A Traitor to Memory

The pubs and hotels in her diary, Lynley thought. Twice each month. But it didn't make sense. Her meetings with Robson didn't follow the pattern that Robson himself described as being the path of Eugenie Davies' life. If she had been intent upon punishing herself for the transgression of human despair, for the unspoken wish—so horribly granted—to be delivered from the struggle to care for a fragile daughter, why had she even allowed herself news of her son, news that might comfort her, might keep her in touch? Wouldn't she have denied herself that?

There was a piece missing somewhere, Lynley concluded. And his instincts told him that Raphael Robson knew exactly what that missing piece was.

He said, “I can understand part of her behaviour, but I can't understand all of it, Mr. Robson. Why cut out contact with her family but maintain contact with you?”

“As I said. It was how she punished herself.”

“For something she'd thought but never acted on?”

It seemed that the answer to this simple question should have come easily to Raphael Robson. Yes or no. He'd spent years knowing the dead woman, after all. He'd engaged in regular meetings with her. But Robson didn't answer at first. He took a plane from among the tools instead, and he appeared to examine it with his long and thin musician's hands.

“Mr. Robson?” Lynley said.

Robson moved across the room to a window so covered in dust that it looked nearly opaque. He said, “She'd sacked her. It was Eugenie's decision. That began everything. So she blamed herself.”

Nkata looked up. “Katja Wolff?”

Robson said, “Eugenie was the one who said the German girl had to go. If she hadn't made that decision … if they hadn't rowed …” He made an aimless gesture. “We can't relive a single moment, can we? We can't unsay things, and we can't undo things. We can only sweep up the pieces of the mess we make of our miserable lives.”

True enough, Lynley thought, but the statements were also useful generalities that weren't going to take them one inch closer to the truth. He said, “Tell me about that time, before the baby was murdered. As you remember it, Mr. Robson.”

“Why? What's that got to do with—”

“Humour me.”

“There isn't much to tell. It's a grubby little story. The German girl got herself pregnant, and she was badly out of sorts. She was sick each morning and half the time sick at noon and at night. Sonia demanded someone's full-time attention, but Katja couldn't give it. She couldn't eat without sicking everything up. She was up with Sonia night after night, and she was trying to sleep when she got the chance. But she slept when she was meant to be doing something else once too often, and Eugenie sacked her. She snapped, then, the German. Sonia fussed too much one evening. And that was that.”

“Did you give evidence at the Wolff woman's trial?” Nkata asked.

“Yes. I was there. Yes. I gave evidence.”

“Against her?”

“I just testified to what I'd seen, where I'd been, what I knew.”

“For the prosecution?”

“Ultimately. I suppose. Yes.” Robson shifted on his feet and waited for another question, his gaze on Lynley as Nkata wrote. When Lynley said nothing and the silence among them lengthened, Robson finally spoke. “What I'd seen was practically nothing. I'd been giving Gideon some instruction, and the first I knew that something was wrong was when Katja began screaming from the bathroom. People came charging from all corners of the house, Eugenie phoned emergency, Richard tried the kiss of life.”

“And the fault went down to Katja Wolff,” Nkata noted.

“There was too much chaos to find fault anywhere at first,” Robson said. “Katja was screaming that she hadn't left the baby alone, so it seemed as if she'd had some sort of seizure and died in an instant when Katja's back was turned, when she was reaching for a towel. Something like that. Then she said she'd been on the phone for a minute or two. But that fell through when Katie Waddington denied it. Then came the post-mortem. It became clear how Sonia died and that there had been earlier … earlier incidents that no one knew about and …” He opened his hands as if saying, The rest is as it was.

Lynley said, “Wolff is out of prison, Mr. Robson. Have you heard from her?”

Robson shook his head. “I can't think she'd want to talk to me.”

“Talking might not be what she has in mind,” Nkata said.

Robson looked from him to Lynley. “You're thinking Katja might have killed Eugenie.”

Lynley said, “The investigating officer from that period of time was hit last night as well.”

“Good God.”

“We're thinking everyone needs to have a care till we get to the bottom of what happened to Mrs. Davies,” Lynley said. “She had something to tell Major Wiley, by the way. He's told us that much. Would you have any idea what that was?”