A Suitable Vengeance

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.'

'And Saturday when Sid couldn't find him for most of the day – remember, she told us that? – he must have got the ergotamine and quinine then. He made the mixture and passed it on to Sasha.'

'A chemist,' St James said thoughtfully. 'A biochemist. Who would know drugs better?'

'So who was he after? Peter or Sasha?'

'It was always Peter.'

'Because of the visit to Mick Cambrey?'

'The room had been searched. The computer was on. There were notebooks and photographs all over the floor. Peter must have seen something when he was there with Brooke, something Brooke knew he might remember once Cambrey was dead.'

'Then, why give the drugs to Sasha? When Peter died, she would have told the police at once where she'd got them.'

'Not at all. She'd have been dead as well. Brooke was betting on that. He knew she was a user. So he gave her the drugs, hoping she and Peter would use them together and die at Howenstow, I imagine. When it became apparent that the plan wasn't working, he tried to be rid of Peter in a different way: by telling us about their visit to Cambrey so that Peter would be arrested and out of the way. What he couldn't have known is that Sasha and Peter would leave before Peter could be arrested in Cornwall and that Sasha's addiction was worse than Peter's. He especially had no way of knowing that she would hoard the drugs and use them alone. Nor did he know that Peter would go to the Anchor and Rose and get himself seen by a dozen or more people who could provide him with an alibi for the time of Cambrey's death.'

'So it was Justin,' Deborah said. 'Everything was Justin.'

'I've been blinded by the fact that he died before Sasha. I never considered that he might have given her the drugs first.'

'But his own death, Simon?' 'An accident all along.'

'Why? How? What was he doing on the cliff in the middle of the night?'

St James glanced over her shoulder. She'd left the warning light on above the darkroom door. It cast an eerie glow of blood red on the ceiling. It also gave him the answer. 'Your cameras,' he said. 'That's where he got rid of them.'

'Why?'

'He was wiping out every trace of his connection to Cambrey. First Cambrey himself. Then Peter. Then-'

'My film,' she said. 'The pictures you took in the cottage. Whatever Peter saw, you must have photographed as well.'

'Which means the state of the sitting room was merely a blind. He hadn't searched for anything. He hadn't taken anything. Whatever he wanted was too big to be removed.'

'The computer?' Deborah asked. 'Even so, how could he have known you even took any pictures in the first place?'

'He knew we had your camera with us on Friday night. Mrs Sweeney made certain of that at dinner on Saturday. He knew my line of work. Sidney would have told him. He had to have known Tommy is with Scotland Yard. He might have risked our coming upon a murder scene and doing nothing save calling the police. But why take the risk if there was something in that room – something on the film – that could tie him to Cambrey?'

'But the police would have found it eventually, wouldn't they?'

'They'd made their arrest. Penellin was as good as confessing to the crime. The only thing Justin had to fear was that someone other than the local police wouldn't accept the idea of Penellin as a killer. Which is exactly what happened less than twenty-four hours after Cambrey's death. We were nosing about. We were asking questions. He had to take steps to protect himself.'

She asked a final question. 'But why all my equipment? Why not just the film?'

'He didn't have time. It was easier to take the entire case, drop it from your window, and then trot down to see Tommy and me in the day room where he told us all about Peter. Then, later on, he took the cameras to the cove. He went out on the rocks and disposed of them in the water. He climbed back up the cliff. And that's when he fell.'

She smiled, feeling the release that comes with relief. He looked as if he'd shaken off a terrible burden. 'I wonder if we can prove any of it.'

'Indeed we can. In Cornwall. First at the cove to find the cameras, then at the newspaper office to find whatever Mick Cambrey was writing about oncozyme. Tomorrow.'

'And the film? The pictures?'