A Traitor to Memory

“None at all,” Robson said, shaking his head but all the same saying the words far too quickly for Lynley's liking. As if realising that the speed of his reply was more revealing than the reply itself, Robson went on to say, “If there was something she wanted to reveal to Major Wiley, she didn't tell me. You see, Inspector.”


Lynley didn't see. At least he didn't see what Robson hoped he would see. Instead, he saw a man holding something back. He said, “As Mrs. Davies' close friend, I'd think there might be something you've not yet considered, Mr. Robson. If you reflect on your most recent meetings with her and especially the last one when the two of you rowed, I expect a detail like a chance remark might give us an indication of what she wanted to tell Major Wiley.”

“There's nothing. Really. I can't say …”

Lynley pressed on. “If what she had to tell Major Wiley is the reason she was killed—and we can't dismiss that possibility, Mr. Robson—anything you can remember is vital.”

“She might have wanted him to know about Sonia's death and what led up to her death. Perhaps she believed she needed to tell him why she'd left Richard and Gideon. She might have felt she needed his forgiveness for having done that before they could proceed with each other.”

“Would that have been like her?” Lynley asked. “The confessional bit before carrying on with a relationship, I mean.”

“Yes,” Robson said, and his affirmation seemed genuine. “Confession would have been exactly like Eugenie.”

Lynley nodded and thought this over. Part of it made sense, but he couldn't escape a simple fact that had announced itself through Robson's helpful revelation: They hadn't mentioned to Robson that Major Wiley had been in Africa twenty years ago and hence hadn't known the circumstances of Sonia Davies' death.

But if Robson knew that, he probably knew more. And whatever that more was, Lynley was willing to wager it led to the death in West Hampstead.

GIDEON





1 November





I object, Dr. Rose. I am not avoiding anything. You might question my pursuit of the truth with regard to my sister's death, you might remark that it serves the powerful interests of distraction for me to spend half a day to-ing and fro-ing round Cheltenham, and you might scrutinise my reasons for lolling round the Press Association office for another three hours, copying and reading the cuttings about the arrest and the trial of Katja Wolff. But you cannot accuse me of avoiding the very activity you yourself assigned me in the first place.

Yes, you told me to write what I remember, which is what I've done. And it seems to me that until I get beyond this business of my sister's death, it's going to throw up a roadblock to any other memories that I might have. So I may as well get through all this. I may as well learn what happened back then. If this endeavour is an elaborate subconscious foil to what I am supposed to remember—whatever the hell that is—then we'll know that eventually, won't we? And in the meantime, you'll be all the richer for the countless appointments that you and I shall have had together. I may even become your patient for life.

And don't tell me you sense my frustration, please, because I'm obviously frustrated, because just when I think I'm on to something, you sit there asking me to think about the process of rationalisation and to ponder what that could mean in my current pursuit.

I'll tell you what rationalisation means: It means that I am consciously or unconsciously side-stepping the reason for my loss of music. It means that I am setting up an elaborate maze to thwart your attempts to help me.

So you see? I am completely aware of what I might be doing. And now I ask you to let me do it.

I've been to Dad's. He wasn't there when I arrived, but Jill was. She's decided to paint his kitchen, and she'd brought a selection of paint cards with her, which she'd spread out on the kitchen table. I told her I'd come by to go through some old paperwork that Dad keeps in the Granddad Room. She gave me one of those conspiratorial looks that suggest two people are in agreement on a subject that's going undiscussed, and from that I concluded that Dad's museum of devotion to his father is going to be packed away when he and Jill have a home of their own. She won't have told Dad this, naturally. Jill's way is not to be so direct.