A Suitable Vengeance

by Elizabeth George

  They found Lady Helen on the telephone in Deborah's flat. She was saying nothing, merely listening, and from her look in his direction and the expression on her face when she replaced the receiver St James realized whom she had been trying to reach. 'Sidney?' he asked her.

  'I can't find her, Simon. Her agency gave me a list of names, friends of hers. But no-one's heard a word. I just tried her flat again. Nothing. I've phoned your mother as well, but there's no answer there. Shall I keep trying her?'

  Cold prickling ran its way down St James' spine. 'No. She'll only worry.'

  Lady Helen spoke again. 'I've begun to think about Justin Brooke's death.'

  She didn't need to say more. St James' own thoughts had made that same leap forward the moment she told him that his sister had still not turned up. Again, he cursed himself for allowing Sidney to leave Cornwall alone. If she had walked into danger, if she was hurt in any way ... He felt the fingers of his right hand dig into his palm. He forced them to relax.

  'Has Tina Cogin returned?'

  'Not yet.'

  'Then, perhaps we ought to make certain about the key.' He looked at Lynley. 'Have you brought them?'

  'Brought them?' Lady Helen asked blankly.

  'Harry Cambrey's managed to get us Mick's set of keys from Boscowan,' Lynley explained. 'We wanted to see if one of them might unlock Tina's door.'

  He kept them in suspense only as long as it took to get to the next flat, to insert and turn the proper key in the lock. He swung the door open. They walked inside.

  'All right. He had his own key,' Lady Helen said. 'But, really, Tommy, where does that get us? It can't be a surprise. We already knew he'd been here. Deborah told us that. So all we know beyond that fact is that he was special enough to Tina Cogin to merit a key to her door.'

  'It changes the nature of their relationship, Helen. This obviously isn't a call girl and her client. Prostitutes don't generally give out their keys.'

  From his position near the tiny kitchen, St James was scrutinizing the room. Its furnishings were expensive, but they told little about the inhabitant. And there were no personal objects on display: no photographs, no mementoes, no collection of any kind. Indeed, the entire bed-sitting room had the look of having been put together by a decorator for a hotel. He walked to the desk.

  The red light of the answering machine was blinking, indicating a message. He pushed the button. A man's voice said, 'Colin Sage. I'm phoning about the advert,' and he gave a number for a return call. A second message was much the same. St James wrote down the numbers and gave them to Lady Helen.

  'An advertisement?' she asked. 'That can't be how she makes her arrangements.'

  'You said there was a savings book?' St James replied.

  Deborah came to his side. 'Here,' she said. 'There's this as well.'

  From a drawer she took both the savings book and a manila folder. He looked at the latter first, frowning down at the neatly typed list of names and addresses. Mostly London. The furthest was Brighton. Behind him, he heard Lynley going through the chest of drawers.

  'What is this?' Meditatively St James asked the question of himself, but Deborah replied.

  'We thought of clients at first. But, of course, that can't be. There are women on the list. And, even if there weren't any women at all, it's hard to imagine anyone managing to . . .' She hesitated. St James looked up. Her cheeks had coloured.

  'Service this many men?' he asked.

  'Well, of course, she's indicated on the tab that they're just prospects, hasn't she? So at first we thought that she was using the list to . . . before we actually opened up the file and saw ... I mean, how exactly would a prostitute build up a clientele? Through word of mouth?' Her colour deepened. 'Lord. Is that a dreadful sort of pun?'

  He chuckled at the question. 'What did you imagine she was doing with this list - sending out brochures?'

  Deborah gave a rueful laugh. 'I'm hopeless at this sort of thing. A hundred clues shrieking to be noticed, and I can't make sense of a single one.'

  'I thought you'd decided she wasn't a prostitute. I thought we'd all decided that.'

  'It's just something about the way she talked and her appearance.'

  'Perhaps we can let go of whatever her appearance might have suggested,' Lynley said.

  Across the room, he stood at the wardrobe with Lady Helen at his side. He had taken down the four hatboxes from the top shelf, had opened and placed them on the floor in a line. He was bending over one of these, separating the folds of white tissue paper. From the centre of the nest which the paper created, he withdrew a wig. Long black hair, wispy fringe. He balanced it on his fist.

