'Good God.' He frowned, examining the accompanying numbers. Dismissing gun-running and Ireland and every other side issue from his mind, it wasn't long before he saw the obvious. 500. 55. 27500. The last was the multiple of the previous two.
And then he recognized the first connection of the circumstances surrounding Mick Cambrey's death. The position of the Daze had told him, bow to stern northeast on the rocks. He should have clung to that thought. It had been pointing to the truth.
He thought about the coastline of Cornwall. He knew without a doubt that Lynley's party of men could scour every cove from St Ives to Penzance, but it would be as limitedly useful an activity for them as it had been for the Excise officers who had patrolled the same area for two hundred years. The coast was honeycombed with caves. It was scalloped by coves. St James knew that. He did not need to clamber among the rocks and slither down the faces of cliffs to see what he knew quite well was already there: a haven for smugglers. If they knew how to pilot a boat among the reefs.
It could have come from anywhere, he thought. From Porthgwarra to Sennen Cove. Even from the Scillies. But there was only one way to know for sure.
'What next?' Cotter asked.
St James folded the paper. 'We need to find Tommy.' 'Why?'
'To call off the search.'
19
After nearly two hours, they found him on the quay at Lamorna Cove. He was squatting on the edge, talking to a fisherman who had just docked his boat and was trudging up the harbour steps, three coils of greasy-looking rope dangling from his shoulder. He paused halfway, listening to Lynley above him. He shook his head, covered his eyes to examine the other boats in the harbour, and with a wave towards the scattering of buildings set back from the quay he continued his climb.
Up above, on the road that dipped into the cove, St James got out of the car. 'Go back to Howenstow,' he told Cotter. 'I'll ride with Tommy.'
'Any message for Daze?'
St James considered the question. Any message for Lynley's mother seemed a toss-up between relieving her mind about one set of circumstances only to fire her worries about another. 'Nothing yet.'
He waited as Cotter turned the car around and headed back the way they had come. Then he began the descent into Lamorna, with the wind whipping round him and the sun warming his face. Below him, the crystalline water reflected the colour of the sky, and the small beach glistened with newly washed sand. The houses on the hillside, built by Cornish craftsmen who had been testing the strength of the south-western weather for generations, had sustained no damage from the storm. Here, that which had been the ruin of the Daze might not even have occurred.
St James watched as Lynley walked along the quay, his head bent forward, his hands deep in trouser pockets. The posture said everything about the condition of his spirit, and the fact that he was alone suggested either that he had disbanded the search altogether or that the others had gone on without him. Because they'd been at it for hours already, St James guessed the former. He called Lynley's name.
His friend looked up, raised a hand in greeting, but said nothing until he and St James met at the land end of the quay. His expression was bleak.
'Nothing.' He lifted his head, and the wind tossed his hair. 'We've completed the circuit. I've been talking to everyone here as a last-ditch effort. I thought someone might have seen them getting the boat ready to sail, or walking on the quay, or stocking supplies. But no-one in any of the houses saw a blasted thing. Only the woman who runs the cafe even noticed the Daze yesterday.'
'When was that?'
'Just after six in the morning. She was getting ready to open the cafe - adjusting the front blinds - so she can't have been mistaken. She saw them sailing out of the harbour.'
'And it was yesterday? Not the day before.'
'She remembers it was yesterday because she couldn't understand why someone was taking the boat out when rain had been forecast.'
'But it was in the morning that she saw them?'
Lynley glanced his way, flashed a tired but grateful smile. 'I know what you're thinking. Peter left Howenstow the night before, and because of that it's less likely he's the one who took the boat. That's good of you, St James. Don't think I haven't considered it myself. But the reality is that he and Sasha could have come to Lamorna during
the night, slept on the boat, then taken her out at dawn.' 'Did this woman see anyone on deck?' 'Just a figure at the helm.' 'Only one?'
'I can't think Sasha knows how to sail, St James. She was probably below. She was probably still asleep.' Lynley looked back at the cove. 'We've done the whole coastline. But so far nothing. Not a sighting, not a garment, not a sign of them.' He took out his cigarette case and flipped it open. 'I'm going to have to come up with something to tell Mother. But God only knows what it'll be.'
