A Traitor to Memory

Nkata went back to the pub, which turned out to be a nearly empty room as cold as a barn where the air was redolent mostly of dust. He ordered himself a cider, and he took his drink to a table that faced the door.

She didn't make it in five, but she arrived under ten, coming through the door with a gust of wind. She looked round the pub, and when her eyes fell upon Nkata, she nodded once and came over to him, taking the long sure strides of a woman with power and confidence. She was quite tall, not as tall as Yasmin Edwards but taller than Katja Wolff, perhaps five foot ten.

She said, “Constable Nkata?”

He said, “Miss McKay?”

She pulled out a chair, unbuttoned her coat, shrugged out of it, and sat, elbows on the table and hands fingering back her hair. This was blonde and cut short, leaving her ears bare. She wore small pearl studs in their lobes. For a moment, she kept her head bent, but when she drew in a breath and looked up, her blue eyes fixed on Nkata with plain dislike.

“What do you want from me? I don't like interruptions while I'm at work.”

“Could've caught up with you at home,” Nkata said. “But here was closer than Galveston Road from Harriet Lewis's office.”

At the mention of the solicitor, her face became guarded. “You know where I live,” she said cautiously.

“Followed a bird called Katja Wolff there last night. From Kennington to Wandsworth by bus, this was. It was in'ersting to note that she went the whole route and didn't stop once to ask directions. Seems like she knew where she was going good enough.”

Noreen McKay sighed. She was middle-aged—probably near fifty, Nkata thought—but the fact that she wore little make-up served her well. She heightened what she had without looking painted, so her colour seemed authentic. She was neatly dressed in the uniform of the prison. Her white blouse was crisp, the navy epaulets bore their brass ornamentation brightly, and her trousers had creases that would have done a military man proud. She had keys on her belt, a radio as well, and some sort of pouch. She looked impressive.

She said, “I don't know what this is about, but I've nothing to say to you, Constable.”

“Not even 'bout Katja Wolff?” he asked her. “'Bout what she was doing calling on you with her solicitor in tow? They filing a law suit 'gainst you, or something?”

“As I just said, I've nothing to say, and there's no room for compromise in my position. I've a future and two adolescents to consider.”

“Not a husband, though?”

She brushed one hand through her hair again. It seemed to be a characteristic gesture. “I've never been married, Constable. I've had my sister's children since they were four and six years old. Their father didn't want them when Susie died—too busy playing the footloose bachelor—but he's started coming round now he's realising he won't be twenty years old forever. Frankly, I don't want to give him a reason to take them.”

“There's a reason, then? What would that be?”

Noreen McKay shoved away from the table and went to the bar instead of replying. There, she placed an order and waited while her gin was poured over two ice cubes and a bottle of tonic set next to it.

Nkata watched her, trying to fill in the blanks with a simple scrutiny of her person. He wondered which part of prison work had first attracted Noreen McKay: the power it provided over other people, the sense of superiority it offered, or the chance it represented to cast a fishing line in waters where the trout had no psychological protection.

She returned to the table, her drink in hand. She said, “You saw Katja Wolff and her solicitor come to my home. That's the extent of what you saw.”

“Saw her let herself in 's well. She didn't knock.”

“Constable, she's a German.”

Nkata cocked his head. “I got no recollection of Germans not knowing they're s'posed to knock on strangers' doors before walking in on them, Miss McKay. Mostly, I think they know the rules. Especially the ones telling them they don't have to knock where they already've got themselves well established.”

Noreen McKay lifted her gin and tonic. She drank but made no reply.

Nkata said, “What I'm wondering 'bout the whole situation is this: Is Katja the first lag you had some rabbit with or was she just one in a line of nellies?”

The woman flushed. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“What I'm talking about's your position at Holloway and how you might've used and abused it over the years, and what action the guv'nors might think of taking if word got out you've been doing the nasty where you ought to be just locking the doors. You got how many years in the job? You got a pension? In line for promotion to warden? What?”

She smiled without humour, saying, “You know, I wanted to be a policeman, Constable, but I've dyslexia and I couldn't pass the exams. So I turned to prison work because I like the idea of citizens upholding the law, and I believe in punishing those who cross the line.”