  Deborah gaped at it. Lady Helen sighed.

  'Wonderful,' she said. 'The woman actually wears a wig! So what little we know of her - not to mention Deborah's description - must be virtually meaningless. She's a chimera, isn't she? False fingernails. False hair.' She glanced at the chest of drawers. Something seemed to occur to her, for she went to them, pulled one open, and fingered through the undergarments. She held up a black brassiere. 'False everything else.'

  St James joined them. He took the wig from Lynley and carried it to the window where he opened the curtains and held it under the natural light. The texture told him that the hair was real.

  'Did you know she wore a wig, Deb?' Lynley asked.

  'No, of course not. How could I have known?'

  'It's a high-quality piece,' St James said. 'You'd have no cause to think it a wig.' He examined it closely, running his fingers across the inner webbing. As he did so, a hair came loose - not one of those which comprised the wig, but another shorter hair that had detached itself from the wearer, becoming caught up in the webbing. St James plucked it completely free, held it up to the light, and handed the wig back to Lynley.

  'What is it, Simon?' Lady Helen asked.

  He didn't reply at once. Instead, he stared at the single hair between his fingers, realizing what it had to imply and coming to terms with what that implication had to mean. There was only one explanation that made any sense, only one explanation that accounted for Tina Cogin's disappearance. Still, he took a moment to test his theory.

  'Have you worn this, Deborah?'

  'I? No. What makes you think that?'

  At the desk, he took a piece of white paper from the top drawer. He placed the hair on this and carried both back to the light.

  'The hair,' he said. 'It's red.'

  He looked up at Deborah and saw her expression change from wonder to realization.

  'Is it possible?' he asked her, for since she was the only one who had seen them both she was also the only one who could possibly confirm it.

  'Oh, Simon. I'm no good at this. I don't know. I don't know.'

  'But you saw her. You were with her. She gave you a drink.'

  'The drink,' Deborah said. She dashed from the room. In a moment, the others heard her door crash back against the wall of her flat.

  Lady Helen spoke. 'What is it? You can't possibly be thinking Deborah has anything to do with all this. The woman's incognita. That's all it is, plain and simple. She's been in disguise.'

  St James placed the piece of paper on the desk. He placed the hair on top of it. He heard over and over that single word. Incognita, incognita. What a monumental joke.

  'My God,' he said. 'She was telling everyone she met. Tina Cogin. Tina Cogin. The name's a bloody anagram.'

  Deborah flew into the room, in one hand the photograph she had brought with her from Cornwall, in the other hand a small card. She handed both to St James.

  'Turn them over,' she said.

  He didn't have to do so. He knew already that the handwriting would be identical on each.

  'It's the card she gave me, Simon. The recipe for her drink. And on the back of Mick's picture . . .'

  Lynley joined them, taking the card and the photograph from St James. 'God almighty,' he murmured.

  'What on earth is it?' Lady Helen asked.

  'The re
ason Harry Cambrey's been building Mick's reputation as a real man's man, I should guess,' St James said.

  Deborah poured boiling water into the teapot and carried it to the small oak table which they had moved into the sitting area of her flat. They took places round it, Deborah and Lynley sitting on the day bed, Lady Helen and St James on ladder-back chairs. St James picked up the savings book which lay among the other items attached to Mick Cambrey's life and his death: the manila folder entitled Prospects, the card upon which he'd written the phone number of Islington-London, the Talisman sandwich wrapper, his photograph, the recipe for the drink which he'd given to Deborah on the day that he'd appeared - as Tina Cogin - at her door.

  'These ten withdrawals from the account,' Lady Helen said, pointing to them. 'They match what Tina - what Mick Cambrey paid in rent. And the time works right with the facts, Simon. September to June.'

  'Long before he and Mark began dealing in cocaine,' Lynley said.

  'So that's not how he got the money for the flat?' Deborah asked.

  'Not according to Mark.'

