A Suitable Vengeance

'As if the room had been searched,' St James said. 'Did Mick ever work on stories at home?'

Nancy rubbed her hand along the nap of the blanket and nodded a bit too eagerly. 'Often, yes. At the computer. He wouldn't want to go back to the office after dinner, so he'd work a bit at home. He kept lots of notes for his stories at the cottage. "Sort through this lot, Mickey," I'd tell him. "We must throw some things away." But he didn't like to because he never knew when he'd need to look up some little detail in a notebook or a journal or his diary. "Can't toss it out, Nance," he'd tell me. "The first thing I throw away will be exactly what I need." So there were always papers. Scraps of this and that. Notes on paper napkins and on matchbook covers. It was his way. Lots of notes. Someone must have wanted… or the money. The money. We mustn't forget that.'

It was a difficult recital to listen to. Although the facts seemed relevant – the presence of material on the floor, the evidence of a hasty search – it did not appear that their connection to Mick Cambrey's profession was foremost on his wife's mind, no matter her attempt to make it seem so. Rather, she appeared to be concerned with an entirely different matter connected to the search.

She verified this by concluding with, 'You know, I did talk to Dad after the interval. Perhaps at half-past ten. From a call box.'

No-one replied. Despite the room's warmth, Nancy's legs shook, causing the blanket that covered them to tremble. 'I telephoned. I spoke to Dad. He was here. Lots of people must've seen me make the call. Ask Mrs Swann. She knows I spoke to Dad. He was here. He said he'd not been out all evening.'

'But, Nancy,' Lynley said, 'your father was out. He wasn't here when I phoned. He only just walked in a few minutes after we did. Why are you lying? Are you afraid of something?'

'Ask Mrs Swann. She saw me. In the call box. She can tell you-'

A blast of rock-and-roll music shattered the mild night noises outside the house. Nancy leapt to her feet.

The front door opened and Mark Penellin entered. A large portable stereo rode upon his shoulder, blaring out 'My Generation', night-time nostalgia with a vengeance. Mark was singing along, but he stopped in mid-phrase when he saw the group in the sitting room. He fumbled incompetently with the knobs. Roger Daltrey roared even louder for an instant before Mark mastered the volume and switched the stereo off.

'Sorry.' He placed the unit on the floor. It had left an indentation in the soft calfskin jacket he wore and, as if he knew this without looking, he brushed his fingers against the material to rejuvenate it. 'What's going on? What're you doing here, Nance? Where's Dad?'

In conjunction with everything that had gone before, both her brother's sudden appearance at the lodge and his questions seemed to destroy the inadequate defences which Nancy had raised to avoid the reality of her father's behaviour that night. She fell back into the rocking-chair.

'It's your fault!' she cried. 'The police have come for Dad. They've taken him and he'll say nothing because of you.' She began to cry, reaching for her handbag which lay on the floor. 'What're you going to do to him next, Mark? What'll it be? Tell me.' She opened her handbag and began fumbling through it, pulling out a crumpled tissue as she sobbed, 'Mickey. Oh, Mick.'

Still at the doorway to the sitting room, Mark Penellin swallowed, looking at each of them in turn before returning his gaze to his sister. 'Has something happened to Mick?'

Nancy continued to weep.

Mark brushed back his hair. He ran his knuckles down his jawline. He brought their worst fears to light. 'Nancy, had Dad done something to Mick?'

She was out of the chair, her handbag flying, its contents spraying across the floor.

'Don't you say that! Don't you dare. You're at the bottom of this. We know it. Dad and I.'

Mark backed into the stairway. His head struck a banister. ^lMe? What're you talking about? This is crazy. You're crazy. What the hell's happened?'

'Mick's been murdered,' Lynley said.

Blood flooded Mark's face. He spun from Lynley to his sister. 'And you think I did it? Is that what you think? That I killed your husband?' He gave a wild shriek of laughter. 'Why would I bother, with Dad looking for a way to put him under for a year?'

'Don't you say that! Don't you dare! It was you!'

'Right. Believe what you want.'

'What I know. What Dad knows.'

'Dad knows everything all right. Lucky for him to be so bloody wise.'

He grabbed his stereo and flung himself up five stairs. Lynley's words stopped him. 'Mark, we need to talk.'

'No!' And then as he finished the climb, 'I'll save what I have to say for the flaming police. As soon as my sister turns me in.'

A door crashed shut.

Molly began to wail.

11

'How much do you really know about Mark Penellin?' St James asked, looking up from the paper on which he had been jotting their collective thoughts for the last quarter of an hour.

He and Lynley were alone in the small alcove that opened off the Howenstow drawing room, directly over the front entry to the house. Two lamps were lit, one on the undersized mahogany desk where St James sat and the other on a marquetry side table beneath the windows where it cast a golden glow against the darkness-backed panes. Lynley handed St James a glass of brandy and cupped his own in the palm of his hand, meditatively swirling the liquid. He sank into a wing chair next to the desk, stretched out his legs, and loosened his tie. He drank before answering.

'Not much in any detail. He's Peter's age. From what little's been said about him in the past few years, I gather he's been a disappointment to his family. To his father mostly.'

'In what way?'

'The usual way young men disappoint their fathers. John wanted Mark to go to university. Mark did one term at Reading but then dropped out.'

'Rusticated?'

'Not interested. He went from Reading to a job as a barman in Maidenhead. Then Exeter, as I recall. I think he was playing drums with a band. That didn't pan out as he would have liked – no fame, no fortune, and most particularly no lucrative contract with a recording studio – and he's been working here on the estate ever since, at least for the last eighteen months. I'm not quite sure why. Estate management never seemed to interest Mark in the past. But perhaps now he's thinking along the lines of taking o%^rer as Howenstow land manager when his father retires.'

'Is that a possibility?'

'It's possible, but not without Mark's developing some background and a great deal more expertise than would come from the sort of work he's been doing round here.'

'Does Penellin expect his son to succeed him?'

'I shouldn't think so. John's university educated himself. When he retires – which is a good time away in the future – he wouldn't expect me to give his job to someone whose sole experience at Howenstow has been mucking out the stables.'

'And that's been the extent of Mark's experience?'

'Oh, he's done some time in one or two of the dairies. Out on several of the farms as well. But there's more to managing an estate than that.'

'Is he paid well?'

Lynley twirled the stem of his brandy glass between his fingers. 'No, not particularly. But that's John's decision. I've got the impression from him in the past that Mark doesn't work well enough to be paid well. In fact the whole issue of Mark's salary has been a sore spot between them ever since Mark returned from Exeter.'

'If he keeps him short of cash, wouldn't the money in Gull Cottage be a lure for him? Could he have known his brother-in-law's habits well enough to know that tonight he'd be doing the pay for the newspaper staff? After all, it looks as if he's living a bit above his means, if his salary here is as low as you indicate.'

'Above his means? How?'