Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'John? No. I can't say the Nanrunnel Players hold any charms for him.'

Above them, Nancy cried out. As if in response to this single demonstration of anguish, another knock thudded against the front door. Lynley opened it to admit the local police, represented in the person of a plump, curly-haired constable in a uniform that took its distinction from large crescents of sweat beneath the arms and a coffee stain on the trousers. He looked about twenty-three years old. He didn't bother with any immediate introductions or with any of the formalities inherent to a murder investigation. It was obvious within seconds that, in the presence of a corpse, he was in over his head and delighted to be there.

'Gotcherself a murder?' he asked conversationally, as if murders were a daily affair in Nanrunnel. Perhaps to give credence to nonchalance, he unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and folded it into his mouth. 'Where's the victim?'

'Who are you?' Lynley demanded. 'You aren't CID.'

The constable grinned. 'T.J. Parker,' he announced. 'Thomas Jefferson. Mum liked the Yanks.' He elbowed his way into the sitting room.

'Are you CID?' Lynley asked as the constable kicked a notebook to one side. 'Christ almighty, man. Leave the scene alone.'

'Don't getcher knickers in a twist,' the constable replied. 'Inspector Boscowan sent me ahead to secure the scene. He'll be along soon's he's dressed. Not to worry. Now. What d'we have?' He took his first look at the corpse and chewed more rapidly upon his gum. 'Someone had it in for this bloke all right.'

That said, he began to saunter round the room. Gloveless, he fingered several items on Cambrey's desk.

'For God's sake,' Lynley said hody. 'Don't touch anything. Leave it for your crime team.'

'Robbery,' Parker announced as if Lynley had not spoken. 'Caught in the act, I'd say. A fight. Some fun afterwards with the secateurs.'

'Listen, damn you. You can't-'

Parker cocked a finger at him. 'This is police work, mister. I'll thank you to step back into the hall.'

'Have you your warrant card?' St James asked Lynley quietly. 'He's liable to make a mess of that room if you don't do something to stop him.'

'I can't, St James. I have no jurisdiction.'

As they were speaking, Dr Trenarrow came back down the stairs. Inside the sitting room, Parker turned to the door, caught a glimpse of Trenarrow's medical bag, and smiled.

'We got quite a mess here, Doc,' he announced. 'Ever seen anything like it? Have a look, if you like.'

'Constable.' Lynley's voice attempted reason and patience.

Trenarrow seemed to realize how inappropriate the constable's suggestion was. He said softly to Lynley, 'Perhaps I can do something to fend off disaster,' and walked to the body. Kneeling, he examined it quickly, feeling for pulse, gauging for temperature, moving an arm to check the extent of rigor. He changed his position to the other side and bent to study the extensive wounds.

'Butchered,' he muttered, looked up, and asked, 'Have you found any weapon?' He looked round the room, feeling among the papers and debris that were nearest to the body.

St James shuddered at the disruption of the crime scene. Lynley cursed. The constable did nothing.

Trenarrow nodded towards a poker that lay on its side by the fireplace. 'Could that be your weapon?' he asked.

Constable Parker grinned. His chewing gum popped. He chuckled as Trenarrow got to his feet. 'To do that business?' he asked. 'I don't think it's near sharp enough, do you?'

Trenarrow didn't look amused. 'I meant as a murder weapon,' he said. 'Cambrey didn't die from the castration, Constable. Any fool can see that.'

Parker seemed unoffended by Trenarrow's implied rebuke. 'Didn't kill him. Right. Just put an end to things, wouldn't you say?'

Trenarrow looked as if he were biting off an angry retort.

'How long's he been gone, in your opinion?' the constable asked genially.

'Two or three hours, I'd guess. But surely you've someone coming to tell you that.'

'Oh, aye. When she gets here,' the constable said. 'With the rest of CID.' He rocked back on his heels, popped his gum once more, and studied his watch. 'Two or three hours, you say? That takes us to… half-nine or half-ten. Well' – he sighed and rubbed his hands together with obvious pleasure – 'it's a starting place, i'n' it? And you've got to start somewhere in police work.'

From the moment they pulled up in front of the Howenstow lodge at a quarter past two in the morning, events began to tumble one upon the other. Not that events had not already been accumulating into an aggregate of experience too complicated to be readily assimilated. Inspector Edward Boscowan had seen to that, only moments after his arrival at Gull Cottage with the scenes-of-crime team from Penzance CID.

He'd taken one look at Constable Parker who was lounging in an armchair not four feet from Mick Cambrey's body; he'd taken a second look at St James, Trenarrow and Lynley in the small entry foyer, at Deborah in the kitchen, at Lady Helen and Nancy Cambrey upstairs, at the baby in the cot. His face went from white to crimson. Then he finally spoke, but only to the constable. With such studied control that no other demonstration of his fury was even necessary.

'A tea-party, Constable? Despite what you may think, you are not the Mad Hatter. Or has no-one yet informed you of that?' The constable grinned uneasily in response. He shoved himself to his feet and scratched one armpit, nodding as if in agreement. 'This is a murder scene,' Boscowan snapped. 'What in hell's name are all these people doing here?'

'They 'as inside when I got here,' Parker said.

'Were they?' Boscowan asked with a thin smile. When Parker returned it, momentarily relieved by what he mistakenly perceived as bonhomie in his superior, Boscowan snarled, 'Well, get them out now! Which is bloody well what you should have done in the first place!'

Lynley was aware of that fact himself. He knew that St James was aware of it as well. Yet in the confusion engendered by Nancy's hysteria, the chaos of the sitting room, and the sight of Cambrey's body both of them had disregarded or forgotten or developed an uncharacteristic indifference to that most basic tenet of police work. They had not sealed the crime scene. While they had not touched anything, they had been in the room, Trenarrow had been in the room, not to mention Helen and Deborah and Nancy in the kitchen and then upstairs. With all of them leaving fibres and hairs and fingerprints everywhere. What a nightmare for the forensic team. And he himself-a policeman – had been responsible for creating it, or at least for doing nothing productive to stop it. His behaviour had been unforgivably incompetent, and he could not excuse it by telling himself that he hadn't been thinking straight owing to his being acquainted with the principals involved in the crime itself. For he'd known the principals involved in crimes before and had always kept his head. But not this time. He'd lost his grip the moment St James involved Deborah.

Boscowan had said nothing more in condemnation of anyone. He had merely taken their fingerprints and sent them to stand in the kitchen while he and a sergeant went upstairs to talk to Nancy and the crime scene team began their work in the sitting room. He spent nearly an hour with Nancy, patiently taking her back and forth over the facts. Having gleaned from her what little he could, he sent her home with Lynley, home to her father.

Now Lynley looked up at the lodge. The front door was closed. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn. Darkness enfolded it, and the trellised red roses that walled in the porch and encircled the windows on the ground floor looked like feather-edged smudges of ink in the shadows.