A Suitable Vengeance

the door and slammed it behind him.

Sidney watched him walk halfway across the square before she opened her own door. 'Justin-'

'Stay there.' He sounded calmer, not so much because he was feeling any calmer, she knew, but because the square was peopled with Soho's usual Friday-night throng and Justin Brooke was not a man who generally cared for making public scenes.

She ignored his admonition, striding to join him, disregarding the certain knowledge that the last thing she ought to be doing was helping him get more supplies for his habit. She told herself instead that if she weren't there, sharply on the lookout, he might be arrested or duped or worse.

'I'm coming,' she said when she reached him.

The whipcord of tension in his features told her he had moved beyond caring.

'As you like.' He headed towards the gaping darkness of the alley across the square.

Construction was under way there, making the alley mouth darker and narrower than usual. Sidney made a moue of distaste at the smell of urine. It was worse than she had expected it to be.

Buildings loomed up on either side, unlit and unmarked. Grilles covered their windows, and their entry-ways housed shrouded, moaning figures who conducted the sort of illicit business which the nightclubs of the district seemed eager to promote.

'Justin, where're you planning to-?'

Brooke raised a cautionary hand. Up ahead, a man's hoarse cursing had begun to fill the air. It came from the far end of the alley where a brick wall curved round the side of a nightclub to form a sheltered alcove. Two figures writhed upon the ground there. But this was no love-tryst. This was assault, and the bottom figure was a black-clad woman who appeared to be no match in either size or strength for her ferocious assailant.

'You filthy.. .' The man – blond by the appearance of him and wildly angry by the sound of his voice – pounded his fists against the woman's face, ground them into her arms, slammed them into her stomach.

At this, Sidney moved, and when Brooke tried to stop her she cried out, 'No! It's a woman,' and ran towards the alley's end.

She heard Justin's sharp oath behind her. He overtook her less than three yards away from the couple on the ground. 'Keep back. Let me see to it,' he said roughly.

Brooke grabbed the man by his shoulders, digging into the leather jacket he wore. The action of pulling him upwards freed his victim's arms, and she instinctively brought them up to protect her face. Brooke flung the man backwards.

'You idiots! Do you want the police after you?'

Sidney pushed past him. 'Peter!' she cried. 'Justin, it's Peter Lynley!'

Brooke looked from the young man to the woman who lay on her side, her dress dishevelled and her stockings in tatters. He squatted and grabbed her face as if to examine the extent of her injuries.

'My God,' he muttered. Releasing her, he stood, shook his head, and gave a short bark of laughter.

Below him, the woman drew herself to her knees. She reached for her handbag, retching momentarily.

Then – most oddly – she began to laugh as well.

Part Two. LONDON AFTERNOONS

1

Lady Helen Clyde was surrounded by the trappings of death. Crime-scene exhibits lay upon tables; photographs of corpses hung on the walls; grisly specimens sat in glass-fronted cupboards, among them one particularly gruesome memento consisting of a tuft of hair with the victim's scalp still attached. Yet despite the macabre nature of the environment Lady Helen's thoughts kept drifting to food.

As a form of distraction, she consulted the copy of a police report that lay on the work-table before her. 'It all matches up, Simon.' She switched off her microscope. 'B negative, AB positive, O positive. Won't the Met be happy about that?'

'H'm,' was her companion's only response.

Monosyllables were typical of him when he was involved in work, but his reply was rather aggravating at the moment since it was after four o'clock and for the last quarter-hour Lady Helen's body had been longing for tea. Oblivious of this, Simon Allcourt-St James began uncapping a collection of bottles that sat in a row before him. These contained minute fibres which he would analyse, staking his growing reputation as a forensic scientist upon his ability to weave a set of facts out of infinitesimal, blood-soaked threads.

Recognizing the preliminary stages of a fabric analysis, Lady Helen sighed and walked to the laboratory window. On the top floor of St James' house, it was open to the late June afternoon, and it overlooked a pleasant brick-walled garden. There, a vivid tangle of flowers made a pattern of undisciplined colour. Walkways and lawn had become overgrown.

'You ought to hire someone to see to the garden,' Lady Helen said. She knew very well that it hadn't been properly tended in the last three years.

'Yes.' St James took out a pair of tweezers and a box of slides. Somewhere below them in the house a door opened and shut.

At last, Lady Helen thought, and allowed herself to imagine Joseph Cotter mounting the stairs from the basement kitchen, in his hands a tray covered by fresh scones, clotted cream, strawberry tarts and tea. Unfortunately, the sounds that began drifting upwards – a thumping and bumping, accompanied by a low grunt of endeavour – did not suggest that refreshments were imminent. Lady Helen sidestepped one of St James' computers and peered into the panelled hall.

'What's going on?' St James asked as a sharp thwack resounded through the house, metal against wood, a noise boding ill for the stairway banisters. He got down awkwardly from his stool, his braced left leg landing unceremoniously on the floor with an ugly thud.

'It's Cotter. He's struggling with a trunk and some sort of package. Shall I help you, Cotter? What are you bringing up?'

'Managing quite well,' was Cotter's oblique reply from three floors below.

'But what on earth-?' Next to her, Lady Helen felt St James move sharply away from the door. He returned to his work as if the interruption had not occurred and Cotter were not in need of assistance.

And then she was given the explanation. As Cotter manoeuvred his burdens across the first landing, a shaft of light from the window illuminated a broad sticker affixed to the trunk. Even from the top floor, Lady Helen could read the black print across it: D. Cotter/USA. Deborah was returning, and quite soon by the look of it. Yet, as if this all were not occurring, St James devoted himself to his fibres and slides. He bent over a microscope, adjusting its focus.

Lady Helen descended the stairs. Cotter waved her off.

'I c'n manage,' he said. 'Don't trouble yourself.'

'I want the trouble. As much as do you.'

Cotter smiled at her reply, for his labours were born of a father's love for his returning child, and Lady Helen knew it. He handed over the broad flat package which he had been attempting to carry under his arm. His hold on the trunk he would not relinquish.

'Deborah's coming home?' Lady Helen kept her voice low. Cotter did likewise.

'She is. Tonight.'

'Simon never said a word.'

Cotter readjusted his grip on the trunk. 'Not likely to, is 'e?' he responded grimly.

They climbed the remaining flights of stairs. Cotter shouldered the trunk into his daughter's bedroom to the left of the landing, while Lady Helen paused at the door to the lab. She leaned the package against the wall, tapping her