A Suitable Vengeance (20 page)

Deborah looked down the length of the drawing room and then into the alcove. “Tommy’s not with you?”

“He’s gone to bed.”

She frowned. “I thought I’d heard—”

“He was here earlier.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right.”

St. James waited for her to leave, but instead, she came into the alcove and joined him next to the desk. A lock of her hair caught against his sleeve, and he could smell the fragrance of lilies on her skin. He fixed his eyes on his notes and felt her do likewise. After a moment, she spoke.

“Are you going to get involved in this?”

He bent forward and jotted a few deliberately illegible words in the margin of the paper. A reference to notebooks on the cottage floor. The location of the call box. A question for Mrs. Swann. Anything. It didn’t matter.

“I’ll help if I can,” he answered. “Although this sort of investigating isn’t in my line at all, so I don’t know how much good I’ll do. I was just going through what Tommy and I were talking about. Nancy. Her family. The newspaper. That sort of thing.”

“By writing it down. Yes. I remember your lists. You always had dozens of them, didn’t you? Everywhere.”

“All over the lab.”

“Graphs and charts as well, I recall. I never had to feel contrite about the jumble of photographs I shed all over the house while you were in the lab, throwing darts at your own jumble in sheer frustration.”

“It was a scalpel, actually,” St. James said.

They laughed together, but it was only an instant of shared amusement from which silence grew, first on his part then on hers. In it the sound of a clock’s ticking seemed inordinately loud, as did the distant breaking of the sea.

“I’d no idea Helen’s been working with you in the lab,” Deborah said. “Dad never mentioned it in any of his letters. Isn’t that odd? Sidney told me this afternoon. She’s so good at everything, isn’t she? Even at the cottage. There I was, standing there like an idiot while Nancy fell apart and that poor baby screamed. With Helen all the time knowing just what to do.”

“Yes,” St. James replied. “She’s very helpful.”

Deborah said nothing else. He willed her to leave. He added more notations to the paper on the desk. He frowned at it, read it, pretended to study it. And then, when it could no longer be avoided, when to do so would openly declare him the craven he pretended not to be, he finally looked up.

It was the diffusion of light in the alcove that defeated him. In it, her eyes became darker and more luminescent. Her skin looked softer, her lips fuller. She was far too close to him, and he knew in an instant that his choices were plain: He could leave the room or take her into his arms. There was no middle ground. There never would be. And it was sheer delusion to believe a time might come when he would ever be safe from what he felt when he was with her. He gathered up his papers, murmured a conventional good night, and started to leave.

He was halfway across the drawing room when she spoke.

“Simon, I’ve seen that man.”

He turned, perplexed. She went on.

“That man tonight. Mick Cambrey. I’ve seen him. That’s what I’d come to tell Tommy.”

He walked back to her, placed his papers on the desk. “Where?”

“I’m not entirely sure if he
is
the same man. There’s a wedding picture of him and Nancy in their bedroom. I saw it when I took the baby up, and I’m almost certain he’s the same man I saw coming out of the flat next to mine this morning—I suppose yesterday morning now—in London. I didn’t want to say anything earlier because of Nancy.” Deborah fingered her hair. “Well, I waited to say something because the flat next to mine belongs to a woman. Tina Cogin. And she seems to be…of course, I couldn’t say for certain, but from the way she talks and dresses and makes allusions to her experiences with men…. The impression I got…”

“She’s a prostitute?”

Deborah told the story quickly: how Tina Cogin had overheard their row in London; how she had appeared with a drink for Deborah, one that she herself claimed to use after her sexual encounters with men. “But I didn’t have a chance to talk to her much because Sidney arrived and Tina left.”

“What about Cambrey?”

“It was the glass. I still had Tina’s glass and I hadn’t thought about returning it till this morning.”

She’d seen Cambrey as she approached Tina’s door, Deborah explained. He came out of the flat, and realising that she was actually in the presence of one of Tina’s “clients,” Deborah hesitated, unsure whether to give the glass over to the man and ask him to return it to Tina, whether to walk on by and pretend she didn’t notice him, whether to return to her own flat without a word. He had made the decision for her by saying good morning.

