A Suitable Vengeance

by Elizabeth George

  The whipcord of tension in his features told her he had moved beyond caring.

  'As you like.' He headed towards the gaping darkness of the alley across the square.

  Construction was under way there, making the alley mouth darker and narrower than usual. Sidney made a moue of distaste at the smell of urine. It was worse than she had expected it to be.

  Buildings loomed up on either side, unlit and unmarked. Grilles covered their windows, and their entry-ways housed shrouded, moaning figures who conducted the sort of illicit business which the nightclubs of the district seemed eager to promote.

  'Justin, where're you planning to—?'

  Brooke raised a cautionary hand. Up ahead, a man's hoarse cursing had begun to fill the air. It came from the far end of the alley where a brick wall curved round the side of a nightclub to form a sheltered alcove. Two figures writhed upon the ground there. But this was no love-tryst. This was assault, and the bottom figure was a black-clad woman who appeared to be no match in either size or strength for her ferocious assailant.

  'You filthy . . .' The man - blond by the appearance of him and wildly angry by the sound of his voice - pounded his fists against the woman's face, ground them into her arms, slammed them into her stomach.

  At this, Sidney moved, and when Brooke tried to stop her she cried out, 'No! It's a woman,' and ran towards the alley's end.

  She heard Justin's sharp oath behind her. He overtook her less than three yards away from the couple on the ground. 'Keep back. Let me see to it,' he said roughly.

  Brooke grabbed the man by his shoulders, digging into the leather jacket he wore. The action of pulling him upwards freed his victim's arms, and she instinctively brought them up to protect her face. Brooke flung the man backwards.

  'You idiots! Do you want the police after you?'

  Sidney pushed past him. 'Peter!' she cried. 'Justin, it's Peter Lynley!'

  Brooke looked from the young man to the woman who lay on her side, her dress dishevelled and her stockings in tatters. He squatted and grabbed her face as if to examine the extent of her injuries.

  'My God,' he muttered. Releasing her, he stood, shook his head, and gave a short bark of laughter.

  Below him, the woman drew herself to her knees. She reached for her handbag, retching momentarily.

  Then - most oddly - she began to laugh as well.

  Part Two

  LONDON AFTERNOONS

  1

  Lady Helen Clyde was surrounded by the trappings of death. Crime-scene exhibits lay upon tables; photographs of corpses hung on the walls; grisly specimens sat in glass-fronted cupboards, among them one particularly gruesome memento consisting of a tuft of hair with the victim's scalp still attached. Yet despite the macabre nature of the environment Lady Helen's thoughts kept drifting to food.

  As a form of distraction, she consulted the copy of a police report that lay on the work-table before her. 'It all matches up, Simon.' She switched off her microscope. 'B negative, AB positive, O positive. Won't the Met be happy about that?'

  'H'm,' was her companion's only response.

  Monosyllables were typical of him when he was involved in work, but his reply was rather aggravating at the moment since it was after four o'clock and for the last quarter-hour Lady Helen's body had been longing for tea. Oblivious of this, Simon Allcourt-St James began uncapping a collection of bottles that sat in a row before him. These contained minute fibres which he would analyse, staking his growing reputation as a forensic scientist upon his ability to weave a set of facts out of infinitesimal, blood-soaked threads.

  Recognizing the preliminary stages of a fabric analysis, Lady Helen sighed and walked to the laboratory window. On the top floor of St James' house, it was open to the late June afternoon, and it overlooked a pleasant brick-walled garden. There, a vivid tangle of flowers made a pattern of undisciplined colour. Walkways and lawn had become overgrown.

  'You ought to hire someone to see to the garden,' Lady Helen said. She knew very well that it hadn't been properly tended in the last three years.

  'Yes.' St James took out a pair of tweezers and a box of slides. Somewhere below them in the house a door opened and shut.

  At last, Lady Helen thought, and allowed herself to imagine Joseph Cotter mounting the stairs from the basement kitchen, in his hands a tray covered by fresh scones, clotted cream, strawberry tarts and tea. Unfortunately, the sounds that began drifting upwards - a thumping and bumping, accompanied by a low grunt of endeavour - did not suggest that refreshments were imminent. Lady Helen sidestepped one of St James' computers and peered into the panelled hall.

