A Traitor to Memory

Lynley found the home of Ian Staines on a quiet street not far from St. Ann's Well Gardens. Using the motorways, he'd made the drive down to Brighton from Henley-on-Thames in fairly good time, but the brief daylight of November was fast fading when he pulled up to the correct address.

The door was opened by a woman holding a cat like an infant against her shoulder. The cat was Persian, an insolent-looking pedigree who cast baleful blue eyes upon Lynley as he produced his identification. The woman was a striking Eurasian, no longer young and no longer beautiful as she once might have been, but difficult to look away from all the same because of a subtle hardness beneath her skin.

She took note of Lynley's identification and said, “Yes,” and nothing more when he asked her if she was Mrs. Ian Staines. She waited for whatever was forthcoming from him, although a certain narrowing to her eyes suggested to Lynley that she had little doubt about who the subject of this visit was. He asked if he could have a word, and she stepped back from the doorway and led him to a partially furnished sitting room. Noting the deep impression of furniture feet left on the carpet, he asked if the Staineses were moving house. She said no, they were not moving house, and after the most minute of pauses, she added yet in such a way that Lynley felt the undercurrent of her contempt.

She didn't gesture him to one of the two remaining chairs in the sparsely furnished room, both of which were currently occupied with one cat apiece of the same breed as the feline she held. Neither of these was sleeping as one might expect of a cat perched on a comfortable chair. Rather, they were watchful, as if Lynley were a specimen of something in which they might become interested should a sudden burst of energy come upon them.

Mrs. Staines set the cat she held on to the floor. Bloomer-legged by fur that shone with careful grooming, he sauntered to one of the chairs, leapt effortlessly to its seat, and dispossessed his housemate of it. That cat joined the other and settled down on its haunches.

“They're beautiful animals,” Lynley said. “Are you a breeder, Mrs. Staines?”

She didn't reply. She wasn't very different from the cats themselves: observing, withholding, and palpably hostile.

She walked to a table that stood by itself, next to the carpet impressions of what must have been a sofa. The table held nothing but a tortoiseshell box whose lid Mrs. Staines flipped open with one manicured finger. She took a cigarette out and from the pocket of her slender-legged trousers, she scooped up a lighter. She put flame to tobacco, inhaled, and said, “What's he done?” in the tone of a woman who very much wanted to add this time to the question.

There were no newspapers in the room. But their absence didn't mean that the Staineses were unaware of Eugenie Davies' death. Lynley said, “There's a situation in London that I'd like to speak to your husband about, Mrs. Staines. Is he at home or still at work?”

“At work?” She gave a short, breathy laugh before saying, “London, is it? Ian doesn't like cities, Inspector. He can barely cope with the congestion in Brighton.”

“The traffic?”

“The people. Misanthropy is one of his less admirable qualities, although he manages to hide it most of the time.” She inhaled from her cigarette in the studied manner of an old film star, her head tilted back so that her hair—thick, stylishly cut, with the occasional strand of grey highlighting it—hung free from her shoulders. She walked to the window in front of which were yet more carpet impressions of furniture now removed. She said, “He wasn't here when she died. He'd gone to see her. They'd had a row, as you must have been told by someone, or why else would you have come. But he didn't kill her.”

“You've heard about what happened to Mrs. Davies, then.”

“Daily Mail,” she said. “We didn't know about it until this morning.”

“Someone was seen having an argument with Mrs. Davies in Henley-on-Thames, someone who took off in an Audi with Brighton number plates. Was that man your husband?”

“Yes,” she said. “That would be Ian, in the midst of yet another fine plan going awry.”

“A plan?”

“Ian always has plans. And if he hasn't a plan, he has a promise. Plans and promises, promises and plans. All of which generally amount to nothing.”

“That'll do, Lydia.”

The statement, sharply spoken, came from the doorway. Lynley turned to see that they had been joined by a lanky man with the weathered and yellowing skin of a chronic smoker. He did as his wife had done, crossing the room to the tortoiseshell box and taking a cigarette. He jerked his head at his wife. This apparently communicated a desire to her, for in response she brought out her lighter a second time. She passed it to him and he used it, saying to Lynley, “What can I do for you?”

“He's come about your sister,” Lydia Staines said. “I told you that you should expect him, Ian.”