A Suitable Vengeance

'Any message for Daze?'

St James considered the question. Any message for Lynley's mother seemed a toss-up between relieving her mind about one set of circumstances only to fire her worries about another. 'Nothing yet.'

He waited as Cotter turned the car around and headed back the way they had come. Then he began the descent into Lamorna, with the wind whipping round him and the sun warming his face. Below him, the crystalline water reflected the colour of the sky, and the small beach glistened with newly washed sand. The houses on the hillside, built by Cornish craftsmen who had been testing the strength of the south-western weather for generations, had sustained no damage from the storm. Here, that which had been the ruin of the Daze might not even have occurred.

St James watched as Lynley walked along the quay, his head bent forward, his hands deep in trouser pockets. The posture said everything about the condition of his spirit, and the fact that he was alone suggested either that he had disbanded the search altogether or that the others had gone on without him. Because they'd been at it for hours already, St James guessed the former. He called Lynley's name.

His friend looked up, raised a hand in greeting, but said nothing until he and St James met at the land end of the quay. His expression was bleak.

'Nothing.' He lifted his head, and the wind tossed his hair. 'We've completed the circuit. I've been talking to everyone here as a last-ditch effort. I thought someone might have seen them getting the boat ready to sail, or walking on the quay, or stocking supplies. But no-one in any of the houses saw a blasted thing. Only the woman who runs the cafe even noticed the Daze yesterday.'

'When was that?'

'Just after six in the morning. She was getting ready to open the cafe – adjusting the front blinds – so she can't have been mistaken. She saw them sailing out of the harbour.'

'And it was yesterday? Not the day before.'

'She remembers it was yesterday because she couldn't understand why someone was taking the boat out when rain had been forecast.'

'But it was in the morning that she saw them?'

Lynley glanced his way, flashed a tired but grateful smile. 'I know what you're thinking. Peter left Howenstow the night before, and because of that it's less likely he's the one who took the boat. That's good of you, St James. Don't think I haven't considered it myself. But the reality is that he and Sasha could have come to Lamorna during

the night, slept on the boat, then taken her out at dawn.' 'Did this woman see anyone on deck?' 'Just a figure at the helm.' 'Only one?'

'I can't think Sasha knows how to sail, St James. She was probably below. She was probably still asleep.' Lynley looked back at the cove. 'We've done the whole coastline. But so far nothing. Not a sighting, not a garment, not a sign of them.' He took out his cigarette case and flipped it open. 'I'm going to have to come up with something to tell Mother. But God only knows what it'll be.'

St James had been placing most of the facts together as Lynley spoke. His thoughts elsewhere, he'd heard not so much the words as the desolation behind them. He sought to bring that to an immediate end.

'Peter didn't take the Daze,' he said. 'I'm sure of it.'

Lynley's head turned to him slowly. It looked like the sort of movement one makes in a dream. 'What are you saying?'

'We need to go to Penzance.'

Detective Inspector Boscowan took them to the officers' canteen. 'The yellow submarine,' he'd called it, and the name was very apt: yellow walls, yellow linoleum, yellow Formica-topped tables, yellow plastic chairs. Only the crockery was a different colour, but as this colour was carmine the overall effect was one which did not encourage the thought of lingering over a meal with one's mates. Nor did it suggest the possibility of consuming one's food without developing a ferocious headache in the process. They took a pot of tea to a table overlooking a small courtyard in which a dispirited ash tree attempted to flourish in a circle of dirt the colour of granite.

'Designed and decorated by madmen,' was Boscowan's only comment as he hooked his foot round the leg of an extra chair and dragged it to their table. 'Supposed to take one's mind off one's work.'

'It does that,' St James remarked.

Boscowan poured the tea while Lynley ripped open three packages of digestive biscuits and shook them on to an extra plate. They fell upon it with a sound like small artillery fire.

'Baked fresh daily.' Boscowan smiled sardonically, took a biscuit, dunked it in his tea and held it there. 'John's spoken to a solicitor this morning. I had a devil of a time getting him to do it. I've always known the man's stubborn, but he's never been like this.'

'Are you going to charge him?' Lynley asked.

Boscowan examined his biscuit, dunked it again. 'I've no choice in the matter. He was there. He admits it. The evidence supports it. Witnesses saw him. Witnesses heard the row.' Boscowan took a bite of his biscuit, after which he appreciatively held it at eye level and nodded his head. He wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and urged the plate upon the other two men. 'Not half bad. Just put your faith in the tea.' He waited until they had each taken one before he went on. 'Had John only been there it would be a different matter. Had there not also been that flaming row which half the neighbourhood appear to have heard…'

St James looked at Lynley. He was adding a second cube of sugar to his tea. His index finger played along the handle of the cup. But he said nothing.

St James said, 'As to Penellin's motive?'

'An argument over Nancy, I dare say. Cambrey was trapped into the marriage, and he made no bones about hating every minute of it. There's not one person I've talked to who hasn't said that.'

'Then, why marry her in the first place? Why not simply refuse? Why not insist on an abortion?'

'According to John, the girl wouldn't hear of abortion.

And Harry Cambrey wouldn't hear of Mick's refusing to marry her.'

'But Mick was a grown man after all.'

'With a dad sick and likely to die after his surgery.' Boscowan drained his cup of tea. 'Harry Cambrey recognized a string when he saw one. Don't think he didn't pull it to keep Mick in Nanrunnel. So the lad got trapped here. He started stepping out on his wife. Everyone knows it, including John Penellin.'

Lynley said, 'But you can't truly believe that John-'

Boscowan raised a hand quickly. 'I know the facts. They're all we have to work with. Nothing else can matter, and you damn well know it. What difference does it make that John Penellin's my friend? His son-in-law's dead, and that has to be seen to, whether it's convenient in my life or not.' Having said this, Boscowan looked abashed, as if his brief outburst had come as a surprise to him. He went on more quietly. 'I've offered to let him go home pending arraignment, but he's refused. It's as if he wants to be here, as if he wants to be tried.' He reached for another biscuit but, rather than eat it, he broke it in his hands. 'It's as if he did it.'

'May we see him?' Lynley asked.

Boscowan hesitated. He looked from Lynley to St James, then out the window. 'It's irregular. You know that.'

Lynley pulled out his warrant card. Boscowan waved it off. 'I know you're Scotland Yard. But this isn't a Yard case, and I've my own Chief Constable's sensibilities to consider. No visitors save family and solicitor when it's a homicide. That's standard procedure in Penzance, regardless of what you allow at the Met.'

'A woman friend of Mick Cambrey's has gone missing from London,' Lynley said. 'Perhaps John Penellin can help us with that.'

'A case you're working on?'

Lynley didn't reply. At the next table a girl in a stained white uniform began stacking plates onto a metal tray. Crockery crashed and scraped. A mound of mashed potatoes fell to the floor. Boscowan watched her work. He tapped a hard biscuit on the table top.

'Oh hell,' he murmured. 'Come on with you both. I'll arrange it somehow.'

He left them in an interrogation room in another wing of the building. A single table and five chairs were the only furnishings besides a mirror on one wall and a ceiling light-fixture from which a spider was industriously constructing a web.

'Do you think he'll admit to it?' Lynley asked as they waited.