'I know how you want it to be,' she said. 'But it can't be that way, Dad. You need to accept it. People change. They grow up. They grow apart. Distance does things to them. Time makes their importance to each other fade away.'
'Sometimes,' he said.
' This time.' She saw him blink rapidly at the firmness of her voice. She tried to soften the blow. 'I was just a little girl. He was like my brother.'
'He was that.' Cotter moved to one side to let her pass.
She felt bereft by his reaction. She wanted nothing so much as his understanding but didn't know how to explain the situation in any way that would not destroy the dearest of his dreams. 'Dad, you must see that it's different with Tommy. I'm not a little girl to him. I never was. But to Simon I've always been… I'll always be…'
Cotter's smile was gentie. 'You've no need to convince me, Deb. No need.' He straightened his shoulders. His tone became brisk. 'At least we need to get some food in the man. Will you take a tray up? He's still in the lab.'
It was the least she could do. She followed him down the stairs to the kitchen and watched him put together a tray of cheese, cold meats, fresh bread and fruit, which she carried up to the lab where St James was sitting at one of the work tables, gazing at a set of photographed bullets. He held a pencil, but it lay unused between his fingers.
He'd turned on several lights, high-intensity lamps scattered here and there throughout the sprawling room. They created small pools of illumination within great caverns of shadow. In one of these, his face was largely screened by the darkness.
'Dad wants you to eat something,' Deborah said from the doorway. She entered the room and set the tray on the table. 'Still working?'
He wasn't. She doubted that he'd got a single thing done in all these past hours he'd spent in the lab. There was a report of some sort lying next to one of the photographs, but its front page didn't bear even a crease from having been folded back. And although a pad of paper lay beneath the pencil he held, he'd written nothing upon it. So all of this was rote behaviour on his part, a falling back on his work as an act of avoidance.
It all involved Sidney. Deborah had seen that much in his face when Lady Helen told him she hadn't been able to find his sister. She had seen it again when he had returned to her flat and placed call after call, trying to locate Sidney himself. Everything he had done from that moment — his journey to Islington-London, his discussion with Tommy about Mick Cambrey's death, his creation of a scenario to fit the facts of the crime, his need to get back to work in the lab — all of this was diversion and distraction to escape the trouble that had Sidney at its core. Deborah wondered what St James would do, what he would allow himself to feel, if someone had hurt his sister. Once again, she found herself wanting to help him in some way, giving him a peace of mind that appeared to elude him.
'It's just a bit of meat and cheese,' she said. 'Some fruit. Bread.' All of which was obvious. The tray was lying in his line of vision.
'Tommy's gone?' he asked.
'Ages ago. He went back to Peter.' She drew one of the lab stools to the other side of the table and sat facing him. 'I've forgotten to bring you something to drink,' she said. 'What would you like? Wine? Mineral water? Dad and I had coffee. Would you like a coffee, Simon?'
'Thank you, no. This is fine.' But he made no move to eat. He straightened on the stool, rubbed the muscles of his back.
The darkness did much to alter his face. Harsh angles were softened. Lines disappeared. The years drained away, taking with them the evidence of their companion pain. He was left looking younger and far more vulnerable. He seemed all at once so much easier to reach, the man to whom Deborah had once said anything at all, without fear of either derision or rejection, secure in the knowledge that he would always understand.
'Simon,' she said and waited until he had looked up from the plate of food which she knew he would not touch. 'Tommy told me what you tried to do for Peter today. That was so kind of you.'
His expression clouded. 'What I tried—?'
She reached across the table, grasping his hand lighdy. 'He said that you were going to take the container so that it wouldn't be there when the police arrived. Tommy was so moved by that act of friendship. He would have said something this afternoon in the study, but you left before he had the chance.'
She saw that his eyes were on Tommy's ring. The emerald shimmered like a translucent liquid in the light. His hand beneath hers was very cool. But as she waited for him to respond, it balled into a fist and then jerked away. She pulled her own hand back, feeling momentarily struck, feeling that any foolhardy lowering of her defences, any attempt to reach him in simple friendship, condemned her to failure again and again. Across from her, he swung to one side. The shadows deepened on the planes of his face.
'God,' he whispered.
At the word, at his expression, she saw that his pulling away had nothing to do with her. 'What is it?' she asked.
He leaned into the light. Every line reappeared with every angle newly honed. Dominant bones seemed to draw the skin against his skull. 'Deborah… how can I tell you? I'm not the hero that you think I am. I did nothing for Tommy. I didn't think of Tommy. I didn't care about Peter. I don't care about Peter.'
'But—'
'The container belongs to Sidney.'
Deborah felt herself drawing back at this statement. Her lips parted, but for a moment she did nothing but stare incredulously at his face. Finally, she managed, 'What are you saying?'
'She thinks Peter killed Justin Brooke. She wanted to even the score. But somehow, instead of Peter—'
'Ergotamine,' Deborah whispered. 'You do take it, don't you?'
He shoved the tray to one side. But that was the only reaction he appeared to be willing to allow himself. His words — if not their connotation — were perfectly cool. 'I feel like an idiot. I can't even think what to do to help my own sister. I can't even find her. It's pathetic. Obscene. I'm perfectly useless, and this entire day has been nothing more than an illustration of that fact.'
'I don't believe it,' Deborah said slowly. 'Sidney wouldn't… she didn't… Simon, I can't think you believe it yourself.'
'Helen's looked everywhere, phoned everywhere. So have I. Nothing's any good. And they'll trace that container within twenty-four hours.'
'How could they? Even if her fingerprints are on it—'
'It has nothing to do with fingerprints. She's used her perfume bottle. It's from Jermyn Street. That's not going to give the police any difficulty. They'll be here by four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. You can bet on that.'
'Her perfume… Simon, it's not Sidney!' Quickly, Deborah pushed off the lab stool, going round to join him. 'It's not Sidney. It can't be. Don't you remember? She came to my room the night of the dinner. She used my perfume. Hers was missing, she said. Someone had straightened her room. She couldn't find anything. Don't you remember?'
For a moment, he looked stunned. His vision was fixed upon her although he didn't appear to be seeing her at all. 'What?' he whispered and then went on in a voice that was stronger. 'That was Saturday evening. That was before Brooke died. Someone was planning to kill Peter even then.'
'Or Sasha,' Deborah said.
'Someone's trying to frame Sidney.' He pushed himself off the lab stool, walked to the end of the work table, swung round, walked back. He did it a second time, more quickly and with growing agitation. 'Someone got into her room. It could have been anyone. Peter — if Sasha was the intended victim — or Trenarrow or any one of the Penellins. Good God, even Daze.'
The truth was all of a piece in a moment. 'No,' Deborah said. 'It was Justin.'
'Justin?'
'It never made sense to me that he went to her bedroom on Friday night. Not after what happened between them on the beach that afternoon. He had a grievance against Sidney. The cocaine, their fight, Peter and Sasha laughing at them both. Laughing at him.'
'So he went to her room,' St James said slowly, 'made love to her, and took the bottle then. He must have done. Damn him to hell.'
