A Traitor to Memory

She started the car before he could reply, putting it into gear with a jerk. He winced. “Had I known you'd react this way, I would have told you. Do you think I actually want anything to estrange us? Now? With the baby due any moment? Do you think I want that? For the love of God, we nearly lost each other tonight.”


Jill moved the car out into Grafton Way. She knew intuitively that something wasn't right, but what she couldn't intuit was whether that something was wrong within her or wrong within the man she loved.

Richard didn't speak till they'd crisscrossed over into Portland Place and headed through the rain in the direction of Cavendish Square. And then he said, “I must speak with Gideon as soon as possible. He could be in danger as well. If something happens to him … after everything else …”

The as well told Jill volumes. She said, “This is connected to what happened to Eugenie, isn't it?”

His silence comprised an eloquent response. Fear began to eat away at her again.

Too late Jill saw that the route she'd chosen was going to take them directly past Wigmore Hall. And the worst of it was that there was apparently a concert on this night, because a glut of taxis were crowding the street there, all of them jockeying to disgorge their passengers directly under the glass marquee. She saw Richard turn from the sight of it.

He said, “She's out of prison. And twelve weeks to the day that she got out of prison, Eugenie was murdered.”

“You think that German woman …? The woman who killed …?” And then it was all back before her again, rendering any other discussion impossible: the image of that pitiable baby and the fact that her condition had been hidden, hidden from Jill Foster, who'd had a serious and vested interest in knowing all there was to know about Richard Davies and his fathering of children. She said, “Were you afraid to tell me? Is that it?”

“You knew Katja Wolff was out of prison. We even spoke of that with the detective the other day.”

“I'm not talking about Katja Wolff. I'm talking about … You know what I'm talking about.” She swung the car into Portman Square and from there dropped down and over to Park Lane, saying, “You were afraid that I wouldn't want to try for a baby if I knew. I'd have too many fears. You were afraid of that, so you didn't tell me because you didn't trust me.”

“How did you expect me to give you the information?” Richard asked. “Was I supposed to say, ‘Oh, by the way, my ex-wife gave birth to a handicapped child’? It wasn't relevant.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because we weren't trying for a baby, you and I. We were having sex. Good sex. The best. And we were in love. But we weren't—”

“I wasn't taking precautions. You knew that.”

“But what I didn't know was that you weren't aware that Sonia had been … My God, it was in all the papers when she died: the fact that she was drowned, that she was Down's Syndrome and that she was drowned. I never thought I had to mention it.”

“I didn't know it. She died over twenty years ago, Richard. I was sixteen years old. What sixteen-year-old do you know who reads the newspaper and remembers what she's read two decades later?”

“I'm not responsible for what you can and can't remember.”

“But you are responsible for making me aware of something that could affect my future and our baby's future.”

“You were going at it without precautions. I assumed you had your future planned out.”

“Are you telling me you think I entrapped you?” They'd reached the traffic lights at the end of Park Lane, and Jill pivoted awkwardly in her seat to face him. “Is that what you're saying? Are you telling me that I was so desperate to have you as a husband that I got myself pregnant to ensure you'd be willing to trot up to the altar? Well, it hasn't exactly worked out that way, has it? I've compromised right, left, and centre for you.” A taxi blared its horn behind her. Jill glanced in the rearview mirror first, then took note that the lights were now green. They edged their way round the Wellington Arch, and Jill was grateful for the size of the Humber that made her more than visible to the buses and more intimidating to the smaller cars.

“What I'm telling you,” Richard said steadily, “is that I don't want to argue about this. It happened. I didn't tell you something I thought you knew. I may not have mentioned it, but I never tried to hide it.”

“How can you say that when you've not a single picture of her anywhere?”

“That's been for Gideon's sake. Do you think I wanted my son to spend his life looking at his murdered sister? How do you expect that would affect his music? When Sonia was killed, we all went through hell. All of us, Jill, including Gideon. We needed to forget, and removing all the pictures of her seemed one way to do it. Now, if you can't understand that or forgive it, if you wish to end our relationship because of it—” His voice quavered. He put his hand to his face, pulling on the skin along his jaw, savagely pulling it, saying nothing.