Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'Don't you say that! Don't you dare. You're at the bottom of this. We know it. Dad and I.'

Mark backed into the stairway. His head struck a banister. lMe? What're you talking about? This is crazy. You're crazy. What the hell's happened?'

'Mick's been murdered,' Lynley said.

Blood flooded Mark's face. He spun from Lynley to his sister. 'And you think I did it? Is that what you think? That I killed your husband?' He gave a wild shriek of laughter. 'Why would I bother, with Dad looking for a way to put him under for a year?'

'Don't you say that! Don't you dare! It was you!'

'Right. Believe what you want.'

'What I know. What Dad knows.'

'Dad knows everything all right. Lucky for him to be so bloody wise.'

He grabbed his stereo and flung himself up five stairs. Lynley's words stopped him. 'Mark, we need to talk.'

'No!' And then as he finished the climb, 'I'll save what I have to say for the flaming police. As soon as my sister turns me in.'

A door crashed shut.

Molly began to wail.

'How much do you really know about Mark Penellin?' St James asked, looking up from the paper on which he had been jotting their collective thoughts for the last quarter of an hour.

He and Lynley were alone in the small alcove that opened off the Howenstow drawing room, directly over the front entry to the house. Two lamps were lit, one on the undersized mahogany desk where St James sat and the other on a marquetry side table beneath the windows where it cast a golden glow against the darkness-backed panes. Lynley handed St James a glass of brandy and cupped his own in the palm of his hand, meditatively swirling the liquid. He sank into a wing chair next to the desk, stretched out his legs, and loosened his tie. He drank before answering.

'Not much in any detail. He's Peter's age. From what little's been said about him in the past few years, I gather he's been a disappointment to his family. To his father mostly.'

'In what way?'

'The usual way young men disappoint their fathers. John wanted Mark to go to university. Mark did one term at Reading but then dropped out.'

'Rusticated?'

'Not interested. He went from Reading to a job as a barman in Maidenhead. Then Exeter, as I recall. I think he was playing drums with a band. That didn't pan out as he would have liked – no fame, no fortune, and most particularly no lucrative contract with a recording studio – and he's been working here on the estate ever since, at least for the last eighteen months. I'm not quite sure why. Estate management never seemed to interest Mark in the past. But perhaps now he's thinking along the lines of taking o% rer as Howenstow land manager when his father retires.'

'Is that a possibility?'

'It's possible, but not without Mark's developing some background and a great deal more expertise than would come from the sort of work he's been doing round here.'

'Does Penellin expect his son to succeed him?'

'I shouldn't think so. John's university educated himself. When he retires – which is a good time away in the future – he wouldn't expect me to give his job to someone whose sole experience at Howenstow has been mucking out the stables.'

'And that's been the extent of Mark's experience?'

'Oh, he's done some time in one or two of the dairies. Out on several of the farms as well. But there's more to managing an estate than that.'

'Is he paid well?'

Lynley twirled the stem of his brandy glass between his fingers. 'No, not particularly. But that's John's decision. I've got the impression from him in the past that Mark doesn't work well enough to be paid well. In fact the whole issue of Mark's salary has been a sore spot between them ever since Mark returned from Exeter.'

'If he keeps him short of cash, wouldn't the money in Gull Cottage be a lure for him? Could he have known his brother-in-law's habits well enough to know that tonight he'd be doing the pay for the newspaper staff? After all, it looks as if he's living a bit above his means, if his salary here is as low as you indicate.'

'Above his means? How?'

'That stereo he was carrying must have set him back a few quid. The jacket looked fairly new as well. I couldn't see his boots clearly, but they looked like snake skin.'

Lynley crossed the alcove to one of the windows and opened it. The early-morning air felt damp and cool at last, and the stillness of night amplified the distant sound of the sea.

'I can't think that Mark would kill his brother-in-law in order to steal that money, St James, although it's not hard to picture him coming upon Mick's body, seeing the money on the desk, helping himself to it. Murder doesn't sound like Mark. Opportunism does.'

St James looked at his notes for a moment and read his summary of their conversation with Nancy Cambrey at the lodge. 'So he'd go to the cottage for another reason, only to discover Mick dead? And finding him dead he'd help himself to the cash?'

'Perhaps. I don't think Mark would plan out a robbery-. Surely he knows what that would do to his sister, and despite how they acted tonight Mark and Nancy have always been close.'

'Yet he probably knew about the pay envelopes, Tommy.'

'Everyone else probably knew as well. Not only the employees of the newspaper, but also the villagers. Nanrunnel's not large. I doubt it's changed much since I was a boy. And then, believe me, there were few enough secrets that the entire population didn't know.'

'If that's the case, would others have known about the notes Mick kept in the cottage?'

'I imagine the employees of the newspaper knew. Mick's father, no doubt; and, if he knew, why not everyone else? The Spokesman doesn't employ that many people, after all.'

'Who are they?'

Lynley returned to his chair. 'Aside from Mick, I didn't know any of them, except Julianna Vendale. If she's still employed there. She was the copy and wire service editor.'

Something in his voice made St James look up. 'Julianna Vendale?'

'Right. A nice woman. Divorced. Two children. About thirty-seven.'

'Attractive to Mick?'

'Probably. But I doubt that Mick would have interested Julianna. She's not thought much of men since her husband left her for another woman some ten years ago. No-one's got very far with her since.' He looked at St James, gave a rueful smile. 'I learned that the hard way one holiday here when I was twenty-six and feeling particularly full of myself. Needless to say, Julianna wasn't impressed.'

'Ah. And Mick's father?'

Lynley took up his brandy once again. 'Harry's a bit of local colour. Hard drinker, hard smoker, hard gambler. A mouth like a docker. According to Nancy, he had heart surgery last year, however, so perhaps he's had to change his style.'

'Close to Mick?'

'At one time, yes. I couldn't say now. Mick started out working on the Spokesman before he went off as a freelance writer.'

'Did you know Mick, Tommy?'

'Nearly all my life. We were of an age. I spent a great deal of time in Nanrunnel years ago. We saw each other on half-terms and holidays.'

'Friends?'

'More or less. We drank together, sailed together, did some fishing, scouted women in Penzance. As teenagers. I didn't see much of him once I went up to Oxford.'

'What was he like?'

Lynley smiled. 'A man who liked women, controversy and practical jokes just about equally. At least, he did when he was young. I can't think he changed much.'

'Perhaps we've a motive somewhere in that.'

'Perhaps.' Lynley explained the allusions to Mick's extramarital affairs which John Penellin had made that afternoon.

'A good explanation for the condition of the body,' St James said. 'A husband getting back upon the man who cuckolded him. But that doesn't explain the mess in the sitting room, does it?' St James picked up his pen to make a note, but he put it down again without writing. Fatigue was getting the better of him. He could feel it like dust beneath his eyelids and he knew quite well that he wouldn't be good for any useful thinking for very much longer. Still, a half-formed memory plagued him, something said earlier that he knew he ought to recall. He stirred restlessly in his seat, catching sight of the piano in the drawing room and remembering Lady Asherton standing near it earlier in the evening. 'Tommy, didn't your mother say something about a story Mick was working on? Hadn't Nancy told her about it?'