A Traitor to Memory

by Elizabeth George

  “Too right I've got something,” Havers asserted. “He'd been speaking to Eugenie for months. You've got that in your notes. He said it and the BT records corroborate.”

  “They do,” Lynley said.

  “And Gideon told you they were supposed to meet, he and his mother. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eugenie was supposed to be able to help him get over his stage fright. That's what he said. That's also in your notes. Only they didn't meet, did they? They weren't able to meet because she was killed first. So what if she was killed to prevent them from meeting? She didn't know where Gideon lived, did she? The only way she could have found out was from Richard.”

  Lynley said thoughtfully, “Davies wants to kill her, and he sees a way. Give her what she thinks is Gideon's address, arrange a time when they're supposed to meet, lie in wait for her—”

  “—and when she goes wandering down the street with the address in her hand or wherever it was, blam. He runs her down,” Havers concluded. “Then he drives over her to finish her off. But he makes it look like it's related to the older crime by taking Waddington out first and Webberly afterwards.”

  “Why?” Leach asked.

  “That's the question,” Lynley acknowledged. He said to Havers, “It works, Barbara. I do see that it works. But if Eugenie Davies could help her son regain his music, why would Richard Davies want to stop her? From talking to the man—not to mention from seeing his flat, which is a virtual shrine to Gideon's accomplishments—the only reasonable conclusion is that Richard Davies was determined to get his son playing again.”

  “So what if we've been looking at it wrong?” Havers asked.

  “In what way?”

  “I accept that Richard Davies wants Gideon to play again. If he had an issue with his playing—like jealousy or something, like his kid being more of a success than he is and how can he handle that—then he probably would have done something a long time ago to stop him. But from what we know, the kid's been playing since he was just out of nappies. So what if Eugenie Davies was going to meet Gideon in order to stop him ever playing again?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “What about quid pro quo to Richard? If their marriage ended because of something he'd done—”

  “Like putting the nanny in the club?” Leach suggested.

  “Or devoting his every waking moment to Gideon and forgetting he had a wife at all, a woman in mourning, a woman with needs … Eugenie loses a child and instead of having someone to lean on, she has Richard, and all he cares about is getting Gideon through the trauma so he doesn't freak out and stop playing his music and stop being the son who's admired so much and on the edge of being famous and gratifying his daddy's every dream and what about her through all this? What about his mum? She's been forgotten, left to cope on her own, and she never forgets what it was like, so when she has the chance to put the screws on Richard, she knows just how to do it: when he needs her just like she needed him.” Havers drew a deep breath at the end of all this, looking from the DCI to Lynley for their reaction.

  Leach was the one to give it. “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How's she supposed to be able to stop her son playing? What's she going to do, Constable: break his fingers? Run him down?”

  Havers drew a second breath, but she let it out on a sigh. “I don't know,” she said, her shoulders sagging.

  “Right,” Leach snorted. “Well, when you do—”

  “No,” Lynley cut in. “There's some sense to this, sir.”

  “You're joking,” Leach said.

  “There's something in it. Following Havers' line of thinking, we've got an explanation of why Eugenie Davies was carrying Pitchley's address that night, and nothing else we've come up with so far gets anywhere near explaining that.”

  “Bollocks,” Leach said.

  “What other explanation can we come up with? Nothing ties her to Pitchley. No letter, no phone call, no e-mail.”

  “She had e-mail?” Leach demanded.

  Havers said, “Right. And her computer—” But she stopped herself abruptly, swallowing the rest of her sentence with a wince.

  “Computer?” Leach echoed. “Where the hell's her computer? There's no computer mentioned in your reports.”

  Lynley felt Havers look at him, then drop her glance to her shoulder bag, where she rooted industriously for something that she probably didn't need. He wondered what would serve them better, truth or lie at this point. He opted for “I checked the computer. There was nothing on it. She had e-mail, yes. But there was nothing from Pitchley. So I saw no need—”

  “To put it in your report?” Leach demanded. “What the hell kind of police work is that?”

