A Traitor to Memory

“That's not exactly our history.”


“Yeah? Well, you think about history. 'Cause it's ripe to come back and pay a call on you, Jay.” Robbie flicked his thumb at The Source. Cooperatively, Brent held it higher, like a schoolboy displaying his primitive art work. “Slow going on the news front last few days. No Royals misbehaving, no MP getting caught with his dick in a schoolgirl's hole. The papers're going to start digging, Jay. And me and Brent come to see you to lay our plans.”

“Plans.” Pitchley repeated the word with a great deal of care.

“Sure. We took care of things once. We c'n do it again. Situation's bound to heat up fast once the coppers suss out who you really are and when they give the word to the press like they always do—”

“They know,” Pitchley said, in the hope that he could head Robbie off, that he could bluff him with a partial truth that the man might take as a full admission. “I've already told them.”

But Rob wasn't swallowing that tale. He said, “No way, Jay. 'Cause if you did, they'd feed you to the sharks soon 's they need something to make it look like they been working hard. You know that. So I 'xpect you told them something, true. But 'f I know you, you didn't tell them all.” He eyed Pitchley shrewdly and seemed to like what he read on his face. He said, “Right. Good. So me and Brent here figger we got to lay some plans. You'll be wanting protection and we know how to give it.”

And then I'll owe you forever, Pitchley thought. Double what I already owe you because it'll be twice in my life that you've played at keeping the hounds at bay.

“You need us, Jay,” Robbie told him. “And me and Brent? We don't turn our backs when we know we're needed. Some people do, but that's not our way.”

Pitchley could only imagine how it would play out: Robbie and Brent doing battle for him, strong-arming the press in the same ineffectual manner that they'd employed in the past.

He was about to tell them to go home to their wives, to their failing inadequate ill-managed business washing waxing buffing the cars of the rich among whom they would never be able to mix. He was about to tell them to piss off permanently because he was tired of being drained like a bathtub and played like a badly tuned piano. Indeed, he opened his mouth to say all of it, but that was when the doorbell rang, when he walked to the window and saw who it was, when he said, “Stay here,” to Robbie and Brent and closed the dining room doors upon them.

And now, he thought miserably as he sat at his computer and tried and failed to come up with a way to bend the will of CreamPants to his own, he would owe them more. He would owe them more for Rob's quick thinking, the thinking that got him and Brent out of the house and into the park before the dumpy female detective constable was able to put her mitts on them when they'd hidden in the kitchen. No matter that what they might have told her would have added nothing harmful in his present situation. Robbie and Brent would not see it that way. They would see their actions as protecting him, and they would come calling when they thought it was time for him to pay.



Lynley made the drive to London in fairly good time after paying a visit to the Audi dealership that was working on the car owned by Ian Staines. He'd taken Staines with him as a safeguard against the man making any phone calls in an attempt to direct the course of Lynley's enquiries, and once they'd pulled to a stop in front of the auto showroom, he'd told the man to wait in the Bentley while he went inside for a chat.

There, he corroborated much of what Eugenie Davies' brother had told him. The car was indeed being serviced; it had been brought in at eight that morning. An appointment for the work had been scheduled on the previous Thursday, and nothing irregular—like a request for body work—had been noted in the computer when the service secretary had taken the call.

When Lynley asked to see the car, that presented no problem either. The service representative walked him out to it, chatting away about the great strides that Audi had made in craftsmanship, manoeuvrability, and design. If he was curious as to why a policeman had come round asking about a particular car, he gave no evidence of this. A potential customer was, after all, a potential customer.

The Audi in question stood in one of the service bays, raised some six feet on a hydraulic lift. Its position gave Lynley the opportunity to examine its undercarriage as well as the chance to scrutinise its front end and both of its wings for damage. The front end was fine, but there were scratches and a dent on the car's left wing that looked intriguing. They looked fresh as well.

“Any chance a smashed bumper was replaced before you got the car?” Lynley asked the mechanic who was working on it.