A Suitable Vengeance

by Elizabeth George

  The doctor's gold-rimmed spectacles slid fractionally down his nose. He knuckled them back into place and said, 'And she had my name?'

  'No. Just your number.'

  'My address?'

  'Not even that.'

  Trenarrow pushed himself out of his chair. He walked over to the window behind the desk. He spent a long moment studying the view before he turned back to St James. 'I've not set foot in London in a year. Perhaps more. But I suppose that makes little enough difference if she's come to Cornwall. Perhaps she's making house calls.' He smiled wryly. 'You don't really know me, Mr St James, so you have no way of knowing if I'm telling you the truth. But let me say that it's not been my habit to pay a woman for sex. Some men do it without flinching, I realize. But I've always preferred love-making to grow out of a passion other than avarice. This other - the negotiating first, the exchange of cash later - that's not my style.'

  'Was it Mick's?'

  'Mick's?'

  'He was seen leaving her flat on Friday morning in London. He may well have given her your number in fact. Perhaps for some sort of consultation.'

  Trenarrow's fingers went to the rosebud on his lapel, touching its tightly furled petals. 'That's a possibility,' he said thoughtfully. 'Although referrals generally come from physicians, it is a possibility if she's seriously ill. Mick knew cancer research is my line of work. He'd done an interview with me shortly after he took over the Spokesman. It's not inconceivable that he might have given her my name. But Cambrey and a prostitute? That's going to put a wrench in his reputation. His father's been fanning the fires of Mick's sexual profligacy for the last year at least. And, believe me, nothing he's said has ever alluded to Mick having to pay for a woman's favours. According to Harry, so many women were throwing themselves at the poor lad that he barely had time to pull his trousers up before someone was moaning to have them back down. If involvement with a prostitute led to Mick's murder, it'll be sad times for Harry. He seems to be hoping it was from a row with a dozen or two jealous husbands.' 'Or one jealous wife?'

  'Nancy?' Trenarrow said incredulously. 'I can't see her hurting anyone, can you? And even if she had somehow been driven beyond endurance - it was no secret, after all, that Mick saw other women - when could she have done it? She couldn't have been in two places at once.'

  'She was gone from the refreshment booth for a good ten minutes or more.'

  'Time to run home, murder her husband, and reappear as if everything were well? The thought's a bit absurd, considering the girl. Someone else might have managed it with aplomb, but Nancy's no actress. If she'd killed her husband during the evening, I doubt she could have hidden it from a soul.'

  There was certainly a weight of evidence to support Trenarrow's declaration. From start to finish, Nancy's reactions had borne the unmistakable stamp of authenticity. Her shock, her numb grief, her rising anxiety. None of them had seemed in the least bit factitious. It hardly seemed likely that she'd run home, killed her husband, and feigned horror later. That being the case, St James considered the problem of suspects. John Penellin had been in the area that night, as had Peter Lynley and Justin Brooke. Perhaps Harry Cambrey had paid a visit to the cottage as well. And Mark Penellin's whereabouts were still unaccounted for. Yet a motive for the crime was not clearly emerging. Each one they considered was nebulous at best. And, more than anything, a motive needed clear definition if anyone was to understand the full circumstances of Mick Cambrey's death.

  St James noticed Harry Cambrey almost immediately as Cotter pulled the car back into Paul Lane. He was climbing towards them. He waved energetically as they approached. The cigarette between his fingers left a tiny plume of smoke in the air.

  'Who's this?' Cotter slowed the car.

  'Mick Cambrey's father. Let's see what he wants.'

  Cotter pulled to the side of the road, and Harry Cambrey came to St James' window. He leaned into the car, bringing with him the mixed odours of tobacco smoke and beer. His appearance had undergone some improvement since St James and Lady Helen had seen him on Saturday morning. His clothes were fresh, his hair was combed, and although a few overlooked whiskers sprouted here and there like grey bristles on his cheeks, his face was largely shaven as well.

  He was panting, and he winced as if the words hurt him when he spoke. 'Howenstow folks said you'd be here. Come down to the office. Something to show you.'

  'You've found notes?' St James asked.

