A Suitable Vengeance

by Elizabeth George

  'I should recommend the suede,' Caroline said.

  'H'm.' Lady Helen dropped one suede shoe to the floor, stepped into it, dropped one of the other pair, stepped into that. 'Look closely, Caroline. Are you really quite sure?'

  'Quite,' Caroline replied. 'The suede. And if you'll give me the other pair, I'll just pop them into your suitcase.'

  Lady Helen waved her off for a moment. She studied her feet in the mirror that hung on the inside of the wardrobe door. 'I can see your point. But look at the green. Surely there's green in my skin as well. Or, if not, perhaps they'll provide a hint of contrast. Because I've the sweetest handbag that goes with these shoes and I've been dying to put them together somehow. One hates to admit that an impulsive purchase of shoes and bag has been wildly in vain. Deborah, what do you think?'

  'The suede,' Deborah said. She pushed her suitcase towards the door and went to the dressing table.

  Lady Helen sighed. 'Outvoted, I suppose.' She watched as Caroline left the room. 'I wonder if I can steal her from Tommy. Just one look at those shoes and she made up her mind. Heavens, Deborah, she'd save me hours every day. No more standing before the wardrobe, futilely trying to decide what to wear in the morning. I'd be positively liberated.'

  Deborah made a vague sort of response, and stared, perplexed, at the empty spot next to the dressing table. She went to the wardrobe and peered inside, feeling neither panic nor dismay at first, but merely confusion. Lady Helen chatted on.

  'I victimize myself. I hear the word sale in reference to Harrods, and I simply fall apart. Shoes, hats, pullovers, dresses. I even bought a pair of Wellingtons once, simply because they fitted. So fetching, I thought, just the thing for mucking around Mother's garden.' She inspected Deborah's breakfast tray. 'Will you be eating your grapefruit?'

  'No. I'm not at all hungry.' Deborah went into the bathroom, came out again. She kneeled on the floor to look under the bed, trying to recall where she had left the case. Certainly it had been in the room all along. She'd seen it without seeing it last night as well as the night before, hadn't she? She thought about the question, admitted to herself that she couldn't remember. Yet it was inconceivable that she might have misplaced the case, even more inconceivable that it was missing altogether. Because if it was missing, and she hadn't misplaced it herself, that could only mean . . .

  'Whatever are you doing?' Lady Helen asked, dipping happily into Deborah's grapefruit.

  Dread was hitting her as she saw that nothing had been stored beneath the bed or hurriedly shoved there to get it out of the way. Deborah got to her feet. Her face felt cold.

  Lady Helen's smile faded. 'What is it? What's wrong?'

  In a last and utterly useless search, Deborah returned to the wardrobe and tossed the extra pillows and blankets to the floor. 'My cameras,' she said. 'Helen, my cameras. They're gone.'

  'Cameras?' Lady Helen asked blankly. 'Gone? What do you mean?'

  'Gone. Just what I said. Gone. They were in their case.

  You've seen it. I brought it with me this weekend. It's gone.'

  'But they can't be gone. They've just been misplaced. No doubt someone thought—'

  'They're gone,' Deborah said. 'They were in a metal case. Cameras, lenses, filters. Everything.'

  Lady Helen replaced the bowl of grapefruit on Deborah's tray. She looked round the room. 'Are you certain?'

  'Of course I'm certain! Don't be so—' Deborah stopped herself and with an effort at calm said, 'They were in a case by the dressing table. Look. It's not there.'

  'Let me ask Caroline,' Lady Helen said. 'Or Hodge. They may have already taken them down to the car. Or perhaps Tommy came in earlier and got them. Surely that's it. Because I can't think that anyone would actually . . .' Her voice refused to say the word steal. Nonetheless, the fact that it was foremost on Lady Helen's mind was obvious in the very omission.

  'I haven't left the room since last night. I've only been in the bath. If Tommy came for the cameras, why wouldn't he have told me?'

  'Let me ask,' Lady Helen said again. She left the room to do so.

