from his meetings with Peter throughout the night had grown a sense of both renewal and rebirth. And, although during his lengthy visit to New Scotland Yard, the family's solicitor had depicted Peter's danger with transparent simplicity unless the death of Mick Cambrey could be unassailably pinned upon Justin Brooke, Lynley and his brother had moved from a discussion of the legal ramifications of his position to a fragile communion in which each of them took the first tentative steps towards understanding the other's past behaviour, a necessary prelude to forgiving past sins. From the hours Lynley had spent talking to his brother had come the realization that understanding and forgiveness go hand-in-hand. To call upon one is to experience the other. And if understanding and forgiveness were to be seen as virtues – strengths of character, not illustrations of personal weakness – surely it was time he accepted the fact that they could bring harmony to the single relationship in his life where harmony was most needed. He wasn't certain what he would say to her, but he knew he was ready to speak to his mother.
This intention – a resolution which lightened his steps and lifted his shoulders – began to disintegrate upon his arrival in Chelsea. Lynley dashed up the front steps, rapped on the door, and came face to face with his most irrational fear.
St James answered the door. He was pleasant enough with his offer of a coffee before they left, and confident enough with his presentation of his theory about Justin Brooke's culpability in Sasha Nifford's death. Under any other circumstances the information about Brooke would have filled Lynley with the surge of excitement that always came with the knowledge that he was heading towards the conclusion of a case. Under these circumstances, however, he barely heard St James' words, let alone understood how far they went to explain everything that had happened in Cornwall and London over the past five days. Instead, he noted that his friend's face was etiolated as if from an illness; he saw the deepening of the lines on his brow; he heard the tension beneath St James' exposition of motive, means and opportunity; and he felt a chill settle in every vital organ of his body. His confidence and his will – both flagships of the day – lost a quick battle with his growing dismay.
He knew there could be only one source of the change that had come over St James, and she walked down the stairs not three minutes after his arrival, adjusting the leather strap of a shoulder bag. When she reached the hallway and Lynley saw her face, he read the truth and was sick at heart. He wanted to give sway to the anger and jealousy that he felt in that instant. But, instead, generations of good breeding rose to commandeer his behaviour. The demand for an explanation became meaningless social chitchat designed to get them through the moment without so much as a hair of feeling out of place.
'Working hard on your photos, darling?' he asked her and added, because even good breeding had its limits, 'You look as if you haven't had a moment's rest. Were you up all night? Are you finished with them?'
Deborah didn't look at St James, who went into the study where he began rooting in his desk. 'Nearly.' She came to Lynley's side, slipped her arms round him, lifted her mouth to kiss him, and said in a whisper against his lips, 'Good morning, darling Tommy. I missed you last night.'
He kissed her, feeling the immediacy of her response to him and wondering if everything else he had seen was merely the product of pathetic insecurity. He told himself that this was the case. Nonetheless he still said, 'If you've more work to do, you don't need to go with us.'
'I want to go. The photographs can wait.' And, with a smile, she kissed him again.
All the time with Deborah in his arms, Lynley was acutely aware of St James. During the journey to Cornwall, he was aware of them both. He studied every nuance in their behaviour towards him, in their behaviour towards each other. He examined each word, gesture and remark under the unforgiving microscope of his own suspicion. If Deborah said St James' name, it became in his mind a veiled avowal of her love. If St James looked in Deborah's direction, it was an open declaration of commitment and desire. By the time Lynley taxied the plane to a halt on the Land's End airstrip, he felt tension coiling like a spring in the back of his neck. The resulting pain was only a secondary consideration, however. It was nothing compared to his self-disgust.
His roiling emotions had prevented him from engaging in anything other than the most superficial of conversations during the drive to Surrey and the flight that followed it. And since not one of them was gifted with Lady Helen's capacity for smoothing over difficult moments with amusing chatter, their talk had ground itself down to nothing in very short order so that when they finally arrived in Cornwall the atmosphere among them was thick with unspoken words. Lynley knew he was not the only one to sigh with relief when they stepped out of the plane and saw Jasper waiting with the car next to the tarmac.
The silence during their ride to Howenstow was broken only by Jasper telling him that Lady Asherton had arranged to have two of the farm lads waiting at the cove 'at half-one like you said 'at you wanted'. John Penellin was still being held in Penzance, he confided, but the happy word had gone out to everyone that 'Mister Peter be found'.
'Her Ladyship's looking ten yers younger this morning for knowing the lad's safe,' Jasper concluded. 'She was whacking her tennis balls at five past eight.'
They said nothing more. St James riffled through the papers in his briefcase, Deborah watched the scenery, Lynley tried to clear his mind. They met neither vehicle nor animal on the narrow lanes, and it wasn't until they made the turn into the estate drive that they saw anyone at all. Nancy Cambrey was sitting on the front steps of the lodge. In her arms, Molly sucked eagerly at her bottle.
'Stop the car,' Lynley said to Jasper, and then to the others, 'Nancy knew about Mick's newspaper story from the first. Perhaps she can fill in the details if we tell her what we know.'
St James looked doubtful. A glance at his watch told Lynley that he was concerned about getting to the cove and from there to the newspaper office before much more time elapsed. But he didn't protest. Nor did Deborah. They got out of the car.
Nancy stood when she saw who it was. She led them into the house and faced them in the entry hall. Above her right shoulder, an old, faded sampler hung on the wall, a needlepoint scene of a family picnic, with two children, their parents, a dog, and an empty swing hanging from a tree. The wording was nearly obscure, but it probably had spoken, with well-meaning inaccuracy, of the constant rewards of family life.
'Mark's not here?' Lynley asked.
'He's gone to St Ives.'
'So your father's still said nothing to Inspector Boscowan about him? About Mick? About the cocaine?'
Nancy didn't pretend to misunderstand. She merely said, 'I don't know. I've heard nothing,' and walked into the sitting room where she placed Molly's bottle on top of the television and the baby herself in her pram. 'There's a good girl,' she said and patted her back. 'There's a good little Molly. You sleep for a bit.'
They joined her. It would have been natural to sit, but none of them did so at first. Instead, they took positions like uneasy actors who do not yet know how their play will be blocked: Nancy with one hand curled round the push bar of the pram; St James with his back to the bay window; Deborah near the piano; Lynley opposite her by the sitting-room door.
Nancy looked as if she anticipated the worst from this unexpected visit. Her glance went among them skittishly.
'You've news of Mick,' she said.
Together, Lynley and St James laid out both facts and conjectures. She listened to them without question or comment. Occasionally, she seemed struck by fleeting sorrow, but for the most part she seemed deadened to everything. It was as if, far in advance of their arrival, she had anaesthetized herself against the possibility of feeling anything more, not only about her husband's death, but also about some of the less-than-creditable aspects of his life.
'So he never mentioned Islington to you?' Lynley asked when they had concluded their story. 'Or oncozyme? Or a biochemist, Justin Brooke?'
'Never. Not once.'
'Was that typical of him to be so secretive about a story?'
'Before we married, no. He talked of everything then. When we were lovers. Before the baby.' 'And after the baby?'
'He went away more and more. Always about some story.'
'To London?' 'Yes.'
'Did you know he kept a flat there?' St James asked.
When she shook her head, Lynley said, 'But when your father spoke about Mick keeping other women, did you never think he might be keeping one in London? That would be a reasonable enough assumption, wouldn't it, considering how often he was travelling up there?'
