A Traitor to Memory

Which thought led Leach ineluctably to Malcolm Webberly.

Leach had known that something was up from the phone calls, from the notes scribbled, shoved into envelopes, and posted, from the oft distracted manner in which Webberly engaged in a conversation. He'd had his suspicions. But he'd been able to discount them because he hadn't known for certain till he saw them together, seven years after the case itself, when quite by chance he and Bridget had taken the kids to the Regatta because Curtis'd had a project at school—The Culture and Traditions of Our Country … Jesus … Leach even remembered the bloody name of it!—and there they were, the two of them, standing on that bridge that crossed the Thames into Henley, his arm round her waist and the sunlight on them both. He didn't know who she was at first, didn't remember her, saw only that she was good-looking and that they comprised that unit which calls itself In Love.

How odd, Leach thought now, to recall what he'd felt at the sight of Webberly and his Lady Friend. He realised that he'd never considered his superior officer a real breathing man before that moment. He realised that he'd seen Webberly in rather the same manner as a child sees a much older adult. And the sudden knowledge that Webberly had a secret life felt like the blow an eight-year-old would take should he walk in on his dad going at it with a lady from the neighbourhood.

And she'd looked like that, the woman on the bridge, familiar like a lady from the neighbourhood. In fact, she looked so familiar to Leach that for a time he expected to see her at work—perhaps a secretary he'd not yet met?—or maybe emerging from an office on the Earl's Court Road. He'd reckoned that she was just someone Webberly had happened to meet, happened to strike up a conversation with, happened to discover an attraction to, happened to say to himself “Oh, why not, Malc? No need to be such a bloody Puritan,” about.

Leach couldn't remember when or how he'd sussed out that Webberly's lover was Eugenie Davies. But when he had done, he hadn't been able to keep mum any longer. He'd used his outrage as an excuse for speaking, no little boy fearful that Dad would leave home again but a full-grown adult who knew right from wrong. My God, he'd thought, that an officer from the murder squad—that his own partner—should cross the line like that, should take the opportunity to gratify himself with someone who'd been traumatised, victimised, and brutalised both by tragic events and the aftermath of those events…. It was inconceivable.

Webberly had been, if not deaf to the subject, at least willing to hear him out. He hadn't made a comment at all till Leach had recited every stanza of the ode to Webberly's unprofessional conduct that he'd been composing. Then he'd said, “What the hell do you think of me, Eric? It wasn't like that. This didn't start during the case. I hadn't seen her for years when we began to … Not till … It was at Paddington Station. Completely by chance. We spoke there for ten minutes or less, between trains. Then later … Hell. Why am I explaining this? If you think I'm out of order, put yourself up for transfer.”

But he hadn't wanted that.

Why? he asked himself.

Because of what Malcolm Webberly had become to him.

How our pasts define our presents, Leach thought now. We're not even aware that it's happening, but every time we reach a conclusion, make a judgement, or take a decision, the years of our lives are stacked up behind us: all those dominoes of influence that we don't begin to acknowledge as part of defining who we are.

He drove to Hammersmith. He told himself he needed a few minutes to decompress from the scene with Bridget, and he did his decompressing in the car, wending his way south till he was in striking distance of Charing Cross Hospital. So he finished the journey and located intensive care.

He couldn't get in to see him, he was told by the sister in charge when he walked through the swinging doors. Only family were allowed in to see the patients in the Intensive Care. Was he a member of the Webberly family?

Oh yes, he thought. And of long standing, although he'd never truly admitted that to himself and Webberly hadn't ever twigged the idea. But what he said was, “No. Just another officer. The superintendent and I used to work together.”

The nurse nodded. She remarked how good it was that so many members of the Met had stopped by, had phoned, had sent flowers, and had stood by with offers of blood for the patient. “Type B,” she said to him. “Do you happen to be …? Or O, which is universal, but I expect you know that.”

“AB negative.”

“That's very rare. We wouldn't be able to use it in this case, but you ought to be a regular donor, if you don't mind my saying.”

“Is there anything …?” He nodded in the direction of the rooms.

“His daughter's with him. His brother-in-law as well. There's really nothing … But he's holding his own.”