A Suitable Vengeance (58 page)

She wore a blue satin nightdress that she didn’t recognise. A matching dressing gown lay at the foot of the bed. She pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Tommy?”

“You’re awake.” He went to the windows and pushed the curtains back a bit so that the room had more light. The casements were already open a few inches, but he opened them further so that the crying of the gulls and cormorants made a background of sound.

“What time is it?”

“Just after ten.”

“
Ten?
”

“You’ve slept since yesterday afternoon. You don’t remember?”

“Just bits. Have you been waiting long?”

“A while.”

She saw then that he wore the same clothes he’d had on in Nanrunnel. His face was unshaven, and beneath his eyes his skin was dark and puckered with fatigue. “You’ve been with me all night.”

He didn’t reply. He remained at the window, far from the bed. Beyond his shoulder, she could see the sky. Against it, his hair was made gold by the sun.

“I thought I’d fly you back to London this morning. Whenever you’re ready.” He indicated the tray. “This has been sitting here since half past eight. Shall I see about getting you something else?”

“Tommy,” she said. “Would you…is there…” She tried to search his face, but he kept it averted and it showed no response, so she let her words die.

He put his hands in his pockets and looked out the window again. “They’ve brought John Penellin home.”

She followed his lead. “What about Mark?”

“Boscowan knows he took the
Daze
. As to the cocaine…” He sighed. “That’s John’s decision as far as I’m concerned. I won’t make it for him. I don’t know what he’ll do. He may not be ready to draw the line on Mark yet. I just don’t know.”

“You could report him.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“I think it best that it come from John.” He continued gazing out the window, his head lifted to the sky. “It’s a beautiful day. A good day for flying.”

“What about Peter?” she asked. “Is he cleared now? Is Sidney?”

“St. James thinks Brooke must have got the ergotamine from a chemist in Penzance. It’s a prescription drug, but it wouldn’t be the first time a chemist slipped something to a customer on the sly. It would have seemed harmless enough. A complaint about a migraine. Aspirin not working. No doctor’s surgery open on Saturday.”

“He doesn’t think Justin took some of his own pills?”

“He can’t think of a reason Brooke would have known he had them. I told him it doesn’t really matter at this point, but he wants to clear Sidney thoroughly, Peter as well. He’s gone to Penzance.” His voice died off. His recitation was finished.

Deborah felt her throat aching. There was so much tension in his posture. “Tommy,” she said, “I saw you on the porch. I knew you were safe. But when I saw the body—”

“The worst part was Mother,” he cut in, “having to tell Mother. Watching her face and knowing every word I said was destroying her. But she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of me. Because both of us know I’m at fault at the heart of this.”

“No!”

“If they’d married years ago, if I’d allowed them to marry—”

“Tommy, no.”

“So she won’t grieve in front of me. She won’t let me help.”

“Tommy, darling—”

“It was horrible.” He ran his fingers along the window’s transom. “For a moment, I thought he might actually shoot St. James. But he put the gun in his mouth.” He cleared his throat. “Why is it that nothing ever prepares one for a sight like that?”

“Tommy, I’ve known him all my life. He’s like my family. When I thought he was dead—”

“The blood. The brain tissue splattered back against the windows. I think I’ll see it for the rest of my life. That and everything else. Like a blasted motion picture, playing into eternity against the back of my eyelids whenever I close my eyes.”

“Oh, Tommy, please,” she said brokenly. “Please. Come here.”

At that, his brown eyes met hers directly. “It’s not enough, Deb.”

He made the statement so carefully. She heard it, frightened. “What’s not enough?”

“That I love you. That I want you. I used to think that St. James was thirty different ways a fool for not having married Helen in all these years. I could never understand it. I suppose I really knew why all along, but I didn’t want to face it.”

She ignored his words. “Shall we use the church in the village, Tommy? Or is London better? What do you think?”

“The church?”

“For the wedding, darling. What do you think?”

He shook his head. “Not on sufferance, Deborah. I won’t have you that way.”

“But I want you,” she whispered. “I love you, Tommy.”

“I know you want to believe that. God knows I want to believe it myself. Had you stayed in America, had you never come home, had I joined you there, we might have had a fighting chance. But as it is…”

Still he stayed across the room. She couldn’t bear the distance. She held out her hand. “Tommy. Tommy. Please.”

“Your whole life’s with Simon. You know it. We both do.”

“No, I…” She couldn’t finished the sentence. She wanted to rail and fight against what he had said, but he had pierced through to a truth she had long avoided.

He watched her face for a moment before speaking again. “Shall I give you an hour until we leave?”

She opened her mouth to pledge, to deny, but at this final moment, she could not do so. “Yes. An hour,” she said.

PART VII

AFTERWORD

CHAPTER

28

L
ady Helen sighed. “This moves the definition of tedium beyond my wildest dreams. Tell me again what it’s going to prove?”

St. James made a third careful fold in the thin pyjama top, lining up the last point of the ice pick’s entry. “The defendant claims he was assaulted as he slept. He had only one wound in his side but we’ve got three holes, each one stained with his blood. How do you suppose that happened?”

She bent over the garment. It was oddly folded to accommodate the three holes. “He was a contortionist in his sleep?”

St. James chuckled. “Better yet a liar awake. He stabbed himself and made the holes later.” He caught her yawning. “Am I boring you, Helen?”

“Not at all.”

“Late night in the company of a charming man?”

“If only that were true. I’m afraid it was the company of my grandparents, darling. Grandfather blissfully snoring away during the triumphal march in
Aida
. I should have joined him. No doubt he’s quite spry this morning.”