St James had been placing most of the facts together as Lynley spoke. His thoughts elsewhere, he'd heard not so much the words as the desolation behind them. He sought to bring that to an immediate end.
'Peter didn't take the Daze,' he said. 'I'm sure of it.'
Lynley's head turned to him slowly. It looked like the sort of movement one makes in a dream. 'What are you saying?'
'We need to go to Penzance.'
Detective Inspector Boscowan took them to the officers' canteen. 'The yellow submarine,' he'd called it, and the name was very apt: yellow walls, yellow linoleum, yellow Formica-topped tables, yellow plastic chairs. Only the crockery was a different colour, but as this colour was carmine the overall effect was one which did not encourage the thought of lingering over a meal with one's mates. Nor did it suggest the possibility of consuming one's food without developing a ferocious headache in the process. They took a pot of tea to a table overlooking a small courtyard in which a dispirited ash tree attempted to flourish in a circle of dirt the colour of granite.
'Designed and decorated by madmen,' was Boscowan's only comment as he hooked his foot round the leg of an extra chair and dragged it to their table. 'Supposed to take one's mind off one's work.'
'It does that,' St James remarked.
Boscowan poured the tea while Lynley ripped open three packages of digestive biscuits and shook them on to an extra plate. They fell upon it with a sound like small artillery fire.
'Baked fresh daily.' Boscowan smiled sardonically, took a biscuit, dunked it in his tea and held it there. 'John's spoken to a solicitor this morning. I had a devil of a time getting him to do it. I've always known the man's stubborn, but he's never been like this.'
'Are you going to charge him?' Lynley asked.
Boscowan examined his biscuit, dunked it again. 'I've no choice in the matter. He was there. He admits it. The evidence supports it. Witnesses saw him. Witnesses heard the row.' Boscowan took a bite of his biscuit, after which he appreciatively held it at eye level and nodded his head. He wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and urged the plate upon the other two men. 'Not half bad. Just put your faith in the tea.' He waited until they had each taken one before he went on. 'Had John only been there it would be a different matter. Had there not also been that flaming row which half the neighbourhood appear to have heard . . .'
St James looked at Lynley. He was adding a second cube of sugar to his tea. His index finger played along the handle of the cup. But he said nothing.
St James said, 'As to Penellin's motive?'
'An argument over Nancy, I dare say. Cambrey was trapped into the marriage, and he made no bones about hating every minute of it. There's not one person I've talked to who hasn't said that.'
'Then, why marry her in the first place? Why not simply refuse? Why not insist on an abortion?'
'According to John, the girl wouldn't hear of abortion.
And Harry Cambrey wouldn't hear of Mick's refusing to marry her.'
'But Mick was a grown man after all.'
'With a dad sick and likely to die after his surgery.' Boscowan drained his cup of tea. 'Harry Cambrey recognized a string when he saw one. Don't think
he didn't pull it to keep Mick in Nanrunnel. So the lad got trapped here. He started stepping out on his wife. Everyone knows it, including John Penellin.'
Lynley said, 'But you can't truly believe that John—'
Boscowan raised a hand quickly. 'I know the facts. They're all we have to work with. Nothing else can matter, and you damn well know it. What difference does it make that John Penellin's my friend? His son-in-law's dead, and that has to be seen to, whether it's convenient in my life or not.' Having said this, Boscowan looked abashed, as if his brief outburst had come as a surprise to him. He went on more quietly. 'I've offered to let him go home pending arraignment, but he's refused. It's as if he wants to be here, as if he wants to be tried.' He reached for another biscuit but, rather than eat it, he broke it in his hands. 'It's as if he did it.'
'May we see him?' Lynley asked.
Boscowan hesitated. He looked from Lynley to St James, then out the window. 'It's irregular. You know that.'