“He wasn’t embarrassed at all,” Deborah said ingenuously.

St. James reflected upon the fact that men are rarely embarrassed about their part in a sexual liaison, but he didn’t comment. “Did you talk to him?”

“I just asked him to give the glass to Tina and to tell her I was off to Cornwall. He asked should he fetch her, but I said no. I didn’t actually want to see her with him. It did seem so awkward, Simon. I wondered would he put his arm round her or kiss her goodbye? Would they shake hands?” Deborah shot him a fleeting smile. “I don’t handle that sort of thing well, do I? Anyway, he went back into the flat.”

“Was the door unlocked?”

Deborah glanced away, her expression thoughtful. “No, he had a key.”

“Had you seen him before? Or just that once?”

“Just then. And a moment later. He went into the flat and spoke to Tina.” She flushed. “I heard him say something about red-headed competition in the hallway. So he must have thought…Well, he really couldn’t have. He was probably only joking. But she must have led him to believe that I was on the game because when he came out he said that Tina wanted me to know she’d take care of my gentlemen callers while I was gone. And then he laughed. And he looked me over, Simon. At first I thought he’d taken Tina seriously, but he winked and grinned and it just seemed his way.” Deborah appeared to go back through what she had said, for her face brightened as she drew a conclusion from the facts. “Then she’s probably not a prostitute, is she? If Mick had a key to her flat…Prostitutes don’t generally give out keys, do they? I mean, s’pose one man stops by while another…” She gestured futilely.

“It would create an awkward situation.”

“So perhaps she isn’t a prostitute. Could he be keeping her, Simon? Or even hiding her? Protecting her from someone?”

“Are you sure it was Mick you saw?”

“I think it was. If I got another look at a photograph, I could be certain. But I remember his hair because it was dark auburn, just exactly the shade I always wished mine might be. I remember thinking how unfair that such a colour should be wasted on a man who probably didn’t treasure it nearly as much as I would have done.”

St. James tapped his fingers against the desk. He thought aloud. “I’m sure we can manage to get a photograph of Mick. If not the one from the cottage, then surely another. His father would probably have one.” He considered the next logical step. “Could you go to London and talk to Tina, Deborah? Good Lord, what am I thinking of? You can’t dash off to London in the middle of your weekend here.”

“Of course I can. There’s a dinner planned here for tomorrow night, but we’ve nothing after that. Tommy can fly me back Sunday morning. Or I can take the train.”

“You need only find out whether she recognises his picture. If she does, don’t tell her he’s dead. Tommy and I will see to that.” St. James folded his papers, slipped them into his jacket pocket, and continued speaking pensively. “If Mick’s linked to her sexually, she may be able to tell us something which clarifies his murder, something which Mick might have told her inadvertently. Men relax after intercourse. They feel more important. They let down their guard. They become more honest.” He suddenly became aware of the nature of his words and stopped them, shifting in another direction without looking her way. “Helen can go with you. I’ll do some questioning here. Tommy’ll want to be part of that. Then we’ll join you when…Damn! The photographs! I left the film from the cottage in your camera. If we can develop it, no doubt we’ll…I’m afraid I used it all up.”

She smiled. He knew why. He was starting to sound exactly like her.

“I’ll get it for you, shall I? It’s just in my room.”

She left him. He walked to the alcove window and looked out over the night-shrouded garden. Shapes alone defined the bushes there. Pathways were muted streaks of grey.

St. James considered the disjointed pieces of Mick Cambrey’s life and death that had emerged that night. He wondered how they fit together. Mick had been gone a great deal, Lady Asherton had said. He’d been working on a story in London. A big story. St. James thought about this and the possible connections a story might have to Tina Cogin.

