Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

‘I’ve coffee for you in the day room,' she said.

Lynley saw St James look from him to his mother. He knew his friend well enough to recognize his decision. It was time he told his mother the worst about Peter. He had to prepare her for whatever she would have to face in the coming days. And he couldn't do that with St James present, no matter how he longed to have his friend at his side.

‘I’d like to check on Sidney,' St James said. ‘I’ll be down later.'

The north-west staircase was nearby, round the corner from the gun room, and St James disappeared in that direction. Alone with his mother, Lynley didn't know what to say. Like a co-operative guest, he settled on a polite: 'I could do with a coffee. Thank you.'

His mother led the way. He noticed how she walked, her head upright, her shoulders back. He read the underlying meaning beneath her posture. Should someone see her – Hodge, the cook, or one of the dailies – she would give them no sign of any personal turmoil. Her estate manager had been arrested for murder; one of her house guests had died in the night; her youngest child was missing and her middle child was a man with whom she hadn't spoken intimately in more than fifteen years. But, if any of this bothered her, no-one would see it. If gossip flourished behind the green baize door, its subject would not be the myriad ways in which God's punishment had fallen upon the dowager Countess of Asherton at last.

They walked along the corridor that ran the length of the body of the house. At its eastern end, the day-room door was closed, and when Lady Asherton opened it the room's sole occupant got to his feet, crushing out his cigarette in an ashtray.

'Have you found anything?' Roderick Trenarrow asked.

Lynley hesitated in the doorway. He was all at once aware of the fact that his clothes were wet. Great oblongs of damp caused the wool of his trousers to adhere scratchily to his legs. His shirt clung to both his chest and his shoulders, and its collar pressed damply to the back of his neck. Even his socks were soaked, for although he'd worn gumboots down to Penberth Cove he'd removed them in the car and he'd stepped directly into a substantial puddle of rainwater when he'd parked in the courtyard upon their return.

So he wanted to leave. He wanted to change his clothes. But instead he forced himself forward and went to the bentwood cart next to his mother's desk. A coffee pot sat on it.

'Tommy?' his mother said. She had sat upon the least comfortable chair in the room.

Lynley took his cup of coffee to the sofa. Trenarrow remained where he was by the fireplace. A coal fire burned there, but its warmth did not cut through the clammy weight of Lynley's clothes. He glanced at Trenarrow, nodding in acknowledgement of the question he'd asked, but saying nothing. He wanted the other man to depart. He couldn't imagine having a conversation about Peter in front of him. Yet he knew that any request on his part for some privacy with his mother would be misinterpreted by both of them. Clearly, as on the previous evening, Trenarrow was there at her behest. This was no social call which he had designed to lead to seduction, and the concern on Trenarrow's face, when he looked at Lady Asherton, gave evidence of that.

It appeared that he would have no choice in the matter. He rubbed his forehead, brushed back his damp hair. 'No-one was with the boat,' he said. 'At least, we couldn't see anyone. They might have been below.'

'Has anyone been called?'

'The lifeboat, you mean?' He shook his head. 'She's breaking up too fast. By the time they got there, she'd be gone.'

'Do you think he was swept overboard?'

They were speaking of her child, but they might have been discussing the replanting of the garden that would have to be done after the storm. He marvelled at her calm. She maintained it only until he replied, however.

'There's no way of knowing. Whether he was below with Sasha. Whether they were both swept overboard. We won't know anything until we find the bodies. And even then, if they've sustained enough damage, we might only be left with inferences and not a lot more.'

At that, she lowered her head and covered her eyes. Lynley waited for Trenarrow to cross the room to her. He could feel the other man's need to do so. It was like a current that snapped in the air. But he made no move.

'Don't torture yourself,' Trenarrow said. 'We don't know a thing. We don't even know yet if it was Peter who took the boat. Dorothy, please. Listen to me.'

Lynley remembered with a pain that rushed and receded. Trenarrow had always been the only person who used his mother's real name.

'You know he took the boat,' she said. 'We all know why. But I've ignored every sign, haven't I? He's been in clinics having treatment. Four clinics now and I wanted to believe that he was over it. But he's not. I knew that the moment I saw him on Friday morning. But I couldn't bear to face another round of addiction, so I simply ignored it. I've actually begun praying that he'll find his way on his own because I don't know how to help him any longer. I've never known. Oh, Roddy…'

If she hadn't said his name, Trenarrow probably would have maintained his distance. But, as it was, he went to her, touched her face, her hair, said her name again. Her arms went round him.

Lynley looked away. His muscles ached. His bones felt leaden.

'I don't understand it,' Lady Asherton was saying. 'No matter what he intended by taking the boat, he would have seen what the weather was like. He would have known the danger. He can't have been as desperate as that.' And then, gendy pushing herself away from Trenarrow, 'Tommy?'

'I don't know,' Lynley said. He kept his tone guarded.

His mother got to her feet, came to the sofa. 'There's something else, isn't there? Something you've not told me. No, Roddy' – this as Trenarrow made a move towards her

– Tm all right. Tell me what it is, Tommy. Tell me what you've not wanted me to know. You argued with him last night. I heard you. You know that. But there's more, isn't there? Tell me.'

Lynley looked up at her. Her face had become remarkably calm again, as if she had managed to find and draw upon a new source of strength. He dropped his eyes to the coffee cup that warmed the palm of his hand.

'Peter was at Mick Cambrey's cottage after John Penellin's visit on Friday night. Later, Mick died. Justin told me about that after John's arrest last night. And then'

– he looked back at her – 'Justin died.'

Her lips parted as he spoke, but otherwise her expression remained impassive. 'You can't think your own brother-'

'I don't know what to think.' His throat felt raw. 'For God's sake, tell me what to think, if you will. Mick's dead. Justin's dead. Peter's disappeared. So what would you have me think of it all?'

Trenarrow took a step as if with the intention of deflecting the strength of Lynley's words. But, as he moved, Lady Asherton did likewise. She joined her son on the sofa, put her arm round his shoulders. She pressed her cheek against his and brushed her lips against his damp hair.

'Dearest Tommy,' she murmured. 'My dear, my dear. Why on earth do you believe you must bear it all?'

It was the first time she had touched him in more than a decade.

The morning sky, a cerulean arc under which a froth of cumulus clouds drifted inland, acted as a contradiction to the previous day's storm. As did the seabirds, who once again filled the air with their raw, importunate cries. The ground below them, however, was a testament to foul weather, and from his bedroom window, a cup of tea in his hand, St James surveyed the consequences of those hours of rain and bluster.

Slate tiles from the roof lay shattered on the drive which entered the south courtyard over which his room looked. A twisted weathervane had fallen among them, no doubt blown there from the roof of one of the outbuildings that formed part of the courtyard wall. Crushed flowers created occasional mats of bright colour: purple Canterbury bells, pink begonias, entire spikes of larkspur, and everywhere the petals of ruined roses. Bits of broken glass made a jewel-like glitter on the cobblestones, and one small, curiously unbroken window pane covered a puddle of water like newly formed ice. Already the gardeners and groundsmen were taking steps to repair the damage, and St James could hear their voices from the park, drowned out by the intermittent roar of a power saw.