  Deborah sank on to the stool in front of the dressing table, staring at the floor. The pattern of flowers and leaves in the carpet blurred before her as she considered the loss. Three cameras, six lenses, dozens of filters, all purchased from the proceeds of her first successful show in America, state-of-the-art equipment that served as the hallmark of who she had managed to become at the end of three years on her own. A professional without ties, duties or obligations. A woman committed to the future.

  Every decision she had made during those years in America had taken its legitimacy from the ultimate possession of that equipment. She could look back on every conclusion she had reached, the convictions she had developed, the deeds she had done, and feel neither guilt nor regret because she had emerged with a profession at which she was a bona fide success. That part of life -which might have been his to hold and love and nurture -had been mourned in secret made no difference. That she had filled her time with distractions to avoid acknowledging the worst of her loss - indeed, that she had revaluated all losses and defined each one as inconsequential - had no impact upon her. Everything was made acceptable and right and completely justifiable because she'd attained her goal. She was a success, possessing all the requisite signs and symbols of that achievement.

  Lady Helen came back into the room. 'I spoke to both Caroline and Hodge,' she said. Regret made the statement hesitant. She had no need to say more. 'Deborah, listen. Tommy will—'

  'I don't want Tommy to replace the cameras!' Deborah cried fiercely.

  A quick flash of surprise passed across Lady Helen's face. It vanished in an instant, leaving in its place an expression of perfectly impartial repose.

  'I was going to say that Tommy will want to know at once. I'll fetch him.'

  She was gone only a few moments, returning with both Lynley and St James. The former went to Deborah. The latter remained by the door.

  'Damn and blast,' Lynley muttered. 'What next?' He put his arm round Deborah's shoulders and hugged her to him briefly before he kneeled next to the stool and gazed into her face.

  His own, she could see, was lined by fatigue. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all the previous night. She knew how worried he must be about John Penellin, and she felt a twinge of shame that she should be causing him additional distress.

  'Deb, darling,' he said, 'I'm sorry.'

  So he knew that the cameras had been stolen. Unlike Lady Helen, he didn't even offer the excuse that the equipment had somehow been misplaced.

  'When did you last see them, Deborah?' St James asked.

  Lynley touched her hair, smoothed it back from her face. Deborah could smell the clean, fresh scent of his skin. He hadn't smoked yet, and she liked the smell of him when he hadn't had his first cigarette. If she could concentrate on Tommy, everything else would go away.

  'Did you see them last night when you went to bed?' St James persisted.

  'They were here yesterday morning. I remember that because I replaced the camera I'd used at the play. Everything was here, right by the dressing table.'

  'And you don't remember seeing them after that? You didn't use them during the day?'

  'I didn't use them. I wasn't even in the room until it was time to dress for the party. I might have noticed them then. I ought to have. I was in here, after all. I was right by the dressing table. But I didn't notice them last night at all. Did you, Simon?'

  Lynley got to his feet. His glance went from Deborah to St James in a curious look, perplexed but nothing more.

  Tm sure they were here,' St James said. 'It was your old metal case, wasn't it?' When she nodded, he said, 'I saw it by the dressing table.'

  'Saw it by the dressing table,' Lynley repeated the comment more to himself than to the others. He looked at the spot on the floor. He looked at St James. He looked at the bed.

  'When, St James?' He asked the question easily, three simple words. But the fact of
his saying them and the deliberation of their tone added a new dimension to the conversation.

  Lady Helen said, 'Tommy, shouldn't we be off to the train?'

  'When did you see the camera case, St James? Yesterday? The evening? Some time during the night? When? Were you alone? Or was Deborah—?'

  'Tommy,' Lady Helen said.

  'No. Let him answer.'

  St James didn't reply. Deborah reached for Lynley's arm. She looked to Lady Helen in eloquent entreaty. 'Tommy,' Lady Helen said. 'This isn't—' 'I said let him answer.'

  A moment passed, a small eternity before St James gave an emotionless recitation of the facts. 'Helen and I managed to get a picture of Mick Cambrey yesterday from his father, Tommy. I brought it to Deborah before dinner last night. I saw her camera case then.'

