A Traitor to Memory

“Always a chance of that, mate,” the man replied. “Bloke don't need to drop money at the dealership if he knows how to shop.”


So despite the verification provided by the Audi's general condition and its presence just where Staines said it would be, there was still the chance that those scratches and that small dent meant something more than poor driving skills. Staines couldn't be crossed off the list despite his claim that the scratches and dent were a mystery to him, that “bloody Lydia uses the car as well, Inspector.”

Lynley dropped the man at a bus stop and told him not to disappear from Brighton. “If you move house, phone me,” he said to Staines, handing over his card. “I'll want to know.”

Then he headed for London. Northeast of Regent's Park, Chalcot Square was yet another area of town that was undergoing gentrification. If the scaffolding on the front of several of the buildings hadn't told Lynley this much when he pulled into the square, the freshly painted fa?ades of the rest of the residences would have filled him in on the information. The neighbourhood reminded him of Notting Hill. Here was the same bright paint in a variety of cheerful colours fronting the buildings along the streets.

Gideon Davies' house stood tucked into a corner of the square. It was bright blue in colour with a white front door. It possessed a narrow first-floor balcony along which ran a low white balustrade, and the french windows beyond that balcony were brightly lit.

His knock on the door was answered quickly, as if the house's owner had been waiting on the bottom step just beyond the entrance. Gideon Davies said quietly, “DI Lynley?” and when Lynley nodded, he added “Come upstairs,” and led the way. He took him to the first floor, up a staircase whose walls displayed the framed hallmarks of his career, and he led him into the room that Lynley had seen from the street, where a CD system occupied one wall and comfortable furniture scattered across the floor was punctuated by tables and music stands. Sheet music stood on these stands and lay on the table tops, but none of it was open.

Davies said, “I've never met my uncle, Inspector Lynley. I don't know how much help I'll be to you.”

Lynley had read the stories in the newspaper after the violinist had walked out on his concert at Wigmore Hall. He'd thought—probably like most of the public interested in the tale—that it was another instance of someone who had been feather-bedded for too many years getting his knickers in a twist about something. He'd seen the subsequent explanations put forth by the young man's publicity machine: exhaustion after a killing schedule of concerts in the spring. And he'd dismissed the entire subject as a three-day wonder that the papers needed to fill column space at a slow time of year.

But now he saw that the virtuoso looked ill. Lynley thought immediately of Parkinson's—Davies' walk was unsteady and his hands trembled—and of what that disease could do to finish his career. That would be something that the young man's publicity machine would indeed want to keep from the public for as long as possible, calling it everything from exhaustion to nerves until it was impossible for them to call it anything else.

Davies gestured to three overstuffed armchairs that formed a group near the fireplace. He himself sat nearest the fire itself: artificial coals between which blue and orange flames rhythmically lapped like a visual soporific. Despite his sickly appearance, Lynley could see the strong resemblance between the violinist and Richard Davies. They shared much the same body type, with an emphasis on bones and stringy muscles. The younger Davies had no spinal curvature, however, although the manner in which he kept his legs locked together and his clenched fists pressed into his stomach suggested that he had other physical problems.

Lynley said, “How old were you when your parents divorced, Mr. Davies?”

“When they divorced?” The violinist had to think about the question before he answered it. “I was about nine when my mother left, but they didn't divorce immediately. Well, they couldn't have done, not with the law being what it is. So it must have taken them what … four years? I don't actually know, now I think of it, Inspector. The subject never came up.”

“The subject of their divorce or the subject of her leaving?”

“Either. She was just gone one day.”

“You never asked why?”

“We never talked much about personal things in my family. There was a lot of … I suppose you could call it reticence amongst us. It wasn't just the three of us in the house, you see. There were my grandparents, my teacher, and a lodger as well. Something of a crowd. I suppose it was a way to have privacy: by letting everyone have a personal life that no one else ever mentioned. Everyone held their thinking and their feelings fairly close in. Well, that was the fashion anyway, wasn't it.”

“And during the time of your sister's death?”