  Lady Helen ran her finger down the page which listed the deposits. She said, 'But he's put money in every two weeks for a year. Where on earth did it come from?'

  St James flipped to the front of the book, scanning the entries. 'Obviously, he had another source of income.'

  The amount of money comprising each deposit, St James saw, was not consistent. Sometimes it was significant, other times barely so. Thus, he discounted the second possibility that had risen in his mind upon noting the regularity of the payments into Mick's account. They couldn't be the result of blackmail. Blackmailers generally increase the cost of suppressing a damaging piece of information. Greed feeds on itself; easy money begs for more.

  'Beyond that,' Lynley said, 'Mark told us that they'd reinvested their profits in a second, larger buy. His taking the Daze on Sunday confirms that story.'

  Deborah poured the tea. St James scooped up his customary four spoonfuls of sugar before Lady Helen shuddered and handed the bowl to Deborah. She picked up the manila folder.

  'Mick must have been selling his share of the cocaine in London. Surely, if he'd been doing so in Nanrunnel, someone would have discovered it eventually. Mrs Swann, for instance. I can hardly think she would have let something like that go unnoticed.'

  'That makes sense,' Lynley agreed. 'He had a reputation as a journalist in Cornwall. He'd hardly have jeopardized it by selling cocaine there when he could just as easily have done so here.'

  'But I've got the impression he had a reputation here in London as well,' St James said. 'He'd worked here, hadn't he, before returning to Cornwall?'

  'But not as Tina Cogin,' Deborah pointed out. 'Surely he must have sold the drugs as a woman.'

  'He became Tina in September,' Lady Helen said. 'He took this flat in September. He began selling the following March. Plenty of time to amass a list of buyers.' She tapped her fingers against the folder. 'We were wondering what was meant by "prospects", weren't we? Perhaps now we know. Shall we see what sort of prospects these really are?'

  'If they're prospective cocaine buyers,' Lynley said, 'they're hardly going to admit the fact.'

  Lady Helen smiled serenely. 'Not to the police, Tommy darling. Of course.'

  St James knew what that angelic smile meant. If anyone could wrangle information from a total stranger, it would be Lady Helen. Light-hearted chitchat leading down the primrose path to disclosure and co-operation was her special talent. She had already proved that with the caretaker of Shrewsbury Court Apartments. Obtaining the key to Mick's flat had been child's play for her. This list of prospects was merely one step advanced, a moderate challenge. She would become Sister Helen from the Salvation Army, or Helen the Saved from a drug rehabilitation programme, or Helen the Desperate looking for a score. But ultimately, in some way, she would ferret out the truth.

  'If Mick was selling in London, a buyer may have followed him to Cornwall,' St James said.

  'But, if he was selling as Tina, how would someone know who he really was?' Deborah asked.

  'Perhaps he was recognized. Perhaps a buyer, who knew him as Mick, saw him when he was posing as Tina.'

  'And followed him to Cornwall? Why? Blackmail?'

  'What better way to get cocaine? If the buyer was having a hard time coming up with the money, why not blackmail Cambrey for a payment in drugs?' St James picked up items one by one. He studied them, fingered them, dropped them back on the table. 'But Cambrey wouldn't want to risk his reputation in Cornwall by giving in to the blackmail. So he and the buyer argued. He was hit. He struck his head and died. The buyer took the money that was in the cottage sitting room. Anyone who's desperate for drugs - and who's just killed a man - is hardly going to draw the line at taking money lying right in the open.'

  Lynley got up abruptly. He walked to the open window and leaned on the sill, looking down at the street. Too late, St James recognized whose portrait he had been painting with his series of conjectures.

  'Could he have known about Mick?' Lynley asked. No-one answered at first. Instead, they listened to the rising sound of traffic in Sussex Gardens as afternoon commuters began to make their way towards the Edgware Road. An engine revved. Brakes screeched in reply. Lynley repeated the question. He did not turn from the window. 'Could my brother have known?'

  'Possibly, Tommy,' St James said. When Lynley swung to face him, he went on reluctantly: 'He was part of the drug network in London. Sidney saw him not that long ago in Soho. At night. In an alley.' He paused thoughtfully, remembering the information his sister had given him, remembering her fanciful description of the woman Peter had been assaulting. Dressed all in black with flowing black hair.

