A Traitor to Memory

“You watching telly like you did before?”


“Why d'you want to know?” Yasmin asked. “Katja, you don't tell him anything till he says why he's asking you. He's not going to trick us. He's going to tell us why he's asking what he's asking or he's going to get his big black bum and his cut-up mug right out of my flat. That clear to you, mister?”

“We got us another hit-and-run,” Nkata said to Katja. “You want to tell me where you were last night?”

Bells and alarms went off in Yasmin's head, so she very nearly didn't hear Katja say, “Here.”

“Round half past eleven?”

“Here,” she repeated.

“Got it,” he said, and then he added what Yasmin realised he'd been meaning to say from the moment she opened the door to him, “So you didn't spend the whole night with her, then. You just met her, shagged her, and went on your way. That how it happened?”

There was a horrible silence, broken by nothing but the voice inside Yasmin's head shouting, “No!” She willed her partner to answer in some way, not to use silence and not to walk off.

Katja looked at Yasmin when she said to the copper, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking 'bout a trip 'cross South London by bus last evening after work,” the detective said. “I'm talking 'bout ending up in Putney at Frère Jacques Bar. 'Bout walking down to Wandsworth to Number Fifty-five Galveston Road. I'm talking 'bout what went on inside and who it went on with. This sounding familiar to you? Or were you still watching the telly last night? 'Cause if what I saw's any indication, if the telly was on, you two had your eyes glued elsewhere.”

“You followed me.” Katja said it carefully.

“You and the lady in black. That's right. White lady in black,” he added for good measure, and he cast a quick look at Yasmin as he said it. “Keep the lights off next time you do something interesting in front of the windows, Miss Wolff.”

Yasmin felt wild birds fluttering in front of her face. She wanted to wave her arms to frighten them off, but her arms wouldn't move. White lady in black was all she heard. Keep the lights off next time.

Katja said, “I see. You've done your work well. You followed me—high marks for that. Then you followed us together—higher marks still. But had you lingered, which you obviously did not, you would have seen us leave within a quarter of an hour. And while this is no doubt the time you yourself would devote to doing something interesting—as you call it, Constable—Yasmin will confirm that I am a woman who takes rather longer when it comes to giving pleasure.”

Nkata looked nonplussed, and Yasmin reveled in that look, as much as she reveled in Katja's seizing upon the advantage that she'd just gained by saying, “Had you done your homework more thoroughly, you would have discovered that the woman I met at Frère Jacques was my solicitor, Constable Nkata. She's called Harriet Lewis, and if you require her phone number to confirm my story, I shall give it to you.”

“And Number Fifty-five Galveston Road?” he said.

“What about it?”

“Who lives there that you and”—his hesitation and the emphasis he placed on the word told them he'd be checking her story—“your solicitor went calling on last night, Miss Wolff?”

“Her partner. And if you ask what I was consulting them about, I shall have to tell you it's a privileged matter, which is what Harriet Lewis will tell you herself when you phone her to confirm my story.” Katja strode across the small sitting room to the sofa, where her shoulder bag lay against a faded tapestry pillow. She switched on a light and dispelled the morning gloom. She took out a packet of fags and lit one as she rooted in her bag for something else. This turned out to be a business card, which she brought over to Nkata and extended to him. She was the personification of calm, drawing in on the fag and sending a plume of smoke towards the ceiling as she said, “Phone her. And if there is nothing else you wish to learn from us this morning, we have our own breakfast to eat.”

Nkata took the card and, his eyes on Katja as if they'd pin her to the spot she stood on, he put it in the breast pocket of his coat, saying, “You best hope she matches you A to Z. 'Cause if she doesn't—”

Yasmin cut in. “That all you want, then? 'Cause if it is, time for you to bunk off.”

Nkata moved his glance to her. “You know where to find me,” he said.

“Like I'd want to?” Yasmin laughed. She jerked the door open and didn't look at him as he left. She slammed the door behind him as Daniel called out, “Mummy?” from the kitchen.

She called back, “Be there in a moment, luv. You keep on with the pancakes.”

“Don't forget that bacon as well,” Katja said.

But as they spoke to Daniel, they looked at each other. They looked long and unwavering as each waited for the other to say what needed to be said.