Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'She told me as well.'

'Then…'

'It's a possibility. I got the impression that Mick felt it was a significant piece. Certainly far more significant than the usual feature in the Spokesman. In fact, I don't think he intended it for the Spokesman at all.'

'Is that something that might have irritated his father?'

'Hardly enough to kill him. And certainly not enough to castrate him, St James.'

'If,' St James pointed out, 'the killing and the castration were done by the same person. We both saw that the castration was done after death, Tommy.'

Lynley shook his head. 'That doesn't work for me. First a killer – later a butcher.'

St James had to admit that it didn't work for him all that well, either. 'Why do you suppose Nancy's lying about that phone call?' St James didn't wait for Lynley's response. He mused aloud. 'It doesn't look good for John Penellin that he was seen near the cottage.'

'John didn't kill Mick. He's not the type. He couldn't have killed him.'

'Not intentionally.'

'Not at all.'

There was a fair degree of certainty behind Lynley's words. St James met it by saying, 'Good men have been driven to violence before. You know that. Unintentional violence – that sudden blow delivered in rage. How many more deaths is a moment of madness – rather than premeditation – responsible for? And John was there, Tommy. That has to mean something.'

Lynley got to his feet. He stretched in an easy, lithe movement. 'I'll talk to John in the morning. We'll sort it out.'

St James turned to him but did not rise. 'What if the police decide they've found their man? What if the forensic evidence supports an arrest? Penellin's hair on the corpse, his fingerprints in the room, a drop of Mick's blood on the cuff of his trousers or the sleeve of his coat. If he was in the room tonight, there's going to be evidence to support it, far beyond the testimony of neighbours who saw him and other neighbours who heard a row. What will you do then? Does Boscowan know you're CID?'

'It's nothing I broadcast.'

'Will he ask the Yard for assistance?'

Lynley answered with obvious reluctance, putting into words St James' own thoughts. 'Not if he thinks he's got his man in John Penellin. Why should he?' He sighed. 'It's damned awkward, for all Nancy's request that I help her father. We'll have to be careful, St James. We can't afford to step on official toes.'

'And if we do?'

'There'll be the devil to pay in London.' He nodded a good night and left the room.

St James went back to his notes. From the desk he took out a second sheet of paper and spent several minutes creating columns and categories into which he put what little information they had. John Penellin. Harry Cambrey. Mark Penellin. Unknown Husbands. Newspaper Employees. Potential Motives for the Crime. The Weapon. The Time of Death. He wrote and listed and read and stared. The words began to swim before him. He pressed his fingers to his closed eyes. Somewhere a casement window creaked in the breeze. At the same moment the drawing room door opened and shut. His head jerked up at the sound. Deborah stood in the shadows.

She wore a dressing gown whose ivory colour and insubstantial material made her look like a spectre. Her hair hung loosely round her face and shoulders.

St James shoved his chair back, pushed himself to his feet. His weight was off-balance because of the awkward position of his leg, and he could feel the accompanying stress as it pulled at the muscles of his waist.

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 investigation 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 like an idiot while Nancy fell apart and the poor baby screamed. With Helen all the time knowing just what to do.'

'Yes,' St James said. '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 realizing 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.