  'What's going on?' St James asked as a sharp thwack resounded through the house, metal against wood, a noise boding ill for the stairway banisters. He got down awkwardly from his stool, his braced left leg landing unceremoniously on the floor with an ugly thud.

  'It's Cotter. He's struggling with a trunk and some sort of package. Shall I help you, Cotter? What are you bringing up?'

  'Managing quite well,' was Cotter's oblique reply from three floors below.

  'But what on earth—?' Next to her, Lady Helen felt St James move sharply away from the door. He returned to his work as if the interruption had not occurred and Cotter were not in need of assistance.

  And then she was given the explanation. As Cotter manoeuvred his burdens across the first landing, a shaft of light from the window illuminated a broad sticker affixed to the trunk. Even from the top floor, Lady Helen could read the black print across it: D. Cotter/USA. Deborah was returning, and quite soon by the look of it. Yet, as if this all were not occurring, St James devoted himself to his fibres and slides. He bent over a microscope, adjusting its focus.

  Lady Helen descended the stairs. Cotter waved her off.

  'I c'n manage,' he said. 'Don't trouble yourself.'

  'I want the trouble. As much as do you.'

  Cotter smiled at her reply, for his labours were born of a father's love for his returning child, and Lady Helen knew it. He handed over the broad flat package which he had been attempting to carry under his arm. His hold on the trunk he would not relinquish.

  'Deborah's coming home?' Lady Helen kept her voice low. Cotter did likewise.

  'She is. Tonight.'

  'Simon never said a word.'

  Cotter readjusted his grip on the trunk. 'Not likely to, is 'e?' he responded grimly.

  They climbed the remaining flights of stairs. Cotter shouldered the trunk into his daughter's bedroom to the left of the landing, while Lady Helen paused at the door to the lab. She leaned the package against the wall, tapping her fingers against it thoughtfully as she observed her friend. St James did not look up from his work.

  That had always been his most effective defence. Work-tables and microscopes became ramparts which no-one could scale, incessant labour a narcotic that dulled the pain of loss. Lady Helen surveyed the lab, seeing it for once not as the centre of St James' professional life, but as the refuge which it had become. It was a large room scented faintly by formaldehyde; walled by anatomy charts and graphs and shelves; floored by old, creaking hardwood; ceilinged by a skylight through which milky sun provided an impersonal warmth. Scarred tables furnished it, as did tall stools, microscopes, computers, and a variety of equipment for studying everything from blood to bullets. To one side, a door led into Deborah Cotter's darkroom. But that door had been closed for all the years of her absence. Lady Helen wondered what St James would do if she opened it now, flinging it back like an unavoidable invasion into the reaches of his heart.

  'Deborah's coming home tonight, Simon? Why didn't you tell me?'

  St James removed one slide from the microscope and replaced it with another, adjusting the dials for a higher degree of magnification. After a moment of studying this new specimen, he jotted down a few notes.

  Lady Helen leaned across the work-table and clicked off the microscope's light. 'She's coming home,' she said. 'You've not said a word about it all day. Why, Simon? Tell me.'


  Instead of answering, St James looked past her shoulder. 'What is it, Cotter?'

  Lady Helen swung around. Cotter was standing in the doorway, frowning, wiping his brow with a white linen handkerchief. 'You've no need to fetch Deb from the airport tonight, Mr St James,' he said in a rush. 'Lord Asherton's to do it. I'm to go as well. He rang me not an hour ago. It's all arranged.'

  The ticking of the wall clock made the only immediate response to Cotter's announcement until somewhere outside a child's frantic weeping - rife with outrage - rose on the air.

  St James stirred to say, 'Good. That's just as well. I've a mountain of work to get through here.'

  Lady Helen felt the sort of confusion that requires an accompanying cry of protest. The world as she knew it was taking on a new shape. Longing to ask the obvious question, she looked from St James to Cotter, but their reserve warned her off. Still, she could tell that Cotter was willing to say more. He appeared to be waiting for the other man to make some additional comment that would allow him to do so. But instead St James merely ran a hand through his unruly black hair. Cotter shifted on his feet.

  ‘I’ll be about my business, then.' With a nod, he left the room, but his shoulders looked burdened and his steps were heavy.

