A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(142)

He shoved away from the worktable. “Sidney,” he said and walked to the door as his sister came dashing up the stairs. “Where the hell have you been?”

She came into the lab. “Surrey first. Then Southampton,” she replied as if they were the most logical destinations in the world. She dropped a mink jacket onto a stool. “They’ve got me doing another line of furs. If I don’t get a different assignment soon I don’t know what I’ll do. Modelling the skins of dead animals lies somewhere between absolutely unsavoury and thoroughly disgusting. And they continue to insist I wear nothing underneath.” Leaning over the table, she examined the pyjama top. “Blood again? How can you endure it so near to lunchtime? I haven’t missed lunch, have I? It’s hardly noon.” She opened her shoulder bag and began to dig through it. “Now where is it? Of course, I understand why they insist on some naked skin, but I’ve hardly the bosom for it. It’s the suggestion of sensuality, they tell me. The promise, the fantasy. What rubbish. Ah, here it is.” She produced a tattered envelope which she handed to her brother.

“What is it?”

“What I’ve spent nearly ten days getting out of Mummy. I even had to trail along to David’s for a week just so that she’d know I was determined to have it.”

“You’ve been with Mother?” St. James asked incredulously. “Visiting David in Southampton? Helen, did you—”

“I phoned Surrey that once, but there was no reply. Then you said not to worry her. Remember?”

“Worry Mummy?” Sidney asked. “Worry Mummy about what?”

“About you.”

“Why would Mummy worry about me?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Actually, she thought the idea was absurd, at first.”

“What idea?”

“Now I know where you get your general poopiness, Simon. But I wore her down over time. I knew I should. Go on, open it. Read it aloud. Helen shall hear it as well.”

“Damn it, Sidney. I want to know—”

She grabbed his wrist and shook his arm. “Read.”

He opened the envelope with ill-concealed irritation and began to read aloud.

My dear Simon,

It appears I shall have no rest from Sidney until I apologise, so let me do so at once. Not that a simple line of apology would ever satisfy your sister.

“What is this, Sid?”

She laughed. “Keep reading!”

He went back to his mother’s heavily embossed stationery.

I always did think it was Sidney’s idea to open the nursery windows, Simon. But when you said nothing upon being accused of having done so, I felt obliged to direct all the punishment towards you. Punishing one’s children is the hardest part of being a parent. It’s even worse if one has the nagging little fear that one is punishing the wrong child. Sidney has cleared all this up, as only Sidney could do, and although she had begun to insist that I beat her soundly for having let you take her punishment all those years ago, I do draw the line at paddling a twenty-five-year-old woman. So let me apologise to you for placing the blame on your little shoulders—were you ten years old? I’ve forgotten—and I shall henceforth direct it towards her in an appropriate fashion. We have had a rather nice visit, Sidney and I. We spent some time with David and the children as well. It’s made me quite hopeful that I shall soon see you in Surrey. Bring Deborah with you if you come. Cotter telephoned cook with the word about her. Poor child. It would be good of you to take her under your wing until she’s back on her feet.

Love to you,

Mother

Hands on her hips, Sidney threw back her head and laughed, clearly delighted with having brought off a coup. “Isn’t she grand? What a time I had getting her to write it, though. Had she not already wanted to speak to you about seeing to Deborah—you know how she is, always concerned that we’ll become social heathens and not do the proper thing in these situations—I doubt if anything could have made her write it.”

St. James felt Lady Helen watching him. He knew what she expected him to ask. He didn’t ask it. For the past ten days he had known something had happened between them. Cotter’s behaviour alone would have told him as much, even if Deborah had not been gone from Howenstow when he’d returned from Penzance on the evening after Trenarrow’s death. But other than saying he’d flown her back to London, Lynley said nothing more. And Cotter’s grim restraint had not been a thing which St. James wanted to disturb. So even now he said nothing.

Lady Helen, however, did not have his scruples. “What’s happened to Deborah?”

“Tommy broke their engagement,” Sidney replied. “Cotter hasn’t told you, Simon? From the way Mummy’s cook tells it, he was practically breathing fire on the phone. Quite in a rage. I half expected to hear he’d duelled with Tommy for satisfaction. ‘Guns or knives,’ I can hear him shouting. ‘Speaker’s Corner at dawn.’ Tommy hasn’t told you either? How decidedly odd. Unless, of course, he thinks you may demand satisfaction, Simon.” She laughed and then sobered thoughtfully. “You don’t think this is a class thing, do you? Considering Peter’s choice of Sasha, class can hardly be an issue with the Lynleys.”

As she spoke, St. James realised that Sidney had no idea of anything that had happened since her bitter departure from Howenstow on that Sunday morning. He opened the bottom drawer beneath his worktable and removed her perfume bottle.