A Suitable Vengeance (15 page)

He chuckled and traced the bridge of Sasha’s nose. He ran his fingers across her mouth. Catlike, she licked them.

Wonderful, St. James thought. It’s only Friday.

Nanrunnel was a successful combination of two disparate environments: a centuries-old fishing village and a modern tourist haunt. Built in a semicircular fashion round a natural harbour, its structures twisted up a hillside dotted with cedar, cypress, and pine, their exteriors hewn from rocks quarried in the district, some whitewashed and others left a natural, weather-streaked mixture of grey and brown. Streets were narrow—wide enough to allow only the passage of a single car—and they followed a strangely convoluted pattern which met the demands of the hills rather than the requirements of automobiles.

Fishing boats filled the harbour itself, bobbing rhythmically on the incoming tide and protected by two long crescent-shaped quays. Curiously shaped buildings perched on the harbour’s edge—cottages, shops, inns, and restaurants—and an uneven, cobbled walkway running along the embankment gave their inhabitants access to the water below. Above, hundreds of seabirds cried from chimneys and slate roofs while hundreds more took to the air, circled the harbour, and flew from there into the bay where, in the distance, St. Michael’s Mount rose in the failing evening light.

A considerable crowd had gathered at the primary school grounds on the lower part of Paul Lane. There, a humble open-air theatre had been created by the Reverend Mr. Sweeney and his wife. It consisted of only three elements. A sturdily crafted platform served as stage. Accommodation for the audience comprised folding wooden chairs of prewar vintage. And at the far side of the grounds, next to the street, a refreshment booth was already doing a respectable business with libations supplied by the village’s largest pub, the Anchor and Rose. Nancy Cambrey, Lynley saw, was working the taps.

The rector himself met Lynley’s party at the entrance to the school grounds, his portly face beaming with a rapturous smile of welcome. He wore a heavy layer of theatrical makeup through which he was perspiring heavily. In costume already, he was an incongruous sight in doublet and stockings, his bald head aglow under the strands of lights which crisscrossed the school yard.

“I shall wear a wig for Benedick, of course,” Mr. Sweeney mocked himself gently. He greeted St. James and Lady Helen with the fondness of an old friend and then presented himself eagerly to be introduced to Deborah, a social nicety which he brushed aside almost as soon as he adopted it by bursting out with, “My dear, we are so
pleased
to have you here tonight. Both of you. It’s grand,” before Lynley could say a word. He might well have gone on to bow with a flourish had not the precarious position of his codpiece precluded any sudden movement. “We’ve put you right in front so you won’t miss a thing. Come, it’s just this way.”

Missing a thing, missing several things, missing the entire play would have been too much blessing to hope for since the Nanrunnel Players had long been known for the stentorian nature of their performances rather than for their histrionic flare. However, led by Mr. Sweeney—with his wife as a short, plump Beatrice who managed to display a remarkably heaving bosom during speeches far more impassioned than required by the role—the drama proceeded with fiery enthusiasm to the interval. At this point, the audience rose to its feet as one and headed towards the refreshment booth to make the most of a respite filled with lager and ale.

The sole advantage to being the guests of honour showed itself in the quick progress Lynley and his party made to the booth. The crowd, which moments before had been surging forward towards the blessed salvation of Watney’s and Bass, parted in a cooperative fashion, giving Lynley and the others quick access to relief.

The only other person to take advantage of this break in the mass of pushing and shoving humanity was a tall, middleaged man who had managed to reach the refreshment booth first. He turned with a tray of glasses in his hands and presented it to Lynley.

“Have these, Tommy,” he said.

Incredulously, Lynley stared at Roderick Trenarrow and at the tray of glasses he held. His intention was both unmistakable and unavoidable, a public meeting, a display of good cheer. As always, Trenarrow had chosen his moment like a master.

“Roderick,” Lynley said. “How very good of you.”

Trenarrow smiled. “I have the advantage of a seat near the booth.”

“Strange. I hardly thought Shakespeare would be in your line.”