  “It seemed unnecessary.”

  “What? Good Christ. I want that computer in here, Lynley. I want our people on it like ants over ice cream. You're no computer expert. You might have missed … God damn it. Have you gone out of your mind? What the hell were you thinking?”

  What could he say? That he was thinking of saving time? saving trouble? saving a reputation? saving a marriage? He said carefully, “Getting into her e-mail wasn't a problem, sir. Once we managed that, we could see there was virtually nothing—”

  “Virtually?”

  “Just a message from Robson, and we've spoken to him. He's holding something back, I think. But it's not the fact that he had anything to do with Mrs. Davies' death.”

  “You know that, do you?”

  “It's a gut feeling, yes.”

  “The same one that prompted you to hold back—or is it remove?—a piece of evidence?”

  “It was a judgement call, sir.”

  “You've no place making judgement calls. I want that computer. In here. Now.”

  “As to the Humber?” Havers ventured delicately.

  “Bugger the Humber. And bugger Davies. Vanessa, get those sodding prison records of Wolff's. For all we know, she's got ten people on a string, all with vehicles as old as Methuselah, all of them somehow related to this case.”

  “That's not what we have,” Lynley said. “What you've come up with here, the Humber, can lead us—”

  “I said bugger the Humber, Lynley. We're back to square one as far as you're concerned. Bring in that computer. And when you're done, get on your knees and thank God I don't report you to your superiors.”

  “It's time you came home with me, Jill.” Dora Foster finished drying the last of the dishes and folded the tea towel neatly over its rack by the sink. She straightened its edges with her usual attention to microscopic detail, and she turned back to Jill, who was resting at the kitchen table, her feet up and her fingers kneading the aching muscles of her lower back. Jill felt as if she were carrying a fifty-pound bag of flour in her stomach, and she wondered how on God's holy earth she was going to be able to get herself back into shape for her wedding just two months after the birth. “Our little Catherine's dropped into position,” her mother said. “It's a matter of days. Any day now, in fact.”

  “Richard's not quite resigned to the plan,” Jill told her.

  “You're in better hands with me than you'd be alone in a delivery room with a nurse popping by occasionally to see that you're still among the living.”

  “Mum, I know that. But Richard's concerned.”

  “I've delivered—”

  “He knows.”

  “Then—”

  “It's not that he thinks you aren't competent. But it's different, he says, when it's your own flesh and blood involved. He says a doctor wouldn't operate on his own child. A doctor couldn't remain objective if something were to happen. Like an emergency. A crisis. You know.”

  “In an emergency, we go to hospital. Ten minutes in the car.”

  “I've told him that. He says anything could happen in ten minutes.”

  “Nothing will happen. This entire pregnancy has gone like a dream.”

  “Yes. But Richard—”

  “Richard isn't your hus
band.” Dora Foster said it firmly. “He could have been, but he chose not to be. And that gives him no rights in this decision. Have you pointed that out to him?”

  Jill sighed. “Mum …”

  “Don't Mum me.”

  “What difference does it make that we're not married just now? We 're getting married: the church, the priest, down the aisle on Dad's arm, the hotel reception, everything properly seen to. What more do you need?”

  “It's not what I need,” Dora said. “It's what you deserve. And don't tell me again this was your idea, because I know that's nonsense. You've had your wedding planned since you were ten years old, from the flowers down to the cake decoration, and as I recall, nowhere in your plans did it ever state there'd be a baby in attendance.”

  Jill didn't want to go into that. She said, “Times change, Mum.”

  “But you do not. Oh, I know it's the fashion for women to find themselves a partner rather than a husband. A partner, like someone they've gone into the baby-making business with. And when they have their babies, they parade them round in public without the slightest degree of embarrassment. I know this happens all the time. I'm not blind. But you aren't an actress or rock singer, Jill. You've always known your own mind, and you've never been one to do something just because it's in vogue.”