  Cambrey shook his head. 'Worked it all out, though.' When St James opened the car door, Cambrey clambered inside. He nodded at the introduction to Cotter. 'It's those numbers I found. The ones from his desk. I've been playing with them since Saturday. I know what they mean.'

  Cotter remained in the pub with Mrs Swann, chatting amiably over a pint of ale. He was saying, 'I wouldn't say no to one o' them Scotch eggs,' as St James followed Harry Cambrey up to the newspaper office.

  Unlike his former visit to the Spokesman, on this morning the staff was at work. All the lights were on - creating an entirely different atmosphere from the previous gloom - and in three of the four cubicles newspaper employees either pecked at typewriters or talked on the phone. A long-haired boy examined a set of photographs on a display board while next to him a compositor engaged in the process of laying out another edition of the newspaper on an angled green table. He held an unlit pipe between his teeth and tapped a pencil in staccato against a plastic holder of paper clips. At the word processor on the table next to Mick Cambrey's desk, a woman sat typing. She had soft, dark hair drawn back from her face and - when she looked up - intelligent eyes. She was very attractive. Julianna Vendale, St James decided. He wondered how and if her responsibilities at the newspaper had altered with Mick Cambrey's death.

  Harry Cambrey led the way to one of the cubicles. It was sparsely furnished, hung with wall decorations which suggested that not only was the office his own, but also nothing had been done to change it during his convalescence after heart surgery. Everything spoke of the fact that, no matter Harry Cambrey's desire, his son had not intended to assume either his office or his job. Framed newspaper clippings, gone yellow with age, appeared to represent the older man's proudest stories: a piece on a disastrous sea rescue attempt in which twenty of the would-be rescuers had drowned; an accident which dismembered a local fisherman; the rescue of a child from a mine shaft; a brawl during a fete in Penzance. These were accompanied by newspaper photographs as well, the originals of those which had been printed with the stories.

  On the top of an ancient desk the most recent edition of the Spokesman lay open to the editorial page. Mick's contribution had been heavily circled in red. On the wall opposite, a map of Great Britain hung. Cambrey directed St James to this.

  'I kept thinking about those numbers,' he said. 'Mick was systematic about things like that. He wouldn't have kept that paper if it wasn't important.' He felt in the breast pocket of his shirt for a packet of cigarettes. He shook one out and lit it before going on. 'I'm still working on part of it, but I'm on my way.'

  St James saw that next to the map Cambrey had taped a small piece of paper. On it he had printed part of the cryptic message which he'd found beneath his son's desk. 27500-M1 Procure/Transport and, beneath that, 27500-M6 Finance. On the map itself, two motorways had been traced in red marking-pen, the Ml heading north from London and the M6 heading northwest below Leicester towards the Irish Sea.

  'Look at it,' Cambrey said. 'Ml and M6 run together south of Leicester. The Ml only goes as far as Leeds, but the M6 continues. It ends in Carlisle. At Solway Firth.'

  St James considered this. He made no reply. Cambrey sounded agitated when he continued.

  'Look at the map, man. Just look at it square. M6 gives access to Liverpool, doesn't it? It takes you to Preston, to Morecambe Bay. And they every bloody one of them—'

  '- give access to Ireland,' St James concluded, thinking of the editorial he'd read only the morning before.

  Cambrey went for the paper. He folded it back. H
is cigarette bobbed between his lips as he talked. 'He knew someone was running guns for the IRA.'

  'How could he have stumbled on to a story like that?'

  'Stumbled?' Cambrey removed his cigarette, picked tobacco from his tongue and shook the newspaper to make his point. 'My lad didn't stumble. He was a journalist, not a fool. He listened. He talked. He learned to follow leads.' Cambrey returned to the map and used the folded newspaper as a pointer. 'Guns must be coming into Cornwall in the first place, or if not into Cornwall, then through a south harbour. Shipped from sympathizers, maybe in North Africa or Spain or even France. They come in anywhere along the south coast -Plymouth, Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth. They're shipped disassembled. Trucked to London and put together. Then from there, up the Ml to the M6, and then to Liverpool or Preston or Morecambe Bay.'

