Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

'What I've spent nearly ten days getting out of Mummy. I even had to trail along to David's for a week just so that she'd know I was determined to have it.'

'You've been with Mother?' St James asked incredulously. 'Visiting David in Southampton? Helen, did you-?'

'I phoned Surrey that once, but there was no reply. Then you said not to worry her. Remember?'

'Worry Mummy?' Sidney asked. 'Worry Mummy about what?'

'About you.'

'Why would Mummy worry about me?' She didn't wait for an answer. 'Actually, she thought the idea was absurd, at first.'

'What idea?'

'Now I know where you get your general poopiness, Simon. But I wore her down over time. I knew I should. Go on, open it. Read it aloud. Helen shall hear it as well.'

'Damn it, Sidney. I want to know-'

She grabbed his wrist and shook his arm. 'Read.'

He opened the envelope with ill-concealed irritation and began to read aloud.

My dear Simon,

It appears I shall have no rest from Sidney until I apologize, so let me do so at once. Not that a simple line of apology would ever satisfy your sister.

'What is this Sid?'

She laughed. 'Keep reading!'

He went back to his mother's heavily embossed stationery.

I always did think it was Sidney's idea to open the nursery windows, Simon. But, when you said nothing upon being accused of having done so, I felt obliged to direct all the punishment towards you. Punishing one's children is the hardest part of being a parent. It's even worse if one has the nagging little fear that one is punishing the wrong child. Sidney has cleared all this up, as only Sidney could do, and although she had begun to insist that I beat her soundly for having let you take her punishment all those years ago I do draw the line at paddling a twenty-five-year-old woman. So let me apologize to you for placing the blame on your little shoulders – were you ten years old? I've forgotten -and I shall henceforth direct it towards her in an appropriate fashion. We have had a rather nice visit, Sidney and I. We spent some time with David and the children as well. It's made me quite hopeful that I shall soon see you in Surrey. Bring Deborah with you if you come. Cotter telephoned Cook with the word about her. Poor child. It would be good of you to take her under your wing until she's back on her feet.

Love to you, Mother

Hands on her hips, Sidney threw back her head and laughed, clearly delighted with having brought off a coup. 'Isn't she grand? What a time I had getting her to write it, though. Had she not already wanted to speak to you about seeing to Deborah – you know how she is, always concerned that we'll become social heathens and not do the proper thing in these situations – I doubt if anything could have made her write it.'

St James felt Lady Helen watching him. He knew what she expected him to ask. He didn't ask it. For the past ten days he had known something had happened between them. Cotter's behaviour alone would have told him as much, even if Deborah had not been gone from Howenstow when he'd returned from Penzance on the evening after Trenarrow's death. But, other than saying he'd flown her back to London, Lynley said nothing more. And Cotter's grim restraint had not been a thing which St James wanted to disturb. So even now he said nothing.

Lady Helen, however, did not have his scruples. 'What's happened to Deborah?'

'Tommy broke their engagement,' Sidney replied. 'Cotter hasn't told you, Simon? From the way Mummy's cook tells it, he was practically breathing fire on the phone. Quite in a rage. I half-expected to hear he'd duelled with Tommy for satisfaction. "Guns or knives," I can hear him shouting. "Speaker's Corner at dawn." Tommy hasn't told you, either? How decidedly odd. Unless, of course, he thinks you may demand satisfaction, Simon.' She laughed and then sobered thoughtfully. 'You don't think this is a class thing, do you? Considering Peter's choice of Sasha, class can hardly be an issue with the Lynleys.'

As she spoke, St James realized that Sidney had no idea of anything that had happened since her bitter departure from Howenstow on that Sunday morning. He opened the bottom drawer beneath his work table and removed her perfume bottle.

'You misplaced this,' he said.

She grabbed it, delighted. 'Where did you find it? Don't tell me it was in the Howenstow wardrobe. I can accept that for shoes but for nothing else.'

'Justin took it from your room, Sid.'

Such a simple statement – seven words, no more. Their effect upon his sister was immediate. Her smile faded. She tried to hold on to the edges of it, but her lips quivered with the effort. Liveliness left her. The quick end to her insouciance told him how precarious a hold she had on her emotions. Her present madcap demeanour merely acted as a shield to fend off a mourning she had not begun.

'Justin?' she said. 'Why?'

There was no easy way for him to tell her. He knew that the knowledge would only add to her sorrow. Yet telling her seemed to be the only way that she might start the process of burying her dead.

'To frame you for murder,' he said.

'That's ridiculous.'

'He wanted to murder Peter Lynley. He got Sasha Nifford instead.'

'I don't understand.' She rolled the perfume bottle over and over in her hand. She bent her head. She brushed at her cheeks.

'It was filled with a drug she mistook for heroin.' At that she looked up. St James saw the expression on her face. The use of a drug as a means of murder did indeed make the truth so unavoidable. 'I'm sorry, love.'

'But Peter. Justin told me Peter was at Cambrey's. He said they had a row. And then Mick Cambrey died. He said that Peter wanted to kill him. I don't understand. Peter must have known Justin told you and Tommy about it. He knew. He did know.'

'Peter didn't kill Justin, Sid. He wasn't even at Howenstow when Justin died.'

'Then, why?'

'Peter heard something he wasn't supposed to hear. He could have used it against Justin eventually, especially once Mick Cambrey was killed. Justin got nervous. He knew Peter was desperate about money and cocaine. He knew he was unstable. He couldn't predict his behaviour, so he needed to be rid of him.'

Together, St James and Lady Helen told her the story. Islington, oncozyme, Trenarrow, Cambrey. The clinic and cancer. The substitution of a placebo that led to Mick's death.

'Brooke was in jeopardy,' St James said. 'He took steps to eliminate it.'

'What about me?' she asked. 'It's my bottle. Didn't he know that people would think I was involved?' Still she clutched the bottle. Her fingers turned white round it.

'The day on the beach, Sidney,' Lady Helen said. 'He'd been humiliated rather badly.'

'He wanted to punish you,' St James said.

Sidney's lips barely moved as she said, 'He loved me. I know it. He loved me.'

St James felt the terrible burden of her words and with it the need to reassure his sister of her intrinsic worth. He wanted to say something but couldn't think of the words that might comfort her.

Lady Helen spoke. 'What Justin Brooke was makes no statement about who you are, Sidney. You don't take your definition of self from him. Or from what he felt. Or didn't feel, for that matter.'

Sidney gave a choked sob. St James went to her. 'I'm sorry, love,' he said, putting his arm tighdy round her. 'I think I'd rather you hadn't known. But I can't lie to you, Sidney. I'm not sorry he's dead.'

She coughed and looked up at him. She offered a shattered smile. 'Lord, how hungry I am,' she whispered. 'Shall we have lunch?'

In Eaton Terrace, Lady Helen slammed the door of her Mini. She did it more to give herself courage – as if the action might attest to the fittingness of her behaviour -than to assure herself that the car door was securely locked. She looked up at the darkened front of Lynley's townhouse, then held up her wrist to the light of the street-lamp. It was nearly eleven, hardly the time for a social call. But the very unsuitability of the hour gave her an advantage which she wasn't willing to relinquish. She climbed the marble-tiled steps to his door.