A Traitor to Memory

“There is no risk, with faith, right action, and belief. Right thought produces the result that's intended by God, Who is Himself goodness and Who wants goodness for His children. If we are one with Him and part of Him, we are part of the good. We must tap into it.” As he spoke, he stared intently at the screen. It was divided in such a way that the continually altering prices on a stock exchange somewhere flickered in a band along the bottom. Staines looked mesmerised by this band, as if its moving figures were coded directions to find the Holy Grail.

“But isn't the good open to interpretation?” Lynley asked. “And isn't it the case that man's time line and God's time line to reaching the good may be running on different calendars?”

“It's abundance,” Staines said, and he spoke through his teeth. “We define it and it comes.”

“And if it doesn't, we're in debt,” Lynley said.

Abruptly, Staines reached forward and pressed a button on the monitor. The screen faded. He directed his words to it, and his tone underscored a rage that he held at bay. “I hadn't seen her for years. I hadn't bothered her for years. Last time was at our mother's funeral, and even then I held back because I knew if I talked to her, I'd have to talk to him as well, and I hated the bastard. I'd read the obituaries every day from the time I ran off, hoping to see his, waiting to read that the great man of God had finally left the hell he'd made for everyone round him and gone to his own. They stayed, though. Doug and Eugenie stayed. They sat like good little soldiers of Christ and listened to him preach on Sundays and felt the strap on their backs the rest of the week. But I ran off when I was fifteen and I never went back.” He looked at Lynley. “I never asked my sister for a God damn thing. All those years with the drugs, the drink, the horses, I never asked. I thought, She was the youngest, she stayed, she took the brunt of the bastard's fury so she's owed the life she made for herself. And it didn't matter to me that I lost it all—everything I ever owned or loved—because she was my sister and we were his victims and my time would come. So I went to Doug and he helped me when he could. But this last time he said, ‘Can't do it, old man. Have a look at the chequebook if you don't believe me.' So what was I supposed to do?”

“You asked your sister for money to pay down your debt. What's it from, Mr. Staines? Selling short? Day trading? Buying futures? What?”

Staines swung away from the monitor, as if the sight of it now offended him. He said, “We've sold what we can. We have only a bed left in our room. We're eating from a card table in the kitchen. The silver's gone. Lydia's lost her jewellery. And all I need is a decent break, which she could have helped me to get, which she promised to help me to get. I told her I'd pay her back. I'd pay him back. He's got thousands, millions. He has to have.”

“Gideon. Your nephew.”

“I trusted her to speak to him. She changed her mind. Something's come up, she said. She couldn't ask him for money.”

“Did she tell you this the other night when you saw her?”

“That's when she told me.”

“Not earlier?”

“No.”

“Did she tell you what the ‘something’ was?”

“We argued like hell. I begged. Begged my own sister, but … no. She didn't tell me.”

Lynley wondered why the man was admitting so much. Addicts, he knew from personal experience, were themselves virtuosos when it came to playing the music that their intimates danced to. His own brother had played the tune for years. But he was no intimate of Eugenie Davies' brother, not a close relative whose overpowering sense of responsibility for something that was not in fact his responsibility was nevertheless going to compel him to hand over the cash that was needed “just this once.” Yet he knew with the assurance of long experience that Staines was saying nothing without being fully aware of what it was.

“Where did you go when you left your sister, Mr. Staines?”

“Drove round till half past one in the morning, till I knew Lydia would be asleep when I got home.”

“Is there anyone who can confirm that? Did you stop for petrol somewhere?”

“Didn't need to.”

“I'll ask you to take me to the dealership where your car's being serviced, then.”

“I didn't run Eugenie down. I didn't kill her. That would have gained me nothing.”

“It's routine, Mr. Staines.”

“She said she'd talk to him. I just needed a break.”

What he needed, Lynley thought, was a cure for his delusions.

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