  'Why not ship them directly to Ireland in the first place?' St James asked, but he knew the answer even as he asked it. A foreign ship docking at Belfast would be more likely to arouse suspicion than would an English ship. It would undergo a thorough Customs check. But an English ship would be largely accepted. For why would the English be sending arms to assist an uprising against themselves?

  'There was more on the paper than Ml and M6,' St James pointed out. 'Those additional numbers have to mean something.'

  Cambrey nodded. 'Likely to be some sort of registration numbers, I think. References to the ship they'd be using. Numbers on the type of weapons they'd be supplying. It's some sort of code. But make no mistake about it. Mick was on his way to breaking it.'

  'Yet you've found no other notes?'

  'What I've found's enough. I know my lad. I know what he was about.'

  St James reflected upon the map. He thought about the numbers Mick had jotted on the paper. He noted the fact that the editorial about Northern Ireland had appeared on Sunday, more than thirty hours after Mick's death. If the two were connected somehow, then the killer had known about the editorial in advance of the paper's appearance on Sunday morning. He wondered how likely a possibility that was.

  'Do you keep your back issues of the newspaper here?' he asked.

  'This isn't a back-issue problem,' Cambrey said. 'Nonetheless, do you have them?' 'Some. Out here.'

  Cambrey led him from his office to a storage cabinet that sat to the left of the casement windows. He pulled open the doors to reveal stacks of newspapers upon the shelves. St James glanced at them, pulled the first set off the shelf, and looked at Cambrey.

  'Can you get me Mick's keys?' he asked.

  Cambrey looked puzzled. 'I've a spare cottage key here.'

  'No. I mean all his keys. He has a set, doesn't he? Car, cottage, office? Can you get them? I expect Boscowan has them now, so you'll need to come up with an excuse. And I'll want them for a few days.'

  'Why?'

  'Does the name Tina Cogin mean anything to you?' St James asked in answer. 'Cogin?'

  'Yes. A woman from London. Mick knew her apparently. I think he may have had the key to her flat.'

  'Mick had the key to half a dozen flats, if I know him.' Cambrey pulled out a cigarette and left him to his papers.

  An hour's search through the past six months gleaned him nothing save hands that were stained with newsprint. As far as he could tell, Harry Cambrey's conjecture about gun-running was as likely a motive for his son's death as was anything else the paper had to offer. He shut the cupboard doors. When he turned, it was to find Julianna Vendale watching him, a coffee cup raised to her lips. She'd left the word processor, coming to stand near a coffee maker that was bubbling noisily in the corner of the room.

  'Nothing?' She put her cup down on the table and pushed a lock of long hair back from her shoulder.

  'Everyone seems to think he was working on a story,' St James said.

  'Mick was always working on something.'

  'Did most of his projects get into print?'

  She drew her eyebrows together. A faint crease appeared between them. Otherwise, her face was completely unlined. St James knew from his previous conversation with Lynley that Julianna Vendale was in her middle thirties, perhaps a bit older. But her face denied her age.

  'I don't know,' she answered. 'I wasn't always aware of what his projects were. But it wouldn't surprise me to find out he'd begun something and then let it die. He'd shoot out of here often enough, convinced he was hot on the trail of a feature he could sell in London. Then he'd never complete it.'

  St James had seen that himself in his perusal of the newspapers. Dr Trenarrow had said Mick interviewed him for a story. But nowhere in the back issues of the paper was there a feature that in any way related to a conversation the two of them might have had. St James related this to Julianna Vendale.

  She poured herself another cup of coffee and spoke over her shoulder. 'That doesn't surprise me. Mick probably thought he was going to get a Mother Teresa piece out of it - Cornish Scientist Dedicates his Life to Saving Others - only to discover that Dr Trenarrow's no more on the path to heaven than the rest of us are.'

  Or, St James thought, the potential story was a ploy to get an interview with Trenairow in the first place in order to gather information and pass it along with Trenarrow's phone number to a needy friend.

  Julianna was continuing. 'That was largely his way, ever since he came back to the Spokesman. I think he was looking for a story as a means of escape.'

  'He didn't want to be here?'

