Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'We'll sort it out.'

Lynley looked at him then. His dark eyes seemed filmed over by a mist. 'Do you believe that?' he asked. 'I've got to believe something.'

'Actually, Islington-London is its formal name,' Lady Helen said. 'Islington-London Ltd. It's a pharmaceutical company.'

St James' attention was on the section of the garden that he could still see in the growing darkness. He stood in the small alcove of the drawing room while behind him Lady Asherton, Lynley and Cotter drank their evening coffee.

'Deborah and I went there this morning,' Lady Helen continued. In the background, St James heard Deborah's voice, followed by her laughter, light and engaging. 'Yes, all right, darling,' Lady Helen said to her. And then to St James, 'Deborah's most unforgiving about the fact that I wore my fox fur. Well, perhaps I was just a bit overdressed for the occasion, but the ensemble did make a statement, I think. And, besides, as far as I'm concerned, if one's going to do anything incognita, one ought to do it well. Don't you agree?'

'Decidedly.'

'And it was a success. The receptionist even asked me if I'd come about a job. Senior Director of Project Testing. Sounds absolutely divine. Have I a future in it?'

St James smiled into the telephone. 'I suppose it depends upon what project's being tested. What about Tina? What's the connection?'

'There doesn't seem to be one at all. We described her to the receptionist – and what a blessing to have Deborah there because her eye for detail, not to mention her memory, is quite remarkable. But the girl hadn't a clue. She didn't recognize the description at all.' Lady Helen paused as Deborah interjected a comment in the background. She went on to say, 'Considering what Tina apparently looks like, it's hard to believe anyone would forget her. Although the girl did ask if she might be a biochemist.'

'That seems a bit far-fetched.'

'H'm. It does. Except that Deborah did tell me about a drink she's developed. A health drink. Perhaps Tina hoped to sell it to the pharmaceutical company?'

'Unlikely, Helen.'

'I suppose so. She'd go to a beverage company with it, wouldn't she?'

'That's more probable. Has anyone heard from her? Has she returned?'

'Not yet. I spent part of the afternoon going to each flat in the building to see if anyone knew anything about where she might be.'

'No luck, I take it.'

'None at all. No-one seems to know her very well. In fact Deborah appears to be the only person who's had any close contact with her, aside from a peculiar woman across the hall who loaned her an iron. Several people have seen her about, of course – she's lived here since September – but no-one's spent any time talking to her. Besides Deborah.'

St James jotted the word September into his notes. He underlined it, drew a circle round it. He topped the circle with a cross. The symbol of woman. He scribbled over it all.

'What next?' Lady Helen was asking.

'See if the building manager has a Cornish address for her,' St James said. 'You might try to find out what she pays for the flat.'

'Quite. I should have thought to ask that earlier. Although heaven knows why. Are we getting anywhere?'

St James sighed. 'I don't know. Have you spoken to Sidney?'

'That's a problem, Simon. I've been phoning her flat, but there's no answer. I tried her agency, but they've not heard from her either. Did she talk about going to see friends?'

'No. She talked about going home.'

'I'll keep trying, then. Don't worry. She may have gone to Cheyne Row.'

St James thought this unlikely. 'We need to find her, Helen.'

TU pop round to her flat. She may not be answering the phone.'

Having secured this assurance, St James rang off. He remained in the alcove, staring down at the scribbled mess he'd made of the word September. He wanted it to mean something. He knew that it probably did. But what that something was he could not have said.

He turned as Lynley came into the alcove. 'Anything?'

St James related the bits of information which Lady Helen had managed to gather that day. He saw the change in Lynley's expression after he'd heard the very first fact.

'Islington-London?' he asked. 'Are you sure of that, St James?'

'Helen went there. Why? Does it mean something to you?'

Warily Lynley glanced back into the drawing room. His mother and Cotter were chatting together quietly as they looked through a family album which lay between them. 'Tommy? What is it?'

'Roderick Trenarrow. He works for Islington-Penzance.'

'Then, Mick must have left both of those telephone numbers in Tina Cogin's flat,' St James said. 'Trenarrow's as well as Islington's. That explains why Trenarrow didn't know who Tina was.'

Lynley didn't reply until he'd made the turn into Beaufort Street, to head in the general direction of Paddington. They had just dropped Cotter at St James' Cheyne Row house where he'd greeted the sight of that brick building like a prodigal son, scurrying inside with a suitcase in each hand and undisguised, wholehearted relief buoying his footsteps. It was ten past one in the afternoon. Their drive into the city from the airfield in Surrey had been plagued by a snarl of slow-moving traffic, the product of a summer fete near Buckland which apparendy was drawing record crowds.

'Do you think Roderick's involved in this business?'

St James took note not only of the dispassionate tone of Lynley's question but also of the fact that he'd deliberately phrased it to leave out the word murder. At the same time, he saw the manner in which his friend attended to the driving as he spoke, both hands high on the steering wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead. He knew only the barest details of Lynley's past relationship with Trenarrow, all of them circling round a general antipathy that had its roots in Lady Asherton's enduring relationship with the man. Lynley would need something to compensate for that dislike if Trenarrow was even tangentially involved in the deaths in Cornwall, and it seemed that he'd chosen scrupulous impartiality as a means of counterbalancing the animosity that coloured his long association with the man.

'I suppose he could be, even if only unconsciously.' St James told him about his meeting with Trenarrow, about the interview Mick Cambrey had done with him. 'But if Mick was working on a story that led to his death, Trenarrow may have merely given him a lead, perhaps the name of someone at Islington-London with information Mick needed.'

'But if, as you say, there were no notes in the newspaper office from any story connected to Roderick…' Lynley braked at traffic lights. It would have been natural to look at St James. He did not do so. 'What does that suggest to you?'

'I didn't say there were no notes about him, Tommy. I said there was no story about him. Or about anything relating to cancer research. That's a different matter from an absence of notes. There may be hundreds of notes for all we know. Harry Cambrey was the one who looked through Mick's files. I had no chance to do so.'

'So the information may still be there, with Harry unable to recognize its importance.'

'Quite. But the story itself – whatever it was, if it's even connected to Mick's death – may have nothing to do with Trenarrow directly. He may just be a source.'

Lynley looked at him then. 'You didn't want to phone him, St James. Why?'

St James watched a woman push a pram across the street. A small child clung to the hem of her dress. The traffic lights changed. Cars and lorries began to move.

'Mick may have been on the trail of a story that caused his death. You know as well as I that it makes no sense to alert anyone to the fact that we may be on the trail as well.'