A Suitable Vengeance

  He said the only thing he could manage. 'I remember.'

  'I judged myself’ Her fleeting smile was a fragile thing. 'Not pretty enough for you, not clever enough, not amusing, not compassionate, not loving, not desirable . .. not enough.'

  'That wasn't the truth. That isn't the truth.'

  'Most mornings I woke and despaired of the fact that I was still alive. And that became part of my loathing as well. I wasn't even enough of a person to take my own life. Worthless, I thought. Totally without value. Stupid and ugly and utterly useless.'

  Each word was more difficult to bear than the last.

  'I wanted to die. I prayed to die. But I didn't. I just went on. Which is what most people do.'

  'They do go on. They heal. They forget. I understand.' He hoped those four statements would be enough to stop her. But he saw that she was determined to carry their conversation through to an end of her own devising.

  'Tommy was my forgetting at first. When he came to visit, we laughed. We talked. The first time he made an excuse why he'd come. But not after that. And he never pushed me, Simon. He never once made demands. I didn't talk about you, but I think somehow he knew and was determined to wait until I was ready to open my heart to him. So he wrote, he phoned, he laid a real foundation. And when he took me to bed, I wanted to be there. I'd finally let you go.'

  'Deborah, please. It's all right. I understand.' He stopped looking at her. Turning his head was the only movement he seemed capable of making. He stared at the items he'd placed on the bed.

  'You'd rejected me. I was angry. I was hurt. I got over you in the end, but for some reason I believed that I had to show you how things were now. I had to make you see that, if you didn't want me, someone else did. So I put that photograph on the wall in my flat. Tommy didn't want me to. He asked me not to. But I pointed out the composition, the colour, the texture of the curtains and the blankets, the shapes of clouds in the sky. "It's just a photograph," I said. "Are you embarrassed about what it implies about us?'"

  For a moment, she said nothing more. St James thought she was finished, and he looked up to see that her hand was at her throat, her fingers pressing along her collarbone. 'What a terrible lie to tell Tommy. I just wanted to hurt you. As deeply as I could.'

  'God knows I deserved it. I hurt you as well.'

  'No. There's no excusing a need for retaliation like that. It's adolescent. Disgusting. It says things about me that make me ill. I'm so sorry. Truly.'

  It's nothing. Really. Do forget it, little bird. He couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't say anything. He couldn't bear the thought that, through his own cowardice, he had driven her to Lynley. It was more than he could suffer. He despised himself. As he watched, seeking words that he didn't know, feeling wrenched by emotions he couldn't bear to possess, she placed the photographs on the edge of the bed, pressing their corners down to keep them from curling.

  'Do you love him?'

  She had gone to the door, but she turned to answer. 'He's everything to me,' she said. 'Loyalty, devotion, affection, warmth. He's given me things—'

  'Do you love him?' The question was shaken this time. 'At least can you say that you love him, Deborah?'

  For a moment he thought she might leave without answering. But he saw Lynley's power sweep right through her body. Her chin raised, her shoulders straightened, her eyes shone with tears. He heard the answer before she gave it. 'I love him. Yes. I love him. I do.' And then she was gone.

  He lay in bed and stared at the shifting patterns of black shadow and dim light on the ceiling. The night was warm, so his bedroom window was open, the curtains were undrawn, and he could hear, occasionally, cars rumbling along Cheyne Walk just a block away, the noise of their engines amplified by the open expanse of the river. His body should have been tired - demanding sleep - but instead it ached, muscles excruciatingly tense in his neck and shoulders, hands and arms feeling strung with external nerves, chest sore and constricted as if pressed by a weight. His mind was a maelstrom in which were swirling fragments of former conversations, half-formed hazy fantasies, things needing to be said.

  He tried to think of anything other than Deborah. A fibre analysis he needed to complete, a deposition he was due to give in two weeks, a conference at which he was to present a paper, a seminar in Glasgow he had been asked to teach. He tried to be what he had been during her absence, the cool scientist meeting commitments and facing responsibilities, but instead he saw the man he really was, the coward who filled his life with denial and distraction to avoid running the risk of vulnerability.

