Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'Have you worn this, Deborah?'

'I? No. What makes you think that?'

At the desk, he took a piece of white paper from the top drawer. He placed the hair on this and carried both back to the light.

'The hair,' he said. 'It's red.'

He looked up at Deborah and saw her expression change from wonder to realization.

'Is it possible?' he asked her, for since she was the only one who had seen them both she was also the only one who could possibly confirm it.

'Oh, Simon. I'm no good at this. I don't know. I don't know.'

'But you saw her. You were with her. She gave you a drink.'

'The drink,' Deborah said. She dashed from the room. In a moment, the others heard her door crash back against the wall of her flat.

Lady Helen spoke. 'What is it? You can't possibly be thinking Deborah has anything to do with all this. The woman's incognita. That's all it is, plain and simple. She's been in disguise.'

St James placed the piece of paper on the desk. He placed the hair on top of it. He heard over and over that single word. Incognita, incognita. What a monumental joke.

'My God,' he said. 'She was telling everyone she met. Tina Cogin. Tina Cogin. The name's a bloody anagram.'

Deborah flew into the room, in one hand the photograph she had brought with her from Cornwall, in the other hand a small card. She handed both to St James.

'Turn them over,' she said.

He didn't have to do so. He knew already that the handwriting would be identical on each.

'It's the card she gave me, Simon. The recipe for her drink. And on the back of Mick's picture…'

Lynley joined them, taking the card and the photograph from St James. 'God almighty,' he murmured.

'What on earth is it?' Lady Helen asked.

'The reason Harry Cambrey's been building Mick's reputation as a real man's man, I should guess,' St James said.

Deborah poured boiling water into the teapot and carried it to the small oak table which they had moved into the sitting area of her flat. They took places round it, Deborah and Lynley sitting on the day bed, Lady Helen and St James on ladder-back chairs. St James picked up the savings book which lay among the other items attached to Mick Cambrey's life and his death: the manila folder entitled Prospects, the card upon which he'd written the phone number of Islington-London, the Talisman sandwich wrapper, his photograph, the recipe for the drink which he'd given to Deborah on the day that he'd appeared – as Tina Cogin – at her door.

'These ten withdrawals from the account,' Lady Helen said, pointing to them. 'They match what Tina – what Mick Cambrey paid in rent. And the time works right with the facts, Simon. September to June.'

'Long before he and Mark began dealing in cocaine,' Lynley said.

'So that's not how he got the money for the flat?' Deborah asked.

'Not according to Mark.'

Lady Helen ran her finger down the page which listed the deposits. She said, 'But he's put money in every two weeks for a year. Where on earth did it come from?'

St James flipped to the front of the book, scanning the entries. 'Obviously, he had another source of income.'

The amount of money comprising each deposit, St James saw, was not consistent. Sometimes it was significant, other times barely so. Thus, he discounted the second possibility that had risen in his mind upon noting the regularity of the payments into Mick's account. They couldn't be the result of blackmail. Blackmailers generally increase the cost of suppressing a damaging piece of information. Greed feeds on itself; easy money begs for more.

'Beyond that,' Lynley said, 'Mark told us that they'd reinvested their profits in a second, larger buy. His taking the Daze on Sunday confirms that story.'

Deborah poured the tea. St James scooped up his customary four spoonfuls of sugar before Lady Helen shuddered and handed the bowl to Deborah. She picked up the manila folder.

'Mick must have been selling his share of the cocaine in London. Surely, if he'd been doing so in Nanrunnel, someone would have discovered it eventually. Mrs Swann, for instance. I can hardly think she would have let something like that go unnoticed.'

'That makes sense,' Lynley agreed. 'He had a reputation as a journalist in Cornwall. He'd hardly have jeopardized it by selling cocaine there when he could just as easily have done so here.'

'But I've got the impression he had a reputation here in London as well,' St James said. 'He'd worked here, hadn't he, before returning to Cornwall?'

'But not as Tina Cogin,' Deborah pointed out. 'Surely he must have sold the drugs as a woman.'

'He became Tina in September,' Lady Helen said. 'He took this flat in September. He began selling the following March. Plenty of time to amass a list of buyers.' She tapped her fingers against the folder. 'We were wondering what was meant by "prospects", weren't we? Perhaps now we know. Shall we see what sort of prospects these really are?'

'If they're prospective cocaine buyers,' Lynley said, 'they're hardly going to admit the fact.'

Lady Helen smiled serenely. 'Not to the police, Tommy darling. Of course.'

St James knew what that angelic smile meant. If anyone could wrangle information from a total stranger, it would be Lady Helen. Light-hearted chitchat leading down the primrose path to disclosure and co-operation was her special talent. She had already proved that with the caretaker of Shrewsbury Court Apartments. Obtaining the key to Mick's flat had been child's play for her. This list of prospects was merely one step advanced, a moderate challenge. She would become Sister Helen from the Salvation Army, or Helen the Saved from a drug rehabilitation programme, or Helen the Desperate looking for a score. But ultimately, in some way, she would ferret out the truth.

'If Mick was selling in London, a buyer may have followed him to Cornwall,' St James said.

'But, if he was selling as Tina, how would someone know who he really was?' Deborah asked.

'Perhaps he was recognized. Perhaps a buyer, who knew him as Mick, saw him when he was posing as Tina.'

'And followed him to Cornwall? Why? Blackmail?'

'What better way to get cocaine? If the buyer was having a hard time coming up with the money, why not blackmail Cambrey for a payment in drugs?' St James picked up items one by one. He studied them, fingered them, dropped them back on the table. 'But Cambrey wouldn't want to risk his reputation in Cornwall by giving in to the blackmail. So he and the buyer argued. He was hit. He struck his head and died. The buyer took the money that was in the cottage sitting room. Anyone who's desperate for drugs – and who's just killed a man – is hardly going to draw the line at taking money lying right in the open.'

Lynley got up abruptly. He walked to the open window and leaned on the sill, looking down at the street. Too late, St James recognized whose portrait he had been painting with his series of conjectures.

'Could he have known about Mick?' Lynley asked. No-one answered at first. Instead, they listened to the rising sound of traffic in Sussex Gardens as afternoon commuters began to make their way towards the Edgware Road. An engine revved. Brakes screeched in reply. Lynley repeated the question. He did not turn from the window. 'Could my brother have known?'

'Possibly, Tommy,' St James said. When Lynley swung to face him, he went on reluctantly: 'He was part of the drug network in London. Sidney saw him not that long ago in Soho. At night. In an alley.' He paused thoughtfully, remembering the information his sister had given him, remembering her fanciful description of the woman Peter had been assaulting. Dressed all in black with flowing black hair.

He had the impression that Lady Helen was recalling this information even as he did, for she spoke with what seemed a determination to relieve Lynley's anxiety by looking for another focus for the crime. 'Mick's death might revolve round something entirely different. We've thought that from the first, and I don't think we ought to dismiss it now. He was a journalist, after all. He might have been writing a story. He could even have been working on something about transvestites.'