A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(112)

“You couldn’t tell before that?”

Peter gave a rueful shake of his head. “Mick looked good, Tommy. I don’t even know how he did it. But he looked damn good. Sexy. He probably could have fooled his own father. He sure as hell fooled me.”

“And when you saw the woman was Mick?”

“I wanted to beat the shit out of him. But I was too drunk. I took a swing. We both fell. At least, I know we ended up on the ground somehow. And then, of all people, Sidney St. James showed up out of nowhere—Christ, it was like a nightmare. She was with Brooke. He pulled me off Mick and Mick took off. I didn’t see him again until Friday night in Nanrunnel.”

“How did you find out Mick dealt cocaine in the first place?”

“Mark told me.”

“But you didn’t try to get cocaine from him in Nanrunnel?”

“He wouldn’t sell there. Only in London.”

“He wasn’t in London all that often, was he? Who were his buyers?”

“There’s a whole network, Tommy. Dealers know the buyers. Buyers know the dealers. Everyone knows everyone. You get a number. You ring it. You make arrangements.”

“And if your caller turns out to be from the Met’s drug squad?”

“Then you’re busted. But not if you’re smart. And not if you know how to set up your network. Mick knew how to do that. He was a journalist. He knew how to establish good sources. He just looked for a different kind of source once he started dealing. He had hundreds of connections.”

That was true, Lynley thought. It would have been simple for a man in Mick Cambrey’s position. “What happened between you on Friday night? The neighbours heard a row.”

“I was getting desperate. Mark picked up on that in the afternoon and obliged me by raising his price. I didn’t have the cash, so I went to see Mick to borrow some. He said absolutely not. I promised I’d be good for it. I swore that I’d have it back in a week.”

“How?”

Peter stared at his bitten fingernails. Lynley saw that he was struggling with his conscience, choosing how far to go, and costing out the consequences. “Things from Howenstow,” he finally said. “The silver. I thought I could sell a few pieces in London and no one would be the wiser. At least not for a while.”

“Is that why you went to Cornwall in the first place?” Lynley waited for the answer and tried to remain indifferent to the idea of his brother’s selling what had been part of their family for generations merely to feed his drug addiction.

“I don’t know why I went to Cornwall. I wasn’t thinking straight. One minute I was going there to make a buy from Mark. The next it was to pinch a bit of silver to take back to London. The next it was to get some money from Mick. That’s what it’s like. You don’t even know what you’re doing after a while. It’s like being dizzy.”

“And when Mick refused to lend you the money?”

“It was stupid. I threatened to let it out in the village what he was up to in London. The cross-dressing. The drug dealing as well.”

“I take it that didn’t convince him to hand over a few pounds?”

“Not at all. He just laughed. He said if I wanted money I should threaten him with death, not blackmail. People pay a hell of a lot more to stay alive than to have a secret kept, he said. That’s where the real money is. And all the time he kept laughing. Like he was egging me on.”

“What was Brooke doing?”

“Trying to get us both to shut up. He could tell I was crazy. I think he was scared that something weird would go down.”

“But you didn’t shut up?”

“Mick kept after me. He said that if I wanted to put his dirty linen on the table, that he’d be willing to spread mine out as well. He said you and Mother might find my return to drug use of interest. But as to that, I didn’t even care.” Peter bit at his thumbnail, anxious little nibbling bites. “It didn’t matter to me if he told you since you’d guessed I was using again anyway. As for Mother…nothing mattered to me except getting high. You don’t know what it feels like to be willing to do anything just to get your hands on some coke.”

It was a damning admission. Lynley only thanked the luck of the moment that neither MacPherson nor Havers was there to hear it. The former, he knew, might well take it as a meaningless slip of the tongue. The latter, however, would pounce upon it like a starving mongrel.

“I just exploded at that point,” Peter said. “It was that or start to beg.”

“Is that when Brooke left?”

“He tried to get me to go as well, but I said no. I said I wanted to finish what I’d started with the little pouffe.”

Again, the damning choice of words. Lynley felt himself wince inwardly. “What happened then?”

“I called Mick every foul name I could think of. I raved. Screamed. I was strung out and mad and I needed…” He picked up his cup of tea, swallowed a large mouthful. A trickle of the liquid dripped down his chin. “I ended up begging and snivelling for just fifty quid. He threw me out.”

Peter’s cigarette had gone untouched in the ashtray. It had burnt to nothing, creating a perfect cylinder of grey ash. He tapped it with the broken nail of his index finger. It dissolyed into a wispy pile. He said: