Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'Let her by,' Mr Sweeney repeated. ‘I’ll accompany her myself. Perhaps you ought to be more concerned with the newspaperman than with this young lady.'

The constable gave Deborah another sceptical look. She waited in torment while he made his decision. 'All right. Go on. Stay out of the way.'

Deborah's lips formed the words 'Thank you', but nothing came out. She took a few stumbling steps.

'It's all right, my dear,' Mr Sweeney said. 'Let's go up.

Take my arm. The drive's a bit slippery, isn't it?'

She did as he said, although only a part of her brain registered his words. The rest was caught up in speculation and fear. 'Please, not Tommy,' she whispered. 'Not like this. Please. I could bear anything else.'

'Now, it will be all right,' Mr Sweeney murmured in a distracted fashion. 'Indeed. You shall see.'

They slipped and slid among the crushed corollas of fuchsias as they wound their way up the narrow drive towards the front of the villa. The rain was beginning to fall less heavily, but Deborah was already soaked, so the protection of Mr Sweeney's umbrella meant very little. She shivered as she clung to his arm.

'It's a dreadful business, this,' Mr Sweeney said as if in response to her shudder. 'But it shall be all right. You'll see in a moment.'

Deborah heard the words but knew enough to dismiss them. There was no chance for all right any longer. A mocking form of justice always swept through life when one was least prepared to see justice meted out. Her time had come.

In spite of the number of men who were on the grounds, it was unnaturally quiet as they approached the villa. The crackle of a police radio was the only noise, a female dispatcher giving direction to police not far from the scene. On the circular drive beneath the hawthorn tree, three police cars sat at odd, hurried angles, as if their drivers had flung themselves out without bothering to worry about where or how they parked. In the rear seat of one of them, Harry Cambrey was engaged in a muffled shouting match with an angry constable who appeared to have handcuffed him to the interior of the car. When he saw Deborah, Cambrey forced his face to the officer's window.

'Dead!' he shouted before the constable pushed him back inside the car.

The worst was realized. Deborah saw the ambulance pulled near the front door – not as close as the police cars, for there was no need of that. Wordlessly, she clutched at Mr Sweeney's arm, but as if he read her fears he pointed to the portico.

'Look,' he urged her.

Deborah forced herself to look towards the front door. She saw him. Her eyes flew wildly over every part of his body, looking for wounds. But, other than the fact that his jacket was wet, he was quite intact – although terribly pale – talking gravely to Inspector Boscowan.

'Thank God,' she whispered.

The front door opened even as she spoke. Lynley and Boscowan stepped to one side to allow two men to carry a stretcher into the rain, a body upon it. Sheeting covered it from head to toe, strapped down as if to shield it from the rain and to protect it from the stares of the curious. Only when she saw it, only when she heard the front door close with a sound of hollow finality, did Deborah understand. Still she looked frantically at the grounds of the villa, at the brightly lit windows, at the cars, at the door. Again and again – as if the action could change an immutable reality – she sought him.

Mr Sweeney said something, but she didn't hear it. She only heard her own bargain: / could bear anything else.

Her childhood, her life, flashed before her in an instant, leaving behind for the very first time neither anger nor pain, but instead understanding, complete and too late. She bit her lip so hard that she could taste the blood, but it was not enough to quell her cry of anguish.

'Simon!' She threw herself towards the ambulance where already the body had been loaded inside.

Lynley spun around. He saw her plunging blindly through the cars. She slipped once on the slick pavement but pulled herself to her feet, screaming his name.

She threw herself on the ambulance, pulling on the handle that would open its rear door. A policeman tried to restrain her, a second did likewise. But she fought them off. She kicked, she scratched. And all the time, she kept screaming his name. High and shrieking, it was a two-syllable monody that Lynley knew he would hear – when he least wanted to hear it – for the rest of his life. A third policeman joined the attempt to subdue her, but she writhed away.

Sick at heart, Lynley turned from the sight. He felt for the villa door. 'St James,' he said.

The other man was in the hall with Trenarrow's housekeeper who was sobbing into the turban she'd taken from her head. He looked Lynley's way and began to speak but hesitated, face clouded, as Deborah's cries grew more profound. He touched Dora's shoulder gently and joined Lynley at the door, stopping short at the sight of Deborah being dragged away from the ambulance and fighting every step that distanced her from it. He looked at Lynley.

Lynley looked away. 'For Christ's sake, go to her. She thinks it's you.' He couldn't face his friend. He didn't want to see him. He only hoped St James would take matters into his own hands without another word being spoken between them. It was not to be.

'No. She's only-'

'Just go, damn you. Go.'

Seconds ticked by before St James moved, but when he finally walked into the drive Lynley found the expiation he had searched for so long. He forced himself to watch.

St James skirted the police cars and approached the group. He walked quite slowly. He couldn't move fast. His gait wouldn't allow it, crippled and ugly, and halted by pain.

St James reached the ambulance. He shouted Deborah's name. He grabbed her, pulled her towards him. She fought back violently, weeping and shrieking, but only for a moment until she saw who it was. Then she was caught up in his arms, her body shaking with terrible sobs, his head bent to hers, his hands in her hair.

'It's all right, Deborah,' Lynley heard St James say. 'I'm sorry you were frightened. I'm all right, my love.' Then he murmured needlessly, 'My love. My love.'

The rain fell against them, the police began to move round them. But neither seemed cognizant of anything more than being held in the other's arms.

Lynley turned and went into the house.

A stirring awakened her. She opened her eyes. They focused on the distant barrel ceiling. She gazed up at it, confused. Turning her head, she saw the lace-covered dressing table, its silver hairbrushes, its old cheval mirror. Great-grandmamma Asherton's bedroom, she thought. Recognition of the room brought almost everything back. Images of the cove, the newspaper office, the flight up the hill, the sight of the shrouded body all merged in her mind. At their centre was Tommy.

Another movement came from the other side of the room. The curtains were drawn, but a cord of daylight struck a chair by the fireplace. Lynley was sitting there, his legs stretched out in front of him. On the table next to him sat a tray of food. Breakfast, by the look of it. She could see the dim shape of a toast rack.

At first she didn't speak, trying instead to remember the events that followed those horrifying moments at Trenarrow's villa. She remembered a brandy being pressed upon her, the sound of voices, a telephone ringing, then a car. Somehow she'd got from Nanrunnel back to Howenstow where she'd made her way to a bed.

She wore a blue satin nightdress that she didn't recognize. A matching dressing gown lay at the foot of the bed. She pushed herself into a sitting position.

'Tommy?'

'You're awake.' He went to the windows and pushed the curtains back a bit so that the room had more light. The casements were already open a few inches, but he opened them further so that the crying of the gulls and cormorants made a background of sound.