“Other than
Hamlet
, you mean?” Trenarrow asked pleasantly. He directed his attention to Lynley’s party, clearly expecting to be introduced. Lynley did so, mustering the good grace to appear unaffected by this unexpected encounter.

Trenarrow pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles up the bridge of his nose and directed his words to Lynley’s friends. “I’m afraid Mrs. Sweeney caught me on the bus from Penzance, and before I knew it, I’d purchased a ticket to tonight’s performance and sworn I’d attend. But there’s mercy involved. Since I’m near the drinks booth, if the production gets any more appalling, I can swozzle down six or seven more lagers and pickle myself properly.”

“Our very thought,” Lady Helen said.

“One gets more experienced with the Nanrunnel productions every summer,” Trenarrow went on. “I expect the rest of the audience will try sitting with me at the back next year. Eventually no one will be willing to fill up the front seats and Mrs. Sweeney will be forced to put on her play from inside the refreshment booth just to hold our attention.”

The others laughed. Lynley did not. Instead he found himself annoyed at their willingness to succumb to Trenarrow, and he scrutinised the other man, as if an analysis of his physical properties would somehow reveal the source of his charm. As always, Lynley noticed not the whole but the details. Rich brown hair finally showing the signs of his age, weaving fine strands of silver back from his brow; a linen suit that was old but well-tailored, spotlessly clean and fitted to his figure; a jawline sharp and hard, carrying no spare flesh in spite of the fact that he was nearing fifty; warm laughter bursting out of him unrestrained; the webbing of flesh at his eyes; and the eyes themselves which were dark and quick to assess and understand.

Lynley catalogued all this with no system for observation, just a series of fleeting impressions. There was no way to avoid them, not with Trenarrow so close, standing—as he always had—so much larger than life.

“I see Nancy Cambrey’s gone to work at the Anchor and Rose in addition to her other jobs,” Lynley said to Trenarrow.

The other man looked over his shoulder to the refreshment booth. “It looks that way. I’m surprised she’d take it on with the baby and all. It can’t be easy for her.”

“It’ll do something to ease their money troubles, though, won’t it?” Lynley took a gulp of his lager. It was too warm for his liking and he would have preferred to dump it out onto the base of a convenient palm nearby. But Trenarrow would have read animosity in that action, so he continued sipping the drink. “Look, Roderick,” he said brusquely, “I’m going to make good whatever money they owe you.”

Both the statement and his manner of saying it put an end to conversation among the others. Lynley became aware of Lady Helen’s hand coming to rest on St. James’ arm, of Deborah’s uneasy stirring at his own side, of Trenarrow’s look of perplexity as if he hadn’t an idea in the world what Lynley was referring to.

“Make good the money?” Trenarrow repeated.

“I’m not about to let Nancy go begging. They can’t afford a rise in rent at the moment and—”

“Rent?”

Lynley found his gentle repetitions aggravating. Trenarrow was manoeuvring him into the bully’s role. “She’s afraid of losing Gull Cottage. I told her I’d make good the money. Now I’m telling you.”

“The cottage. I see.” Trenarrow lifted his drink slowly and observed Lynley over the rim of the glass. He gazed reflectively at the drinks booth. “Nancy doesn’t need to worry about the cottage. Mick and I shall work it out. She needn’t have bothered you for the money.”

How absolutely like the man, Lynley thought. How insufferably noble he was. How far-sighted as well. He knew what he was doing. The entire conversation was the sort of parry and thrust that they had engaged in innumerable times over the years, filled with double-edged words and hidden meanings.

“I said I’d take care of it and I will.” Lynley attempted to alter the tone if not the intention behind his words. “There’s absolutely no need for you to—”

“Suffer?” Trenarrow regarded Lynley evenly for a moment before he offered a cool smile. He finished the rest of his drink. “How very kind of you. If you’ll excuse me now, I seem to have been dominating your time long enough. There appear to be others here who’d like to be introduced.” He nodded and left them.