  Jill stirred on her chair. Her mother knew her better than anyone, and what she was saying was true. But what was also true was the fact that compromise was necessary to have a successful relationship, and beyond wanting a child, she wanted to have a marriage that was happy, which she certainly wasn't guaranteed if she forced Richard's hand. “Well, it's done,” she said. “And it's too late to change things. I'm not about to waddle down the aisle like this.”

  “Which makes you a woman without ties,” her mother said. “So you can state how and where you want your baby delivered. And if Richard doesn't like it, you can point out to him that, as his preference was not to become your husband in the traditional fashion prior to the baby's birth, he can step out of the picture and stay out of the picture until after you're married. Now”—her mother joined her at the table, where a box of wedding invitations sat waiting to be ad-dressed—“let's get your bag and take you home to Wiltshire. You can leave him a note. Or you can phone him. Shall I fetch the phone for you?”

  “I'm not going to Wiltshire tonight,” Jill said. “I'll speak to Richard. I'll ask him again—”

  “Ask him?” Her mother put her hand on Jill's hugely swollen ankle. “Ask him what? Ask him if you can please have your baby—”

  “Catherine's his baby as well.”

  “That has nothing to do with this. You're having her. Jill, this isn't at all like you. You've always known your own mind, but you're acting as if you're worried now, as if you might do something to drive him away. That's absurd, you know. He's lucky to have you. Considering his age, he's lucky to have any—”

  “Mum.” This was one area that they'd long ago agreed not to discuss: Richard's age and the fact that he was two years older than Jill's own father and five years older than her mother. “You're right. I know my own mind. It's made up: I'll speak to Richard when he comes home. But I won't go to Wiltshire without speaking to him and I certainly won't go and just leave him a note.” She gave her voice The Edge, a tone she'd long used at the BBC, just the inflection that had been needed to bring every production in on time and on budget. No one argued with her when her voice had The Edge.

  And Dora Foster didn't argue with her now. Instead, she sighed. She gazed on the ivory wedding dress that hung beneath its transparent shroud on the door. She said, “I never thought it would be like this.”

  “It'll be fine, Mum.” Jill told herself that she meant it.

  But when her mother had departed, she was left with her thoughts, those mischievous companions of one's solitude. They insisted she consider her mother's words carefully, which took her over the ground of her association with Richard.

  It didn't mean anything that he'd been the one who wished to wait. There had been logic involved in the decision. And they'd taken it mutually, hadn't they? What difference did it make that he'd been the one to suggest it? He'd used sound reasoning. She'd told him she was pregnant, and he'd been joyful at the news, as joyful as she herself had been. He'd said, “We'll get married. Tell me we'll get married,” and she had laughed at the sight of his face looking so much like a little boy's, afraid of being disappointed. She'd said, “Of course we'll get married,” and he'd pulled her into his arms and led her off into the bedroom.

  After their coupling they lay entwined and he talked about their wedding. She'd been filled with bliss, with that gratified and grateful aftermath of orgasm during which everything seems possible and anything seems reasonable, so when he declared that he wanted her to have a proper wedding and no rushed affair, she sleepily had said, “Yes. Yes. A proper wedding, darling.” To which he'd added, “With a proper gown for you. Flowers and attendants. A church. A photographer. A reception. I want to celebrate, Jill.”

  Which, of course, he could not do if they had to shoe-horn the planning into the seven months before the baby's birth. And even if they were able to manage that, no amount of shoe-horning would fit her into an elegant wedding gown once she had a bump. It was so practical to wait. In fact, Jill realised as she thought about it, Richard had led her right up to the idea so that when he said at the conclusion of her recitation of everything that had to be done in order to produce the kind of wedding he wanted her to have, “I'd no idea how many months … Will you be comfortable, Jill, with a wedding that far along into your pregnancy?” she'd been more than ready for his next line of thinking. “No one ought to enjoy the day more than you. And as you're so small …” He put his hand on her stomach as if for emphasis. It was flat and taut, but it wouldn't be soon. “D'you think we ought to wait?” he'd suggested.

