A Traitor to Memory

The drive was a short one. A few twists and turns put him on the Brixton Road, where he headed north, cruising in the direction of Kennington. He parked in front of the agricultural centre, where he sat for a moment, looking across the street through the sheets of rain that the wind was waving between his car and Yasmin Edwards' flat.

He'd been propelled to Kennington in part by the knowledge that he'd done wrong. He'd told himself earlier that he'd done this wrong for all the right reasons, and he believed there was a lot of truth to the assurance. He was fairly certain that Inspector Lynley might have used the same ploys with Yasmin Edwards and her lover, and he was absolutely positive that Barbara Havers would have done the same or more. But of course, they'd have had intentions a good sight nobler than his own had been, and beneath their behaviour would not have run the strong current of an aggression that was inconsistent with their invasion into the women's lives.

Nkata wasn't sure where the aggression came from or what it indicated about him as an officer of the police. He only knew that he felt it and that he needed to lose it before he could move with absolute comfort again.

He shoved open the car door, carefully locked it behind him, and dashed across the street to the block of flats. The lift door was closed. He began to ring the buzzer for Yasmin Edwards' flat, but he stopped with his finger suspended above the appropriate button. Instead, he rang the flat beneath it and when a man's voice asked who it was, he gave his name, said he'd been phoned about some vandalism in the car park, and would Mr.—he looked at the list of names quickly—Mr. Houghton be willing to look at some pictures to see if he recognised any faces among a group of youths arrested in the vicinity? Mr. Houghton agreed to do so and buzzed the lift open. Nkata rode to Yasmin Edwards' floor with a pang of guilt for the manner in which he'd gained access, but he told himself he'd stop below afterwards and apologise to Mr. Houghton for the ruse.

The curtains were shut upon Yasmin Edwards' windows, but a thread of light licked at the bottom of them and behind the door, the sound of television voices spoke. When he knocked, she wisely asked who it was and when he gave his name, he was forced to wait thirty eternal seconds while she made up her mind whether to admit him.

When she had done, she merely opened the door six inches, enough for him to see her in her leggings and her oversized sweater. Red this was, the colour of poppies. She said nothing. She looked at him squarely, her face without the slightest expression, which reminded him inadvertently again of who she was and what she always would be.

He said, “C'n I come in?”

“Why?”

“Talk.”

“About?”

“Is she here?”

“What d'you think?”

He heard the door open on the floor beneath them, knew it was Mr. Houghton wondering what had happened to the cop who'd come to show him pictures. He said, “Raining. Cold and damp're getting inside. You let me in and I stay a minute. Five at the most. I swear.”

She said, “Dan's asleep. I don't want him waked. He's got school—”

“Yeah. I'll keep my voice low.”

She took another moment to make up her mind, but at last she stepped back. She turned from the door and walked to where she'd been before he'd knocked, leaving him to open the door wider and then to close it quietly behind him.

He saw that she was watching a film. In it, Peter Sellers began to walk across water. It was an illusion, of course, the stuff of make-believe but suggestive of possibility nonetheless.

She took up the remote control but did not turn the television off. She merely muted the sound and continued to watch the picture.

He got the message and did not blame her for it. He would be even less welcome when he'd said what he'd come to say.

“We got the hit-and-run driver,” he told her. “It wasn't … Not Katja Wolff. She had a square alibi, 's things turned out.”

“I know her alibi,” Yasmin said. “Number Fifty-five.”

“Ah.” He looked at the television, then at her. She sat straight-backed. She looked like a model. She had a model's fine body, and she would have been perfect wearing trendy clothes for pictures except for her face, the scar on her mouth that made her look fierce and used and angry. He said, “Following leads 's part of the job, Missus Edwards. She had a connection with who got hit, and I couldn't ignore that.”

“I 'xpect you did what you had to do.”

“You did 's well,” he said to her. “That's what I came to say.”

“Sure I did,” she said. “Grassing's always the thing to do, isn't it?”