A Traitor to Memory

by Elizabeth George

  After she and Lynley went their separate ways, Barbara Havers visited the Valley of Kings first. It was filled with swarthy middle-eastern waiters. Once they appeared to come to terms with their collective disapproval of a woman wearing mufti instead of a black bed sheet, they studied in turn the snapshot of Eugenie Davies that Barbara and Lynley had managed to unearth from the woman's cottage in Friday Street. She had posed with Ted Wiley on the bridge that served as the gateway to Henley-on-Thames, and the picture had been taken during the Regatta, if the banners, boats, and colourfully dressed crowds in the background were anything to go by. Barbara had carefully folded the photograph to exclude Major Wiley. No need to muddy the waters of the waiters' memories by showing Eugenie Davies with someone whom the employees of the Valley of Kings might never have seen.

  But they shook their heads anyway, one by one. The woman in the photo wasn't anyone they remembered.

  She would have been with a man, Barbara told them helpfully. They would have come in separately but with the intention of meeting each other there, possibly in the bar. They would have seemed interested in each other, interested in a way that leads to sex.

  Two of the waiters looked scandalised at this fascinating twist in the information. Another's expression of disgust said that mutual lust played out in public between a man and a woman was just what he'd come to expect from living in the UK's answer to Gomorrah. But the clarification that Barbara had sought to provide through her revelation gained her nothing. Soon enough she was back on the street, and plodding in the direction of the Comfort Inn.

  It wasn't, she found, aptly named, but then, what affordable hotel on a busy street in their nation's capital ever was? She flashed Eugenie Davies' picture there—for the desk clerk, the maids, and everyone else having contact with the hotel's residents—but she received the same result. The night clerk, however, who would have been the person to see the pictured lady most closely had she ever checked into the hotel with a lover after dining at the Valley of Kings, was not yet on duty, Barbara was told by the hotel manager. So if the constable wanted to return …?

  She would have to do so, Barbara decided. There was no point to leaving any stone right side up.

  She fetched her car from where she'd left it, illegally parked in front of a cobbled pedestrian path leading into a leafy neighbourhood. She sat inside, shook a fag from her packet of Players, and lit up, cracking open a window against the chill autumn air. She smoked thoughtfully and considered two topics: the lack of damage on Ted Wiley's car and everyone's failure to identify Eugenie Davies in this South Kensington neighbourhood.

  On the subject of Wiley's car, the conclusion seemed obvious: Whatever Barbara's earlier thinking in the matter, Ted Wiley hadn't run down the woman he loved. On the subject of everyone's failure to identify Eugenie Davies, however, matters were less defined. One possible conclusion was that Eugenie had no connection with J. W. Pitchley, AKA James Pitchford, in the present day despite having had a connection with him in the past and despite the coincidence of her having his address in her possession and dying in the very street where he lived. Another possible conclusion was that a connection did exist between them—but that connection did not extend to a tryst at the Valley of Kings or a bout of mattress-bouncing afterwards at the Comfort Inn. A third conclusion was that they'd been longtime lovers who'd been meeting elsewhere prior to the night in question when they were to meet at Pitchley-Pitchford's place, which explained why Eugenie Davies had his address with her. And a fourth conclusion was that, sheer coincidence though it might be, Eugenie Davies had connected through the internet with TongueMan—Barbara shuddered at the name—and had met him like all his other lovers at the Valley of Kings for drinks and dinner, trailing him home afterwards and returning on another night to have some sort of encounter with him.

  The fact of those other lovers seemed to be the point, though. If Pitchley-Pitchford was a regular at the restaurant and the hotel, then someone was going to remember his face, if not Eugenie's. So there was a chance that seeing his face next to Eugenie's would dislodge a memory helpful to the investigation. Thus, Barbara knew that she needed a picture of Pitchley-Pitchford. And there was only one way to get it.

