A Suitable Vengeance

really exist but was only the product of his heat-oppressed brain. He laughed derisively at the tortured convolution of muscle, bone, and sinew that for eight years had been his bar of justice, prison, and final retribution for the crime of being young and being drunk on a winding road in Surrey long ago.

The air he drew in was hot, fetid with the scent of diesel fuel. Still, he sucked it in deeply. To master pain in its infancy was everything, and he did not pause to consider that doing so would then give him leave to examine the charges which Deborah had hurled against him and, worse, to admit to the truth of every one.

For three years, he had indeed not sent her a message, not a single letter, not a sign of any kind. And the damnable fact behind his behaviour was that he could not excuse it or explain it in a way she might ever come to understand. Even if she did, what point would it serve for her to know now that every day without her he had felt himself growing just a bit more towards nothing? For while he had allowed himself to die by inches and degrees, Lynley had taken up position within the sweet circumference of her life, and there he had moved in his usual fashion, gracious and calm, completely self-assured.

At the thought of the other man, St James made himself stir and felt for the car keys in his pocket, determined not to be found – looking like a puling schoolboy – in front of Deborah's block of flats when Lynley arrived. He pulled away from the kerb and joined the rush-hour traffic that was hurtling down Sussex Gardens.

As the light changed on the corner of Praed Street and London Street, St James braked the car and let his glance wander forlornly with a heaviness that matched the condition of his spirit. Without registering any of them, his eyes took in the multifarious business establishments that tumbled one upon the other down the Paddington street, like children eager to grab one's attention on the pathway to the Tube. A short distance away, beneath the blue and white Underground sign, a woman stood. She was making a purchase of flowers from a vendor whose cart stood precariously, one wheel hanging over the kerb. She shook back her head of close-cropped black hair, scooped up a spray of summer flowers, and laughed at something the vendor said.

Seeing her, St James cursed his unforgivable stupidity. For here was Deborah's afternoon guest. Not Lynley at all, but his very own sister.

The knocking began at her door just moments after Simon left, but Deborah ignored it. Crouched near the window, she held the broken fragment of a fluted wing in her hand, and she drove it into her palm so that it drew fresh blood. Just a drop here and there where the edges were sharpest, then a more determined flow as she increased the pressure.

Let me tell you about swans, he had said. When they choose a mate, they choose once and for life. They learn to live in harmony together, little bird, accepting each other just the way they are. There's a lesson in that for us all, isn't there?

Deborah ran her fingers over the delicate moulding that was left of Simon's gift and wondered how she had possibly come to engage in such an act of betrayal. What possible triumph had she managed to achieve beyond a brief and blinding vengeance that had as its fountainhead his complete humiliation? And what, after all, had the frightful scene between them managed to prove at the heart of the matter? Merely that her adolescent philosophy – spouted to him so confidently at the age of seventeen – had been incapable of standing the test of a separation. I love you, she had told him. Nothing changes that. Nothing ever will. But the words hadn't proved true. People weren't like swans. Least of all was she.

Deborah got to her feet, wiping at her cheeks roughly with the sleeve of her frock, uncaring if the three buttons at the wrist abraded her skin, rather hoping they would. She stumbled into the kitchen where she found a cloth to wrap round her hand. The fragment of wing she placed in a drawer. This latter she knew was fruitiess activity, carried out in the ridiculous belief that the swan itself might someday be mended.

Wondering what excuse she could make to Sidney St James for her appearance, she went to the door where the knocking continued. Wiping her cheeks a second time, she turned the knob, trying to smile, but managing only a grimace.

'What a mess. I'm perfectly…' Deborah faltered.

A bizarrely clad, but nonetheless attractive, black-haired woman stood on the threshold. She held a glass of milky green liquid in her hand, and she extended it without a prefatory remark. Nonplussed, Deborah took it from her. The woman nodded sharply and walked into the flat.

'Men are all the same.' Her voice was husky, with a regional accent she seemed to be trying to shed. She padded on bare feet to the centre of the room and continued to speak as if she and Deborah had known each other for years. 'Drink it up. I go through at least five a day. It'll make you feel a new woman, I swear it. And, Christ knows, these days I need to feel like new after every-' She stopped herself and laughed, showing teeth that were extraordinarily white and even. 'You know what I mean.'

It was hard to avoid knowing exactly what the woman did mean. In a black satin negligee with voluminous folds and flounces, she was a walking advertisement for her calling in life.

Deborah held up the glass which had been pressed upon her. 'What is this?'

A buzzer sounded, indicating the presence of someone in the street below. The woman walked to the wall and pressed the reciprocal bell for entry.

'This place is as busy as Victoria Station.'

She nodded to the drink, removed a card from the pocket of her dressing-gown and handed it to Deborah. 'Nothing but juices and vitamins, that. A few veggies thrown in. A little pick-me-up. I've written it all down for you. Hope you don't mind the liberty, but from the sound of today, you'll be needing a lot of it. Drink it. Go on.' She waited until Deborah had raised the glass to her lips before sauntering to her photographs. 'Very nice. This your stuff?'

'Yes.' Deborah read the list of ingredients on the card. Nothing more harmful than cabbage, which she'd always loathed. She placed the glass on the worktop and smoothed her fingers across the cloth that was wrapped round her palm. She lifted her hand to her tangled mess of hair. 'I must look a sight.'

The woman smiled. 'I'm a wreck myself until after nightfall. I never bother much in the light of day. What's the point, I say. Anyway, you're a perfect vision as far as I'm concerned. How d'you like the drink?'

'It's not quite like anything I've ever tasted.'

'Special, isn't it? I ought to bottle the stuff

'Yes. Well, it's good. Very good. Thank you. I'm terribly sorry about the row.'

'It was a great one. I couldn't help overhearing most of it – walls being what they are – and for a bit I thought it might come to blows. I'm just next door.' She cocked her thumb to the left. 'Tina Cogin.'

'Deborah Cotter. I moved in last night.'

'Is that what all the thumping and pounding was about?' Tina grinned. 'And to think I was imagining some competition. Well, none of that talk. You don't look the type to be on the game, do you?'

Deborah felt herself colouring. 'Thank you' hardly seemed an appropriate response.

Apparently finding reply unnecessary, Tina busied herself looking at her reflection in the glass that covered one of Deborah's photographs. She rearranged her hair, examined her teeth, and ran a long fingernail between the front two. 'I'm a ruin. Make-up just can't do it all, can it? Ten years ago, a bit of blusher was all it took. And now? Hours in front of a mirror and I still look like hell when I'm done.'

A knock sounded on the door. Sidney, Deborah decided. She wondered what Simon's sister would say about this unexpected visitor to her flat who was currently studying the photograph of Lynley as if she were considering him a source of future income.

'Would you like to stay for tea?' Deborah asked her.

Tina swung from the picture. One eyebrow lifted.

'Tea?' She said the word as if the substance had not passed her lips for the better part of her adult life. 'Sweet of you, Deb, but no. Three in this kind of situation is a bit of a crowd. Take it from me. I've tried it.'

'Three?' Deborah stammered. 'It's a woman.'

'Oh, no!' Tina laughed. 'I was talking of the table, love. It's a bit small, you see, and I'm all elbows and thumbs when it comes to tea. You just finish that drink and return the glass later. Right?'

'Yes. Thank you. All right.'

'And we'll have a nice litde chat when you do.'

With a wave of her hand, Tina opened the door, swept past Sidney St James with an electric smile, and disappeared down the hall.