  'Let me understand this,' Lady Helen said. 'Tommy's fetching Deborah from the airport. Tommy. Not you?'

  It was a reasonable enough question. Thomas Lynley, Lord Asherton, was an old friend to both St James and Lady Helen, something of a colleague as well since for the past ten years he had worked in the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard. In both capacities, he had been a frequent visitor to St James' Cheyne Row house. But when on earth, Lady Helen wondered, had he come to know Deborah Cotter well enough to be the one to meet her at the airport after her time away at school? To phone her father coolly with the arrangements every bit as if he were . . . what on earth was Tommy to Deborah?

  'He's been to America to see her,' St James replied. 'A number of times. He never told you that, Helen?'

  'Good heavens.' Lady Helen was nonplussed. 'How do you know that? Surely Deborah didn't tell you. As for Tommy, he knows that you've always—'

  'Cotter told me last year. I suppose he'd spent some time wondering about Tommy's intentions, as any father might.'

  His dry, factual tone spoke volumes more than any telling comment he might have chosen to make. Her heart went out to him.

  'It's been dreadful for you, hasn't it, these last three years without her?'

  St James drew another microscope across the table and gave his attention to the removal of a speck of dust that seemed to be adhering stubbornly to its eyepiece.

  Lady Helen watched him, seeing clearly how the passage of time, in conjunction with his wretched disability, was doing its best to make him every year less of a man in his own eyes. She wanted to tell him how untrue and unfair such an assessment was. She wanted to tell him how little difference it made. But to do so bordered too closely upon pity, and she would not hurt him by a display of compassion he did not want.

  The front door slamming far below saved her from having to speak at all. Rapid footsteps followed. They flew up three flights of steps without a pause for breath and served as harbinger of the only person with sufficient energy to make so steep a climb in so little time.

  'That sounds like Sidney,' St James said moments before his younger sister burst into the room.

  'I knew I'd find you in here,' Sidney announced, brushing a kiss against his cheek. She flopped onto a stool and said by way of greeting her brother's companion, 'I do love that dress, Helen. Is it new? How can you manage to look so put together at a quarter past four in the afternoon?'

  'While we're talking of being put together . . .' St James eyed his sister's unusual attire.

  Sidney laughed. 'Leather pants. What d'you think? There's a fur as well, but I left it with the photographer.'

  'Rather a warm combination for summer,' Lady Helen said.

  'Isn't it beastly?' Sidney agreed happily. 'They've had me on Albert Bridge since ten o'clock this morning in leather pants, a fur coat, and nothing else. Perched on top of a 1951 taxi with the driver - I wish someone would tell me where they get these male mannequins - leering up at me like a pervert. Oh, yes, and a bit of au natural showing here and there. My au naturel, if it comes to that. All the driver has to do is look like Jack the Ripper. I borrowed this shirt from one of the technicians. We're breaking for now, so I thought I'd pop over for a visit.' She looked round the room curiously. 'So. It's past four. Where's tea?'

  St James nodded towards the package which Lady Helen had left leaning against the wall. 'You've caught us in disarray this afternoon.'

  'Deborah's coming home tonight, Sid,' Lady Helen said. 'Did you know?'

  Sidney's face lit. 'Is she at last? Then, those must be some of her snaps. Wonderful! Let's have a peep.' She hopped off her stool, shook the package as if it were an early Christmas gift, and blithely proceeded to remove its outer wrapping.

  'Sidney,' St James admonished her.

  'Pooh. You know she wouldn't mind.' Sidney tossed away the sturdy brown paper, untied the cords of a black portfolio, and picked up the top portrait from the stack within. She looked it over, whistling between her teeth. 'Lord, the girl's handier with a camera than she's ever been.' She passed the photograph to Lady Helen and went on with her perusal of the others in the stack.

  Self and Bath. The three words were scrawled in haphazard script across the bottom edge of the picture. It was a nude study of Deborah herself, arranged in three-quarter profile to the camera. She had composed the piece cleverly: a shallow tub of water; the delicate arch of her spine; a table nearby on which sat a pitcher, hairbrushes and comb; filtered light striking her left arm, her left foot, the curve of her shoulder. With a camera and using herself as a model, she had copied The Tub by Degas. It was lovely.

