it more for security than for warmth, for the material was thin and perhaps with the cold or with trepidation her body quivered beneath it. She was very pale, and Lynley thought that for the first time in his recollection his mother looked every one of her fifty-six years.

  ‘I’ve coffee for you in the day room,' she said.

  Lynley saw St James look from him to his mother. He knew his friend well enough to recognize his decision. It was time he told his mother the worst about Peter. He had to prepare her for whatever she would have to face in the coming days. And he couldn't do that with St James present, no matter how he longed to have his friend at his side.

  ‘I’d like to check on Sidney,' St James said. ‘I’ll be down later.'

  The north-west staircase was nearby, round the corner from the gun room, and St James disappeared in that direction. Alone with his mother, Lynley didn't know what to say. Like a co-operative guest, he settled on a polite: 'I could do with a coffee. Thank you.'

  His mother led the way. He noticed how she walked, her head upright, her shoulders back. He read the underlying meaning beneath her posture. Should someone see her - Hodge, the cook, or one of the dailies - she would give them no sign of any personal turmoil. Her estate manager had been arrested for murder; one of her house guests had died in the night; her youngest child was missing and her middle child was a man with whom she hadn't spoken intimately in more than fifteen years. But, if any of this bothered her, no-one would see it. If gossip flourished behind the green baize door, its subject would not be the myriad ways in which God's punishment had fallen upon the dowager Countess of Asherton at last.

  They walked along the corridor that ran the length of the body of the house. At its eastern end, the day-room door was closed, and when Lady Asherton opened it the room's sole occupant got to his feet, crushing out his cigarette in an ashtray.

  'Have you found anything?' Roderick Trenarrow asked.

  Lynley hesitated in the doorway. He was all at once aware of the fact that his clothes were wet. Great oblongs of damp caused the wool of his trousers to adhere scratchily to his legs. His shirt clung to both his chest and his shoulders, and its collar pressed damply to the back of his neck. Even his socks were soaked, for although he'd worn gumboots down to Penberth Cove he'd removed them in the car and he'd stepped directly into a substantial puddle of rainwater when he'd parked in the courtyard upon their return.

  So he wanted to leave. He wanted to change his clothes. But instead he forced himself forward and went to the bentwood cart next to his mother's desk. A coffee pot sat on it.

  'Tommy?' his mother said. She had sat upon the least comfortable chair in the room.

  Lynley took his cup of coffee to the sofa. Trenarrow remained where he was by the fireplace. A coal fire burned there, but its warmth did not cut through the clammy weight of Lynley's clothes. He glanced at Trenarrow, nodding in acknowledgement of the question he'd asked, but saying nothing. He wanted the other man to depart. He couldn't imagine having a conversation about Peter in front of him. Yet he knew that any request on his part for some privacy with his mother would be misinterpreted by both of them. Clearly, as on the previous evening, Trenarrow was there at her behest. This was no social call which he had designed to lead to seduction, and the concern on Trenarrow's face, when he looked at Lady Asherton, gave evidence of that.

  It appeared that he would have no choice in the matter. He rubbed his forehead, brushed back his damp hair. 'No-one was with the boat,' he said. 'At least, we couldn't see anyone. They might have been below.'

  'Has anyone been called?'

  'The lifeboat, you mean?' He shook his head. 'She's breaking up too fast. By the time they got there, she'd be gone.'

  'Do you think he was swept overboard?'

  They were speaking of her child, but they might have been discussing the replanting of the garden that would have to be done after the storm. He marvelled at her calm. She maintained it only until he replied, however.

  'There's no way of knowing. Whether he was below with Sasha. Whether they were both swept overboard. We won't know anything until we find the bodies. And even then, if they've sustained enough damage, we might only be left with inferences and not a lot more.'

  At that, she lowered her head and covered her eyes. Lynley waited for Trenarrow to cross the room to her. He could feel the other man's need to do so. It was like a current that snapped in the air. But he made no move.

  'Don't torture yourself,' Trenarrow said. 'We don't know a thing. We don't even know yet if it was Peter who took the boat. Dorothy, please. Listen to me.'

  Lynley remembered with a pain that rushed and receded. Trenarrow had always been the only person who used his mother's real name.

  'You know he took the boat,' she said. 'We all know why. But I've ignored every sign, haven't I? He's been in clinics having treatment. Four clinics now and I wanted to believe that he was over it. But he's not. I knew that the moment I saw him on Friday morning. But I couldn't bear to face another round of addiction, so I simply ignored it. I've actually begun praying that he'll find his way on his own because I don't know how to help him any longer. I've never known. Oh, Roddy . . .'

  If she hadn't said his name, Trenarrow probably would have maintained his distance. But, as it was, he went to her, touched her face, her hair, said her name again. Her arms went round him.

  Lynley looked away. His muscles ached. His bones felt leaden.

  'I don't understand it,' Lady Asherton was saying. 'No matter what he intended by taking the boat, he would have seen what the weather was like. He would have known the danger. He can't have been as
desperate as that.' And then, gendy pushing herself away from Trenarrow, 'Tommy?'

  'I don't know,' Lynley said. He kept his tone guarded.

  His mother got to her feet, came to the sofa. 'There's something else, isn't there? Something you've not told me. No, Roddy' - this as Trenarrow made a move towards her

  - Tm all right. Tell me what it is, Tommy. Tell me what you've not wanted me to know. You argued with him last night. I heard you. You know that. But there's more, isn't there? Tell me.'

  Lynley looked up at her. Her face had become remarkably calm again, as if she had managed to find and draw upon a new source of strength. He dropped his eyes to the coffee cup that warmed the palm of his hand.

  'Peter was at Mick Cambrey's cottage after John Penellin's visit on Friday night. Later, Mick died. Justin told me about that after John's arrest last night. And then'

  - he looked back at her - 'Justin died.'

  Her lips parted as he spoke, but otherwise her expression remained impassive. 'You can't think your own brother—'

  'I don't know what to think.' His throat felt raw. 'For God's sake, tell me what to think, if you will. Mick's dead. Justin's dead. Peter's disappeared. So what would you have me think of it all?'

  Trenarrow took a step as if with the intention of deflecting the strength of Lynley's words. But, as he moved, Lady Asherton did likewise. She joined her son on the sofa, put her arm round his shoulders. She pressed her cheek against his and brushed her lips against his damp hair.

  'Dearest Tommy,' she murmured. 'My dear, my dear. Why on earth do you believe you must bear it all?'

  It was the first time she had touched him in more than a decade.

  18

  The morning sky, a cerulean arc under which a froth of cumulus clouds drifted inland, acted as a contradiction to the previous day's storm. As did the seabirds, who once again filled the air with their raw, importunate cries. The ground below them, however, was a testament to foul weather, and from his bedroom window, a cup of tea in his hand, St James surveyed the consequences of those hours of rain and bluster.