A Traitor to Memory

“Raphael was there?”





“He was there.”





“Doing what?”





“I don't recall. Perhaps he was on the phone to Juilliard. He'd been trying for months to come up with a way to convince us it was possible for you to attend. He was set on it, more set than you were.”





“So all this happened round the time of Juilliard?”





Dad lowered his arms, which had been offering me the Guarneri. The violin hung from one hand and the bow from the other, orphans of my egregious impotence. He said, “Where is this taking us, Gideon? What the hell has this to do with your instrument? God knows I'm trying to cooperate, but you're not giving me anything to measure with.”





“Measure what?”





“How do I know if there's progress? How do you know if there's progress?”





And I could not answer him, Dr. Rose. Because the truth is what he fears and what I dread: I can not tell if this is any good, if the direction I'm heading is the direction that will take me back to the life I once knew and held so dear.

I said, “The night it happened … I was in my room. I've remembered that. I've remembered the shouting and the paramedics—the sound of them rather than the sight of them—and I've remembered Sarah-Jane listening at the door, inside my room with me, saying that she wouldn't be leaving after all. But I don't remember her planning to leave before Sonia … before what happened.”





I could see Dad's right hand tighten on the neck of the Guarneri. Clearly, this wasn't the response he'd been looking for when he'd taken the instrument out of its case. He said, “A violin like this needs to be played. It also needs to be stored properly. Look at this bow, Gideon. Look at the condition of its hairs. And when was the last time you put a bow away without loosening it? Or don't you think about that sort of thing any longer, now that you're concentrating all your efforts on the past?”





I thought of the day that I'd tried to play, the day Libby had heard me, the day that I'd learned for certain what I'd only felt like a premonition before: that my music was gone, and irretrievably so.

Dad said, “You never used to do this sort of thing. This instrument wasn't just left lying on the floor. It was stored away from the heat and the cold. It wasn't near a radiator, nor was it within six yards of an open window.”





“If Sarah-Jane was planning to leave before everything happened, why didn't she leave?” I asked.

“The strings haven't been cleaned since Wigmore Hall, have they? When was the last time you failed to clean the strings after a concert, Gideon?”





“There wasn't a concert. I didn't play.”





“And haven't played since. Haven't thought to play. Haven't had the nerve to—”





“Tell me about Sarah-Jane Beckett!”





“God damn it! Sarah-Jane Beckett is not the issue.”





“Then why won't you answer?”





“Because there's nothing to say. She was sacked. All right? Sarah-Jane Beckett was sacked as well.”





This was the last answer I'd been expecting. I'd thought he would tell me she'd become engaged or found a better position or decided to make a change in career. But that she, too, had been sacked along with Katja Wolff … I'd not considered that possibility.

Dad said, “We'd had to cut back. We couldn't keep Sarah-Jane Beckett and Raphael Robson and have a nursemaid for Sonia as well. So we'd given Sarah-Jane two months' notice.”





“When?”





“Shortly before we found that we'd have to sack Katja Wolff.”





“So when Sonia died and Katja left …”





“There was no need for Sarah-Jane to go as well.” He turned and replaced the Guarneri in its case. His movements were slow; his scoliosis made him seem like a man in his eighties.

I said, “Then Sarah-Jane herself might have—”





“She was with Pitchford when your sister was drowned, Gideon. She swore to that and Pitchford confirmed it.” Dad straightened from the case and turned back to me. He looked done in. I felt anguish, guilt, and sorrow surge within me to know that I was forcing him to consider matters he'd buried along with my sister. But I had to continue. It seemed that we were making progress for the first time since I'd had the episode at Wigmore Hall—and yes, I use that word deliberately just as you have done, Dr. Rose, an episode—and feeling that progress was being made, I could not back away from it.

I said, “Why didn't she talk?”





“I just said she—”





“Katja Wolff, not Sarah-Jane Beckett. Cresswell-White said that she spoke to the police once and never spoke to anyone else. About the crime, that is. About Sonia.”