A Traitor to Memory

“How is that gold?”


“Because of what follows,” Barbara replied. “Before he was Pitchford, he was someone else: He was Jimmy Pytches, sir, little Jimmy Pytches from Tower Hamlets. He changed his name to Pitchford six years before the murder in Kensington Square.”

“Unusual,” Lynley agreed, “but hardly damning.”

“By itself, right. But when you put two name changes in one lifetime into the same basket as having two blokes jumping out of his kitchen window when the rozzers come to call, you've got something that smells like cod in the sun. So I rang the station over there and asked if anyone remembered a Jimmy Pytches.”

“And?” Lynley asked.

“And listen to this. The whole family're in and out of trouble all the time. Were back then. Still are now. And when Pitchley was Jimmy Pytches all those years ago, a baby died while he was minding her. He was a teenager at the time, and the investigation couldn't pin anything on him. The inquest finally called it cot death, but not before our Jimmy spent forty-eight hours being held and questioned as suspect number one. Here. Check my notes if you want to.”

Lynley did so, putting his reading glasses back on.

Barbara said, “A second kid dying while he was in the same house,” as Lynley looked over the information. “Doesn't feel very nice, does it, sir?”

“If he did indeed murder Sonia Davies and if Katja Wolff carried the can for him,” Lynley began, and Barbara interrupted with, “Perhaps this is why she never said a word once she was arrested, sir. Say she and Pitchford had a thing—she was pregnant, right?—and when Sonia was drowned, they both knew that the cops would look hard at Pitchford because of the other death, once they found out who he really was. If they could play it out as an accident, as negligence—”

“Why would he have drowned the Davies girl?”

“Jealousy over what the family had and he hadn't got. Anger over how they were treating his beloved. He wants to rescue her from her situation, or he wants to get back at people he sees as having what he'll never put his mitts on, so he goes after the kid. Katja takes the fall for him, knowing about his past and thinking she'll get a year or two for negligence while he'd probably get life for premeditated murder. And she never once considers how a jury's going to react to her keeping silent about the death of a disabled toddler. And just think of what was probably going through their heads: shades of Mengele and all that, Inspector, and she won't even say what happened. So the judge throws the book at her, she gets twenty years, and Pitchford disappears from her life, leaving her to rot in prison while he becomes Pitchley and makes a killing in the City.”

“And then what?” Lynley said. “She gets out of prison and then what, Havers?”

“She tells Eugenie what really happened, who really did it. Eugenie tracks down Pitchley the way I tracked down Pytches. She goes to confront him, but she never makes it.”

“Because?”

“Because she gets it on the street.”

“I realise that. But from whom, Barbara?”

“I think Leach might be onto it, sir.”

“Pitchley? Why?”

“Katja Wolff wants justice. So does Eugenie. The only way to get it is to put Pitchley away, which I doubt he'd go for.”

Lynley shook his head. “How do you explain Webberly, then?”

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

“Those letters?”

“It's time to hand them over. You've got to see they're important, Inspector.”

“Havers, they're more than ten years old. They're not an issue.”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong.” Barbara pulled on her sandy fringe in sheer frustration. “Look. Say Pitchley and Eugenie had something going. Say that's the reason she was in his street the other night. Say he's been to Henley to see her on the sly and during a tryst he's come across those letters. He's gone round the bend with jealousy, so he gives her the chop and then takes down the superintendent.”

Lynley shook his head. “Barbara, you can't have it all ways. You're twisting the facts to fit a conclusion. But they don't fit it, and it doesn't fit the case.”

“Why not?”

“Because it leaves too much unaccounted for.” Lynley ticked off the items. “How could Pitchley have maintained an affair with Eugenie Davies without Ted Wiley's knowledge since Wiley appears to have kept close tabs on the comings and goings at Doll Cottage? What did Eugenie have to confess to Wiley, and why did she die the night before the scheduled confession? Who is Jete? Who was she meeting at those pubs and hotels? And what do we do about the coincidence of Katja Wolff's release from prison and two hit-and-runs in which the victims are significant people in the case that put her away?”