A Traitor to Memory

“Indeed, I have not.”


“Would there be any reason, aside from a need to declare her innocence, that she might have contacted Eugenie Davies once she was released?”

“None at all,” Sister Cecilia said firmly.

“You're certain of that?”

“I am. If Katja were to contact anyone at all from that terrible time, it would be no one from the Davies family. It would be myself. But I've not heard from her.”

She sounded so positive, Barbara thought. She sounded so firm. Indeed, she sounded as if there were no wiggle room whatever in what she had to say in the matter. Barbara asked her why.

“Because of the baby,” Sister Cecilia said.

“Sonia?”

“No. Katja's own child, the child she had in prison. When he was born, Katja asked me to place him with a family. So if she's out of prison and dwelling on her past, I think it's safe to say that what she wants is to know what happened to her son.”





9





YASMIN EDWARDS LOCKED up her shop for the evening the way she always did: with maximum care. Most of the businesses on Manor Place had been boarded up for ages, and they were suffering the way derelict buildings usually suffered south of the river: They had become the urban outdoor canvases for graffiti artists, and where they had front windows and not sheets of either steel or plywood, those windows were broken. Yasmin Edwards' shop was one of the few new or resurrected businesses in the Kennington neighbourhood, apart from two pubs which had long survived the urban rotting that had invaded the street. But then, when did pubs not survive, and when wouldn't they survive as long as there was drink to be served and blokes like Roger Edwards to guzzle it?

She tested the padlock that she'd put through the hasp, and she made certain that the grillwork was fixed properly in place. That done, she scooped up the four carrier bags which she'd filled inside the shop, and she walked in the direction of home.

Home was in the Doddington Grove Estate, a short distance away. She lived in Arnold House—had lived there for the last five years, since her release from Holloway and from the hoop-jumping she'd had to do in open conditions—and she was lucky to have a flat that overlooked the horticultural centre across the street. It wasn't a park, a common, or a garden square, true. But it was green and it was a bit of nature and that's what she wanted for Daniel. He was only eleven and he'd spent most of her prison term in care—thanks to her younger brother, who “couldn't cope with a kid, Yas, look, I'm sorry but it's just a fac’, i'n't it?”—and she was determined to make it up to her son in every possible way that she could.

He was waiting for her just outside the lift, across the strip of tarmac that did for the Arnold House car park. But he wasn't alone, and when Yasmin saw who was chatting to her son, she doubled her pace. The neighbourhood wasn't a bad one—could have been a lot worse and wasn't that the truth?—but candymen and chicken hawks could turn up anywhere, and if one of them so much as suggested to her son that there was a life to be had outside of school and study, she would kill the flaming bastard.

This bloke looked just like a candyman with his expensive togs and the glitter of a gold watch in the lights from the car park. And he had the patter as well. Because as Yasmin approached, calling, “Dan, what you doing out here this time of day?” she could see that the man had her son in thrall to a conversation Dan was liking too well.

Both of them turned. Daniel called out, “Hi, Mum. Sorry. Forgot my key.” The man said nothing.

Yasmin said, “Why'd you not come by the shop, then, tell me?” with all her suspicions on top alert.

Daniel dropped his head like he always did when he was embarrassed about something. He said, examining his trainer-shod feet—Nikes that had cost her a fortune—“Went over to the Army Centre, Mum. A bloke was inspecting them and they were all lined up outside and they let me watch and after they let me stay for tea.”

Charity, Yasmin thought. Sodding charity. “They not think you had a home to go to?” she demanded.

“They know me, Mum. They know you. One said, ‘Isn't your mummy the lady got the beads in her hair? Right pretty, she is.’”

Yasmin harrumphed. She'd been studiously ignoring her son's companion. She handed over two of the carrier bags to her son, said, “Mind how you go with these. You've some washing to do,” and punched in the code to call the lift.

That was when the man spoke, saying in a voice that was south of the river like hers but more deeply influenced by West Indian roots, “Missus Edwards, that right?”

“I already had too much of what you're selling,” she replied, but she spoke to the lift door and not to him. She said, “Daniel?” and he came to stand in front of her to wait for the lift. She put a protective hand on his shoulder. Daniel peered round at the man. She straightened him back to face the lift.