  His entire life was a lie, founded on noble aphorisms in which he knew he did not believe. Let her go. Let her find her own way. Let her have a world of expanding horizons filled with people who could give her riches far beyond the paucity of what he had to offer. Let her find a kindred soul with whom she could share herself, one unburdened by the weaknesses that plagued his own life. But even this listing of the specious regulations that had governed his behaviour still left him safe from having to confront the final truth.

  Fear dominated him. It left him useless. Any action he chose could be the source of rejection. So he chose by not choosing, by letting time pass, by believing that conflicts, difficulties and turmoil would sort themselves out on their own in the long run. And indeed they had done so. Loss was the result.

  Too late he saw what he should have seen all along: that his life with Deborah had been a long-forming tapestry in which she had held the thread, had created the design, and had ultimately become the fabric itself. That she should leave him now was a form of dying, leaving him not death's peace of the void but an infinite hellfire of recrimination, all of it the product of his contemptible fear. That the years had passed and he had not told her how he loved her. His heart soared in her presence, but he would not say the words. Now he could only thank God that she and Lynley planned to take up a new life in Cornwall after their marriage. If she was gone from his presence, what remained of life here would at least be bearable.

  He turned his head on the pillow and looked at the glowing red numbers of the digital clock. It was ten past three. The effort to sleep was useless. He could at least admit that. He switched on the light.

  The stack of photographs still lay on the table next to the bed where he had placed them over two hours ago. In what he knew quite well was an act of deliberate avoidance - more cowardice for which he would despise himself with the dawn - he picked them up. As if this action could eradicate Deborah's words, as if the knowledge of how she had once wanted him were not tearing at his soul, he began to examine them, a study in detachment with his world in ruins.

  Without emotion, he looked at the corpse, its mutilation, its position near the sofa. He observed the debris that lay in the room: the letters and envelopes; the pens and pencils; the notebooks and folders; the scraps of paper covered with writing; the poker and fire irons tumbled to the floor; the computer - switched on - with black floppy disks spread out on the desk. And then closer to the corpse, the glint of silver - perhaps a coin - half-hidden under his thigh; the five-pound note, a small wedge torn from it, lying disregarded near his hand on the floor; above him the mantel on which he had struck his head; to the right the hearth to which he had fallen. St James flipped through the photographs again and again, looking for something he could not have identified even if he saw it. The computer, the disks, the folders, the notebooks, the money, the mantel. He thought only of Deborah.

  Giving up the game, he admitted that there would be neither sleep, nor peace, nor even the possibility of a moment's distraction. He could only make the hours till dawn slightly more livable. He reached for his crutches and swung out of bed. Throwing on his dressing gown, belting it clumsily, he headed for the door. There was brandy in the study. It would not be the first time he had sought its oblivion. He made his way down the stairs.

  The study door was partially closed, and it swung inwards noiselessly upon his touch. A soft glow - dancing between
gold and dusky rose - came from two candles that should have stood on the overmantel but had been placed side by side and lit upon the hearth. Hands clasped round her knees, Deborah sat on the ottoman and watched the candles' flames. Seeing her, St James wanted to retreat. He thought about doing so. He didn't move.

  She looked towards the door, looked away again quickly when she saw it was he. 'Couldn't sleep,' she said unnecessarily as if she thought she needed to explain her presence in his study - wearing dressing gown and slippers - after three in the morning. 'I can't think why. I ought to be exhausted. I feel exhausted. But I couldn't sleep. Too much excitement these past few days.'

  Her words were casual enough, well chosen and indifferent. But there was something hesitant in her voice. It tried and failed to ring true. Hearing this, he made his way across the room and lowered himself on to the ottoman next to her. It was the sort of gesture he'd never made before. In the past, her place had been on the ottoman, while he sat above her, in the chair or on the sofa.