  She made the drive to Crediton Hill in forty-five minutes, wishing not for the first time that she had the talents of a taxi driver who'd passed the Knowledge with highest honours. There wasn't a single parking space on the street when she got there, but the houses had driveways, so Barbara made use of Pitchley's. It was a decent neighbourhood, she saw, lined with houses of a size that suggested no one in this part of the world was hurting for lolly. The area was not yet as trendy as Hampstead itself—with its coffee bars, narrow streets, and bohemian atmosphere—but it was pleasant, a good place for families with children and an unexpected place for a murder.

  When she got out of her car, Barbara glanced up and saw a flicker of movement in Pitchley's front window. She rang the bell. There was no immediate answer, which she considered odd since the room in which she'd seen the movement was no great distance from the front door. She rang a second time and heard a man call out, “Coming, coming,” and a moment later, the door swung open on a bloke who did not appear at all like the on-line Lothario Barbara had been imagining. She'd expected someone vaguely oleaginous, decidedly tight-trousered, blatantly open-shirted, and displaying a gold medallion like a prize to be disentangled from the snare of copious hairs on his chest. Instead, what she saw in front of her was a grey-eyed whippet of a man, well under six feet tall, possessing rounded cheeks splashed with the sort of natural colour that would have been the bane of his youth. He was wearing blue jeans and a striped cotton shirt with a button-down collar, and this latter garment was closed to the throat. A pair of glasses was tucked into his shirt pocket. He wore expensive looking slip-ons on his feet.

  So much for preconceived notions, Barbara thought. It was obviously time to elevate her leisure reading because cheap romance novels were polluting her mind.

  She drew out her warrant card and identified herself. “C'n I have a word?” she asked.

  Pitchley's response was immediate as he half-shut the door. “Not without my solicitor present.”

  Barbara put out her hand and stopped the door's progress. “Look. I need a photo of you, Mr. Pitchley. If you have no connection with Eugenie Davies, it's no skin off your arse to hand one over.”

  “I've just said—”

  “I heard. And what I say is this: I can go through the legal song and dance with everyone from your solicitor to the Lord Chancellor to get the picture I need, but it seems to me that that's not only going to prolong your problems but it's also going to make great entertainment for your neighbours when I show up in a panda with the police photographer. With siren blaring and lights flashing on the roof to get the proper effect, of course.”

  “You wouldn't dare.”

  “Try me,” she said.

  He thought about it, his glance darting along the street. “I said I hadn't seen her in years. I didn't even recognise her when I saw her body. Why won't you lot believe me? I'm telling the truth.”

  “Fine. Brilliant. Then let me prove it to everyone interested. I don't know about the rest of the force, but I'm not keen to stick this murder onto someone with no direct claim on the territory.”

  He shifted from foot to foot like a schoolboy. He still held on to the door with one hand and his other hand now moved up to grasp the jamb.

  It was an interesting reaction, Barbara thought. Despite what she'd said to reassure him, he was responding like a man barring the entry. He was acting like a man with something to hide. Barbara wanted to know what that something was. She said, “Mr. Pitchley …? The photo …?”

  He said, “Very well. I'll fetch one. If you'll wait—”

  Barbara shouldered her way inside the house, unwilling to give him the chance to add here or on the step, with or without a courteous please attached. She said heartily, “Thanks very much. Decent of you. I could do with
a few minutes out of the cold.”

  His nostrils flared with his displeasure, but he said, “Fine. Wait here. I'll be just a moment,” and he fairly threw himself up the stairs.

  Barbara listened hard to his progress. She listened hard to the sounds in the house. He'd admitted to trolling for older ladies on the net, but there was always the chance that he did some trolling where the younger fishies swam as well. If that was the case, and if he had the same degree of success with teenagers that he had with the others, he wouldn't risk taking one of them to the Comfort Inn. Any bloke who made I-want-my-solicitor his primary response to any interaction with the police was a bloke who knew his arse from his elbow when it came to doing the deed with an underage girl. If he was bent in that direction, he'd make sure he didn't take the risk in public. If he was bent in that direction, he'd make sure he took the risk at home.

  The fact that she'd seen movement in the room just above the street upon her arrival suggested to Barbara that whatever Pitchley was up to, he was up to it on this floor of the house. So she sauntered to a closed door on her right as Pitchley thrashed about somewhere above her. She swung the door open and found herself in an orderly sitting room done up in antiques.

