A Traitor to Memory

Katja looked away from her at the window, where the curtains were closed upon the growing daylight. She said, “Funny enough, Yas. Neither did I.”


“Think she'll be able to help you, then? Help with what you're trying to sort out?”

“Yes. Yes, I hope she will help me. That would be good, wouldn't it: to put an end to the struggle.”

And then Katja stood there, waiting for more, waiting to hear the scores of questions that Yasmin Edwards could not bear to ask her.

When Yasmin said nothing, Katja finally nodded as if she herself had asked something and received a reply. “Things are being taken care of,” she said. “I'll be home straight after work tonight.”





16





BARBARA HAVERS GOT word of Webberly's condition at seven forty-five that morning when the superintendent's secretary phoned her as she was toweling herself dry from her wake-up shower. Upon instruction from DI Lynley, who'd been given the rank of acting superintendent, Barbara was told, Dorothea Harriman was ringing every detective under Webberly's command. She had little time to chat, so she was sparing with the details: Webberly was in Charing Cross Hospital, his condition was critical, he was in a coma, he'd been hit by a car late last night while walking his dog.

“Bloody hell, Dee,” Barbara cried. “Hit by a car? How? Where? Will he …? Is he going to …?”

Harriman's voice grew tight, which told Barbara all she needed to know about the effort that Webberly's secretary was making to sound professional in the midst of her own concern for the man she'd worked for for nearly a decade. “That's all I know, Detective Constable. The Hammersmith police are investigating.”

Barbara said, “Dee, what the hell happened?”

“A hit-and-run.”

Barbara grew dizzy. At the same time, she felt the hand that held the telephone receiver turn numb, as if it were no longer part of her body. She rang off in a deadened state, and she dressed herself with even less regard than she normally gave to her appearance. Indeed, it wouldn't be until much later in the day that she'd glance in the mirror while making a visit to the ladies' toilet and discover that she'd donned pink socks, green stirrup trousers with sagging knees, and a faded purple T-shirt on which were printed the words “The truth ISN'T out there, it's under here” rendered in ornate Gothic script. She crammed a Pop-Tart into the toaster, and while it was heating, she dried her hair and smeared two blobs of fuchsia-tinted lipstick on her cheeks to give some colour to her face. Pop-Tart in hand, she gathered her belongings, grabbed her car keys, and dashed outside to set off into the morning … without coat, scarf, or the least idea of where she was supposed to be going.

The cold air brought her abruptly to her senses six steps from her own front door. She said, “Hang on, Barb,” and scurried back to her bungalow, where she forced herself to sit at the table which she used for dining, ironing, working, and preparing most of what went for her daily dinners. She fired up a fag and told herself that she had to calm down if she was going to be any use to anyone. If Webberly's misfortune and the murder of Eugenie Davies were connected, she wasn't going to be able to assist in the enquiry if she continued to run round like an electrified mouse.

And there was a connection between the two events. She was willing to bet her career on that.

She had achieved very little joy from her second trip to the Valley of Kings and the Comfort Inn on the previous evening, learning only that J. W. Pitchley was a regular at both establishments, but so much a regular that neither the waiters at the restaurant nor the night clerk at the hotel had been able to say with certainty that he'd been there on the night Eugenie Davies had been murdered.

“Oh my yes, this gentleman has a way with the ladies,” the night clerk had commented as he examined Pitchley's photograph over the sound of Major James Bellamy and his wife having something of a class-driven set-to in an ancient episode of Upstairs, Downstairs that was playing nearby on a VCR. The night clerk had paused, had watched the unfolding drama for a moment, had shaken his head and sighed, “It will never last, that marriage,” before turning to Barbara, handing back the picture she'd snagged in West Hampstead, and going on. “He brings them here often, these ladies of his. He always pays cash and the lady waits over there, out of sight in the lounge. This is so I will neither see her nor suspect that they intend to use the room for a few hours only, for sexual congress. He has been here many many times, this man.”