Lynley pulled out his warrant card. Boscowan waved it off. 'I know you're Scotland Yard. But this isn't a Yard case, and I've my own Chief Constable's sensibilities to consider. No visitors save family and solicitor when it's a homicide. That's standard procedure in Penzance, regardless of what you allow at the Met.'
'A woman friend of Mick Cambrey's has gone missing from London,' Lynley said. 'Perhaps John Penellin can help us with that.'
'A case you're working on?'
Lynley didn't reply. At the next table a girl in a stained white uniform began stacking plates onto a metal tray. Crockery crashed and scraped. A mound of mashed potatoes fell to the floor. Boscowan watched her work. He tapped a hard biscuit on the table top.
'Oh hell,' he murmured. 'Come on with you both. I'll arrange it somehow.'
He left them in an interrogation room in another wing of the building. A single table and five chairs were the only furnishings besides a mirror on one wall and a ceiling light-fixture from which a spider was industriously constructing a web.
'Do you think he'll admit to it?' Lynley asked as they waited.
'He doesn't really have a choice.'
'And you're sure, St James?'
'It's the only reasonable explanation.'
A uniformed constable escorted John Penellin into the room. When he saw who his visitors were, he took a single step backwards as if he would leave. The door was already closed behind him, however. It had a small window set at eye level, and although Penellin glanced at this as if considering whether to signal the constable to take him back to his cell he made no move to do so. Instead, he joined them. The table wobbled on uneven legs as he leaned against it when he sat.
'What's happened?' he asked warily.
'Justin Brooke took a fall at Howenstow early Sunday morning,' Lynley said. 'The police think it was an accident. It may well have been. But, if it wasn't, there's either a second killer on the loose locally or you yourself are innocent and there's only one killer. Which do you think is more likely, John?'
Penellin twisted a button on the cuff of his shirt. His expression did not change, although a muscle contracted as quickly as a reflex beneath his right eye.
St James spoke. 'The Daze was taken from Lamoma early yesterday morning. She was wrecked at Penberth Cove last night.'
The button Penellin was twisting fell onto the table. He picked it up, used his thumb to flip it onto its other side. St James went on.
'I think it's a three-tiered operation, with a main supplier and perhaps half a dozen dealers. They seem to be running the cocaine in two possible ways: either the dealers pick it up from the supplier - perhaps on the Scillies - and then sail back to the mainland, or the supplier arranges to meet the dealers in any number of coves along the coast. Porthgwarra comes to mind at once. The shore's accessible, the village is too far off for anyone to notice clandestine comings and goings in the cove. The cliff is riddled with caves and caches in which an exchange could take place if it seems too risky to try it on the open sea. But, no matter how he gets it from his supplier, once the dealer has it - either from the Scillies or from one of the coves - he sails back to Lamorna in the Daze and then takes the cocaine to the mill at Howenstow where he packages it. With no-one the wiser.'
Penellin said, only, 'You know then.'
'Who is it that you've been trying to protect?' St James asked. 'Mark or the Lynleys?'
Penellin reached into his pocket and brought out a packet of Dunhills. Lynley reached across the table with the lighter. Penellin looked at him over the flame.
'It's a bit of both, I should guess,' Lynley said. 'The longer you keep silent, the longer you protect Mark from arrest. But keeping him from arrest makes him available to Peter unless you do what you can to keep them apart.'
'Mark's dragging Peter down,' Penellin said. 'He'll kill him eventually if I don't stop him.'
'Justin Brooke told us that Peter intended to make a buy here in Cornwall,' St James said. 'Mark was his source, wasn't he? That was why you were trying to keep them from seeing each other on Friday at Howenstow.'
'I thought Mark might try to sell to Peter and the girl. I've suspected him of dealing in drugs for some time, and I thought if I could just find where he was bringing the stuff in, where he was packaging it. . .' Penellin rolled his cigarette restlessly between his fingers. There was no ashtray on the table, so he knocked the growing cylinder of ash onto the floor and smashed it with his foot. 'I thought I could stop him. I've been watching him for weeks, following him when I could. I'd no idea he was doing it right on the estate.'
