A Traitor to Memory

“Don't have a partner, I notice,” he said, “'less she's hiding under your desk.”


“I don't believe I said there was a partner. You made that assumption.”

“Based on Katja Wolff's lie. Number Fifty-five Galveston Road, Miss Lewis. Care to speculate with me on that topic? Tha's where your partner's s'posed to live, by the way.”

“My relationship with my client is privileged.”

“Right. You got a client there, then?”

“I didn't say that.”

Nkata leaned forward, elbows on knees. He said, “Listen to what I say, then.” He looked at his watch. “Seventy-seven minutes ago Katja Wolff lost her alibi for the time of a hit-and-run in West Hampstead. You got that straight? And losing that alibi sends her straight to the top of the class. My experience, people don't lie 'bout where they were the night someone goes down 'less they got a good reason. This case, the reason looks like she was involved. Woman who was killed—”

“I know who was killed,” the solicitor snapped.

“Do you? Good. Then you also proba'ly know that your client might've had an axe she wanted to grind with that individual.”

“That idea's laughable. If anything, the complete opposite is the truth.”

“Katja Wolff wanting Eugenie Davies to stay alive? Why's that, Miss Lewis?”

“That's privileged information.”

“Cheers. So add to your privileged information this bit: Last night a second hit happened in Hammersmith. Round midnight this one was. The officer who first put Katja away. He's not dead, but he's hanging on the edge. And you got to know how cops feel 'bout a suspect when one of their own goes down.”

This piece of news seemed to make the first dent in Harriet Lewis's armour of calm. She adjusted her spine microscopically and said, “Katja Wolff is not involved in any of this.”

“So you get paid to say. And paid to believe. So your partner would proba'ly say and proba'ly believe if you had a partner.”

“Stop harping on that. You and I both know that I'm not responsible for a piece of misinformation passed to you by a client when I'm not present.”

“Right. But you are present now. And now that it's clear you got no partner, p'rhaps we need to dwell on why I 'as told that you had.”

“I have no idea.”

“Don't you.” Nkata took out his notebook and his pencil, and he tapped the pencil against the notebook's leather cover for emphasis. “Here's what it's looking like to me: You're Katja Wolff's brief, but you're something else 's well, something tastier and something that's lying just the other side of what's on the up and up in your business. Now—”

“You're incredible.”

“—word of that gets out, you start looking bad, Miss Lewis. You got some code of ethics or other, and solicitor playing love monkeys with her client isn't part of that code. 'Fact, it starts looking like that's why you take on lags in the first place: Get 'em when they're at their lowest, you do, and it's plain sailing when you want to pop 'em in bed.”

“That's outrageous.” Harriet Lewis finally came round from behind her desk. She strode across the room, took position behind one of the chairs in the grouping by the coffee table, and gripped onto its back. “Leave this office, Constable.”

“Let's play at this,” he said reasonably, settling back into his chair. “Let's think out loud.”

“Your sort's not even capable of doing that silently.”

Nkata smiled. He gave himself a point. He said, “Stick with me, then, all the same.”

“I've no intention of speaking with you further. Now leave, or I'll see to it you're brought to the attention of the PCA.”

“What're you going to complain 'bout? And how's it likely to look when the story gets out that you couldn't cope with one lone copper come to talk to you about a killer? And not jus' any killer, Miss Lewis. A baby killer, twenty years put away.”

The solicitor made no reply to this.

Nkata pressed on, nodding in the direction of Harriet Lewis's desk. “So you phone up Police Complaints right now, and you shout harassment and you file whatever you want to file. And when the story finds its way to the papers, you watch and see who gets the smear.”

“You're blackmailing me.”

“I'm telling you the facts. You c'n do with them what you want. What I want is the truth about Galveston Road. Give me that and I'm gone.”

“Go there yourself.”

“Been there once. Not going again without ammunition.”

“Galveston Road has nothing to do with—”

“Miss Lewis? Don't play me like a fool.” Nkata nodded at her telephone. “You making that call to the PCA? You ready to file your complaint 'gainst me?”

Harriet Lewis appeared to consider her options as she let out a breath. She came round the chair. She sat. She said, “Katja Wolff 's alibi lives in that house, Constable Nkata. She's a woman called Noreen McKay, and she's unwilling to step forward and clear Katja from suspicion. We went there last night to talk to her about it. We weren't successful. And I very much doubt you'll be.”