  'It was a step backwards for him. He'd been a freelance journalist. He'd been doing quite well. Then his father fell ill and he had to chuck it all and come back to hold the family business together.'

  'You couldn't have done that?'

  'I could have done, of course. But Harry wanted Mick to take over the paper. More than that, I should guess, he wanted him back in Nanrunnel permanently.'

  St James thought he saw the direction Harry Cambrey had intended things to move once Mick returned to Nanrunnel. Nonetheless, he asked, 'How did you fit into the plans?'

  'Harry made certain we worked together as much as possible. Then, I suppose, he just hoped for the best. He had great faith in Mick's charm.'

  'And you?'

  She was holding her coffee cup between her hands, as if to keep them warm. Her fingers were long; she wore no rings. 'He didn't appeal to me. When Harry saw that, he started having Nancy Penellin come to do the books during our regular office hours instead of at weekends.'

  'And as to developing the newspaper's stature?'

  She indicated the word processor. 'Mick made the attempt at first. He started with new equipment. He wanted to update. But then he seemed to lose interest.'

  'When?'

  'Just about the time he made Nancy pregnant.' She lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. 'After they married, he was gone a great deal.'

  'Pursuing a story?'

  She smiled. 'Pursuing.'

  They strolled across the narrow street to the harbour. The tide was out. Five sunbathers lay on the narrow strand. Near them, a group of small children dabbled their hands

  and feet in the water, shrieking with excitement as it lapped at their legs.

  'Get what you need?' Cotter asked.

  'Pieces, that's all. Nothing seems to fit together. I can't make a connection between Mick and Tina Cogin, between Tina Cogin and Trenarrow. It's nothing more than conjecture.'

  'P'raps Deb was wrong. P'raps she didn't see Mick in London.'

  'No. She saw him. Everything indicates that. He knew Tina Cogin. But as to how and why, I don't know.'

  'Seems 'ow and why's the easiest part, 'cording to Missus Swann.'

  'She's not an admirer of Mick's, is she?'

  'She hated 'im, and there's the truth.' Cotter watched the children playing for a moment. He smiled as one of them - a little girl of three or four - fell on to her bottom, splashing water on the others. 'But if there's truth to her talk about Mick Cambrey and women, then far's I can see, looks to me that John Penellin did it.'

  'Why?'


  'It's 'is daughter involved, Mr St James. A man's not likely to let another man hurt 'is daughter. Not if it can be stopped in some way. A man does what 'e can.'

  St James recognized the bait and acknowledged the fact that their morning's discussion was not yet concluded in Cotter's eyes. But he had no need to ask the question which Cotter's comment called for: And what would you do? He knew the answer. Instead he said, 'Did you learn anything from the housekeeper?'

  'Dora? A bit.' Cotter leaned against the harbour railing, resting his elbows on the top metal bar. 'Great admirer of the doctor, is Dora. Works 'is fingers to the bone. Gives 'is life to research. And when 'e's not doing that, 'e's visiting folks at a convalescent 'ome outside St Just.'

  'That's the extent of it?' 'Seems to be.'

  St James sighed. Not for the first time did he admit to the fact that his field was science, crime-scene investigation, the analysis of evidence, the interpretation of data, the preparation of reports. He had no expertise in an arena that demanded insightful communication and intuitive deduction. More, he didn't have the taste or the talent for either. And the further he waded into the growing mire of conjecture, the more frustrated he felt.

  From his jacket pocket, he pulled out the piece of paper which Harry Cambrey had given him on Saturday morning. It seemed as reasonable a direction to head in as any. When you're lost, he thought mordantly, you may as well head somewhere.

  Cotter joined him in studying it. 'MP,' he said. Then, 'Member of Parliament?'

  St James looked up. 'What did you say?'

  'Them letters. MP.'

  'MP? No—' As he spoke, St James held the paper to the sunlight. And he saw what the gloom of the newspaper office and his own preconceived notions had prevented him from realizing before. The pen, which had skipped in the grease on other spots on the paper, had done as much again next to the words procure and transport. The result was an imperfectly formed loop for the letter P, not the number 1 at all. And the 6, if the thought followed logically, had to be instead a hastily scrawled C.