A Suitable Vengeance

hesitation. 'But hardly breaking. After all, we've got the key. Ah. Here we are. And not even a squeak to alert the neighbours.'

'I am the neighbours.'

Lady Helen laughed. 'How convenient.'

The flat was identical in size and shape to Deborah's, although it contained more furniture, each piece an indication of considerable expense. No chintz-covered three-piece suite for Tina Cogin; no second-hand tables; no cheap prints on the walls. Instead, gleaming hardwoods filled the room – oak and mahogany, rosewood and birch. Beneath them lay a hand-loomed rug, while above them a tapestry on the wall had the look of having been crafted by an experienced artisan. Clearly, the room's occupant had a penchant for luxury.

'Well,' Lady Helen said as she looked all this over, 'there must be something to be said for her line of work. Ah, there's the iron. Let's not forget to take that with us when we leave.'

'Helen, aren't we leaving now?'

'In a moment, darling. First, just a peep here and there to get a feeling of the woman.' 'But we can't-'

'We'll want something to tell Simon when we phone him, Deborah. As things stand now, if Tina's not back by evening we'll have nothing to report but a knock gone unanswered at her door. What a waste of everybody's energy that would be.'

'What if she walks in on us? Helen! Really.'

Every moment anticipating Tina's return and wondering what on earth they would say to her when she walked in the door and found them making fast and loose with her belongings, Deborah followed Lady Helen into the tiny kitchen and watched in an agony of nerves as she blithely opened the cupboards. There were only two, both containing the barest necessities in the smallest sizes available: coffee, salt, sugar, condiments, a packet of savoury biscuits, a tin of soup, another of grapefruit segments, another of cereal. On one shelf sat two plates, two bowls, two cups and four glasses. On the worktop beneath was a bottle of wine, previously opened and two-thirds full. Beyond a small tin coffee pot, a dented pan and an enamel kettle, the kitchen contained nothing else. And even what there was provided little enough information about Tina Cogin herself. Lady Helen summed it up.

'She doesn't seem to cook her meals here, does she? Of course, there are dozens of takeaways in Praed Street, so I suppose she could be bringing food in.'

'But if she entertains men?'

'That's the question, isn't it? Well, there's the bottle of wine. Perhaps that's all the entertainment she provides before she and her caller get down to business. Let's see what else we have.'

Lady Helen crossed to the wardrobe and pulled it open to reveal a row of evening and cocktail dresses, half a dozen wraps – one of which was fur – with an array of high-heeled pumps lined beneath them. A top shelf held a collection of hat-boxes; a middle shelf contained a stack of folded negligees. The bottom shelf was empty, but it had collected no dust, giving the impression that something had been kept there regularly.

Lady Helen tapped her cheek and gave a quick inspection to the chest of drawers. ‘]ust her underclothes,' she told Deborah after a cursory glance inside. 'They appear to be silk, but I shall draw the line at fingering my way through them.' She pushed the drawers closed and leaned against the chest, arms crossed in front of her, frowning at the wardrobe. 'Deborah, there's something… just a moment. Let me see.' She went into the bathroom and called out behind her, 'Why don't you have a go with the desk?'

The medicine cabinet opened, a drawer scraped against wood, a catch clicked, paper rustled. Lady Helen murmured to herself.

Deborah looked at her watch. Less than five minutes had passed since they'd entered the flat. It felt like an hour.

She went to the desk. Nothing was on its top save a telephone, an answering machine, and a pad of paper which Deborah, feeling ridiculously like a celluloid detective yet all the time lacking any better idea of what to do with herself, held up to the light to check for the indentations that previous writing might have made. Seeing nothing save the single pressure-point of a full stop or the dot of an i, she went on to the drawers but found two of them empty. The third held a savings passbook, a manila folder, and a solitary index card. Deborah picked this up.

