Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'She's in love with him, Deborah,' he finally replied. 'Aren't people all just a little bit mad when they love?'

Her response was a stare. He could see her swallow.

'The film. Let me get it,' she said.

The Anchor and Rose benefited from having the most propitious location in all Nanrunnel. It not only displayed from its broad bay windows a fine", unobstructed view of the harbour guaranteed to please the most discerning seeker of Cornish atmosphere, but it also sat directly across from Nanrunnel's single bus stop and was, as a result, the first structure a thirsty visitor's eyes fell upon when disembarking from Penzance and regions beyond.

The interior of the pub was engaged in the gentle process of deterioration. Once creamy walls had taken their place on the evolutionary path towards grey, an effect produced by exposure to generations of smoke from fireplace, cigars, pipes and cigarettes. An elaborate mahogany bar, pitted and stained, curved from the lounge into the public bar, with a brass foot-rail heavily distressed through years of use. Similarly worn tables and chairs spread across a well-trodden floor, and the ceiling above them was so convex that architectural disaster seemed imminent.

When St James and Lady Helen entered, shortly after the pub's morning opening, they found themselves alone with a large tabby cat that lounged in the bay window and a woman who stood behind the bar, drying innumerable pint and half-pint glasses. She nodded at them and went on with her work, her eyes following Lady Helen to the window where she stooped to pet the cat.

'Careful with 'um,' the woman said. 'Watch he doesn't scratch. He's a mean 'un when he wants to be.'

As if with the intention of proving her a liar, the cat yawned, stretched, and presented a corpulent stomach for Lady Helen to attend to. Watching, the woman snorted and stacked glasses on a tray.

St James joined her at the bar, reflecting upon the fact that if this was Mrs Swann she was trapped somewhere in the cygnet stage, for there was nothing the least bit swan-like about her. She was stout and solid, with minuscule eyes and a frizz of grey hair, a living contradiction to her name dressed in a dirndl skirt and a peasant blouse.

'What c'n I get you?' she asked and went on with her drying.

'It's a bit early for me,' St James replied. 'We've come to talk to you, actually. If you're Mrs Swann.' 'Who wants to know?'

St James introduced himself and Lady Helen, who had taken a seat next to the cat. 'I'm sure you've heard Mick Cambrey's been murdered.'

'Whole village knows. About that and the chop-up as well.' She smiled. 'Looks like Mick got what was coming at last. Separated proper from his favourite toy, wasn't he? No doubt there'll be a regular piss-up here when the local husbands come round to celebrate tonight.'

'Mick was involved with some local women?'

Mrs Swann drove her towel-covered fist into a glass and polished it vigorously. 'Mick Cambrey's involved in anyone willing to give him a poke.' That said, she turned to the empty shelves behind her and began placing glasses upside down on the mats. The implicit message was unavoidable: she had nothing more to tell.

Lady Helen spoke. 'Actually, Mrs Swann, Nancy Cambrey's our concern. We've come to see you mostly because of her.'

Mrs Swarm's shoulders lost some of their stiffness, although she didn't turn around when she said, 'Dim girl, Nance. Married to that sod.' Her tight little curls shook with disgust.

'Indeed,' Lady Helen went on smoothly. 'And she's in the worst sort of situation at the moment, isn't she? Not only to have her husband murdered but then to have her father questioned by the police.'

That re-engaged Mrs Swarm's interest quickly enough. She faced them, fists on hips. Her mouth opened and shut. Then opened again. 'John Penellin?'

'Quite. Nancy tried to tell the police that she talked to her father on the phone last night so he couldn't have been in Nanrunnel killing Mick. But they-'

'And she did,' Mrs Swann asserted. 'That she did. She did. Borrowed ten pence from me to make the call. Not a coin in her bag, thanks to Mick.' She began to wax warmly to this secondary topic. 'Always took her money, he did. Hers and his father's and anyone else's he could get his hands on. He was always after cash. He wanted to be a swell.'

'Are you sure Nancy spoke to her father?' St James asked. 'Not to someone else?'

Mrs Swann took umbrage at St James' doubts. She pointed her finger for emphasis. "Course it was her father. Didn't I get so tired of waiting for her – she must have been a good ten or fifteen minutes – that I went to the call box and yanked her out?'

'Where is this call box?'

'Outside the school yard. Right in Paul Lane.' 'Did you see her make the call? Could you see the call box itself?'

Mrs Swann put the questions together and reached a quick conclusion. 'You can't be thinking Nancy killed Mick? That she slipped off to her cottage, chopped him up, then came back nice as nice to serve up the lager?'

'Mrs Swann, can you see the call box from the school grounds?'

'No. What of it? I yanked the lass out myself. She was crying. Said her dad was dead angry that she'd borrowed some money and she was trying to set it to rights with him.' Mrs Swann pressed her lips together as if she had said all that she would. But then a bubble of anger seemed to grow and burst within her, for she went on, her voice growing fierce. 'And I don't blame Nancy's dad for that, do I? Everyone knew where any money would go that Nance gave to Mick. He'd pass it right on to his ladies, wouldn't he? So full of himself, little worm. Got too big in his head when he went to university. Bigger still with his fancy writing. Started thinking he could live by his own rules, didn't he? Right there in the newspaper office. He got what he deserved.'

'In the newspaper office?' St James queried. 'He met with women in the newspaper office?'

She flipped her head in a vicious nod towards the ceiling. 'Right above stairs, it is. Has a nice little room at the back of it. With a cot and everything. Perfect little love-nest. And he flaunted his doings. Proud of them all. He even kept trophies.'

'Trophies?'

Mrs Swann leaned forward, resting her enormous breasts on the bar. She gusted hot breath in St James' face. 'What d'you say to ladies' panties, my lad? Two different pairs right there in his desk. Harry found them. His dad. Not six months out of hospital, poor man, and he comes on those. Sitting there real as real in Mick's top drawer and they weren't even clean. Oh, the screaming and shouting that went on then.'

'Nancy found out?'

'Harry was screaming, not Nance. "You've a babe on the way," he says. "And the paper! Our family! Is it all for nothing so you can please your own fancy?" And he hits Mick so hard I thought he was dead from the sound he made when he hit the floor. Sliced his head on the edge of a cabinet as well. But in a minute or two he comes storming down the stairs with his father just raving behind him.'

'When was this?' St James asked. Mrs Swann shrugged. Her outrage seemed spent. 'Harry can tell you. He's right above stairs.'

John Penellin rolled up the Ordnance Survey map, put an elastic band round it, and placed it with half a dozen others in the old umbrella-stand in his office. The late-morning sunlight streamed in the windows, heating the room to an uncomfortable degree, and he opened the casement and adjusted the blinds as he spoke.

'So it's been a fairly good year, all way round. And if we let that north acreage lie fallow for another season the land can only benefit from it. That's my suggestion at any rate.' He resumed his seat behind the desk; and, as if he had an inflexible agenda to which he was determined to adhere, he went on immediately with: 'May we speak of Wheal Maen?'