A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(81)

“She’s destroyed.” Lynley was gasping like a runner. “Another hour and there’ll be nothing left.”

“It’s the Daze?”

“Without a doubt.”

Ahead of them, the Austin roared. It reversed, made the turn, and left them on the clifftop. Lynley stared into the darkness which the Austin left behind. Rain pelted the windscreen.

“Could they tell you anything?”

“Little enough. They saw the boat coming in towards dusk. Apparently the fool was attempting to run through the rocks into the cove to be winched out of high water, as the other boats are.”

“Someone saw it hit?”

“Five men were working round the capstan winch on the slip. When they saw what was happening, they gathered a crew and went to see what could be done. They’re fishing people, after all. They’d be unlikely to let anyone run aground without trying to help in some way. But when they finally got a clear sight of the boat, no one was on deck.”

“How is that possible?” St. James regretted the impulsive question the moment he asked it. There were two explanations, and he saw them himself before Lynley and Mark put them into words.

“People get swept overboard in this kind of weather,” Mark said. “If you’re not careful, if you don’t wear a safety line, if you don’t know what you’re doing—”

“Peter knows what he’s doing,” Lynley interrupted.

“People panic, Tommy,” St. James said.

Lynley didn’t respond at once, as if he were evaluating this idea. He looked across St. James to the passenger’s window in the direction of the sodden path that led to the cove. Water from his hair trickled crookedly down his brow. He wiped it away. “He could have gone below. He could still be below. They both could be there.”

This wasn’t an immediately untenable assumption, St. James thought, and it fitted rather nicely with the position in which the Daze had gone aground. If Peter had been using when he’d made the decision to take the boat out in the first place—as was clearly indicated by the fact that he had done so in the face of a coming storm—his reasoning would have been clouded by the drug. Indeed, the effects of cocaine would probably have prompted him to see himself as invincible, superior to the elements, in full command. The storm itself would have been not so much a clear and present danger as a source of excitement, the ultimate high.

On the other hand, taking the boat might have been a final act of desperation. If Peter needed to run away in order to avoid answering questions about Mick Cambrey and Justin Brooke, he may have decided the sea was his best means of escape. On land, he would have been noticed by someone. He had no transportation. He would need to thumb a ride. And with Sasha with him, whoever picked them up would be quite likely to remember them both when, and if, the police came calling. Peter was wise enough to know that.

Yet everything about the position and the destruction of the boat suggested something other than flight.

Lynley switched on the ignition. The car rumbled to life.

“I’ll get up a party tomorrow,” he said. “We’re going to have to look for any signs of them.”



His mother met them in the northwest corridor where they were hanging their dripping oilskins and guernseys on the wall pegs. She didn’t speak at first. Rather, she held one hand, palm outward, between her breasts, as if in some way this would allow her to ward off a coming blow. With the other hand, she clasped a wrap she’d thrown on, a paisley stole of red and black that did battle with her colouring and the shade of her dress. She appeared to be using it more for security than for warmth, for the material was thin and perhaps with the cold or with trepidation, her body quivered beneath it. She was very pale, and Lynley thought that for the first time in his recollection, his mother looked every one of her fifty-six years.

“I’ve coffee for you in the day room,” she said.

Lynley saw St. James look from him to his mother. He knew his friend well enough to recognise his decision. It was time he told his mother the worst about Peter. He had to prepare her for whatever she would have to face in the coming days. And he couldn’t do that with St. James present, no matter how he longed to have his friend at his side.

“I’d like to check on Sidney,” St. James said. “I’ll be down later.”

The northwest staircase was nearby, round the corner from the gun room, and St. James disappeared in that direction. Alone with his mother, Lynley didn’t know what to say. Like a cooperative guest, he settled on a polite: “I could do with a coffee. Thank you.”

His mother led the way. He noticed how she walked, her head upright, her shoulders back. He read the underlying meaning beneath her posture. Should someone see her—Hodge, the cook, or one of the dailies—she would give them no sign of any personal turmoil. Her estate manager had been arrested for murder; one of her houseguests had died in the night; her youngest child was missing, and her middle child was a man with whom she hadn’t spoken intimately in more than fifteen years. But if any of this bothered her, no one would see it. If gossip flourished behind the green baize door, its subject would not be the myriad ways in which God’s punishment had fallen upon the dowager Countess of Asherton at last.

They walked along the corridor that ran the length of the body of the house. At its eastern end, the day room door was closed, and when Lady Asherton opened it, the room’s sole occupant got to his feet, crushing out his cigarette in an ashtray.