A Suitable Vengeance (34 page)

“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 transportation. He would need to thumb a ride. 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 to look for any signs of them.”

His mother met them in the northwest 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 outward, 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 recognise 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 northwest 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 cooperative 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 houseguests 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 bent-wood 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 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 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 gently 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—“I’m 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.

CHAPTER

18

T
he 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.

Slate tiles from the roof lay shattered on the drive which entered the south courtyard over which his room looked. A twisted weathervane had fallen among them, no doubt blown there from the roof of one of the outbuildings that formed part of the courtyard wall. Crushed flowers created occasional mats of bright colour: purple canterbury bells, pink begonias, entire spikes of larkspur, and everywhere the petals of ruined roses. Bits of broken glass made a jewellike glitter on the cobblestones, and one small, curiously unbroken windowpane covered a puddle of water like newly formed ice. Already the gardeners and groundsmen were taking steps to repair the damage, and St. James could hear their voices from the park, drowned out by the intermittent roar of a power saw.

A sharp double rap on the door brought Cotter into the room. “Got what you need,” he said. “Bit of a surprise, that, as well.” He crossed the room and handed St. James the envelope which he’d removed from the estate office desk during his telephone conversation with Lady Helen Clyde. “It’s Dr. Trenarrow’s number.”

“Is it?” St. James placed his tea cup on the cheveret. He took the envelope and thoughtfully turned it in his hands.

“Didn’t even need to ring it, Mr. St. James,” Cotter said. “Hodge knew whose it was the moment I showed it to him. Seems ’e’s rung it enough times over the years.”

“Did you phone the number anyway, to be certain?”

“I did. It’s Dr. Trenarrow’s, all right. And ’e knows we’re coming.”

“Any word from Tommy?”

“Daze said ’e phoned from Pendeen.” Cotter shook his head. “He’s got nothing.”

St. James frowned, wondering about the efficacy of Lynley’s plan, one which stubbornly avoided the participation of either coastguard or police. He had headed out before dawn with six men from the surrounding farms to check the coastline from St. Ives to Penzance. They were operating two launches, one setting sail from Penzance harbour and the other across the peninsula at St. Ives Bay. The boats were small enough to give them fairly good visual access to the shore and fast enough to complete at least a cursory search in relatively few hours. But if that gleaned them nothing, a second search would have to be conducted by land. That would take days. And, whether Lynley liked it or not, it could not be orchestrated without the inclusion of the local police.

“I feel done in by this whole flipping weekend,” Cotter commented as he replaced St. James’ teacup on the tray that sat on the table next to the bed. “I’m that glad Deb’s gone back to London. Get ’er out o’ this mess is what I say.”

He sounded as if he hoped St. James would make a response that would encourage further conversation along these lines. St. James had no intention of doing so.

Cotter shook out St. James’ dressing gown and hung it in the wardrobe. He spent a moment straightening the neat row of his shoes. He banged a set of wooden coat hangers together and snapped the locks on the suitcase which sat on the top shelf. Then he burst out with, “What’s to become of the girl? There’s no closeness ’mong them. Not a bit an’ you know it. It’s not like with you, is it? It’s not like your family. Oh, they’re rich, bloody rich, but Deb’s not drawn to money. You know that well as I do. You know what draws the girl.”