A Suitable Vengeance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,9

fool not to."

St. James marvelled at the rank duplicity behind their words.

With one quick embrace they had neatly sidestepped Deborah's reasons for having left England in the first place, as if they had agreed to play at their old relationship, one to which they could never return. For the moment, however, even spurious friendship was better than disjunction.

"I have something for you."

He led her through the laboratory and opened the door of her darkroom. Her hand went out for the light, and St. James heard her gasp of surprise as she saw the new colour enlarger standing in place of her old black and white one.

"Simon!" She was biting the inside of her lip. "This is . . . How very kind of you. Truly . .

.it's not as if you had to ... and you've even waited up for me." Colour smudged across her face like unattractive thumbprints, a reminder that Deborah had never possessed any skills of artifice to fall back upon when she was distressed.

In his grasp, the doorknob felt inordinately cold. In spite of the past, St. James had assumed she would be pleased by the gift. She was not. Somehow, his purchase of it represented the inadvertent crossing of an unspoken boundary between them.

"I wanted to welcome you home somehow," he said. She didn't respond. "We've missed you."

Deborah ran her hand over the enlarger's surface. "I had a showing of my work in Santa Barbara before I left. Did you know that? Did Tommy tell you about it? I phoned him because, well, it's the sort of thing that one dreams of happening, isn't it? People coming, liking what they see. Even buying ... I was so excited. I'd used one of the enlargers at school to do all the prints and I remember wondering how I'd ever afford the new cameras I wanted as well as ... And now you've done it for me." She inspected the darkroom, the bottles of chemicals, the boxes of supplies, the new pans for the stop bath and the fixer. She raised her fingers to her lips.

"You've stocked it as well. Oh, Simon, this is more than . . . Really, I didn't expect this.

Everything is ... it's exactly what I need. Thank you. So much. I promise I'll come back every day to use it."

"Come back?" Abruptly, St. James stopped himself, realising that he should have had the common sense to know what was coming when he saw them in the car together.

"Don't you know?" Deborah switched dff the light and returned to the lab. "I've a flat in Paddington. Tommy found it for me in April. He didn't tell you? Dad didn't? I'm moving there tomorrow."

Tomorrow? You mean already? Today?" 'I suppose I do mean today, don't I? And we'll be in poor shape, the both of us, if we don't get some sleep. So I'll say good night, then.

And thank you, Simon. Thank you."

She briefly pressed her cheek to his, squeezed his hand, and left.

So that's that, St. James thought, staring woodenly after her.

He headed for the stairs.

In her room, she heard him go. No more than two steps from the closed door, Deborah listened to his progress. It was a sound etched into her memory, one that would follow her right to her grave. The light drop of healthy leg, the heavy thump of dead one. The movement of his hand on the handrail, clenched into a tight, white grip. The catch of his breath as precarious balance was maintained. And all of it done with a face that betrayed nothing.

She waited until hearing his door close on the floor below before she moved away from her own and went - as she could not know he had done himself only minutes before - to the window.

Three years, she thought. How could he possibly be thinner, more gaunt and ill, an utterly unhandsome face of battling lines and angles on which was engraved a history of suffering. Hair, always too long. She remembered its softness between her fingers.

Haunted eyes that spoke to her even when he said nothing himself. Mouth that tenderly covered her own.

Sensitive hands, artist's hands, that traced the line of her jaw, that drew her into his arms.

'No. No more." Deborah whispered the words calmly into the coming dawn. Turning from the window, she tugged the counterpane off the bed and, fully clothed, lay down.

Don't think of it, she told herself. Don't think of anything.
Chapter 3
A ways, it was the same