A Traitor to Memory

He went further down the path of self-delusion as time passed and he continued to see her. He told himself that his chosen career was tailor-made to support the infidelity that he began to label his God-given right. His job had always called for late and unstructured hours, for entire weekends given to cases under investigation, for sudden absences resulting from phone calls in the night. Why had fate or God or coincidence brought him to such a line of work if he was not intended to use it to further his growth and development as a human being? Thus he persuaded himself to continue, acting the part of his own Mephistopheles, launching a thousand ships of faithlessness onto the sea of his life. The fact that he could maintain a virtual double existence by assigning responsibility for his absences to the Met began to convince him that such a double existence was his due.

But mankind's fatal failing is the desire for more of everything. And Webberly's desire had ultimately come to haunt what had begun as a celestial love, rendering it as temporal as everything else but simultaneously making it no less compelling. She'd ended her marriage, after all. He could end his. It would be a matter of a few uncomfortable conversations with his wife, and he would be free.

But he'd never managed to have those conversations with Frances. Her phobias had conversed with him instead, and he'd discovered that he, his love, and all the rightness he could muster to defend that love were no match for the affliction that possessed his wife and that ultimately came to possess them both.

He'd never told Eugenie. He'd written one final letter, asking her to wait, and he'd never written to her again. He'd never phoned her. He'd never seen her. Instead, he'd placed his life on hold, telling himself that he owed it to Frances to gauge each step of her recovery, anticipating the moment when she'd be well enough for him to tell her that he wanted to leave.

By the time he'd understood that his wife's condition would not be something that was easily vanquished, too many months had passed and he could not bear the thought of seeing Eugenie again, only to have to tear himself from her permanently. Cowardice stilled the hand that might have held the pen or dialed the phone number. Better to tell himself that they'd really had nothing—just a few years of passionate interludes that wore the guise of loving unity—than to face her, to have to release her, and to recognise that the rest of his life would be without the meaning he longed to give it. So he just let things go, let them drift away, and he allowed her to think of him what she would.

She hadn't phoned him or sought him out, and he'd used those facts to assure himself that she'd not been as deeply affected as he by either the relationship itself or by the ending that had been thrust upon it. And having thus assured himself, he'd set about obliterating the image of her in his mind, as well as the memory of their afternoons, evenings, and nights together. In doing so, he'd been as unfaithful to her as he'd been to his wife. And he'd paid the price.

But she'd found a man, a widower, he'd learned, someone free to love her and to be to her all that she deserved. “A chap called Wiley,” Lynley had said over the phone. “He's told us she wanted to speak to him about something. Something, apparently, that had been keeping them from carrying on in a relationship together.”

“You think she might have been murdered to prevent her from speaking to Wiley?” Webberly asked.

“That's only one of half a dozen possibilities,” Lynley had answered.

He'd gone on to catalogue the rest of them, taking the care of the gentleman that he was—rather than employing the heartless determination of the investigator he should have been—not to mention whether he'd unearthed anything that pointed to Webberly's own ties to the murdered woman. Instead, he spoke at length of the brother, of Major Ted Wiley, of Gideon Davies, of J. W. Pitchley, who was also James Pitchford, and of Eugenie's former husband.

“Wolff is out of prison,” Lynley said. “She's been on parole for just twelve weeks. Davies hasn't seen her, but that's not to say she hasn't seen him. And Eugenie gave evidence against her at the trial.”

“As did nearly everyone else associated with that time. Eugenie's evidence was no more damning than anyone else's, Tommy.”

“Yes. Well. I think everyone connected with that case would be wise to take care till we've got things sorted out.”

“Are you considering this a stalking?”

“That can't be dismissed.”

“But you can't think Wolff 's stalking everyone.”

“As I said, I'm thinking everyone should take a bit of care, sir. Winston phoned, by the way. He followed her earlier tonight to a house in Wandsworth. It looked like a rendezvous. She's more than she seems.”

Webberly had waited for Lynley to segue from Katja Wolff 's rendezvous—from the message of infidelity it implied—to his own infidelity. But the connection wasn't made. Instead, the DI said, “We're going through her e-mail and her internet usage. There's a message been left her—the morning of her death, and she read it because it was in the trash bin—from someone called Jete asking to see her. Begging her, incidentally. ‘After all this time.’ Those were the words.”

“On e-mail you say?”

“Yes.” Lynley paused on his end of the line before going on. “Technology's fast outpacing my ability to understand it, sir. Simon did the delving into her computer. He's given us all her e-mail and all her internet usage as well.”

“Simon? What's her computer doing with St. James? Bugger it, Tommy. You should have taken it straight—”