A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(136)

For an instant, he allowed himself to see past the call for justice to its attendant scandal. He could have ignored Trenarrow’s use of oncozyme, his illegal clinic, and the exorbitant price that patients no doubt paid for treatment there. He could have overlooked all this and allowed his mother to remain in ignorance for the rest of her life. But murder was different. It demanded retribution. He could not ignore that.

Lynley saw how the next few months would play out. A court of law, his accusations, Trenarrow’s denial, the sort of case the defence would build with his mother caught in the middle and ultimately named as the reason behind Lynley’s public denunciation of her long-time lover.

“He’s right, St. James,” Lynley said hollowly. “This is conjecture. Even if we got the cameras from the mine, the main shaft’s been flooded for years. The film’s ruined by now, no matter what was on it.”

St. James shook his head. “That’s the only thing Dr. Trenarrow didn’t know. The film’s not in the camera. Deborah gave it to me.”

Lynley heard the swift breath hiss between Trenarrow’s teeth. St. James went on.

“And the evidence is there, isn’t it?” St. James asked. “Your silver pillbox under Mick Cambrey’s thigh. You may be able to explain away everything else, you may be able to accuse Tommy of attempting to fabricate evidence in order to separate you from his mother. But you’ll never be able to deal with the fact that in the photograph of the body, the pillbox is there. The very same one you took from your pocket only minutes ago.”

Trenarrow looked at the misty view of the harbour. “It proves nothing.”

“When it’s in our photographs but missing from the police photographs? That’s hardly the case and you know it.”

Rain pattered on windows. Wind sounded in the chimney. A distant foghorn moaned. Trenarrow moved in his chair, turning back towards the room. He grasped its arms and said nothing.

“What happened?” Lynley asked him. “Roderick, for the love of God, what happened?”

For a long time, Trenarrow didn’t answer. His dull eyes were fixed upon the space between Lynley and St. James. He reached for the pull of the top drawer of the desk and aimlessly played it between his fingers.

“Oncozyme,” he said. “Brooke couldn’t get enough of it. He was juggling the London inventory books as it was. But we needed more. If you could only know how many people phoned—still phone—how frantic they are for help. We couldn’t get enough. But Mick kept funnelling patients my way.”

“Brooke eventually substituted something for the oncozyme, didn’t he?” St. James said. “Your first patients went into remission just as Islington’s research indicated they would. But after a while, things started to go wrong.”

“He’d been sending the drug down from London with Mick. When it became impossible to get and they saw the clinic would have to close, they made a substitution. People who should have gone into remission began to die. Not all at once, of course. But a pattern emerged. I became suspicious. I tested the drug. It was a saline solution.”

“And that was the fight.”

“I went to see him Friday night. I wanted to close the clinic.” He stared across the room at the fire. Its glow was reflected in his spectacles like two points of heat. “Mick wasn’t at all concerned. These weren’t people to him. They were a source of income. Look, just keep the clinic running until we get more of the stuff, he said. So we lose a few? So what? Others’ll come. People pay anything for the chance of a cure. What are you so hot about? You’re bringing the money in hand over fist and don’t pretend you aren’t happy as hell about it.” Trenarrow looked at Lynley. “I tried to talk to him, Tommy. I couldn’t make him see. I couldn’t get him to understand. I kept talking. He kept brushing it off. I finally…I just snapped.”

“When you saw he was dead, you decided to paint it as a sexual crime,” St. James said.

“I thought he was after the village women. I thought it would look like someone’s husband finally got to him.”

“And the money in the cottage?”

“I took it as well. And then made it look like the room had been searched. I took my handkerchief from my pocket so I wouldn’t leave prints. I must have lost the pill case then. I saw it the moment I knelt by his body later.”

Lynley leaned forward. “As black as it is, Mick’s death started out as an accident, Roderick. An assault, an accident. But what about Brooke? You were tied together. What did you have to fear from him? Even if he assumed you’d killed Mick, he’d have kept quiet about it. Bringing you down would only have brought himself down as well.”

“I had nothing to fear from Brooke,” Trenarrow said.

“Then why—”

“I knew he wanted Peter.”

“Wanted—”

“To be rid of him. He was here Friday night when I got home from the play. We’d never actually met, of course, but he had no trouble finding the villa. He said Mick had been talking in front of Peter. He was worried. He wanted me to do something to tighten Mick’s tongue.”

“Which you’d already done,” St. James noted.

Trenarrow accepted the grim statement without reaction. “When he heard about the killing the next morning, he panicked. He came to see me. He thought it was only a matter of time before Peter put together some remarks Mick had made and either went to the police or started sniffing round for someone to blackmail. Peter had a habit to support, he didn’t have money, he’d already threatened Mick. Brooke wanted him dead. I wasn’t about to let that happen.”