A Traitor to Memory

And it was much the same at the Valley of Kings. J. W. Pitchley had eaten his way through the entire menu at the restaurant and the waiters could account for everything he'd ordered in the last five months. But as to his companions …? They were blonde, brunette, red headed, and gray haired. And all of them were English, naturally. What else would one expect of such a decadent culture?

Flashing the picture of Eugenie Davies in the company of the picture of J. W. Pitchley had got Barbara exactly nowhere. Ah yes, she was another Englishwoman, wasn't she? both the waiters and the night clerk had asked. Yes, she might have been with him one night. But she might have not. It was the gentleman, you see, who interested everyone: How did such an ordinary man have such an extraordinary way with ladies?

“Any port in a storm,” Barbara had muttered in reply, “if you know what I mean.”

They hadn't known and she hadn't explained. She'd just gone home, deciding to bide her time till St. Catherine's opened in the morning.

That was what she was supposed to be doing, Barbara realised as she sat at her little dining table, smoked, and hoped that the nicotine would rattle her brain into operation. There was something not right about J. W. Pitchley, and if his address in the possession of the dead woman hadn't told her that much, then the thugs leaping out of his kitchen window and the cheque he'd been writing—to one of them, surely—did.

She could do nothing to improve the condition of Superintendent Webberly. But she could pursue her intended course, looking for whatever it was that J. W. Pitchley, AKA James Pitchford, was trying to hide. What that was might well be what tied him to murder and tied him to the attack on Webberly. And if that was the case, she wanted to be the person who brought the bugger down. She owed that much to the superintendent because she owed Malcolm Webberly more than she could ever repay.

With more calm this time, she rustled her pea jacket from the wardrobe, along with a tartan scarf that she wound round her neck. More appropriately garbed for the November chill, she set out again into the cold, damp morning.

She had a wait before St. Catherine's opened, and she used the time to tuck into a hot bacon and mushroom sandwich in the sort of fine, fried-bread-serving old caff that was fast disappearing from the metropolis. After that, she phoned Charing Cross Hospital, where she got word that Webberly's condition remained unchanged. She phoned Inspector Lynley next, getting him on his mobile on his way to the Yard. He'd been at the hospital till six, he told her, at which time it had become clear that hanging round in the intensive care waiting room was only going to rub his nerves raw while doing nothing to improve the superintendent's condition.

“Hillier's there,” Lynley said abruptly, and those two words served as adequate explanation. AC Hillier wasn't a pleasant man to be around at the best of times. At the worst of times, he'd likely be impossible.

“What about the rest of the family?” Barbara asked.

“Miranda's come from Cambridge.”

“And Frances?”

“Laura Hillier's with her. At home.”

“At home?” Barbara frowned, going on to say, “That's a bit odd, isn't it, sir?” to which Lynley said, “Helen's taken some clothes over to the hospital. Some food as well. Randie came tearing up in such a hurry that she wasn't even wearing shoes, so Helen's taken her a pair of trainers and a track suit should she want to change her clothes. She'll phone me if there's any sudden change. Helen will, that is.”

“Sir …” Barbara wondered at his reticence. There was ground to till here, and she meant to grab the hoe. She was a cop to her core, so—her suspicions about J. W. Pitchley aside for a moment—she couldn't help wondering whether Frances Webberly's absence from the scene might mean something that went beyond shock. Indeed, she couldn't help wondering if it meant something that indicated Frances's knowledge of her husband's past infidelity. She said, “Sir, as to Frances herself, have you thought—”

“What are you onto this morning, Havers?”

“Sir …”

“What did you come up with on Pitchley?”

Lynley was making it more than clear that Frances Webberly was a subject he wasn't about to discuss with her, so Barbara filed her irritation—if only at present—and instead recounted what she'd discovered about Pitchley on the previous day: his suspicious behaviour, the presence in his home of two yobbos who'd climbed out of a window rather than be confronted by her, the cheque he'd been writing, the confirmation of the night clerk and the waiters that Pitchley was indeed an habitué of the Comfort Inn and the Valley of Kings.

“So what I reckon is this: If he changed his name once because of a crime, what's to say he didn't change it before because of another?”