A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(141)

“He doesn’t think Justin took some of his own pills?”

“He can’t think of a reason Brooke would have known he had them. I told him it doesn’t really matter at this point, but he wants to clear Sidney thoroughly, Peter as well. He’s gone to Penzance.” His voice died off. His recitation was finished.

Deborah felt her throat aching. There was so much tension in his posture. “Tommy,” she said, “I saw you on the porch. I knew you were safe. But when I saw the body—”

“The worst part was Mother,” he cut in, “having to tell Mother. Watching her face and knowing every word I said was destroying her. But she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of me. Because both of us know I’m at fault at the heart of this.”

“No!”

“If they’d married years ago, if I’d allowed them to marry—”

“Tommy, no.”

“So she won’t grieve in front of me. She won’t let me help.”

“Tommy, darling—”

“It was horrible.” He ran his fingers along the window’s transom. “For a moment, I thought he might actually shoot St. James. But he put the gun in his mouth.” He cleared his throat. “Why is it that nothing ever prepares one for a sight like that?”

“Tommy, I’ve known him all my life. He’s like my family. When I thought he was dead—”

“The blood. The brain tissue splattered back against the windows. I think I’ll see it for the rest of my life. That and everything else. Like a blasted motion picture, playing into eternity against the back of my eyelids whenever I close my eyes.”

“Oh, Tommy, please,” she said brokenly. “Please. Come here.”

At that, his brown eyes met hers directly. “It’s not enough, Deb.”

He made the statement so carefully. She heard it, frightened. “What’s not enough?”

“That I love you. That I want you. I used to think that St. James was thirty different ways a fool for not having married Helen in all these years. I could never understand it. I suppose I really knew why all along, but I didn’t want to face it.”

She ignored his words. “Shall we use the church in the village, Tommy? Or is London better? What do you think?”

“The church?”

“For the wedding, darling. What do you think?”

He shook his head. “Not on sufferance, Deborah. I won’t have you that way.”

“But I want you,” she whispered. “I love you, Tommy.”

“I know you want to believe that. God knows I want to believe it myself. Had you stayed in America, had you never come home, had I joined you there, we might have had a fighting chance. But as it is…”

Still he stayed across the room. She couldn’t bear the distance. She held out her hand. “Tommy. Tommy. Please.”

“Your whole life’s with Simon. You know it. We both do.”

“No, I…” She couldn’t finished the sentence. She wanted to rail and fight against what he had said, but he had pierced through to a truth she had long avoided.

He watched her face for a moment before speaking again. “Shall I give you an hour until we leave?”

She opened her mouth to pledge, to deny, but at this final moment, she could not do so. “Yes. An hour,” she said.





* * *



AFTERWORD





CHAPTER 28


Lady Helen sighed. “This moves the definition of tedium beyond my wildest dreams. Tell me again what it’s going to prove?”

St. James made a third careful fold in the thin pyjama top, lining up the last point of the ice pick’s entry. “The defendant claims he was assaulted as he slept. He had only one wound in his side but we’ve got three holes, each one stained with his blood. How do you suppose that happened?”

She bent over the garment. It was oddly folded to accommodate the three holes. “He was a contortionist in his sleep?”

St. James chuckled. “Better yet a liar awake. He stabbed himself and made the holes later.” He caught her yawning. “Am I boring you, Helen?”

“Not at all.”

“Late night in the company of a charming man?”

“If only that were true. I’m afraid it was the company of my grandparents, darling. Grandfather blissfully snoring away during the triumphal march in Aida. I should have joined him. No doubt he’s quite spry this morning.”

“An occasional bow to culture is good for the soul.”

“I loathe opera. If they’d only sing in English. Is that too much to ask? But it’s always Italian or French. Or German. German’s the worst. And when they run about the stage in those funny helmets with the horns…”

“You’re a Philistine, Helen.”

“Card-carrying.”

“Well, if you’ll behave yourself for another half hour, I’ll take you to lunch. There’s a new brasserie I’ve found in the Brompton Road.”

Her face came to life. “Darling Simon, the very thing! What shall I do next?” She looked round the lab as if seeking new employment, an intention that St. James ignored when the front door slammed and a voice called his name.