  The only item that appeared out of place was a tattered waxed jacket that lay over a chair. It seemed an odd place for the neat-as-pins Pitchley to stow a garment of his own. He had that sort of every-thing-in-its-place look about him, suggesting that the very last spot he'd deposit such a jacket after his daily stroll-to-wherever would be in his sitting room among the nice furniture of ages past.

  Barbara took a peek at the jacket, then more than a peek. She lifted it off the chair and held it out at arm's length. Bingo, she thought. Pitchley would have been dwarfed inside it. But so would have a teenaged girl. Or any woman, for that matter, who wasn't the size of a sumo wrestler.

  She replaced the jacket as Pitchley pounded down the stairs and plunged into the sitting room. He said, “I asked you—” and stopped when he saw her smoothing down the garment's collar. At this, his eyes shifted to a second door in the room, which remained closed. Then they came back to Barbara, and he thrust his hand out. “This is what you want. The woman's a colleague, by the way.”

  Barbara said, “Thanks,” and took the picture he offered. He'd chosen something flattering, she saw. In it, Pitchley wore black tie and he posed with a stunning brunette on his arm. She wore a sea-green form-fitting gown from which balloon-like bosoms threatened to spill. They were patently implants, rising abruptly from her chest like twin domes designed by Sir Christopher Wren. “Nice-looking lady,” Barbara said. “American, I take it.”

  Pitchley looked surprised. “Yes. From Los Angeles. How did you guess?”

  “Elementary deduction,” Barbara said. She stowed the picture away. She went on pleasantly. “Nice digs. You live here alone?”

  His eyes flicked to the jacket. But he said, “Yes.”

  “All this space. You're lucky. I've a place in Chalk Farm. But it's nothing like this. Just a hedgehog hole.” She indicated the second door. “What's through there?”

  His tongue lapped against his lips. “The dining room. Constable, if there's nothing else …”

  “Mind if I have a peek? It's always a treat to see how the other half lives.”

  “Yes. I do. I mean, see here. You've got what you came for, and I see no need—”

  “I think you're hiding something, Mr. Pitchley.”

  He flushed to the roots of his hair. “I'm not.”

  “No? That's good, then. So I'll have a look at what's behind this door.” She swung it open before he could protest further. He said, “I haven't given you permission,” as she stepped into the next room.

  It was empty, with stylish curtains at the far end drawn back against french windows. As in the sitting room, every article was in its place. Also as in the sitting room, however, one item struck a dissonant note. A chequebook sat on the walnut table. It was open, face down, and a pen lay next to it.

  “Paying bills?” Barbara said idly. She took note that the air was tinctured heavily with the scent of male body odour as she advanced on the table.

  “I'd like you to leave now, Constable.” Pitchley made a move towards the table, but Barbara had the advantage of getting there first. She picked up the chequebook. Pitchley said hotly, “Hang on. How dare you? You have no right to invade my home.”

  “Hmm. Yes,” Barbara said. She read the cheque that had gone uncompleted, Pitchley's writing no doubt interrupted by her ringing on his front bell. The amount in question was three thousand pounds. The payee was Robert, and the missing surname marked the moment of Barbara's arrival.

  “That's it,” Pitchley said. “I've cooperated with you. Leave or I'll phone my solicitor.”

  “Who's Robert?” she asked. “Is that his jacket out there and his after shave in here?”

  In reply, Pitchley headed for a swinging door. He said over his shoulder, “I'm finished with your questions.”

  But Barbara wasn't finished with him. She was hot on his heels into the kitchen.

  He said, “Keep out of here.”

  “Why?”

  A gust of cold air answered her as she entered. She saw that the window was open wide. From the garden beyond it, a clatter sounded. Barbara dashed to investigate while Pitchley dived for the phone. As he punched in numbers behind her, Barbara saw the source of the noise outside. A rake that had been leaning against the house near the kitchen window had been knocked over onto the flagstones. And the visitors to Pitchley's home who had done the knocking-over were at that moment slip-sliding down a narrow slope that separated the garden from a park behind it.