  He had the impression that Lady Helen was recalling this information even as he did, for she spoke with what seemed a determination to relieve Lynley's anxiety by looking for another focus for the crime. 'Mick's death might revolve round something entirely different. We've thought that from the first, and I don't think we ought to dismiss it now. He was a journalist, after all. He might have been writing a story. He could even have been working on something about transvestites.'

  St James shook his head. 'He wasn't writing about transvestites. He was a transvestite. The expense of the flat tells us that. The furniture. The woman's wardrobe. He wouldn't need all that just to gather information for a story. And there's the newspaper office to consider as well, with Harry Cambrey finding the underwear in Mick's desk. Not to mention the row the two of them had.'

  'Harry knew?'

  'He seems to have figured it out.'

  Lady Helen fingered the Talisman wrapper, as if with the resolution of making yet another effort to put Lynley's mind at rest. 'Yet Harry was sure it was a story.'

  'It might have been a story. We've still got the connection to Islington-London.'

  'Perhaps Mick was investigating a drug of some kind,' Deborah offered. 'A drug that wasn't ready to be marketed yet.'

  Lady Helen took up her thought. 'One with side-effects. One that's already available to doctors. With the company pooh-poohing the possibility of problems.'

  Lynley came back to the table. They looked at one another, struck by the plausibility of this bit of idle conjecture. Thalidomide. Thorough testing, regulations and restrictions had so far precluded the possibility of another teratogenic nightmare. But men were greedy when it came to fast profits. Men had always been so.

  'What if, in researching an entirely different subject, Mick got wind of something suspicious?' St James proposed. 'He pursued it here. He interviewed people here at Islington-London. And that was the cause of his death.'

  In spite of their efforts, Lynley did not join them. 'But the castration?' He sank down on to the day bed rubbing his forehead. 'We can't seem to turn in any direction that explains it all.'

  As if to underscore the futility behind his words, the telephone began to ring. Deborah went to answer it. Lynley was back on his feet an instant after she spoke.
>
  'Peter! Where on earth are you? . . . What is it? ... I can't understand . . . Peter, please . . . You've called where? . . . Wait, he's right here.'

  Lynley lunged for the phone. 'Damn you, where have you been! Don't you know that Brooke . . . Shut up and listen to me for once, Peter. Brooke's dead as well as Mick ... I don't care what you want any longer . . . What?' Lynley stopped. His body was rigid. His voice all at once was perfectly calm. 'Are you certain? . . . Listen to me, Peter, you must pull yourself together ... I understand, but you mustn't touch anything. Do you understand me, Peter? Don't touch anything. Leave her alone . . . Now, give me your address ... All right. Yes, I've got it. I'll be there at once.'

  He replaced the phone. It seemed that entire minutes passed before he turned back to the others.

  'Something's happened to Sasha.'

  'I think he's on something,' Lynley said.

  Which would explain, St James thought, why Lynley had insisted that Deborah and Helen remain behind. He wouldn't want either of them to see his brother in that condition, especially Deborah. 'What happened?'

  Lynley pulled the car into Sussex Gardens, cursing when a taxi cut him off. He headed towards the Bayswater Road, veering through Radnor Place and half a dozen side streets to avoid the worst of the afternoon crush.

  'I don't know. He kept screaming that she was on the bed, that she wasn't moving, that he thought she was dead.'

  'You didn't want him to phone for an ambulance?'

  'Christ, he could be hallucinating, St James. He sounded like someone going through the DTs. Damn and blast this bloody traffic!'

  'Where is he, Tommy?'

  'Whitechapel.'

  It took them nearly an hour to get there, battling their way through a virtual traffic jam of cars, lorries, buses and taxis. Lynley knew the city well enough to run through countless side streets and alleys, but everytime they emerged on to a main artery their progress was frustrated again. Midway down New Oxford Street, he spoke.

  'I'm at fault here. I've done everything but buy the drugs for him.'

  'Don't be absurd.'