  Lynley stared at him. A long breath left his body. 'Christ,' he said. Tm sorry. That was so bloody stupid. I can't think what made me say it.'

  St James could have smiled. He could have brushed off the apology or laughed off the implied insult as an understandable error. He did nothing, said nothing. He looked only at Deborah, and even then it was a glance of a moment before he looked away.

  As if seeking to relieve the situation, Lady Helen said, 'Were they terribly valuable, Deborah?'

  'They're worth hundreds of pounds.' Deborah went to the window where the light would be behind her, leaving her face in shadow. She could feel the blood pounding in her chest, on her neck, on her cheeks. She wanted, absurdly, to do nothing more than cry.

  'Then, someone must hope to sell them. But not in Cornwall, I dare say - at least, not locally where they could be tracked down. Perhaps in Bodmin or Exeter or even in London. And, if that's the case, they'd have been taken last night, during the party, I should guess. After

  John Penellin was arrested, things did tend to fall apart, didn't they? People were coming and going from the drawing room all the rest of the evening.'

  'And not everyone was in the drawing room in the first place,' Deborah said. She thought of Peter Lynley and the cruelty of his toast at dinner. What better person to want to hurt her than Peter? What better way to get at Tommy than by hurting her?

  St James looked at his watch. 'You ought to get Helen and Deborah to the train,' he told Lynley. 'There's no real point to their remaining, is there? We can deal with the cameras ourselves.'

  'That's best,' Lady Helen agreed. 'I suddenly find myself absolutely longing for the soot and grime of London, my dears.' She walked towards the door, briefly grasping St James' hand as she passed him.

  When St James started to follow her, Lynley spoke. 'Simon. Forgive me. I have no excuse.'

  'Except your brother and John Penellin. Exhaustion and worry. It doesn't matter, Tommy.'

  'It does. I feel a perfect fool.'

  St James shook his head, but his face was drawn. 'It's nothing. Please. Forget it.' He left the room.

  St James heard, rather than saw, his sister yawning in the dining room doorway. 'What an evening,' she said as she padded into the room and joined him at the table. She rested her head in one hand, reached for his pot of coffee, and poured herself a cup which she sugared with an air that combined liberality with general indifference. As if she hadn't bothered to look out of the window prior to dressing for the day, she wore bright blue shorts, profusely decorated with coruscating silver stars, and a halter top. 'Offensive after dinner toasts, visits from the police, an arrest on the spot. It's a wonder we lived to tell the tale.' She eyed the line of covered serving dishes on the sideboard, shrugged them off as possibly too troublesome a venture, and instead took a slice of bacon from her brother's plate. This she placed on a piece of his toast. 'Sid . . .'

  'H'm?' She pulled part of the newspaper towards her. 'What're you reading?'

  St James didn't reply. He'd been going through the Spokesman, and he wanted a moment to evaluate what he'd read.

  It was a village paper, its contents comprising mostly village news. And, no matter the intensity or importance of Mick Cambrey's association with the Spokesman, St James found that he couldn't reasonably attribute the man's murder to what he was reading in this local journal. The news items ran the gamut from a recent wedding held on the quay at Lamorna Cove, to the conviction of a bag-snatcher from Penzance, to the innovations developed on a dairy farm not far from St Buryan. There was coverage of the Nanrunnel production of Much Ado About Nothing, including a profile of the girl who played Hero. Sports news consisted of an article on a local tennis match, and whoever covered the crime beat had managed to unearth only a road accident involving a right-of-way dispute between a lorry driver and a cow. Just the editorial page held promise, and even here that promise was directed more towards the future of the paper than to a motive for Mick Cambrey's murder.

  The page held two opinion columns and seven letters. The first column had been written by Cambrey, an articulate piece on stemming the tide of weapons being run into Northern Ireland. Julianna Vendale had composed the second column on national child care. The letters, which came from both Nanrunnel and Penzance residents, dealt with previous columns on village expansion and on the local secondary school's declining O level results. All of this reflected Mick Cambrey's efforts to make the newspaper something more than a village gossip-sheet. But none of it seemed to have content likely to provoke a murder.

