A Suitable Vengeance

approaching panic, he listened to Sidney's keening wail. He swung round viciously at the touch of a hand on his arm. Lady Asherton stood there, behind her the gardener and half a dozen others from the house.

'Get her away from him.' He barely managed the words. But his speaking released the rest of them into action.

With a final, worried look at his face, Lady Asherton began a nimble descent of the cliff. The others followed, carrying blankets, a makeshift stretcher, a Thermos, a coil of rope. Although they all climbed down quickly, it seemed to St James that they moved in slow motion in the manner of mimes.

Three of them reached Sidney simultaneously, and Lady Asherton pulled her away from the body which she continued to shake with a wild futility. As Sidney fought to go back to it, beginning to scream, Lady Asherton shouted something over her shoulder which St James could not distinguish. In answer, one of the men handed her an open vial. She pulled Sidney to her, grabbed her by the hair, and thrust the vial under her nose. Sidney's head flew back. Her hand went to her mouth. She spoke brokenly to Lady Asherton who in answer pointed up the cliff.

Sidney began to climb. The gardener helped her. Then the others from the house. All of them saw that she neither stumbled nor fell. And within a few moments St James was pulling her fiercely into his arms. He held her, pressing his cheek to the top of her head and fighting back an emotional reaction of his own that promised to overwhelm him if he gave it free rein. When the worst of her weeping had subsided, he began to lead her in the direction of the house, both his arms round her, somehow afraid that if he released her he would be giving her back to hysteria, back to the body of her lover on the beach.

They passed under the trees of the woodland. St James was hardly aware of the progress they made. Nor was he aware of the rushing sound of the river, the rich scent of vegetation, the springy feel of the loamy ground beneath their feet. If his clothing was caught or snagged by the bushes that encroached upon the narrow path, he took no notice.

The air had grown quite heavy with an approaching storm by the time they reached the Howenstow wall and went through the gate. The tree leaves susurrated as the swelling wind tossed them, and up the trunk of one ash a grey squirrel scampered, disappearing into its branches for shelter. Sidney raised her head from her brother's chest.

'It'll rain,' she said. 'Simon, he'll get wet.'

St James tightened his arms. He kissed the top of her head. 'No, it's all right.' He attempted to sound more like the older brother she knew, the one who had taken care of her night-time monsters, the one who could make bad dreams go away. But not this one, Sid. 'They'll take care of him. You'll see.'

Large, heavy drops splattered noisily on the leaves. In his arms, Sidney shivered.

'How Mummy shouted at us!' she whispered.

'Shouted? When?'

'You opened all the nursery windows to see how much rain would come into the room. She shouted and shouted. She hit you as well.' Her body heaved with a sob. 'I never could bear to see Mummy hit you.'

'The carpet was ruined. No doubt I deserved it.'

'But it was my idea. And I let you take the punishment.' She brought her hand to her face. Blood had streaked between her fingers. She began to weep again. Tm sorry.'

He stroked her hair. 'It's all right, love. I'd quite forgotten. Believe me.'

'How could I do that to you, Simon? You were my favourite brother. I loved you best. Nanny told me how bad it was to love you more than Andrew or David, but I couldn't help it. I loved you best. Then I let you take a beating and it was my fault and I never said a word.' Her raised face was wet with tears that, St James knew, in reality had nothing to do with their childhood disputes.

'Let me tell you something, Sid,' he confided, 'but you must promise never to say anything to David or Andrew. You were my favourite as well. You still are, in fact.'

'Really?'

'Absolutely.'

They came to the gatehouse and entered the garden as the wind picked up, tearing at the heads of roses, sending a shower of petals into their path. Although the rain began to beat against them aggressively, they didn't hurry their pace. By the time they reached the doorway, they were both quite wet.

'Mummy will shout at us now,' Sidney said as St James closed the door behind them. 'Shall we hide?'

'We'll be safe enough for now.'

'I'll not let her beat you.'

'I know that, Sid.' St James led his sister towards the stairway, taking her hand when she hesitated and gazed around, clearly confused. 'It's just this way,' he urged her.

At the top of the stairs, he saw Cotter coming towards him, a small tray in his hands. At the sight of him, St James gave a moment of thanksgiving over to Cotter's ability to read his mind.

'Saw you comin',' Cotter explained and nodded at the tray. 'It's a brandy. Is she…?' He jerked his head towards Sidney, his brow furrowing at the sight of her.

'She'll be all right in a bit. If you'll help me, Cotter. Her room's this way.'

Unlike Deborah's room, Sidney's was neither cave-like nor sepulchral. Overlooking a small walled garden at the rear of the house, it was painted and papered in a combination of yellow and white, with a floral carpet of pastels on the floor. St James sat his sister on the bed and went to draw the curtains while Cotter poured brandy and held it to her lips. 'A bit o' this, Miss Sidney,' Cotter said solicitously. 'It'll warm you up nice.'

She drank co-operatively. 'Does Mummy know?' she asked.

Cotter glanced warily at St James. 'Have a bit more,' he said.

St James rooted through a drawer, looking for her nightdress. He found it under a Sidney-like pile of jerseys, jewellery and stockings.

'You must get out of those wet things,' he told her. 'Cotter, will you find a towel for her hair? And something for the cuts?'

Cotter nodded, eyeing Sidney cautiously before he left the room. Alone with his sister, St James undressed her, tossing her wet clothes onto the floor. He drew her nightdress over her head, pulling her arms gently through the thin satin straps. She said nothing and didn't seem to realize he was present at all. When Cotter returned with towel and plaster, St James rubbed Sidney's hair roughly. He saw to her arms and legs and the muddy splatters on her feet. Swinging her legs up on the bed, he pulled the blankets around her. She submitted to it all like a child, like a doll.

'Sid,' he whispered, touching her cheek. He wanted to talk about Justin Brooke. He wanted to know if they had been together in the night. He wanted to know when Brooke had gone to the cliff. Above all, he wanted to know why.

She didn't respond. She stared at the ceiling. Whatever she knew would have to wait.

Lynley parked the Rover at the far end of the courtyard and entered the house through the north-west door between the gun room and the servants' hall. He had seen the line of vehicles on the drive – two police cars, an unmarked saloon, and an ambulance with its windscreen wipers still running – so he was not unprepared to be accosted by Hodge as he quickly passed through the domestic wing of the house. They met outside the pantry.

'What is it?' Lynley asked the old butler. He tried to sound reasonably concerned without revealing his incipient panic. Upon seeing the cars through the wind-driven rain, his first thought had run unveeringly towards Peter.

Hodge gave the information willingly enough and in a fashion designed to reveal nothing of his own feelings in the matter. It was Mr Brooke, he told Lynley. He's been taken to the old schoolroom.

If the manner in which Hodge had relayed the information had been fleeting cause for hope – nothing could be terribly amiss if Brooke hadn't been taken directly to hospital – hope dissipated when Lynley entered the schoolroom in the east wing of the house a few minutes later. The body lay shrouded by blankets on a long scarred table at the room's centre, the very same table at which generations of young Lynleys had done their childhood lessons before being packed off to school. A group of men stood in hushed conversation round it, among them Inspector Boscowan and the plain-clothes sergeant who had accompanied him to pick up John Penellin on the previous evening. Boscowan was talking to the group in general, issuing some son of instructions to two crime-scene men whose trouser legs were muddy and whose jacket shoulders bore large wet patches from the rain. The police pathologist was with them, identifiable by the medical bag at her feet. It was unopened, and she didn't look as if she intended to do any preliminary examining of the body. Nor did the crime-scene men seem prepared to do any work at