Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

And then later in Switzerland. He remembered the bitterness with which he had looked at the Alps from his hospital window, loathing his body, despising its weakness, confronting for the very first time the inescapable reality of never being able to walk with ease in those mountains – or any others – again. But Sidney was with him, bullying, shouting, harassing him back to health, stubbornly insisting he would live to old age even when he prayed each night that he might die.

Remembering all this, he fought against the facts that nagged at his consciousness: Sidney's presence in Soho, the nature of her relationship with Justin Brooke, her easy access to drugs from the life she led, the people she knew, and the work she did. And while he tried to convince himself that she did not know – could not possibly have known – Mick Cambrey, and thus could not be involved in his death in any way, he could not dismiss the fact that Deborah had told him Sidney had seen Tina Cogin that day in her flat. Sidney herself had talked about seeing Peter assaulting a woman in Soho, a woman whose description was identical to Tina's. Even though it was tenuous enough to be disregarded as meaningless, the connection was there. He could not overlook it. So he wondered where she was and what she had done, while twenty-five years of mutual history cried out that he find her before the police.

Islington-London was an unprepossessing building not far from Gray's Inn Road. A small, gated courtyard set the structure back from the street, and it was crammed with half a dozen small cars and a minivan with the letters ISLINGTON spread across a map of Great Britain and white stars scattered here and there in all three countries, obviously indicating the location of branch offices. There were ten in all, as far north as Inverness, as far south as Penzance. It appeared to be quite an operation.

Inside the lobby, the sound from the street was muted by thick walls, thick carpet, and a muzak track currently playing an all-strings rendition of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'. Handsome sofas lined the walls beneath large modern canvases in the style of David Hockney. Across from these a receptionist, who couldn't have been more than an erstwhile fifth-form student who'd decided not to continue at school, tapped away at a word processor with impossibly long magenta-coloured fingernails. Her hair was dyed to match.

Out of the corner of her eye, she appeared to see St James approach, for she did not turn from her word processing screen. Rather she wiggled her fingers vaguely in the direction of a stack of papers on her desk and popped her chewing gum before saying, 'Take an application form.'

‘I’ve not come about a job.'

When the girl didn't respond, St James noticed that she was wearing the small kind of headset earphones that are usually attached to a tape recorder either giving dictation or blaring out rock-and-roll music that, mercifully, no-one else has to hear. He repeated his statement, louder this time. She looked up, removing the headset hastily.

'Sorry. One gets used to the automatic response.' She pulled a ledger towards her. 'Have an appointment?'

'Do people generally have appointments when they come here?'

She chewed her gum more thoughtfully for a moment and looked him over as if searching for hidden meanings. 'Generally,' she said. 'Right.'

'So no-one would come to make a purchase?'

The gum snapped in her mouth. 'The sales force goes out. No-one comes here. There's the odd telephone order, isn't there, but it's not like a chemist's shop.' She watched as St James took the folded materials from his jacket pocket and produced the photograph of Mick Cambrey. He gave it to her, his hand making contact with her talon nails which, glistening wetly, grazed his skin. She wore a tiny gold musical note glued on to the nail of her ring finger, like a piece of odd jewellery.

'Has this man had an appointment to see anyone?' he asked.

She smiled when her eyes dropped to the picture. 'He's been here all right.'

'Lately?'

She tapped her nails on the desk top as she thought. 'H'm. That's a bit difficult, isn't it? A few weeks past, I think.'

'Do you know who he saw?' 'His name?'

'Mick – Michael – Cambrey.'

'Let me check.' She opened the ledger on her desk and scanned several pages – an activity which seemed to allow her the opportunity of showing off her fingernails to their best advantage, since every time she turned a page, she used a new nail to guide her eyes down the column of times and names.

'A visitor's log?' St James asked.

'Everybody signs in and out. Security, you know.'

'Security?'

'Drugs research. You can't be too careful. Something new comes out and everyone in the West End's hot to try it with drinks that night. Ah. Here it is. He's signed into Project Testing, Department Twenty-Five.' She flipped back through several more pages. 'Here he is again. Same department, same time. Just before lunch.' She slipped back several months. 'Quite a regular, he was.'

'Always the same department?'

'Looks that way.'

'May I speak to the department head?'

She closed the ledger and looked regretful. 'That's a bit rough. No appointment, you see. And poor Mr Malverd's balancing two departments at once. Why don't you leave your name?' She shrugged noncommittally.

St James wasn't about to be put off. 'This man, Mick Cambrey, was murdered on Friday night.'

The receptionist's face sharpened with immediate interest. 'You're police?' she asked; and then, sounding hopeful, 'Scotland Yard?'

St James gave a moment's thought to how easily it could all have been managed had Lynley only come with him. As it was, he removed his own card and handed it over. 'This is a private endeavour,' he told her.

She glanced at the card, moved her lips as she read it, and then turned it over as if more information might be printed on the back. 'A murder,' she breathed. 'Just let me see if I can reach Mr Malverd for you.' She punched three buttons on the switchboard and pocketed his card. 'Just in case I need you myself,' she said with a wink.

Ten minutes later, a man came into the reception area, swinging shut a heavy panelled door behind him. He introduced himself as Stephen Malverd, offered his hand in an abbreviated greeting, and pulled on his earlobe. He was wearing a white lab coat which hung below his knees, directing attention to what he wore upon his feet. Sandals, rather than shoes, and heavy argyle socks. He was very busy, he said, he could spare only a few minutes, if Mr St James would come this way…

He strode briskly back into the heart of the building. As he walked, his hair – which sprang up round his head wild and unruly like a pad of steel wool – fluttered and bounced, and his lab coat blew open like a cape. He slowed his pace only when he noticed St James' gait, but even then he looked at the offending leg accusingly, as if it too robbed him of precious moments away from his job.

They rang for the lift at the end of a corridor given over to administrative offices. Malverd said nothing until they were on their way to the building's third floor. 'It's been chaos round here for the last few days,' he said. 'But I'm glad you've come. I thought there was more involved than I heard at first.'

'Then, you remember Michael Cambrey?'

Malverd's face was a sudden blank. 'Michael Cambrey? But she told me-' He gestured aimlessly in an indication of the reception area and frowned. 'What's this about?'

'A man named Michael Cambrey visited Project Testing, Department Twenty-Five, several times over the past few months. He was murdered last Friday.'

'I'm not sure how I can help you.' Malverd sounded perplexed. 'Twenty-Five isn't my regular patch. I've only stepped in briefly. What is it that you want?'