  St James reflected upon the fact that Harry Cambrey believed his son had been working on a story that would have been the making of the Spokesman. Ostensibly without confiding his intentions to his father, Mick had planned that this story would reach a wider audience than was available in this remote area of Cornwall. Thus, St James wondered if Cambrey could have discovered that his son was spending time, money and effort away from the Spokesman, all for something that wouldn't benefit the newspaper at all. And, if Cambrey had discovered that, how would he have reacted to the news? Would he have struck out in anger as he had done once before in the newspaper office?

  Every question concerning the murder revolved round a decision between premeditation and passion. The fact that there had been an argument suggested passion, as did the mutilation of the body. But other details - the condition of the sitting room, the missing money - suggested premeditation. And even an autopsy would probably not generate a definitive distinction between the two.

  'Where is everyone this morning?' Sidney got up from the table and took her coffee to one of the windows where she curled onto a velvet-covered bench. 'What a dreary day. It's going to rain.'

  'Tommy's taken Deborah and Helen to catch the train for London. I've not seen anyone else.'

  'Justin and I ought to be off as well, I suppose. He's got work tomorrow. Have you seen him?'

  'Not this morning.' St James was no mourner for that fact. He was finding that the less he saw of Brooke, the better he liked it. He could only hope that his sister would come to her senses soon and clear her life of the man.

  'Perhaps I'll rout him from his room,' Sidney said, but she made no move to do so and she was still sipping coffee and gazing out of the window when Lady Asherton joined them. The fact that she had not come in for breakfast was evident in her choice of clothing: she wore blue jeans rolled above her ankles, a man's white cotton shirt, and a baseball cap. She was carrying a pair of heavy gardening gloves which she slapped into her palm emphatically.

  'Here you are, Simon. Good,' she said. 'Will you come with me a moment? It's about Deborah's cameras.'

  'Have you found them?' St James asked.

  ‘Found them?' Sidney repeated blankly. 'Has Deb lost her cameras on top of everything else?' She shook her head darkly and returned to the table where she took up the part of the paper which her brother had been reading.

  'In the garden,' Lady Asherton said and led St James outside where a salty wind was fast delivering an angry-looking bank of grey clouds from the sea.

  One of the gardeners was waiting for them at the furthest point of the house's south wing. He stood opposite a beech tree, secateurs in h
is hand and a worn woollen cap pulled low on his brow. He nodded when St James and Lady Asherton joined him, and he directed St James' attention to the large yew bush that abutted the house.

  'Dead pity, that,' the gardener said. 'She be right damaged, poor thing.'

  'Deborah's room is just above,' Lady Asherton said.

  St James looked at the plant and saw that the portion of the yew nearest the house had been destroyed, its growth split, broken and torn off completely by an object which had, most likely, been dropped from above. The damage was recent, all the breakage fresh. The distinct scent of conifer rose from the mangled branches.

  St James stepped back and looked up at the windows. Deborah's room was directly above, the billiard room beneath it. Both were far removed from the dining and drawing rooms where the party had gathered on the previous evening. And, as far as he knew, no-one had played billiards, so no-one would have been witness to the noise which the camera case must have made as it crashed to the ground.

  Lady Asherton spoke quietly as the gardener went back to his work, clipping off the ruined branches and stowing them in a plastic rubbish sack tucked under his arm. 'There's a margin of relief in all this, Simon. At least we know no-one from the house took the cameras.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'It hardly makes sense that one of us would take them and drop them outside. Far easier to hide them in one's room and slip off with them later, wouldn't you agree?'

  'Easier, yes. But not as wise. Especially if someone inside the house wanted to make it look as if an outsider took the cameras in the first place. But even that's not a wise plan. Because who were the technical outsiders last night? Mr and Mrs Sweeney, Dr Trenarrow, your sister-in-law, the MP from Plymouth.'

  'John Penellin,' she added. 'The daily help from the village.'

  'An unlikely lot to be stealing cameras.' From her expression, he could tell that Lady Asherton had already done some considerable thinking about Deborah's cameras, about where they might be, about who had taken them. Her words, however, acted to camouflage this.