“An occasional bow to culture is good for the soul.”

“I loathe opera. If they’d only sing in English. Is that too much to ask? But it’s always Italian or French. Or German. German’s the worst. And when they run about the stage in those funny helmets with the horns…”

“You’re a Philistine, Helen.”

“Card-carrying.”

“Well, if you’ll behave yourself for another half hour, I’ll take you to lunch. There’s a new brasserie I’ve found in the Brompton Road.”

Her face came to life. “Darling Simon, the very thing! What shall I do next?” She looked round the lab as if seeking new employment, an intention that St. James ignored when the front door slammed and a voice called his name.

He shoved away from the worktable. “Sidney,” he said and walked to the door as his sister came dashing up the stairs. “Where the hell have you been?”

She came into the lab. “Surrey first. Then Southampton,” she replied as if they were the most logical destinations in the world. She dropped a mink jacket onto a stool. “They’ve got me doing
another
line of furs. If I don’t get a different assignment soon I don’t know what I’ll do. Modelling the skins of dead animals lies somewhere between absolutely unsavoury and thoroughly disgusting. And they continue to insist I wear nothing underneath.” Leaning over the table, she examined the pyjama top. “Blood again? How can you endure it so near to lunchtime? I haven’t missed lunch, have I? It’s hardly noon.” She opened her shoulder bag and began to dig through it. “Now where is it? Of course, I understand why they insist on
some
naked skin, but I’ve hardly the bosom for it. It’s the suggestion of sensuality, they tell me. The promise, the fantasy. What rubbish. Ah, here it is.” She produced a tattered envelope which she handed to her brother.

“What is it?”

“What I’ve spent nearly ten days getting out of Mummy. I even had to trail along to David’s for a week just so that she’d know I was determined to have it.”

“You’ve been with Mother?” St. James asked incredulously. “Visiting David in Southampton? Helen, did you—”

“I phoned Surrey that once, but there was no reply. Then you said not to worry her. Remember?”

“Worry Mummy?” Sidney asked. “Worry Mummy about what?”

“About you.”

“Why would Mummy worry about me?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Actually, she thought the idea was absurd, at first.”

“What idea?”

“Now I know where you get your general poopiness, Simon. But I wore her down over time. I knew I should. Go on, open it. Read it aloud. Helen shall hear it as well.”

“Damn it, Sidney. I want to know—”

She grabbed his wrist and shook his arm. “Read.”

He opened the envelope with ill-concealed irritation and began to read aloud.

My dear Simon,

It appears I shall have no rest from Sidney until I apologise, so let me do so at once. Not that a simple line of apology would ever satisfy your sister.

“What is this, Sid?”

She laughed. “Keep reading!”

He went back to his mother’s heavily embossed stationery.

I always did think it was Sidney’s idea to open the nursery windows, Simon. But when you said nothing upon being accused of having done so, I felt obliged to direct all the punishment towards you. Punishing one’s children is the hardest part of being a parent. It’s even worse if one has the nagging little fear that one is punishing the wrong child. Sidney has cleared all this up, as only Sidney could do, and although she had begun to insist that I beat her soundly for having let you take her punishment all those years ago, I do draw the line at paddling a twenty-five-year-old woman. So let me apologise to you for placing the blame on your little shoulders—were you ten years old? I’ve forgotten—and I shall henceforth direct it towards her in an appropriate fashion. We
have
had a rather nice visit, Sidney and I. We spent some time with David and the children as well. It’s made me quite hopeful that I shall soon see you in Surrey. Bring Deborah with you if you come. Cotter telephoned cook with the word about her. Poor child. It would be good of you to take her under your wing until she’s back on her feet.

Love to you,
Mother       

Hands on her hips, Sidney threw back her head and laughed, clearly delighted with having brought off a coup. “Isn’t she grand? What a time I had getting her to write it, though. Had she not already wanted to speak to you about seeing to Deborah—you know how she is, always concerned that we’ll become social heathens and not do the proper thing in these situations—I doubt if anything could have made her write it.”

St. James felt Lady Helen watching him. He knew what she expected him to ask. He didn’t ask it. For the past ten days he had known something had happened between them. Cotter’s behaviour alone would have told him as much, even if Deborah had not been gone from Howenstow when he’d returned from Penzance on the evening after Trenarrow’s death. But other than saying he’d flown her back to London, Lynley said nothing more. And Cotter’s grim restraint had not been a thing which St. James wanted to disturb. So even now he said nothing.

Lady Helen, however, did not have his scruples. “What’s happened to Deborah?”

“Tommy broke their engagement,” Sidney replied. “Cotter hasn’t told you, Simon? From the way Mummy’s cook tells it, he was practically breathing fire on the phone. Quite in a rage. I half expected to hear he’d duelled with Tommy for satisfaction. ‘Guns or knives,’ I can hear him shouting. ‘Speaker’s Corner at dawn.’ Tommy hasn’t told you either? How decidedly odd. Unless, of course, he thinks
you
may demand satisfaction, Simon.” She laughed and then sobered thoughtfully. “You don’t think this is a class thing, do you? Considering Peter’s choice of Sasha, class can hardly be an issue with the Lynleys.”

As she spoke, St. James realised that Sidney had no idea of anything that had happened since her bitter departure from Howenstow on that Sunday morning. He opened the bottom drawer beneath his worktable and removed her perfume bottle.

“You misplaced this,” he said.

She grabbed it, delighted. “Where did you find it? Don’t tell me it was in the Howenstow wardrobe. I can accept that for shoes but for nothing else.”