Lynley watched him go, recognising as always Trenarrow’s skill at seizing the moment. He’d done it again, leaving Lynley feeling like nothing more than a rough-edged lout. He was seventeen again. Over and over in Trenarrow’s presence, he would always be seventeen.

Lady Helen’s animated words filled the void created by Trenarrow’s departure. “Good heavens, what a gorgeous man he is, Tommy. Did you say he’s a doctor? Every woman in the village must line up at his surgery on a daily basis.”

“He’s not that kind of doctor,” Lynley replied automatically. He poured out the rest of his lager along the trunk of a palm and watched the liquid pool onto the dry, unyielding earth. “He does medical research in Penzance.”

Which is why he’d come to Howenstow in the first place, a man only thirty years old, called upon as an act of desperation to see to the dying earl. It was hopeless. He’d explained in that earnest fashion of his that there was nothing more to be done besides adhering to the current chemotherapy. There was no cure in spite of what they read and wanted to believe in the tabloids, he said there were dozens of different kinds of cancer, it was a catch-all term. The body was dying of its own inability to call a halt to the production of cells, and scientists didn’t know enough, that they were working and striving but it would be years, decades…He spoke with quiet apologies. With profound understanding and compassion.

And so the earl had lingered and dwindled and suffered and died. The family had mourned him. The region had mourned him. Everyone save Roderick Trenarrow.

CHAPTER

9

N
ancy Cambrey packed the last of the pint glasses into a carton for the short trip down the hill to the Anchor and Rose. She was extremely weary. In order to be at the school in time to do the setting up that evening, she’d gone without her dinner, so she was feeling light-headed as well. She crisscrossed the carton flaps and secured the package, relieved that the evening’s labour was done.

Nearby, her employer—the formidable Mrs. Swann—fingered through the night’s taking with her usual passion for things pecuniary. Her lips moved soundlessly as she counted the coins and notes, jotting figures into her dog-eared red ledger. She nodded in satisfaction. The booth had done well.

“I’m off then,” Nancy said with some hesitation. She never knew exactly what kind of reaction to expect from Mrs. Swann, who was notorious for her mood swings. No barmaid had ever lasted more than seven months in her employ. Nancy was determined to be the first. Money’s the point, she whispered inwardly whenever she found herself on the receiving end of one of Mrs. Swann’s violent outbursts. You can bear anything, so long as you’re paid.

“Fine, Nance,” Mrs. Swann muttered with a wave of her hand. “Off with you, then.”

“Sorry about the call box.”

The woman snorted and poked at her scalp with the stub of a pencil. “From now on, phone your dad on your own time, girl. Not on the pub’s time. And not on mine.”

“Yes. I will. I’ll remember.” Placation was paramount. Nancy held tightly to the booth in order to manage unruffling Mrs. Swann’s feathers while betraying nothing of the aversion she actually felt for her employer. “I learn quick, Mrs. Swann. You’ll see. People never do have to tell me anything twice.”

Mrs. Swann looked up sharply. Her rat’s eyes glittered in evaluation. “Learning things quick enough from that man of yours, girl? All sorts of new things, I expect. That right?”

Nancy rubbed at a smudge on her faded pink blouse. “I’m off,” she said in answer and ducked under the booth.

Although the lights were still on, the yard was empty of everyone save Lynley’s party and the Nanrunnel Players. Nancy watched them at the front of the theatre. While St. James and Lady Helen waited among the empty seats, Lynley posed with the cast as his fiancée took their pictures. Each flash lit one delighted face after another, catching their antic posturing on film. Lynley bore it all with his usual good grace, chatting away with the rector and his wife, laughing at cheerful remarks made by Lady Helen Clyde.

Life comes so easily to him, Nancy thought.

“It’s no different, my dear, being one of them. It only looks that way.”

Nancy started at the words, at their stabbing acuity. She whirled to see Dr. Trenarrow sitting in the shadows, against a wall of the school yard.

Nancy had avoided him for the entire evening, always keeping out of his reach or his line of vision when he came to the booth for a drink. Now, however, she could not avoid the contact, for he got to his feet and walked into the light.