A Traitor to Memory

“All right. But why would she arrange to see him?”


Havers took a different tack from all the possibilities she'd offered earlier in the case. She said, “Maybe he arranged to see her once she'd located him. And she contacted him because …” Havers considered the potential reasons, settling on, “because Katja Wolff just got out of the slammer. If the whole boiling lot of them framed her and she was finally out of prison, they'd have plans to lay, right? About how to deal with her if she came calling?”

“But we're back to that, Havers. An entire household of people framing an individual who then doesn't utter a word in her own defence? Why?”

“Fear of what they could do to her? The granddad sounds like a real terror. P'rhaps he got to her in some way. He said, ‘Play our game or we'll let the world know …’” Havers considered this and rejected her own idea, saying, “Know what? That she was in the club? Big deal. Like anyone cared at that point? It came out that she was pregnant anyway.”

Lynley held up a hand to stop her from dismissing the thought. He said, “But you could be on to something, Barbara. It could have been ‘Play our game or we'll let it out who the father of your baby is.’”

“Big deal again.”

“Yes, big deal,” Lynley argued, “if it's not a case of letting the world know who the father is but letting Eugenie Davies know.”

“Richard?”

“It wouldn't be the first time the man of the house got entangled with the nanny.”

“What about him, then?” Havers said. “What about Davies knocking off Eugenie?”

“Motive and alibi,” Lynley pointed out. “He doesn't have one. He has the other. Although the reverse could be said of Robson.”

“But where does Webberly fit in? In fact, where does he fit in no matter who we go with?”

“He fits in only with Wolff. And that takes us back to the original crime: the murder of Sonia Davies. And that takes us back to the initial group who were involved in the subsequent investigation.”

“P'rhaps someone's just making it look like everything's connected to that period of time, sir. Because isn't it the truth that a more profound connection exists: the romantic one between Webberly and Eugenie Davies? And that takes us to Richard, doesn't it? To Richard or to Frances Webberly.”

Lynley didn't want to think of Frances. He said, “Or to Gideon, blaming Webberly for the end of his parents' marriage.”

“That's weak.”

“But something's going on with him, Havers. If you met him, you'd agree. And he has no alibi other than being home alone.”

“Where was his dad?”

Lynley referred to his notes once again. “With the fiancée. She confirms.”

“But he's got a much better motive than Gideon if the Webberly-Eugenie connection's behind this.”

“Hmm. Yes. I do see that. But to assign him the motive of rubbing out his wife and Webberly begs the question of why he would wait all these years to see to the job.”

“He had to wait till now. This is when Katja Wolff was released. He'd know we'd establish a trail to her.”

“That's nursing a grievance for a hell of a long time.”

“So maybe it's a more recent grievance.”

“More recent …? Are you arguing he's fallen in love with her a second time in his life?” Lynley considered his question. “All right. I think it's unlikely, but for the sake of argument, I'll go with it. Let's consider the possibility that he's had his love for his former wife reawakened. We begin with him divorced from her.”

“Destroyed by the fact that she walked out on him,” Havers added.

“Right. Now, Gideon has trouble with the violin. His mother reads about that trouble in the papers or hears it from Robson. She gets back in touch with Davies.”

“They talk often. They begin to reminisce. He thinks they're going to make a go of it again, and he's hot to trot—”

“This is, of course, ignoring the entire question of Jill Foster,” Lynley pointed out.

“Hang on, Inspector. Richard and Eugenie talk about Gideon. They talk about old times, their marriage, whatever. Everything he's felt gets fired up again. He becomes a potato all hot for the oven, only to find out that Eugenie's got someone lined up in her knickers already: Wiley.”

“Not Wiley,” Lynley said. “He's too old. Davies wouldn't see him as competition. Besides, Wiley told us she had something she wanted to reveal to him. She'd said as much. But she didn't want to reveal it three nights ago—”

“Because she was headed to London,” Havers said. “To Crediton Hill.”