A Traitor to Memory

Because of all this, Nkata had long thought himself incapable of the sort of judgement he'd learned to experience at the hands of others. But after his morning interview in the Doddington Grove Estate, he'd learned that his vision was just as narrow and just as fully capable of leading him to ill-founded conclusions as was the vision of the most illiterate, badly dressed, and ill-spoken member of the National Front.

He'd seen them together. He'd seen the way they greeted each other, the way they talked together, the way they walked like a couple to Galveston Road. He'd known the German was a woman whose life partner was another woman. So when they'd gone into that house and shut the door, he'd allowed an embrace silhouetted against the window to provoke his imagination into running from its pen like an untamed pony. A lesbian meeting another woman and trotting off with her for seclusion together meant only one thing. So he had believed. So he had let his belief colour his second interview in Yasmin Edwards' flat.

Had he not known how thoroughly he'd cocked things up right then, he would have been informed soon enough when he phoned the number on the business card that Katja had handed him. Harriet Lewis herself confirmed the story: Yes, she was Katja Wolff's solicitor. Yes, she had been with her on the previous evening. Yes, they had gone to Galveston Road together.

“You leave after quarter of an hour?” Nkata asked her.

She said, “What's this about, Constable?”

“What sort of business 'd you engage in in Galveston Road?” he asked her.

“None that's any business of yours,” the solicitor had said, just as Katja Wolff promised she would.

“How long's she been a client of yours?” he tried next.

“Our conversation is over,” she'd said. “I work for Miss Wolff, not for you.”

So he was left with nothing except the knowledge that he'd done everything wrong and that he'd have to explain himself to the one person he sought to emulate: DI Lynley. And when the traffic snarled up near Vauxhall Bridge, then stopped altogether as sirens blared and lights flashed up ahead, he was grateful not only for the diversion a smash-up provided but also for the time he would be handed to decide how to tell the tale of the last twelve hours.

Now he looked at the front of the Hampstead Police Station and forced himself out of his car. He walked inside, showed his ID, and trudged to do the penance his actions called for.

He found everyone in the incident room, where the morning meeting was just breaking up. The china board was filled with the day's list of actions and the men and women assigned to them, but the hush among the constables leaving told Nkata that they'd been informed about what had happened to Webberly.

DI Lynley and Barbara Havers remained behind, comparing two computer sheets. Nkata joined them, saying, “Sorry. Pileup at Vauxhall Bridge,” to which Lynley replied, looking up over his spectacles, “Ah. Winston. How did it go?”

“Couldn't shake either one of them from what they already said.”

“Damn,” Barb muttered.

“Did you speak to the Edwards woman alone?” Lynley asked.

“Didn't need to. Wolff 'as meeting with her solicitor, 'Spector. That's who the bird was. Solicitor confirmed when I rang her.” His face must have shown something of his chagrin, because Lynley examined him for a long moment, during which Nkata felt all the misery of a child who's displeased his parent.

“You sounded quite sure when we spoke,” Lynley remarked, “and when you're feeling sure, you're usually right. Are you certain you spoke to the solicitor, Winnie? Wolff could have given you the number of a friend to play the role of solicitor when you rang her.”

“She gave me her business card,” Nkata said. “And what solicitor of your acquaintance's going to lie for a client when the answer the cops want is either yes or no? But I still think the women are hiding something. I just went at it wrong to suss out what it is.” And then because his admiration for Lynley would always override his need to look good in the inspector's eyes, he added, “But I cocked it up with my whole approach. Whoever talks to them next, better not be me.”

Barbara Havers said supportively, “Well, God knows I've done that more than once, Winnie,” and Nkata shot her a grateful look. She had cocked up and it had cost her a suspension from duty, her previous rank, and probably the chance to rise in the Met. But she'd at least brought down a killer by the end of that case, while he'd done nothing more than complicate matters.

Lynley said, “Yes. Well. Haven't we all. No matter, Winston. We'll sort things out,” although he did sound disappointed to Nkata's ears, which wasn't half of what his own mum was going to sound when he told her what had happened.

“Jewel,” she'd say, “what were you thinking, son?”

And that was a question he preferred not to answer.

He brought himself round to listening to the update he'd missed from the morning's briefing. The BT records from Eugenie Davies' phone had been matched up with names and addresses. And the callers on her answer machine had likewise been identified. The woman who named herself Lynn had emerged as one Lynn Davies—

“A relation?” Nkata asked.

“Still to be discovered.”