  'I couldn't sleep either,' he said, laying his crutches on the floor. 'I thought I'd have a brandy.'

  'I'll get it for you.' She began to rise.

  He caught her hand, stopped her. 'No. It's all right.' And when she kept her face averted, 'Deborah.'

  'Yes?'

  The single word was calm. Her curly mass of hair hid her face from view. She made a quick movement, like a lifting of her body, and he thought it was prelude to rising and leaving. But, instead of doing so, he heard her take a choked breath and realized with a swift dawning surprise that she was struggling not to cry.

  He touched her hair, so tentatively that he knew she couldn't possibly feel that he had done so. 'What is it?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Deborah—'

  'We were friends,' she whispered. 'You and I. We were mates. I wanted that back. I thought if I talked to you tonight. . . but I just couldn't find it. It's gone. And I . . . it hurts so much to know that. If I talk to you, if I see you, I still feel torn. I don't want that feeling. I can't face it again.'

  Her voice broke. Without a thought, he encircled her shoulders with his arm. It didn't matter what he said.

  Truth or lie made no difference. He had to say something to alleviate her pain.

  'We'll survive all this, Deborah. We'll find our way back. We'll be what we were. Don't cry.' Roughly, he kissed the side of her head. She turned into his arms. He held her, stroked her hair, rocked her, said her name. And all at once felt flooded by peace. 'It doesn't matter,' he whispered. 'We'll always be mates. We'll never lose that. I promise.'

  At his words, he felt her arms slip round him. He felt the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest. He felt her heart beating, felt his own heart pounding, and accepted the fact that he had lied to her again. They would never be friends. Friendship was absolutely impossible between them when with so simple a movement -her arms slipping round him - every part of his body lit on fire for her.

  Half a dozen admonitions rang out in his head. She was Lynley's. He had hurt her quite enough already. He was betraying the oldest friendship in his life. There were boundaries between them that couldn't be crossed. His resolve was acceptance. We aren't meant to be happy. Life isn't always fair. He heard each one of them, vowed to leave the room, told himself to release her, and stayed where he was. Just to hold her, just to have her like this for one moment, just to feel her near him, just to catch the scent of her skin. It was enough. He would do nothing else . . . save touch her hair again, save brush it back from her face.

  She lifted her head to look at him. Admonitions, intentions, boundaries and resolves were shot to oblivion. Their cost was too high. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Just the moment, now, with her.

  He touched her cheek, her brow, traced the outline of her lips. She whispered his name, a single word that finally obliterated fear. He wondered how he had ever been afraid to lose himself in the love of this woman. She was himself. He saw that now. He accepted that truth. It was a form of fulfilment. He brought his mouth to hers.

  Nothing existed save being in his arms. Nothing mattered save the warmth of his mouth and the taste of his tongue. It was as if only this single moment counted, allowing her life to be defined by his kiss.

  He murmured her name, and a sure current passed between them, gathering force from the wellspring of desire. It swept away the past and took in its flow every belief, every intention, every aspect of her life but the knowledge that she wanted him. More than loyalty, more than love, more than the promise of the future, she wanted him. She told herself that this had nothing to do with the Deborah who was Tommy's, who slept in Tommy's bed, who would be Tommy's wife. This had to do only with a settling of accounts, one hour in which she would measure her worth.

  'My love,' he whispered. 'Without you—'

  She drew his mouth back to hers. She bit his lips gently and felt them curve in a smile. She wanted no words. In their place, she wanted only sensation. His mouth on her neck, describing a curve to the hollow of her throat; his hands on her breasts, teasing and caressing, dropping to her waist to the belt of her dressing gown, loosening it, pushing the gown from her shoulders, slipping the thin straps of her nightdress down the length of her arms. She stood. The nightdress slid to the floor. She felt his hand on her thigh.

  'Deborah.'

  She didn't want words. She bent to him, kissed him, felt him drawing her down to him, heard her own sigh of pleasure as his mouth found her breast.

  She began to touch him. She began to undress him.

