A Traitor to Memory

“What good would that do? You said she didn't see—”





“Gideon, for God's sake. Why do you think she left me? Why do you suppose she took every picture of your sister with her?”





I stared at him. I tried to read him. And more than that, I tried to find the answer to a single question that I didn't give voice to: Even if I saw her, would she tell me the truth?

But Dad appeared to see this question in my eyes, because quickly he said, “Your mother has no reason to lie to you, son. And surely the manner of her disappearance from our lives tells you she couldn't bear the guilt of living the pretence that I'd forced her into living.”





“It also might mean that she couldn't bear to live in the same house with a son who'd murdered his sister.”





“Then let her tell you that.”





We were eye to eye, and I waited for a sign that he was the least apprehensive. But no sign came.

“You can trust me,” he told me.

And I wanted more than anything to believe that promise.

25





HAVERS SAID, “I wish the situation would stop changing direction every twenty-five minutes. If it would, we might actually be able to get a handle on this case.”

Lynley made a turn into Belsize Avenue and did a quick recce of the A to Z in his brain to plot out a decent route to Portman Street. Next to him, Havers was continuing to grouse.

“So if Davies is down, who're we on to? Leach must be right. It's got to be back to Wolff with another antique car in possession of someone she knows that we haven't sussed out yet. That someone loans the car to her—probably not knowing what she wants it for—and she goes gunning for the principals who put her into the nick. Or maybe the two of them go gunning together. We haven't considered that possibility yet.”

“That scenario argues an innocent woman going to prison for twenty years,” Lynley pointed out.

“It's been known to happen,” Havers said.

“But not with the innocent person saying nothing about being innocent in the first place.”

“She's from East Germany, former totalitarian state. She'd been in England … what? Two years? Three? When Sonia Davies drowned? She finds herself questioned by the local rozzers and she gets paranoid and won't talk to them. That makes sense to me. I don't expect she had the warm fuzzies for the police where she came from, do you?”

Lynley said, “I agree that she might have been rattled by police. But she would have told someone she was innocent, Havers. She would have spoken to her lawyers, surely. But she didn't. What does that suggest to you?”

“Someone got to her.”

“How?”

“Hell, I don't know.” Havers pulled at her hair in frustration, as if this action would dislodge another possibility in her brain, which it did not.

Lynley thought about what Havers had suggested, however. He said, “Page Winston. He may have something for us.”

Havers used Lynley's mobile to do so. They worked their way down to Finchley Road. The wind, which had been brisk all day, had picked up in force during the late afternoon, and now it was hurtling autumn leaves and rubbish along the street. It was also carrying a storm in from the northeast, and as they made the turn into Baker Street, drops began to splatter the Bentley's windscreen. November's early darkness had fallen on London, and the lights from passing vehicles coned forward, creating a playing area for the first sheet of rain.

Lynley cursed. “This'll make a fine mess of the crime scene.”

Havers agreed. Lynley's mobile rang. Havers handed it over.

Winston Nkata reported that unless Katja Wolff's longtime lover was lying, the German woman was in the clear. Both for the murder of Eugenie Davies and for the hit-and-run of Malcolm Webberly. They were together both nights, he said.

Lynley said, “That's nothing new, Winston. You've told us that Yasmin Edwards confirms that she and Katja—”

This lover wasn't Yasmin Edwards, Nkata informed him. This lover was the deputy warden at Holloway, one Noreen McKay, who'd been involved with Katja Wolff for years. McKay hadn't wanted to come forward for obvious reasons, but put on the rack, she'd admitted to being with the German woman on both nights in question.

“Phone her name into the incident room anyway,” Lynley told Nkata. “Have them run her through the DVLA. Where's Wolff now?”

“'Xpect she's home in Kennington,” Nkata said. “I'm heading over there now.”

“Why?”

There was a pause on Nkata's end before the constable said, “Thought it best to let her know she's in the clear. I was rough on her.”

Lynley wondered exactly whom the constable meant when he said her. “First phone Leach with the McKay woman's name. Her address as well.”

“After that?”

“See to the Kennington situation. But, Winnie, go easy.”