A Suitable Vengeance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,99
shouted something that was lost in the gale. Lynley lowered his window a few inches as Mark climbed into the car's rear seat.
"Any word of Peter?" Nancy caught the front door as the wind drove it against the wall.
Over the sound of her voice came the baby's thin, faint wail. "Shall I do something?"
"Stay by the phone," he shouted back. "I may need you to go on to the house. To Mother."
She nodded, gave a wave, and slammed the door home.
Lynley shifted gears. They lurched onto the drive, through a pool of water and a bank of mud.
"She's at Cribba Head?" Mark Penellin asked. His hair was slicked back, drenched from the rain.
"According to what we know right now," Lynley replied.
"What's happened to you?"
Mark tentatively touched his fingers to a fresh plaster above his right eyebrow. Abrasions covered his knuckles and the back of his hand. He shook his head self-effacingly. "I was trying to fix the shutters so the baby'd stop crying. Nearly knocked myself out in the process." He turned up the collar of his oilskin and buttoned it at the throat. "You're sure it's the DazeT' "It seems to be." "And no word of Peter?" "None." "Bloody fool." Mark took out a pack of cigarettes, offering it to both Lynley and St. James. When they refused, he lit one for himself but only smoked for a minute before crushing it out. "You've not seen Peter?" Lynley asked. "Not since Friday afternoon. At the cove." St. James glanced at the boy over his shoulder. "Peter said he didn't see you then." Mark raised a brow, winced, touched the plaster there. "He saw me," he replied, and with a cautious look at Lynley added, "Maybe he forgot." Following the Austin, the Rover crawled along the narrow lane. Aside from their vehicles' lights and the occasional glimmer from a cottage or a farmhouse window, the darkness was complete, and the gloom, in conjunction with the storm made the going slow. Water filmed the road. Hedgerows bent perilously towards the car. Their headlamps glared upon the torrential rain. Stopping twice to clear the road of debris, they took fifty minutes to make what should have been a quarter of an hour's drive. Outside of Treen, they jolted over the uneven track to Cribba Head, pulling the cars to a halt some twenty yards from the path that led down to Penberth Cove. From the rear seat, Mark Penellin handed Lynley a fisherman's oilskin which he pulled on over his worn, grey guernsey. "You'd best wait here, St. James." Even in the closed confines of the car, Lynley had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind and the roar of surf which pounded the shore below them. The Rover rocked ominously like a lightweight toy. "It's a rough walk." "I'll come as far as I can." Lynley nodded, shoving open his door. The three of them climbed out into the storm. St. James found that he had to use the entire weight of his body to shut his own door once Mark Penellin hopped out. "Jesus!"
The boy shouted. "Some blow, this." Rejoined Lynley in pulling ropes, life jackets, and life rings out of the car's boot. Ahead of them, the fisherman had left his headlamps burning, and they illuminated the distance to the cliff. Sheets of rain drove through the arc of light, angled by the bellowing wind. The fisherman began to trudge through weeds which clung to his trousers. He carried a coil of rope. "She be down in the cove," he shouted over his shoulder as they approached. "Some fifty yard from shore. Bow to stern, northeast on the rocks. Most o' the mast and yards 's gone, I fear." Bent into the wind which was not only fierce but icy cold, as if it took its inspiration from an Arctic storm, they struggled towards the cliff's edge. There, made slick and dangerous by water, a narrow path led steeply down to Penberth Cove where lights glimmered from small granite cottages at the water's edge. Torches bobbed and glittered near the surf where locals brave enough to contend with the storm were watching the broken sloop disintegrate. There was no way they could get to the boat. Even if a small skiff could have managed the surf, the reef that was destroying the Daze would have done as much for any other vessel. Beyond that, storm-driven waves impeded them, crashing upon a natural spur of granite, sending