Inspector Lynley (04): Suitable Vengeance, A by George Elizabeth

Author:George, Elizabeth [George, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, Detective, Detective Series, Fiction, Murder, Novel, Thriller
ISBN: 9780553904871
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-10-04T22:00:00+00:00

“Mr. Allcourt-St. James? This is a pleasure.” Dr. Alice Waters rose from her chair and shooed off the lab assistant who had shown St. James to her office. “I thought I recognised you at Howenstow this morning. Hardly the time for introductions, however. What brings you to my den?”

It was an apt choice of words, for the office of Penzance CID’s forensic pathologist was little more than a windowless cubicle on the verge of being overcome by bookshelves, an ancient roll-top desk, a medical school skeleton wearing a World War II gas mask, and stacks of scientific journals. All that remained of the floor space was a trail that led from the doorway to the desk. A chair sat next to this—curiously out of place and intricately carved in a design of flowers and birds that was more suggestive of a country house dining room than a department of forensic pathology—and after offering St. James her hand in a cool, firm shake, she waved him into it.

“Take the throne,” she said. “Circa 1675. It was a good period for chairs if one doesn’t mind a bit of excessive ornamentation.”

“You’re a collector?”

“Takes one’s mind off the job.” She sank into her own chair—a piece of wounded leather whose surface was cracked and wrinkled—and rooted through the papers on her desk until she found a small carton of chocolates which she presented to him. When he had made his selection, a process she watched with a good deal of interest, she took a chocolate herself, biting into it with the satisfaction of a discerning gourmet. “Just read your piece on A-B-O secretors last week,” she said. “I hardly thought I’d be having the pleasure of meeting you as well. Have you come about this Howenstow business?”

“The Cambrey death, actually.”

Behind her large-framed spectacles, Dr. Waters’ eyebrows rose. She finished her chocolate, wiped her fingers on the lapel of her lab coat, and took a folder from beneath an African violet that looked as if it hadn’t been watered in months.

“Not the smallest indication of activity for weeks, and suddenly I’ve two corpses on my hands in less than forty-eight hours.” She flipped the folder open, read for a moment, then snapped it shut. She reached for a skull which grinned at them from one of the bookshelves and dislodged a paper-clip from its eye socket. It had obviously been a demonstration piece in many previous explanations, for pen marks dotted it liberally and a large red X had at one time been drawn directly upon the squamosal suture. “Two blows to the head. He took the more severe of the two here on the parietal region. A fracture resulted.”

“Have you an idea of the weapon?”

“I wouldn’t say weapon so much as source. He fell against something.”

“He couldn’t have been struck?”

She took another chocolate, shaking her head and pointing to the skull. “Look at where the fracture would be, my good man. He wasn’t overly tall—between five-eight and five-nine—but he’d have to be sitting for anyone to hit him there with enough force to kill him.

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