A Traitor to Memory

Now in the wig shop, she packed the make-up back into its case and threw into the rubbish the kitchen towels with which she'd wiped the work top at which the women had sat, one by one, and allowed her to make them beautiful. She smiled at the pictures she had of them in her mind, all of them laughing, giggling like schoolgirls, given for the morning a chance to be something more than what they'd chosen for themselves. Yasmin Edwards enjoyed her work. When she considered it, she had to shake her head in wonder that a stretch in prison had directed her not only to useful employment but also to a companion and to a life she loved. She knew this sort of conclusion to the kind of troubles she'd had was rare.

Behind her, the shop door opened. That would be Mrs. Newland's oldest daughter Ashaki, coming right on time to pick up Mum's freshly washed wig.

Yasmin turned to the door, offering a smile of welcome.

“Can I have a word?” the black constable said.



Major Ted Wiley was the last person in Henley-on-Thames to whom Lynley and Havers showed the photograph of Katja Wolff. They hadn't planned it that way. In the normal course of events, they would have shown him the picture first since, at least from his own account of it as Eugenie Davies' closest companion and neighbour across the street from Doll Cottage, he was the person most likely to have seen Katja Wolff in Henley had the woman come calling. But upon their arrival in Friday Street, they'd found Wiley's Books closed, with a be-right-back sign stating the time of the major's return. So they offered the photograph round every other establishment on Friday Street, having no luck anywhere.

Havers wasn't surprised. “This is the wrong tree, Inspector,” she informed Lynley with martyred patience.

“It's an institutional picture,” he replied, “as bad as a passport. It might not even resemble her. Let's try at the Sixty Plus Club before we count her out. If her other visitor waylaid her there, what's to say Katja Wolff didn't do likewise?”

The Sixty Plus Club was reasonably populated even at that hour of the day. Most of the members present were engaged in what looked like a bridge tournament, although an intense group of four women were also playing a serious game of Monopoly, with dozens of red hotels and green houses littering the board. Additionally, in a narrow room that appeared to be a kitchen, three men and two women sat round a table, manila folders open in front of them. The fearsome red head of Georgia Ramsbottom bobbed among this latter group, and the sound of her voice rose higher than even the singing of Fred Astaire, who was dancing cheek to cheek—or at least claiming to do so—with Ginger Rogers on a television screen in an alcove set up with comfortable armchairs.

“Recruiting internally is much more reasonable,” Georgia Ramsbottom was saying. “We ought to at least try it, Patrick. If someone amongst us wishes to direct the club now that Eugenie's gone—”

One of the women interrupted her, but at a reduced volume.

She countered with, “I find that highly offensive, Margery. Someone has to take the interests of the club to heart. I suggest we set aside our grief and deal with this now. If not today, then certainly before more messages stack up to be answered”—here she gestured with a small fan of Post-its on which the aforementioned messages were ostensibly written—“and more bills go asking to be paid.”

There was a rumble of what might have been either assent or disapproval, something that wasn't fully clarified, because at that moment, Georgia Ramsbottom descried Lynley and Havers. She excused herself from the table and came to them. The Sixty Plus Club's Executive Committee were in a meeting, she announced, every bit as if the agenda that the committee were following were of national significance. The Sixty Plus Club could not long remain rudderless and directorless, although explaining that a “suitable period of mourning” for Eugenie Davies did not necessarily obviate the process of replacing her was proving to be quite a challenge, Georgia revealed.

“I doubt this will take very long,” Lynley told her. “We'll just need a few moments alone. With everyone. One at a time. If you'd be so good as to organise that …”

“Inspector,” Georgia said, and she managed just the appropriate amount of effrontery in her words, “the members of Henley's Sixty Plus Club are very private, decent, upstanding people. If you've come here thinking that one of them was involved in Eugenie's death—”

“I come here thinking nothing in particular,” Lynley broke in pleasantly, but he didn't miss the third person pronoun that Georgia had used to differentiate between herself and the rest of the club's members. “So perhaps we can start with you, Mrs. Ramsbottom. In Mrs. Davies' office …?”

All members' eyes followed them as Georgia stiffly led the way to the office door. It was open today, and Lynley noted as they entered that all items remotely related to Eugenie Davies had already been packed away in a cardboard box that sat forlornly on her desk. He wondered idly what Mrs. Ramsbottom considered a suitable period of mourning for the club's director. She certainly wasn't letting any grass grow when it came to sweeping the club clean of her.