A Traitor to Memory

“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 wondered. 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.