'Odd,' Lady Helen said from the bathroom doorway. 'She's been gone two days, according to your neighbour, but she's left all her make-up behind. She's taken none of her evening clothes, but every ordinary garment she owns is missing. And there's a set of those dreadful fingernail tips in the bathroom. The kind one glues on. Why on earth would she take her fingernails off? They're such hell to put on in the first place.'

'Perhaps they're spares,' Deborah said. 'Perhaps she's gone to the country. She might be somewhere she won't need fancy clothes, where artificial fingernails would get in the way. The Lake District. Fishing in Scotland. To see relatives on a farm.' Deborah saw where her trail of ideas was leading. Lady Helen completed it.

'To Cornwall,' she said and nodded at the index card. 'What have you there?'

Deborah examined it. 'Two telephone numbers. Perhaps one is Mick Cambrey's. Shall I copy them?'

'Do.' Lady Helen came to look over her shoulder. 'I'm beginning to admire her. Here I am, so attached to my appearance that I wouldn't even consider venturing anywhere without at least one vanity case crammed to the brim with cosmetics. And there she is. The all-or-nothing woman. Either casual to a fault or dressed to…' Lady Helen faltered.

Deborah looked up. Her mouth felt dry. 'Helen, she couldn't have killed him.' Yet, even as she said it, her discomfort grew. What, after all, did she know about Tina? Nothing really, beyond a single conversation which had revealed little more than a weakness for men, an affinity for nightlife, and a concern about ageing. Still, one could certainly sense evil in people, no matter their attempts to disguise it. One could certainly sense the potential for rage. And none of that had been present in Tina. Yet, as she considered Mick Cambrey's death and the very fact of his presence in Tina Cogin's life, Deborah had to admit that she wasn't so sure.

She reached blindly for the folder as if it contained a verification of Tina's lack of guile. Prospects was printed across the tab. Inside, a clip held together a sheaf of papers.

'What is it?' Lady Helen asked.

'Names and addresses. Telephone numbers.'

'Her client list?'

'I shouldn't think so. Look. There are at least a hundred names. Women as well as men.' 'A mailing list?'

'I suppose it might be. There's a savings book as well.' Deborah slid this out of its plastic folder.

'Tell all,' Lady Helen said. 'Is her lifestyle profitable? Shall I change my line of work?'

Deborah read the list of deposits, flipped back to the name. She felt a rush of surprise. 'This isn't hers,' she said. 'It belongs to Mick Cambrey. And, whatever he was doing, it was wildly profitable.'

'Mr Allcourt-St James? This is a pleasure.' Dr Alice Waters rose from her chair and shooed off the lab assistant who had shown St James to her office. 'I thought I recognized you at Howenstow this morning. Hardly the time for introductions, however. What brings you to my den?'

It was an apt choice of words, for the office of Penzance CID's forensic pathologist was little more than a windowless cubicle on the verge of being overcome by bookshelves, an ancient roll-top desk, a medical-school skeleton wearing a Second World War gas mask, and several stacks of scientific journals. All that remained of the floorspace was a trail that led from the doorway to the desk. A chair sat next to this – curiously out of place and intricately carved in a design of flowers and birds that was more suggestive of a country house dining room than a department of forensic pathology – and after offering St James her hand in a cool, firm shake she waved him into it.

'Take the throne,' she said. 'Circa 1675. It was a good period for chairs if one doesn't mind a bit of excessive ornamentation.'

'You're a collector?'

'Takes one's mind off the job.' She sank into her own chair – a piece of wounded leather whose surface was cracked and wrinkled – and rooted through the papers on her desk until she found a small carton of chocolates which she presented to him. When he had made his selection, a process she watched with a good deal of interest, she took a chocolate herself, biting into it with the satisfaction of a discerning gourmet. 'Just read your piece on A- B-O secretors last week,' she said. 'I hardly thought I'd be having the pleasure of meeting you as well. Have you come about this Howenstow business?'

'The Cambrey death actually.'