  “Stop right there, you two!” Barbara shouted at the men. They were burly and badly dressed in crusty-looking blue jeans and muddy boots. One of them had on a leather bomber jacket. The other wore only a pullover against the cold.

  Both flashed looks back over their shoulders when they heard Barbara's shout. Pullover grinned and gave her an insolent salute. Bomber Jacket shouted, “Have at her, Jay,” and both laughed as they slipped in the mud, scrambled back to their feet, and took off at a run across the park.

  Barbara said, “Damn,” and turned back to the kitchen.

  Pitchley had his solicitor on the line. He was babbling, “I want you over here now. I swear, Azoff, if you're not at the house in the next ten minutes—”

  Barbara snatched the phone from his hand. He said, “You bloody little—”

  “Take a stress pill, Pitchley,” Barbara said. She said into the phone, “Save yourself the trip, Mr. Azoff. I'm leaving. I have what I need,” and without waiting to hear the solicitor's reply, she handed the phone back to Pitchley. She said, “I don't know what you're up to, fast man, but I'm going to find out. And when I do, I'll be back with a warrant and a team to tear this house to shreds. If we find anything that connects you to Eugenie Davies, you're meat on a skewer. My skewer. Got it?”

  “I have no connection with Eugenie Davies,” he said stiffly, although some of the colour was gone from his cheeks and the rest of his face had gone nearly white, “other than what I've already told Chief Inspector Leach.”

  “Fine,” she said. “So be it, Mr. Pitchley. You'd best hope that's what my spadework turns up.”

  She strode from the kitchen and made her way to the front door. Once outside, she went directly to her car. There was no point to trying to track down the two blokes, who'd leapt from Pitchley's kitchen window. By the time she worked her way round West Hampstead over to the other side of the park, they'd be either long gone or well in hiding.

  Barbara fired up the Mini's engine and revved it a few times to let off steam. She'd been ready to go through the motions of taking Pitchley's photo and Eugenie Davies' photo back to the Valley of Kings and the Comfort Inn without the hope of gaining anything from the exercise. Indeed, she'd been nearly ready to dismiss J. W. Pitchley, AKA James Pitchford, AKA TongueMan from their list of suspects altogether. But now she w
ondered. He sure as hell wasn't acting like a man with nothing smelly on his conscience. He was acting like a man up to his neck in manure. And with a cheque for three thousand pounds half-written in his dining room and two gorilla-size yobbos climbing out of his kitchen window … Things no longer looked so cut-and-dried for Pitchley, Pitchford, TongueMan, or whoever the hell he was supposed to be.

  Barbara reflected on this final idea as she reversed the Mini into the street. Pitchley, Pitchford, and TongueMan, she thought. There was something in that. She wondered idly if there was another name somewhere that the man from West Hampstead used for something.

  She knew exactly how to suss that out.

  Lynley found the home of Ian Staines on a quiet street not far from St. Ann's Well Gardens. Using the motorways, he'd made the drive down to Brighton from Henley-on-Thames in fairly good time, but the brief daylight of November was fast fading when he pulled up to the correct address.

  The door was opened by a woman holding a cat like an infant against her shoulder. The cat was Persian, an insolent-looking pedigree who cast baleful blue eyes upon Lynley as he produced his identification. The woman was a striking Eurasian, no longer young and no longer beautiful as she once might have been, but difficult to look away from all the same because of a subtle hardness beneath her skin.

  She took note of Lynley's identification and said, “Yes,” and nothing more when he asked her if she was Mrs. Ian Staines. She waited for whatever was forthcoming from him, although a certain narrowing to her eyes suggested to Lynley that she had little doubt about who the subject of this visit was. He asked if he could have a word, and she stepped back from the doorway and led him to a partially furnished sitting room. Noting the deep impression of furniture feet left on the carpet, he asked if the Staineses were moving house. She said no, they were not moving house, and after the most minute of pauses, she added yet in such a way that Lynley felt the undercurrent of her contempt.