'Tommy, where do you suppose John Penellin is? Do you think Nancy really spoke to him during the play? Because it seems to me that there's something decidedly odd in the way she insisted that she'd talked to him.'
Lynley was sitting on the piano bench, and he pushed softly against three of the keys, producing a barely audible discordance. 'I don't know,' he replied. But even if he could ignore Helen's intuitive remark he could not forget his conversation with Nancy that afternoon or the aversion with which her father had spoken of Nancy's husband.
The clock struck the half-hour. Nancy returned to them. 'I can't think where Dad is,' she said. 'You've no need to stay. I'll be fine now.'
'We'll stay,' Lynley said.
She pushed her hair behind her ears and rubbed her hands down the sides of her dress. 'He must've just gone out a bit ago. He does that sometimes when he can't sleep. He walks in the grounds. Often he does that before he goes to bed at night. In the grounds. I'm sure that's where he's gone.'
No-one mentioned the wild improbability of John Penellin's taking a walk in the grounds at half-past two in the morning. No-one even had to, for events conspired to prove Nancy a liar. Even as she made her final declaration, a car's lights swept across the sitting-room windows. An engine coughed once. A door opened and shut.
Footsteps rang against the flagstones and, a moment later, in the porch. She hurried to the door.
Penellin's voice came to the others clearly. 'Nancy? What're you doing here? It's not Mark, is it? Nancy, where's Mark?'
She reached out a hand to him as he came in the door. He took it. 'Dad.' Nancy's voice wavered.
At this, Penellin suddenly saw the others gathered in the sitting room. Alarm shot across his face. 'What's happened?' he demanded. 'By God, you tell me what that bastard's done to you now.'
'He's dead,' Nancy said. 'Someone…' She faltered at the rest of it, as if those few words reminded her of the horror that the sedative had allowed her to escape for a short time.
Penellin stared. He brushed past his daughter and took a step towards the stairway. 'Nancy, where's your brother?'
Nancy said nothing. In the sitting room, Lynley slowly got to his feet.
Penellin spoke again. 'Tell me what happened.'
'Nancy found Mick's body in the cottage after the play,' Lynley said. 'The sitting room looked as if it had been searched. Mick may well have surprised someone in the act of going through his papers. Or in the act of robbery. Although', he added, 'that latter seems unlikely.'
Nancy grasped this idea. 'It was robbery,' she said. 'That's what it was and no mistake. Mick was doing the pay envelopes for the newspaper staff when I left him this evening.' She tossed a look back over her shoulder at Lynley. 'Was the money still there?'
'I saw only a five-pound note on the floor,' St James answered.
'But surely Mick didn't pay the staff in cash,' Lynley said.
'He did,' Nancy said. 'It was always done that way on the newspaper. More convenient. There's no bank in Nanrunnel.'
'But if it was robbery'-'
'It was,' Nancy said.
Lady Helen spoke gently, bringing up the single point that obviated robbery as a motive. 'But Nancy, his body…'
'The body?' Penellin asked.
'He'd been castrated,' Lynley said.
'Good God.'
The front doorbell rang shrilly. All of them jumped, a testimony to the state of their nerves. Still in the hallway, Penellin answered the door. Inspector Boscowan stood in the porch. Beyond him, a dusty car was parked behind the estate Rover that Lynley had earlier driven to and from Nanrunnel.
'John,' Boscowan said by way of greeting Penellin.
The use of Penellin's given name reminded Lynley all at once that not only were Boscowan and Penellin of an age, but like so many others who lived in this remote area of Cornwall they were also former schoolmates and lifelong friends.
Penellin said, 'Edward, you've heard about Mick?'
'I've come to talk to you about it.'
Nancy gripped the newel post of the stairway. 'To Dad? Why? He knows nothing about this.'
'I've a few questions, John,' Boscowan said.
'I don't understand.' But Penellin's tone was an admission that he understood only too well.
'May I come in?'
Penellin glanced into the sitting room, and Boscowan followed his gaze to see the others gathered there. 'Still here, my lord?' he asked.
'Yes. We were…' Lynley hesitated. Waiting for John to come home asked to be spoken, an inadvertent accusation he would not make.
'Dad knows nothing,' Nancy repeated. 'Dad, tell him you know nothing about Mick.'
'May I come in?' Boscowan asked once more.
'Nancy and the baby,' Penellin said. 'They're both here. May we talk in Penzance? At the station?'
Requesting a different location wasn't a suspect's right. And that John Penellin was a suspect was illustrated in Boscowan's next words.
'Have you a solicitor you'd like to ring?'
'A solicitor?' Nancy shrilled.
'Nance. Girl. Don't.'
Although Penellin reached for his daughter, she flinched away. 'Dad was here.'
Boscowan shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. 'I'm sorry, Nancy. Neighbours saw him at your cottage at half-past nine. Others heard an argument as well.'
'He was here. I spoke to him after the interval. Dad, tell him I spoke to you after the interval.' She grabbed her father's arm, shaking it doggedly.
Her father loosened her fingers. 'Let me go, lass. Stay here. Take care of Molly. Nancy, wait for Mark.'
Boscowan didn't miss the exigent quality of Penellin's final direction to his daughter. 'Mark's not here?'
Penellin replied, 'I expect he's out with friends. In St Ives or St Just. You know how young men are.' He patted Nancy's hand. 'I'm ready, then, Edward. Let's be off
He nodded to the others and left the lodge. A moment later, Boscowan's car purred to life. The sound amplified briefly as he reversed down the main drive, then faded altogether as they headed towards Penzance.
Nancy spun towards the sitting room. 'Help him!' she cried to Lynley. 'He didn't kill Mick. You're a policeman. You can help. You must.' Uselessly she twisted the front of her house dress in her hands.
Even as he went to her side, Lynley reflected upon how little he could actually do to help. He had no jurisdiction in Cornwall. Boscowan seemed a highly capable man, one unlikely ever to need assistance from New Scotland Yard. Had Constable Parker been in charge of the case, the Met's ultimate involvement would not have been long in doubt. But Parker wasn't in charge. And since Penzance CID looked perfectly competent the investigation had to remain in their hands. However, he still wanted to say something, even if the only possible result was that form of purgation which comes from reliving the worst part of a nightmare.
'Tell me what happened tonight.' He led her back to the rocking-chair. Deborah rose from her place and covered Nancy's shoulders with a blanket that lay on the back of the couch.
Nancy stumbled through the story. She'd gone to do the drinks for the play, leaving the baby with Mick. Mick had been working at the sitting room desk, getting ready to do the pay envelopes for the newspaper staff. She'd placed Molly in the playpen nearby. She'd left them at seven o'clock.
'When I got back to the cottage, I could hear Molly crying. I was angry that Mick would let her go ignored. I shouted at him as I opened the door.'
'The door was unlocked?' St James asked.
It was, she told them.
'You didn't notice Mick's body?'
She shook her head and clutched the blanket closer round her thin shoulders. One elbow stuck out. It was bony and red. 'The sitting-room door was closed.'
'And, when you opened it, what did you notice at first?'
'Him. Mick. Lying…' She gulped for a breath. 'Then all round him the papers and notebooks and such.'