'It was a solid plan,' St James said, 'both parts of it. Using the Daze as a means of getting the cocaine. Using the mill to cut and package it. Everything was associated with Howenstow in some way. And since Peter was - and is - the known Howenstow user he stood to take the fall if things didn't work out. He'd protest his innocence wildly, of course. He'd blame Mark when it came down to it. But who'd believe him? Even yesterday, we immediately assumed he'd taken the boat. No-one even gave a thought to Mark. It was clever of them.'
Penellin's head lifted slowly at St James' final word. 'You know that part as well.'
'Mark didn't have the capital to orchestrate this alone,' St James said. 'He needed an investor, and I should guess it was Mick. Nancy knew that, didn't she? You both knew it.'
'Suspected. Suspected, is all.'
'Is that why you went to see him on Friday night?'
Penellin gave his attention back to the cigarette. 'I was looking for answers.'
'And Nancy must have known you'd be going there. So when Mick was killed she feared the worst.'
'Cambrey'd taken out a bank loan to update the newspaper,' Penellin said, 'but little enough got spent on that.
Then he started going all the time to London. And he started talking money to Nance. How there wasn't enough. How they were close to bankrupt. Rent money. Baby money. They were going to sink, according to Mick. But none of it made sense. He had money. He'd managed to get the loan.'
'Which he was investing rather copiously in cocaine.'
'She didn't want to believe he was involved. She said he didn't take drugs, and she wouldn't see that one doesn't have to take them in order to sell them. She wanted proof.'
'That's what you were after Friday night when you went to the cottage.'
'I'd forgotten that it was one of the Fridays when he did the pay envelopes. I'd thought he'd not be home and I'd be able to have a thorough search. But he was there. We had a row.'
St James took the Talisman sandwich wrapper from his pocket. 'I think this is what you wanted,' he said and handed it to Penellin. 'It was in the newspaper office. Harry found it in Mick's desk.'
Penellin looked the paper over, handed it back. 'I don't know what I wanted,' he said and gave a low, self-derisive laugh. 'I think I was looking for a typed confession.'
'This is more design than confession,' St James admitted.
'What does it mean?'
'Only Mark could verify it, but I t
hink it represents the original deal the two of them struck together. 1 K 9400 would signify the cost of the original purchase of cocaine. A kilo for £9400. They'd split that between them to sell, which is what the second line tells us: 500 grams for each of them at £55 per gram. Their profit: £27,500 each. And, next to their profit, the particular talent each of them would bring to the plan. MP - Mark - would provide the transport in order to procure the drug. He'd take the Daze and meet the dealer. MC - Mick - would provide the initial financing from the bank loan he'd secured in order to purchase new equipment for the newspaper. And Mick covered himself by beginning those initial equipment purchases so no-one's suspicions would be aroused.' "Then it fell apart,' Penellin said.
'Perhaps. It could be that the cocaine didn't sell as well as they thought it would and he lost money on the deal. Perhaps things didn't work out between the partners. Or there may have been a double-cross somewhere down the line.'
'Or the other,' Penellin said. 'Go ahead with the other.'
'That's why you're in here, John, isn't it?' Lynley asked. 'That's why you're saying nothing. That's why you're taking the blame.'
'He must have discovered how easy it was,' Penellin said. 'He didn't need Mick once he'd made the initial purchase, did he? Why bother with an added person who'd expect part of the profits?'
'John, you can't take the blame for Cambrey's death.'
'Mark's only twenty-two.'
'That doesn't matter. You didn't—'
Penellin cut Lynley short by speaking to St James. 'How did you know it was Mark?'
'The Daze. We thought Peter had taken her to get away from Howenstow. But the boat was northeast on the rocks at Penberth Cove. So she had to be returning to Howenstow, not leaving. And she'd been there for several hours when we arrived, so there was plenty of time for Mark to abandon her, to make his way back to Howenstow, and be ready - somewhat banged up admittedly - to help us search for Peter.'
'He'd have needed to abandon her,' Penellin said numbly.
A Suitable Vengeance Page 27