One assumption was that she was Mick’s lover, a woman being kept in London for his clandestine pleasure. Yet Deborah, nobody’s fool when it came to judgement, had concluded from a first impression, a conversation, and a run-in with Mick that Tina was a prostitute. If this was the case, the resultant tie to a story was both logical and ineluctable. For Mick might be keeping the woman in London not for his pleasure but for her own protection as a source for a story that had the potential to make banner headlines and put Mick’s name in the forefront of journalism. It certainly would not be the first time if a prostitute became involved in critically important news, nor would it be the first time if heads were to roll and careers were to fall because of a prostitute. And now with Mick dead and his sitting room ransacked—perhaps in the hope of finding Tina Cogin’s address in London—no amalgamation of these details sounded outrageous.

“Simon!” Deborah flew back into the room. He swung round from the window to find her trembling, arms wrapped round herself tightly as if she were cold.

“What is it?”

“Sidney. Someone’s with Sidney. I heard a man’s voice. I heard her cry. I thought that Justin might be—”

St. James didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. He hurried from the room and rushed down the main corridor towards the northwest wing. With each step his anxiety grew, as did his anger. Every image from the afternoon manifested itself before him once again. Sidney in the water. Sidney on the sand. Brooke straddling her, punching her, tearing at her clothes. But there was no cliff to separate him from Justin Brooke now. He blessed that fact.

Only years of dealing with his sister caused St. James to pause at her door rather than throw himself into her room. Deborah came up next to him as he listened against the wood. He heard Sidney cry out, he heard Brooke’s voice, he heard Sidney’s moan. Damn and blast, he thought. He took Deborah’s arm, guiding her away from the door and down the long corridor that led to her own room in the southern corner of the house.

“Simon!” she whispered.

He didn’t reply until they were in her room with the door shut behind them. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“But, I heard her.”

“Deborah, she’s all right. Believe me.”

“But…” Sudden comprehension swept across Deborah’s face. She turned away with a gulp. “I only thought,” she said but gave up the effort and concluded with, “Why am I such a fool?”

He wanted to reply, to assuage her embarrassment, but he knew that any comment only held the promise of making things worse. Frustrated, angry at the changes in their lives that seemed to bind him to inaction, he looked aimlessly round her room as if it could formulate an answer for him. He took in the black oak panelling upon the walls, the formal Asherton armorial display in the plaster overmantel of the fireplace, the lofty barrel ceiling that soared into the darkness. An immense four-poster bed dominated the floor space, its headboard carved with grotesques that writhed their way through flowers and fruit. It was a horrible place to be alone. It felt just like a tomb.

“Sidney’s always been a bit hard to understand,” St. James settled upon saying. “Bear with her, Deborah. You couldn’t have known what that was all about. It’s all right. Really.”

To his surprise, she turned to him hotly. “It isn’t all right. It isn’t and you know it. How can she make love with him after what he did to her today? I don’t understand it. Is she mad? Is he?”

That was the question and the answer all at once. For it was a true madness, white, hot, and indecent, obliterating everything that stood in its way.

“She’s in love with him, Deborah,” he finally replied. “Aren’t people all just a little bit mad when they love?”

Her response was a stare. He could see her swallow.

“The film. Let me get it,” she said.

CHAPTER

12

T
he Anchor and Rose benefitted from having the most propitious location in all of Nanrunnel. It not only displayed from its broad bay windows a fine, unobstructed view of the harbour guaranteed to please the most discerning seeker of Cornish atmosphere, but it also sat directly across from Nanrunnel’s single bus stop and was, as a result, the first structure a thirsty visitor’s eyes fell upon when disembarking from Penzance and regions beyond.

The interior of the pub was engaged in the gentle process of deterioration. Once creamy walls had taken their place on the evolutionary path towards grey, an effect produced by exposure to generations of smoke from fireplace, cigars, pipes, and cigarettes. An elaborate mahogany bar, pitted and stained, curved from the lounge into the public bar, with a brass foot-rail heavily distressed through years of use. Similarly worn tables and chairs spread across a well-trodden floor, and the ceiling above them was so convex that architectural disaster seemed imminent.