A Suitable Vengeance

Cambrey looked puzzled. 'I've a spare cottage key here.'

'No. I mean all his keys. He has a set, doesn't he? Car, cottage, office? Can you get them? I expect Boscowan has them now, so you'll need to come up with an excuse. And I'll want them for a few days.'

'Why?'

'Does the name Tina Cogin mean anything to you?' St James asked in answer. 'Cogin?'

'Yes. A woman from London. Mick knew her apparently. I think he may have had the key to her flat.'

'Mick had the key to half a dozen flats, if I know him.' Cambrey pulled out a cigarette and left him to his papers.

An hour's search through the past six months gleaned him nothing save hands that were stained with newsprint. As far as he could tell, Harry Cambrey's conjecture about gun-running was as likely a motive for his son's death as was anything else the paper had to offer. He shut the cupboard doors. When he turned, it was to find Julianna Vendale watching him, a coffee cup raised to her lips. She'd left the word processor, coming to stand near a coffee maker that was bubbling noisily in the corner of the room.

'Nothing?' She put her cup down on the table and pushed a lock of long hair back from her shoulder.

'Everyone seems to think he was working on a story,' St James said.

'Mick was always working on something.'

'Did most of his projects get into print?'

She drew her eyebrows together. A faint crease appeared between them. Otherwise, her face was completely unlined. St James knew from his previous conversation with Lynley that Julianna Vendale was in her middle thirties, perhaps a bit older. But her face denied her age.

'I don't know,' she answered. 'I wasn't always aware of what his projects were. But it wouldn't surprise me to find out he'd begun something and then let it die. He'd shoot out of here often enough, convinced he was hot on the trail of a feature he could sell in London. Then he'd never complete it.'

St James had seen that himself in his perusal of the newspapers. Dr Trenarrow had said Mick interviewed him for a story. But nowhere in the back issues of the paper was there a feature that in any way related to a conversation the two of them might have had. St James related this to Julianna Vendale.

She poured herself another cup of coffee and spoke over her shoulder. 'That doesn't surprise me. Mick probably thought he was going to get a Mother Teresa piece out of it – Cornish Scientist Dedicates his Life to Saving Others – only to discover that Dr Trenarrow's no more on the path to heaven than the rest of us are.'

Or, St James thought, the potential story was a ploy to get an interview with Trenairow in the first place in order to gather information and pass it along with Trenarrow's phone number to a needy friend.

Julianna was continuing. 'That was largely his way, ever since he came back to the Spokesman. I think he was looking for a story as a means of escape.'

'He didn't want to be here?'

'It was a step backwards for him. He'd been a freelance journalist. He'd been doing quite well. Then his father fell ill and he had to chuck it all and come back to hold the family business together.'

'You couldn't have done that?'

'I could have done, of course. But Harry wanted Mick to take over the paper. More than that, I should guess, he wanted him back in Nanrunnel permanently.'

St James thought he saw the direction Harry Cambrey had intended things to move once Mick returned to Nanrunnel. Nonetheless, he asked, 'How did you fit into the plans?'

'Harry made certain we worked together as much as possible. Then, I suppose, he just hoped for the best. He had great faith in Mick's charm.'

'And you?'

She was holding her coffee cup between her hands, as if to keep them warm. Her fingers were long; she wore no rings. 'He didn't appeal to me. When Harry saw that, he started having Nancy Penellin come to do the books during our regular office hours instead of at weekends.'

'And as to developing the newspaper's stature?'

She indicated the word processor. 'Mick made the attempt at first. He started with new equipment. He wanted to update. But then he seemed to lose interest.'

'When?'

'Just about the time he made Nancy pregnant.' She lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. 'After they married, he was gone a great deal.'

'Pursuing a story?'

She smiled. 'Pursuing.'

They strolled across the narrow street to the harbour. The tide was out. Five sunbathers lay on the narrow strand. Near them, a group of small children dabbled their hands

and feet in the water, shrieking with excitement as it lapped at their legs.

'Get what you need?' Cotter asked.

'Pieces, that's all. Nothing seems to fit together. I can't make a connection between Mick and Tina Cogin, between Tina Cogin and Trenarrow. It's nothing more than conjecture.'

'P'raps Deb was wrong. P'raps she didn't see Mick in London.'

'No. She saw him. Everything indicates that. He knew Tina Cogin. But as to how and why, I don't know.'

'Seems 'ow and why's the easiest part, 'cording to Missus Swann.'

'She's not an admirer of Mick's, is she?'

'She hated 'im, and there's the truth.' Cotter watched the children playing for a moment. He smiled as one of them – a little girl of three or four – fell on to her bottom, splashing water on the others. 'But if there's truth to her talk about Mick Cambrey and women, then far's I can see, looks to me that John Penellin did it.'

'Why?'

'It's 'is daughter involved, Mr St James. A man's not likely to let another man hurt 'is daughter. Not if it can be stopped in some way. A man does what 'e can.'

St James recognized the bait and acknowledged the fact that their morning's discussion was not yet concluded in Cotter's eyes. But he had no need to ask the question which Cotter's comment called for: And what would you do? He knew the answer. Instead he said, 'Did you learn anything from the housekeeper?'

'Dora? A bit.' Cotter leaned against the harbour railing, resting his elbows on the top metal bar. 'Great admirer of the doctor, is Dora. Works 'is fingers to the bone. Gives 'is life to research. And when 'e's not doing that, 'e's visiting folks at a convalescent 'ome outside St Just.'

'That's the extent of it?' 'Seems to be.'

St James sighed. Not for the first time did he admit to the fact that his field was science, crime-scene investigation, the analysis of evidence, the interpretation of data, the preparation of reports. He had no expertise in an arena that demanded insightful communication and intuitive deduction. More, he didn't have the taste or the talent for either. And the further he waded into the growing mire of conjecture, the more frustrated he felt.

From his jacket pocket, he pulled out the piece of paper which Harry Cambrey had given him on Saturday morning. It seemed as reasonable a direction to head in as any. When you're lost, he thought mordantly, you may as well head somewhere.

Cotter joined him in studying it. 'MP,' he said. Then, 'Member of Parliament?'

St James looked up. 'What did you say?'

'Them letters. MP.'

'MP? No-' As he spoke, St James held the paper to the sunlight. And he saw what the gloom of the newspaper office and his own preconceived notions had prevented him from realizing before. The pen, which had skipped in the grease on other spots on the paper, had done as much again next to the words procure and transport. The result was an imperfectly formed loop for the letter P, not the number 1 at all. And the 6, if the thought followed logically, had to be instead a hastily scrawled C.

'Good God.' He frowned, examining the accompanying numbers. Dismissing gun-running and Ireland and every other side issue from his mind, it wasn't long before he saw the obvious. 500. 55. 27500. The last was the multiple of the previous two.

And then he recognized the first connection of the circumstances surrounding Mick Cambrey's death. The position of the Daze had told him, bow to stern northeast on the rocks. He should have clung to that thought. It had been pointing to the truth.