A Traitor to Memory

Do not let anyone do this to you, Yasmin wanted to shout at the women. The only thing that kept her from shouting was the scar on her own face and her badly set nose, both of which told the tale of what she herself had once allowed to be done to her.

So she flashed them a smile, said, “C'mon over here, you gorgeous tomatoes.” She spent two hours at the women's shelter, with her make-up and her colour swatches, with her scarves, her scents, and her wigs. And when she finally left them, three of the residents had got used to smiling again, the fourth had actually managed a laugh, and the fifth had begun to raise her eyes from the floor. Yasmin considered it a good day's work.

She returned to the shop. When she arrived, the cop was striding up and down in front of it. She saw him check his watch and try to peer round the metal security door that she lowered over the shop front whenever she wasn't there. Then he looked at his watch again and took his beeper from his belt and tapped it.

Yasmin pulled up in the old Fiesta. When she opened her door, the detective was there before she put a foot on the pavement.

“This some kind of joke?” he demanded. “You think messing in a murder 'vestigation's something you can have fun with, Missus Edwards?”

“You said you didn't know how long—” Yasmin stopped herself. What was she making excuses for? She said, “I had a 'pointment. You want to help me unload the car or you want to chew my bum?” She thrust out her chin as she spoke, hearing her final words for their double meaning only after she'd said them. Then she wouldn't give him the pleasure of her embarrassment. She faced him squarely—tall woman, tall man—and waited for him to go for the crude. Hey, baby, I'll chew on more'n your bum, you give me the chance.

But he didn't do that. Wordlessly, he went to the Fiesta's hatchback and waited for her to come round and unlock it.

She did so. She shoved her cardboard box of supplies into his arms and topped it with the case of lotions, make-up, and brushes. Then she smacked the hatch of the Fiesta closed and strode to the shop, where she unlocked the metal door and yanked it upwards, using her shoulder against it, as she usually did when it stuck midway.

He said, “Hang on,” and put his burdens on the ground. Before she could stop it from happening, his hands—broad and flat and black with pale oval nails neatly trimmed to the tips of his fingers—planted themselves on either side of her. He heaved upwards as she pushed, and with a sound like eeeerrreeek of metal on metal, the door gave way. He stayed where he was, right behind her, too close by half, and said, “That needs seeing to. 'Fore much longer, you won't be able to slide it at all.”

She said, “I c'n cope,” and she grabbed up the metal box of her make-up because she wanted to be doing something and because she wanted him to know she could manage the supplies, the door, and the shop itself just fine on her own.

But once inside, it was like before. He seemed to fill the place. He seemed to make it his. And that irritated her, especially since he did nothing at all to give the impression that he meant to intimidate or at least to dominate. He merely set the cardboard box onto the counter, saying gravely, “I wasted nearly an hour waiting for you, Missus Edwards. I hope you 'ntend to make it worth my while now you're finally here.”

“You getting nothing—” She swung round. She'd been stowing her make-up case as he spoke, and her reaction was reflex, pure as the bell and those Russian dogs.

Now don't go playing Miss Ice Cubes, Ya s. Girl got blessed with a body like yours, she need to use it to her bes' a'vantage.

So You getting nothing off me was what she'd intended to hurl at the cop. No kiss-and-don't-tell by the airing cupboard, no grope in the lap at the dinner table, no peeling back blouses and easing down trousers and no no no hands separating rigid legs. Come on, Yas. Don't fight me on this.

She felt her face freeze. He was watching her. She saw his gaze on her mouth, and she watched it travel to her nose. She was marked by what went for love from a man, and he read those marks and she would never be able to forget it.

He said, “Missus Edwards,” and she hated the sound and she wondered why she'd kept Roger's name. She'd told herself she'd done it for Daniel, mother and son tied together by a name when they couldn't be tied by anything else. But now she wondered if she'd really done it to flay herself, not as a constant reminder of the fact that she'd killed her husband but as a way of doing penance for having hooked up with him in the first place.

She'd loved him, yes. But she'd soon learned that there was nothing whatsoever to be gained from loving. Still, the lesson hadn't stuck, had it? For she'd loved again and look where she was now: facing down a cop who would see this time the very same killer but an entirely different sort of corpse.