A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(85)
“What?”
“Sasha?”
“That’s absurd.”
“Then cocaine. They’d gone to Nanrunnel looking for it. Perhaps that was the carrot Peter used.”
“It wouldn’t have worked. Justin wasn’t going to use any longer. Not after what happened between us on the beach. He apologised for that. He said he was off it. He wouldn’t use again.”
St. James could not keep the scepticism from his face. He saw the hard edge of his sister’s features begin to disintegrate as she read his reaction.
“He promised, Simon. You didn’t know him as I did. You wouldn’t understand. But if he promised when we were making love…especially when…There were certain things he liked me to do.”
“My God, Sidney.”
She began to cry. “Of course. My God, Sidney. What else can you say? Why should you of all people even begin to understand? You’ve never been close to feeling anything for anyone. Why on earth should you? After all, you’ve got science. You don’t have to feel passion. You can feel busy instead. With projects and conferences and lectures and the guidance of all those future pathologists who come to worship at your knee.”
Here was the need to wound that he’d recognised before. Still, it came out of nowhere. He hadn’t expected it. And whether the attack was accurate or not, he found that he could not summon a response.
Sidney drew a hand across her eyes. “I’m leaving. Just tell little Peter when you find him that I have lots to discuss with him. Believe me, I can hardly wait for the opportunity.”
Trenarrow’s house was easy enough to find, for it sat just off the upper reaches of Paul Lane on the outskirts of the village, the largest structure within view. By the standards of Howenstow, it was a humble enough dwelling. But in comparison to the cottages that stacked one upon the other on the hillside beneath it, the villa was very grand, with broad bay windows overlooking the harbour and a stand of poplar trees acting like a backdrop against which the house’s ashlar walls and white woodwork were displayed to some considerable effect.
With Cotter at the wheel of the Rover, St. James saw the villa at once as they came over the last rise of the coastal road and began their descent into Nanrunnel. They wound past the harbour, the village shops, the tourist flats. At the Anchor and Rose, they made the turn onto Paul Lane. Here debris from yesterday’s storm littered the pitted asphalt: rubbish from cottage dustbins, assorted food wrappers and tins, a wrecked sign that once had advertised cream teas. The road twisted on itself and climbed above the village, where it was strewn with broken foliage from hedges and shrubs. Pools of rainwater reflected the sky.
A narrow drive branching north off Paul Lane was discreetly marked The Villa. Fuchsias lined it, drooping heavily over a dry-stone wall. Behind this, a terraced garden covered much of the hillside where a carefully plotted, meandering path led upward to the house, through beds of phlox and nemesia, bellflowers and cyclamen.
The drive ended in a curve round a hawthorn tree, and Cotter parked beneath it, a few yards from the front door. A doric-columned portico sheltered this, with two urns of vermilion pelargoniums standing on either side.
St. James studied the front of the house. “Does he live here alone?” he asked.
“Far’s I know,” Cotter replied. “But a woman answered the phone when I rang.”
“A woman?” St. James thought of Tina Cogin and Trenarrow’s telephone number in her flat. “Let’s see what the doctor can tell us.”
Their knock was not answered by Trenarrow. Rather, a young West Indian woman opened the door, and from the expression on Cotter’s face when she first spoke, St. James knew he could dismiss Tina Cogin as the woman who had answered the phone. The mystery of her whereabouts, it seemed, would not be solved through the expediency of her clandestine presence at Trenarrow’s house.
“Doctor see nobodies here,” the woman said, looking from Cotter to St. James. The words sounded rehearsed, perhaps frequently and not always patiently said.
“Dr. Trenarrow knows we’re coming to see him,” St. James said. “It’s not a medical call.”
“Ah.” She smiled, showing large teeth which protruded like ivory against her coffee skin. She held wide the door. “Then in with you, man. He’s looking at his flowers. Every morning in the garden before he goes off to work. Same thing. I’ll fetch him for you.”
She showed them to the study where, with a meaningful look at St. James, Cotter said, “I could do with a walk round the garden myself,” and followed the woman from the room. Cotter would, St. James knew, find out what he could about who she was and why she was there.
Alone, he turned to look at the room. It was the sort of study he particularly liked, with air faintly scented by the smell of the old leather chairs, bookcases filled to absolute capacity, a fireplace with coals newly laid and ready to be lit. A desk sat in the large bay window overlooking the harbour, but as if the view would be a distraction from work, it faced into the room, rather than outward. An open magazine lay upon it with a pen left in the center crease as if the reader had been interrupted in the middle of an article. Curious, St. James went to examine it, flipping it closed for a moment.
Cancer Research, an American journal, with a photograph of a white-coated scientist on its cover. She leaned against a working area on which sat an immense electron microscope. Scripps Clinic, La Jolla was printed beneath the photograph, along with the phrase Testing the Limits of Bio-Research.