  'I want you,' he whispered. 'Deborah. Look at me.'

  She couldn't. She saw the candles' glow, the stone surround of the fireplace, the bookshelves, the glint of a single brass lamp on his desk. But not his eyes or his face or the shape of his mouth. She accepted his kiss. She returned his caress. But she did not look at him.

  'I love you,' he whispered.

  Three years. She waited for the rush of triumph, but it didn't come. Instead, one of the candles began to gutter, spilling wax in a messy flow on to the hearth. With a hiss, the flame died. The burned wick sent up a wisp of smoke whose smell was sharp and disturbing. St James turned to the source.

  Deborah watched him do so. The single small flame of the remaining candle flickered like wings against his skin. His profile, his hair, the sharp edge of his jaw, the curve of his shoulder, the sure, quick movement of his lovely hands . . . She got to her feet. Her fingers trembled as she put on her dressing gown and fumbled uselessly with its slippery satin belt. She felt shaken to her core. No words, she thought. Anything else, but no words.

  'Deborah . . .'

  She couldn't.

  'For God's sake, Deborah, what is it? What's wrong?'

  She made herself look at him. His features were washed by a storm of emotion. He looked young and so vulnerable. He looked ready to be struck.

  'I can't,' she said. 'Simon, I just can't.'

  She turned away from him and left the room. She ran up the stairs. Tommy, she thought.

  As if his name were a prayer, an invocation that could keep her from feeling both unclean and afraid.

  Part Six

  EXPIATION

  25

  The day's fair weather had begun to change by the time Lynley touched the plane down on to the tarmac at Land's End. Heavy grey clouds were scuttling in from the southwest, and what had been a mild breeze back in London was here gathering force as a rain-laden wind. This transformation in the weather was, Lynley thought bleakly, a particularly apt metaphor for the alteration that his mood and his circumstances had undergone. For he had begun the morning with a spirit uplifted by hope, but within mere hours of his having decided that the future held the promise of peace in every corner of his life, that hope had been swiftly overshadowed by a sick apprehension which he believed he had put behind him.

  Unlike the anxiety of the past few days, this current uneasiness had nothing to do with his brother. Instead, from his meetings with Peter throughou
t the night had grown a sense of both renewal and rebirth. And, although during his lengthy visit to New Scotland Yard, the family's solicitor had depicted Peter's danger with transparent simplicity unless the death of Mick Cambrey could be unassailably pinned upon Justin Brooke, Lynley and his brother had moved from a discussion of the legal ramifications of his position to a fragile communion in which each of them took the first tentative steps towards understanding the other's past behaviour, a necessary prelude to forgiving past sins. From the hours Lynley had spent talking to his brother had come the realization that understanding and forgiveness go hand-in-hand. To call upon one is to experience the other. And if understanding and forgiveness were to be seen as virtues - strengths of character, not illustrations of personal weakness - surely it was time he accepted the fact that they could bring harmony to the single relationship in his life where harmony was most needed. He wasn't certain what he would say to her, but he knew he was ready to speak to his mother.

  This intention - a resolution which lightened his steps and lifted his shoulders - began to disintegrate upon his arrival in Chelsea. Lynley dashed up the front steps, rapped on the door, and came face to face with his most irrational fear.

  St James answered the door. He was pleasant enough with his offer of a coffee before they left, and confident enough with his presentation of his theory about Justin Brooke's culpability in Sasha Nifford's death. Under any other circumstances the information about Brooke would have filled Lynley with the surge of excitement that always came with the knowledge that he was heading towards the conclusion of a case. Under these circumstances, however, he barely heard St James' words, let alone understood how far they went to explain everything that had happened in Cornwall and London over the past five days. Instead, he noted that his friend's face was etiolated as if from an illness; he saw the deepening of the lines on his brow; he heard the tension beneath St James' exposition of motive, means and opportunity; and he felt a chill settle in every vital organ of his body. His confidence and his will - both flagships of the day - lost a quick battle with his growing dismay.