Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

The others mulled over this piece of information as the dining-room door opened and Hodge came into the room. 'A telephone call for Mr St James, my Lady.' Hodge had a way of making announcements with an intonation that suggested nothing less than impending doom: a phone call from fate, Hecate on the line. 'It's in the estate office. Lady Helen Clyde.'

St James rose at once, grateful for an excuse to be gone. The atmosphere in the dining room was overhung with too many unspoken questions and scores of issues asking to be discussed. But everyone seemed determined to avoid discussion, preferring the growing tension to the risk of facing a potentially painful truth.

He followed the butler to the west wing of the house, down the long corridor that led to the estate office. A single light burned upon the desk, creating a bright oval of illumination in the centre of which lay the telephone receiver. He picked it up.

'She's disappeared,' Lady Helen said when she heard his voice. 'It looks as if she's taken herself off on a casual holiday because her ordinary clothes are gone – but none of her dressy clothes – and there's no suitcase in the flat.' 'You got inside?'

'Sheer audacious fast-talking and the key was mine.'

'You've missed your calling, Helen.'

'Darling, I know. Con-man extraordinaire. It comes from spending my youth in finishing schools instead of university. Modern languages, decorative arts, dissembling and prevaricating. I was certain it would all be useful some day.'

'No idea where she's gone?'

'She's left behind her make-up and her fingernails, so-'

'Her fingernails? Helen, what sort of business is this?'

She laughed and explained the artificial nails to him. 'They're not what one would wear to do a bit of hiking, you see. Or mucking about. Or rock climbing, sailing, fishing. That sort of thing. So we think she's off in the country somewhere.'

'Here in Cornwall?'

'That was our first thought as well, and we've come up with fairly solid evidence, we think. She has Mick Cambrey's savings book – with some rather hefty deposits made to his account, by the way – and we've found two telephone numbers. One's for a London exchange. We phoned it and got a recording for a place called Islington Ltd, giving their business hours. I'll check into that in the morning.'

'And the other number?'

'It's Cornwall, Simon. We've tried it twice and got no answer. We thought it might be Mick Cambrey's.'

St James pulled an envelope from the side drawer of the desk. 'Did you try directory enquiries?'

'To compare it to Cambrey's number? He's ex-directory, I'm afraid. Let me give you the number. Perhaps you can do something more with it.'

He jotted it down on the envelope, shoved it into his pocket. 'Sid's coming back to London tomorrow.' He told Lady Helen about Justin Brooke. She listened in silence, asking no questions and making no comment until he had completed the tale. He left nothing out, concluding with, 'And now Peter's gone missing as well.'

'Oh no,' she said. Dimly in the background St James could hear music playing softly. A flute concerto. It made him wish he were sitting in her drawing room in Onslow Square, talking idly about nothing, with nothing more on his mind than blood or fibre or hair analyses associated with people he did not know and would never meet. She said, 'Poor Tommy. Poor Daze. How are they holding up?'

'They're coping.' 'And Sid?'

'She's taken it badly. Will you see to her, Helen? Tomorrow night? When she's back?'

'Of course. Don't worry. Don't give it a thought.' She hesitated momentarily. Again the music came over the line, delicate and elusive, like a fragrance in the air. Then she said, 'Simon, wishing didn't make it happen, you know.'

How well she knew him. 'When I saw him on the beach, when I knew that he was dead-' 'Don't be so hard on yourself.'

'I could have killed him, Helen. God knows I wanted to.'

'Which of us can say we've never felt the same? Towards someone at some time. It means nothing, my dear. You need some rest. We all do. It's been a dreadful time.'

He smiled at her tone. Mother, sister, loving friend. He accepted the ephemeral absolution which she offered. 'You're right, of course.'

'So go to bed. Surely we can depend upon nothing else happening before morning.'

'Let's hope so.' He replaced the receiver and stood for a moment watching the storm. Rain lashed the windows. Wind tore at the trees. Somewhere a door banged open and shut. He left the office.

He considered climbing the south-west stairway to spend the rest of the evening in his room. He felt drained of energy, incapable of thought, and unwilling to face the task of making polite conversation that deliberately avoided the topics foremost on everyone's mind. Peter Lynley. Sasha Nifford. Where they were. What they had done. Still, he knew that Lynley would be waiting to hear about Lady Helen's call. So he headed back towards the dining room.

Voices drifting down the north-west corridor arrested his attention as he approached the kitchen. Near the servants' hall, Jasper stood conversing with a rugged-looking man who dripped water from a brimming sou'wester on to the floor. Seeing St James, Jasper motioned him over.

'Bob's found 'r boat,' he said. 'Broke up on Cribba Head.'

'It's the Daze all right,' the other man put in. 'No mistakin' 'er.' 'Is anyone-?'

'There don't appear to be anyone with 'er. Don't see how 'tis possible. Not in the shape she be in.'

St James and Lynley followed the fisherman's rusty Austin in the estate Land-Rover. Their headlamps illuminated the havoc created by the continuing storm. Newly dismembered rhododendrons lined the drive, round them a thick carpet of purple flowers which the vehicles crushed beneath their tyres. A large sycamore branch, sheered from a tree, nearly bisected the road. Leaves and twigs hurtled in every direction while tremendous gusts of wind lashed pebbles from the drive and fired them like bullets against the cars. At the lodge, shutters banged angrily against the stone walls. Water streamed down eaves and gushed from rainpipes. Climbing roses, ripped from their trellis, lay in sodden heaps on the flagstones and the ground.

Lynley braked the Rover, and Mark Penellin dashed out to join them. Framed in the doorway, Nancy Cambrey watched, a shawl clutched to her throat and the wind whipping her dress round her legs. She shouted something that was lost in the gale. Lynley lowered his window a few inches as Mark climbed into the car's rear seat.

'Any word of Peter?' Nancy caught the front door as the wind drove it against the wall. Over the sound of her voice came the baby's thin, faint wail. 'Shall I do something?'

'Stay by the phone,' he shouted back. 'I may need you to go on to the house. To Mother.'

She nodded, gave a wave, and slammed the door home. Lynley shifted gears. They lurched on to the drive, through a pool of water and a bank of mud.

'She's at Cribba Head?' Mark Penellin asked. His hair was slicked back, drenched from the rain.

'According to what we know right now,' Lynley replied. 'What's happened to you?'

Mark tentatively touched his fingers to a fresh plaster above his right eyebrow. Abrasions covered his knuckles and the back of his hand. He shook his head self-effacingly. 'I was trying to fix the shutters so the baby'd stop crying. Nearly knocked myself out in the process.' He turned up the collar of his oilskin and buttoned it at the throat. 'You're sure it's the Daze?

'It seems to be.'

'And no word of Peter?'

'None.'

'Bloody fool.' Mark took out a packet of cigarettes, offering it to both Lynley and St James. When they refused, he lit one for himself but only smoked for a minute before crushing it out.