A Traitor to Memory

Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley wasn't surprised when the superintendent excused himself from the party and climbed the stairs with the cordless receiver pressed to his ear. He was surprised, however, at the length of time that his superior officer was gone. At least twenty minutes passed during which the superintendent's guests finished their cake and coffee and made noises about heading for their respective homes. Frances Webberly protested at this, casting more than one vexed glance at the stairs. They couldn't leave just yet, she told them, not before Malcolm had the chance to thank them for being part of their anniversary party. Wouldn't they wait for Malcolm?

She didn't add what she would never say. If their guests left before her husband had completed his phone call, common courtesy suggested that Frances step into the front garden to bid farewell to the people who'd come to honour her marriage. And what had long gone unmentioned between Malcolm Webberly and most of his colleagues was the fact that Frances had not put a toe outside her house in more than ten years.

“Phobias,” Webberly had explained to Lynley on the single occasion when he'd spoken about his wife. “It began with simple things that I didn't notice. By the time they had a tight enough hold on her to get my attention, she was spending all day in the bedroom. Wrapped in a blanket, would you believe it? God forgive me.”

The secrets men live with, Lynley thought as he watched Frances fluttering among her guests. There was an edge to her gaiety that no one could miss, a hint of the determined and the anxious to her pleasure. Randie had wished to surprise her parents with an anniversary party at a local restaurant where there would be more room, even a dance floor for the guests. But that hadn't been possible considering Frances's condition, so the venue was restricted to the family's disintegrating old house in Stamford Brook.

Webberly finally descended the stairs as the company were making their farewells, ushered to the door by his daughter, who wrapped her arm round her mother's waist. It was a fond gesture on Randie's part. It served the double purpose of reassuring Frances even as it prevented her from tearing away from the door.

“Not leaving?” Webberly boomed from the stairs, where he'd lit a cigar that was sending a blue cloud in the direction of the ceiling. “The night is young.”

“The night is morning,” Laura Hillier informed him, fondly pressing her cheek to her niece's and saying her farewells. “Lovely party, Randie. You did your parents proud.” Her hand clasped in her husband's, she went out into the night, where the rain that had been falling heavily all evening had finally stopped.

Assistant Commissioner Hillier's departure gave the rest of the company permission to go, and people began to do so, Lynley among them. He was waiting for his wife's coat to be unearthed from somewhere upstairs, when Webberly joined him at the door to the sitting room and said in a low voice, “Stay a moment, Tommy. If you will.”

There was a drawn quality to the superintendent's face that prompted Lynley to murmur, “Of course.” Next to him, his wife said spontaneously, “Frances, have you your wedding pictures anywhere at hand? I won't let Tommy take me home till I've seen you on your day of glory.”

Lynley shot Helen a grateful look. Within another ten minutes, the remaining guests had departed and while Helen occupied Frances Webberly and Miranda helped the caterer clear away dishes and serving platters, Lynley and Webberly repaired to the study, a cramped room barely large enough for a desk, an armchair, and the bookshelves that furnished it.

Perhaps in deference to Lynley's abstemious habits, Webberly went to the window and wrestled with it to give some respite from his cigar smoke. Cold autumn air, heavy with damp, floated into the room.

“Sit down, Tommy.” Webberly himself remained standing, next to the window, where the dim ceiling light cast him mostly in shadow.

Lynley waited for Webberly to speak. The superintendent, however, was chewing the inside of his lower lip, as if the words he wanted to say were there and he needed to taste them for their fluency.

Outside the house, a car's gears ground discordantly, while inside the doors to kitchen cupboards banged shut. These noises seemed to act like a spur upon Webberly. He looked up from his musing and said, “That was a bloke called Leach on the phone. We used to be partners. I haven't talked to him in years. It's rotten to lose touch that way. I don't know why it happens, but it just does.”

Lynley knew that Webberly had hardly asked him to remain behind in order to hear the superintendent wax melancholy on the state of a friendship. One forty-five in the morning was hardly the hour to be discussing one's former mates. Still, to give the older man an opportunity to confide, Lynley said, “Is Leach still in the force, sir? I don't think I know him.”

“Northwest London police,” Webberly said. “He and I worked together twenty years ago.”

“Ah.” Lynley thought about this. Webberly would have been thirty-five at the time, which meant he was speaking of his Kensington years. “CID?” he asked.

“He was my sergeant. He's in Hampstead now, heading up the murder squad. DCI Eric Leach. Good man. Very good man.”