A Traitor to Memory

“It wasn't an easy life for either of us. But when I consider what might have been, I have no regrets. I gained more than I lost when my marriage ended. And ultimately, I couldn't blame Richard for asking for the divorce.”


“And then he remarried and had another …” Again, there was no useful catch phrase. Lynn supplied her own, saying, “A child imperfect as we measure perfection. Yes. Richard had another, and those who believe in a vengeful God might argue that he was being punished for having abandoned us, Virginia and me. But I don't think that's how God works. Richard wouldn't have asked us to leave in the first place if I'd only agreed to have more children.”

“Asked you to leave?” What a prince among men, Barbara thought. Here was something for a bloke to be proud of: having asked his wife and his retarded child to find themselves new digs.

Lynn hastened to explain. “We lived with his parents, in the house he himself had grown up in. So when it came time to part, it didn't make sense that Virginia and I should stay with Richard's parents while Richard left. And, anyway, that was part of the problem: Richard's parents. His father was completely unmoveable on the subject of Virginia. He wanted her put away. He insisted on it. And Richard was … It was so important to him to have his father's approval. So he was won over to that way of thinking, about putting Virginia into a home. But I wouldn't hear of it. After all, this was …” Her eyes again showed her pain, and she stopped for a moment before saying with simple dignity, “She was our child. She hadn't asked to be born the way she was. Who were we to think we could chuck her away? And that's what Richard himself thought at first. Until his father brought him round.” She looked again to the alcove, to the bright smeared paintings that decorated it, saying, “He was a terrible man, Jack Davies was. I know he'd suffered horribly in the war. I know his mind was a ruin and he couldn't be blamed for the ugliness inside him. But to hate an innocent child so much that she wasn't allowed to be in the room with him …? That was wrong, Constable. That was terribly wrong.”

“It sounds like hell,” Barbara acknowledged.

“A form of it. ‘Thank God she doesn't spring from my blood,’ he used to say. And Richard's mother would murmur, ‘Jack, Jack, you don't actually mean that,’ when all the time you could see that if there was a single way that he could wipe Virginia's existence from this planet, he would have gladly made the attempt without a second thought.” Lynn's lips trembled. “And now she's gone. Wouldn't Jack be happy now.” She shoved her hand into the pocket of her blue jeans and brought out a crumpled tissue, which she pressed beneath her eyes, saying, “I'm terribly sorry. Forgive me for running on in this way. I shouldn't be … God, how I miss her.”

“It's okay,” Barbara said. “You're trying to cope.”

“And now Eugenie,” Lynn Davies said. “How can I help with what's happened to Eugenie? I expect that's why you've come, isn't it? Not just to tell me but to ask for my help?”

“You and Mrs. Davies had a bond, I expect. Through your children.”

“Not at first. It was when her little Sonia died that we met. Eugenie simply turned up on my doorstep one day. She wanted to talk. I was happy to listen.”

“You saw her regularly, then?”

“Yes. She dropped round often. She needed to talk—what mother wouldn't in those circumstances?—and I was glad to be here for her. She felt she couldn't talk to Richard, you see, and while there was a Catholic nun she was close to, the nun wasn't a mother, was she? And that's what Eugenie needed: another mother to talk to, and especially the mother of a special child. She was grieving terribly, and there was no one in that household who could understand how she felt. But she knew about me and she knew about Virginia because Richard had told her shortly after they married.”

“Not before they married? That's odd.”

Lynn smiled resignedly. “That's Richard, Constable Havers. He paid maintenance till Virginia reached adulthood, but he never saw her once she and I left him. I did think he might come to the funeral. I let him know when she died. But he sent flowers and that was that.”

“Brilliant,” Barbara muttered.

“He is who he is. Not a bad man, but not a man equipped to cope with a handicapped child. And not everyone is. At least I'd had some practical training in nursing, while Richard … well, what did he have but his brief career in the Army? And anyway, he wanted to carry on the family name, which meant, naturally, that he would have to find a second wife. And that actually turned out to be the right thing to do, didn't it, because Eugenie gave him Gideon.”

“The jackpot.”

“In a way. But I expect the burden of giving birth to a prodigy is an enormous one. A different set of responsibilities but just as heavy.”