Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

On the top of an ancient desk the most recent edition of the Spokesman lay open to the editorial page. Mick's contribution had been heavily circled in red. On the wall opposite, a map of Great Britain hung. Cambrey directed St James to this.

'I kept thinking about those numbers,' he said. 'Mick was systematic about things like that. He wouldn't have kept that paper if it wasn't important.' He felt in the breast pocket of his shirt for a packet of cigarettes. He shook one out and lit it before going on. 'I'm still working on part of it, but I'm on my way.'

St James saw that next to the map Cambrey had taped a small piece of paper. On it he had printed part of the cryptic message which he'd found beneath his son's desk. 27500-M1 Procure/Transport and, beneath that, 27500-M6 Finance. On the map itself, two motorways had been traced in red marking-pen, the Ml heading north from London and the M6 heading northwest below Leicester towards the Irish Sea.

'Look at it,' Cambrey said. 'Ml and M6 run together south of Leicester. The Ml only goes as far as Leeds, but the M6 continues. It ends in Carlisle. At Solway Firth.'

St James considered this. He made no reply. Cambrey sounded agitated when he continued.

'Look at the map, man. Just look at it square. M6 gives access to Liverpool, doesn't it? It takes you to Preston, to Morecambe Bay. And they every bloody one of them-'

'- give access to Ireland,' St James concluded, thinking of the editorial he'd read only the morning before.

Cambrey went for the paper. He folded it back. His cigarette bobbed between his lips as he talked. 'He knew someone was running guns for the IRA.'

'How could he have stumbled on to a story like that?'

'Stumbled?' Cambrey removed his cigarette, picked tobacco from his tongue and shook the newspaper to make his point. 'My lad didn't stumble. He was a journalist, not a fool. He listened. He talked. He learned to follow leads.' Cambrey returned to the map and used the folded newspaper as a pointer. 'Guns must be coming into Cornwall in the first place, or if not into Cornwall, then through a south harbour. Shipped from sympathizers, maybe in North Africa or Spain or even France. They come in anywhere along the south coast -Plymouth, Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth. They're shipped disassembled. Trucked to London and put together. Then from there, up the Ml to the M6, and then to Liverpool or Preston or Morecambe Bay.'

'Why not ship them directly to Ireland in the first place?' St James asked, but he knew the answer even as he asked it. A foreign ship docking at Belfast would be more likely to arouse suspicion than would an English ship. It would undergo a thorough Customs check. But an English ship would be largely accepted. For why would the English be sending arms to assist an uprising against themselves?

'There was more on the paper than Ml and M6,' St James pointed out. 'Those additional numbers have to mean something.'

Cambrey nodded. 'Likely to be some sort of registration numbers, I think. References to the ship they'd be using. Numbers on the type of weapons they'd be supplying. It's some sort of code. But make no mistake about it. Mick was on his way to breaking it.'

'Yet you've found no other notes?'

'What I've found's enough. I know my lad. I know what he was about.'

St James reflected upon the map. He thought about the numbers Mick had jotted on the paper. He noted the fact that the editorial about Northern Ireland had appeared on Sunday, more than thirty hours after Mick's death. If the two were connected somehow, then the killer had known about the editorial in advance of the paper's appearance on Sunday morning. He wondered how likely a possibility that was.

'Do you keep your back issues of the newspaper here?' he asked.

'This isn't a back-issue problem,' Cambrey said. 'Nonetheless, do you have them?' 'Some. Out here.'

Cambrey led him from his office to a storage cabinet that sat to the left of the casement windows. He pulled open the doors to reveal stacks of newspapers upon the shelves. St James glanced at them, pulled the first set off the shelf, and looked at Cambrey.

'Can you get me Mick's keys?' he asked.

Cambrey looked puzzled. 'I've a spare cottage key here.'

'No. I mean all his keys. He has a set, doesn't he? Car, cottage, office? Can you get them? I expect Boscowan has them now, so you'll need to come up with an excuse. And I'll want them for a few days.'

'Why?'

'Does the name Tina Cogin mean anything to you?' St James asked in answer. 'Cogin?'

'Yes. A woman from London. Mick knew her apparently. I think he may have had the key to her flat.'

'Mick had the key to half a dozen flats, if I know him.' Cambrey pulled out a cigarette and left him to his papers.

An hour's search through the past six months gleaned him nothing save hands that were stained with newsprint. As far as he could tell, Harry Cambrey's conjecture about gun-running was as likely a motive for his son's death as was anything else the paper had to offer. He shut the cupboard doors. When he turned, it was to find Julianna Vendale watching him, a coffee cup raised to her lips. She'd left the word processor, coming to stand near a coffee maker that was bubbling noisily in the corner of the room.

'Nothing?' She put her cup down on the table and pushed a lock of long hair back from her shoulder.

'Everyone seems to think he was working on a story,' St James said.

'Mick was always working on something.'

'Did most of his projects get into print?'

She drew her eyebrows together. A faint crease appeared between them. Otherwise, her face was completely unlined. St James knew from his previous conversation with Lynley that Julianna Vendale was in her middle thirties, perhaps a bit older. But her face denied her age.

'I don't know,' she answered. 'I wasn't always aware of what his projects were. But it wouldn't surprise me to find out he'd begun something and then let it die. He'd shoot out of here often enough, convinced he was hot on the trail of a feature he could sell in London. Then he'd never complete it.'

St James had seen that himself in his perusal of the newspapers. Dr Trenarrow had said Mick interviewed him for a story. But nowhere in the back issues of the paper was there a feature that in any way related to a conversation the two of them might have had. St James related this to Julianna Vendale.

She poured herself another cup of coffee and spoke over her shoulder. 'That doesn't surprise me. Mick probably thought he was going to get a Mother Teresa piece out of it – Cornish Scientist Dedicates his Life to Saving Others – only to discover that Dr Trenarrow's no more on the path to heaven than the rest of us are.'

Or, St James thought, the potential story was a ploy to get an interview with Trenairow in the first place in order to gather information and pass it along with Trenarrow's phone number to a needy friend.

Julianna was continuing. 'That was largely his way, ever since he came back to the Spokesman. I think he was looking for a story as a means of escape.'

'He didn't want to be here?'

'It was a step backwards for him. He'd been a freelance journalist. He'd been doing quite well. Then his father fell ill and he had to chuck it all and come back to hold the family business together.'

'You couldn't have done that?'

'I could have done, of course. But Harry wanted Mick to take over the paper. More than that, I should guess, he wanted him back in Nanrunnel permanently.'

St James thought he saw the direction Harry Cambrey had intended things to move once Mick returned to Nanrunnel. Nonetheless, he asked, 'How did you fit into the plans?'

'Harry made certain we worked together as much as possible. Then, I suppose, he just hoped for the best. He had great faith in Mick's charm.'