A Suitable Vengeance

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.'

'I wanted him to have the best of everything. I never asked him to stand on his own. What he's become is the result. I'm at fault here, St James. The real sickness is mine.'

St James gazed out of the window and sought a reply. He thought about the energy people expend in seeking to avoid what they most need to face. They fill their lives with distraction and denial, only to find at an unexpected eleventh hour that there is in reality no absolute escape. How long had Lynley been engaged in avoidance? How long had he himself done the same thing? It had become a habit with both of them. In scrupulously avoiding what they needed to say to each other, they had learned to adopt evasion in every significant area of their lives.

He said, 'Not everything in life is your responsibility, Tommy.'

'My mother said practically the same thing the other night.'

'She was right. You punish yourself at times when others bear equal responsibility. Don't do that now.'