A Suitable Vengeance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,106

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 ne mesia, 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. "Par's I know," Cotter replied. "But a woman answered the phone when I rang." "A woman?" St. James thought of Tina Cogin and Tren arrow'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 I 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 photo Igraph 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. St. James went back to the article, a technical treatise on an extracellular matrix protein called proteoglycans. Despite his own extensive background in science, it made little sense to him. "Not quite what one would call light reading, is it?" St. James looked up. Dr.

Trenarrow stood in the doorway. He was wearing a well-tailored three-piece suit. He'd pinned a small rosebud to its lapel. "It's certainly beyond me," St. James replied. "Any word of Peter?" "Nothing yet, I'm afraid." Trenarrow shut the door and gestured St.

James into one of the room's wingback chairs. "Coffee?" he asked. "I've been discovering it's one of Dora's few specialities." "Thank you,