  Lady Helen looked up to see St James nod as if in appreciation of it. He walked back to his equipment and started sorting through a stack of reports.

  'Did you? Did you know it?' Sidney was asking them impatiently.

  'Know what?' Lady Helen said.

  'That Deborah's involved with Tommy. Tommy Lynley! Mummy's cook told me, believe it or not. From what she said, Cotter's quite up in arms about it. Honestly, Simon, you must talk some sense into Cotter. For that matter, talk some sense into Tommy. I think it's completely unfair of him to choose Deb over me.' She resumed her stool. 'That reminds me. I've got to tell you about Peter.'

  Lady Helen felt a margin of relief at this welcome change of subject. 'Peter?' she said helpfully.

  'Imagine this.' Sidney used her hands to dramatize the scene. 'Peter Lynley and a lady of the night - dressed all in black with flowing black hair like a tourist from Transylvania - caught in flagrante delicto in an alley in Soho!'

  'Tommy's brother Peter?' Lady Helen clarified, knowing Sidney's proclivity for overlooking pertinent details. 'That can't be right. He's in Oxford for the summer, isn't he?'

  'He looked involved in things far more interesting than his studies. History and literature and art be damned.'

  'What are you talking about, Sidney?' St James asked as she hopped off the stool and began to prowl around the lab like a puppy.

  She switched on Lady Helen's microscope and had a look through it. 'Crikey! What is this?'

  'Blood,' Lady Helen said. 'And Peter Lynley?'

  Sidney adjusted the focus. 'It was ... let me see. Friday night. Yes, that's right because I'd a grim little drinks-party to attend in the West End on Friday and that was the night I saw Peter. On the ground in an alley. Scuffling with a prostitute! Wouldn't Tommy be pleased if he heard about that?'

  'Tommy's not been happy with Peter all year,' Lady Helen said.

  'Doesn't Peter know it!' Sidney looked at her brother plaintively. 'What about tea? Is there hope?' 'Always. Finish your saga.'

  Sidney grimaced. 'There's not much else to tell. Justin and I came upon Peter gr
appling with this woman in the dark. He was punching her in the face, as a matter of fact, and Justin pulled him off. The woman - now, this was a bit odd - began to laugh and laugh. Of course, she must have been hysterical. But before we had a chance to see if she was fit she ran off. We drove Peter home. Squalid little flat in Whitechapel, Simon, with a yellow-eyed girl in filthy blue jeans waiting for Peter on the front steps.' Sidney shuddered. 'Anyway, Peter wouldn't say a word to me about Tommy or Oxford or anything. Embarrassed, I suppose. I'm sure the last thing on earth he expected was to have a friend stumble upon him as he rolled round an alley.'

  'What were you doing there?' St James asked. 'Or was Soho Justin's idea?'

  Sidney avoided his gaze. 'D'you think Deb'll take a set of photos of me? I ought to start work on a new portfolio now my hair's cut off. You've not said a word about it, Simon, and it's shorter than yours.'

  St James was not to be so easily diverted. 'Haven't you had enough of Justin Brooke?'

  'Helen, what do you think of my hair?'

  'What about Brooke, Sid?'

  Sidney directed a wordless apology towards Lady Helen before she faced her brother down. The resemblance between them was remarkable, a sharing of the same curly black hair, the same spare aquiline features, the same blue eyes. They looked like skewed mirror images: the liveliness of one was replaced by resigned repose in the other. They were before-and-after pictures, the past and the present, joined by an undeniable bond of blood.

  Sidney's words, however, seemed an effort to deny this. 'Don't mother-hen me, Simon,' she said.

  The sound of a clock chiming in the room startled St James out of sleep. It was 3 a.m. For a dazed moment -half-sleeping, half-waking - he wondered where he was until a knotted muscle, cramping painfully in his neck, brought him fully awake. He stirred in his chair and got up, his movements slow, his body feeling bent. Stretching tentatively, he walked to the study window and looked out on Cheyne Row.

  Moonlight lit tree-leaves with silver, touching upon the restored houses opposite his own, the Carlyle Museum and the corner church. In the past few years, a renaissance had come to the riverside neighbourhood, taking it from its Bohemian past into an unknown future. St James loved it.