  Why not, she'd thought. She'd waited thirty-seven years for her wedding day. There was no problem waiting a few months more.

  But that had been before Gideon's troubles had taken up primary residence in Richard's mind. And Gideon's troubles had brought on Eugenie.

  Jill could see now that Richard's preoccupation after Wigmore Hall may have had a secondary source beyond his son's failure to perform that night. And when she set that secondary source next to his apparent reluctance to marry, she felt an uneasiness creep over her, like a fog bank gliding noiselessly onto an unsuspecting shore.

  She blamed her mother for this. Dora Foster was happy enough to be on the road to having her first grandchild, but she wasn't pleased with Jill's choice of father, although she knew better than to say so directly. Still, she would feel the need to voice her objections subtly, and what better way than to create an inroad in Jill's implicit faith in Richard's honour. Not that she actually thought in terms of a man doing “the honourable thing.” She didn't, after all, live in a Hardy novel. When she thought of honour, she merely thought of a man telling the truth about his actions and intentions. Richard said they would marry; ergo, they would.

  They could have married at once, of course, once she'd become pregnant. She wouldn't have minded. It was, after all, marriage and children that she'd placed on her list as having to accomplish by her thirty-fifth birthday. She'd never written the word wedding, and she had seen a wedding only as one of the means she could use to achieve her end. Indeed, had she not been so blissful there in bed after their lovemaking, she probably would have said, “Bother the wedding, Richard. Let's marry now,” and he would have agreed.

  Wouldn't he? she wondered. Just as he'd agreed to the name she'd chosen for the baby? Just as he'd agreed to her mother's delivering the baby? Just as he'd agreed to selling her flat first instead of his? To buying that house she'd found in Harrow? To simply going with the estate agent to at least take a look at that house?

  What did it mean that Richard was thwarting her at every turn, thwarting her in the most reasonable of fashions, making it seem as if every decision they reached was reac
hed mutually and not a case of her giving in because she was … what? Afraid? And if so, of what?

  And the answer was there even though the woman was dead, even though she could not come back to harm them, to stand in the way, to prevent what was meant to be …

  The phone rang. Jill started. She looked round, dazed at first. So deep into her thoughts had she been that she wasn't aware for a moment that she was still in the kitchen and the cordless phone was somewhere in the sitting room. She lumbered to get it.

  “Is this Miss Foster?” a woman's voice said. It was a professional voice, a competent voice, a voice such as Jill's voice once had been.

  Jill said, “Yes.”

  “Miss Jill Foster?”

  “Yes. Yes. Who is this please?”

  And the answer fractured Jill's world into pieces.

  There was something about the way Noreen McKay made the statement—“I can't clear her name”—that gave Nkata pause before lighting the fireworks of celebration. There was a desperation behind the deputy warden's eyes and an incipient panic in the manner in which she downed the rest of her drink in a gulp. He said, “Can't or won't clear her name, Miss McKay?”

  She said, “I have two teenage children to consider. They're all I have left as family. I don't want a custody battle with their father.”

  “Courts're more liberal these days.”

  “I also have a career. It's not the one I wanted, but it's the one I've got. The one I've made for myself. Don't you see? If it comes to light that I ever—” She stopped herself.

  Nkata sighed. He couldn't take ever to the bank and deposit it, one way or the other. He said, “She was with you, then. Three nights back? Last night as well? Late last night?”

  Noreen McKay blinked. She was sitting so straight and tall in her chair that she looked like a cardboard cutout of herself.

  “Miss McKay, I got to know whether I c'n cross her name off.”

  “And I've got to know whether I can trust you. The fact that you've come here, right to the prison itself… Don't you see what that suggests?”

  “Suggests I'm busy. Suggests it doesn't make sense for me to go driving back and forth 'cross London when you're … what … a mile? two miles? from Harriet Lewis's office.”