A Traitor to Memory

“I'm afraid so,” Lynley said.

“The motorway? She said she'd be careful. She said not to worry. She said we'd talk. Tonight. We'd talk. She wanted to talk.” He was speaking not so much to them but to the coffee table in front of the sofa on which Havers had deposited him. She sat next to him, perched on the edge.

Lynley took the armchair. He said gently, “I'm afraid Eugenie Davies was killed last night.”

Wiley turned his head to Lynley in what looked like slow motion. “The motorway,” he said. “The rain. I didn't want her to go.”

For the moment, Lynley didn't disabuse him of the notion that there had been a motorway car crash. The BBC early morning news had carried the story of the hit-and-run, but no mention had been made of Eugenie Davies' name at that time since her body had yet to be identified and her family had yet to be tracked down. Lynley said, “She left after dark, then? What time was this?”

Wiley said numbly, “Half past nine, I think? Ten? We were walking back from St. Mary the Virgin—”

“Evensong?” Havers had taken out her notebook and was jotting down the information.

“No, no,” Wiley said. “There was no service. She'd gone in … to pray? I don't actually know because …” He removed his cap then, as if he were in church himself. He held it with both hands. “I didn't go in with her. I had my dog. My golden. P.B.? That's her name. We waited in the church yard.”

“This was in the rain?” Lynley asked.

Wiley twisted the cap. “Dogs don't mind rain. And it was time for her last walk of the evening. P.B.'s last walk.”

Lynley said, “Can you tell us why she was going to London?”

Wiley gave the cap another twist. “She said she had an appointment there.”

“With whom? Where?”

“I don't know. She said we'd talk tonight.”

“About the appointment?”

“I don't know. God. I don't know.” His voice fractured but Ted Wiley wasn't a retired Army man for nothing. He regained control within a second. Then he said, “How did it happen? Where? Did she skid? Hit a lorry?”

Lynley gave the facts to him, offering just enough details to tell Wiley where and how she had died. He didn't use the word murder in his explanation. And Wiley didn't interrupt to ask why the Metropolitan police were trolling through the belongings of a woman who, to all intents and purposes, was the victim of a simple hit-and-run.

But a moment after Lynley had finished his explanation, Wiley made the leap. He seemed to take measure of the fact that Havers had descended the stairs upon his arrival wearing latex gloves. He put this together with the police punching one-four-seven-one on Eugenie's phone. He added to this what they had said about Eugenie's answer machine. And he said, “This can't have been an accident. Because why would you … the two of you coming out here from London …” His eyes focused on something else, perhaps someone else, a vision in the distance that seemed to prompt him to say, “That bloke in the car park last night. This isn't an accident, is it?” And he rose.

Havers rose as well and urged him back down. He cooperated, but now he was changed, as if an unnamed purpose had begun to consume him. From twisting his cap, he went to slapping it against his palm. He said, quite as if he were giving an order to a subordinate, “Tell me what happened to Eugenie.”

There seemed little risk that he would have a heart attack or stroke, so Lynley told him that he and Havers were part of a murder squad, leaving him to fill in the rest of the blanks. He went on to say, “Tell us about the man in the car park,” which Wiley did without hesitation.

He'd walked up to the Sixty Plus Club, where Eugenie worked. He went with P.B. to accompany Eugenie home in the rain. When he got there, he observed her in an altercation with a man. Not a local man, Wiley said. This was someone from Brighton.

“She told you that?” Lynley asked.

Wiley shook his head. He'd got a glimpse of the number plate as the car sped off. He couldn't get it all, but he saw the letters: ADY. “I was worried about her. She'd been acting a little peculiar for several days, so I looked the letters up in the registration mark guide. I saw ADY is Brighton. The car was an Audi. Navy or black. I couldn't tell in the dark.”

“You keep a copy handy?” Havers asked. “The registration mark guide? Is this a hobby or something?”

“It's in the bookshop. Travel section. I sell a copy now and then. People who want to give their kids something to do in the car. That sort of thing.”

“Ah.”

Lynley knew Havers' ah. She was watching Wiley curiously. He said, “You didn't intercede in the altercation between Mrs. Davies and this man, Major Wiley?”

“I came into the car park only at the end of it. I heard a few shouted words—on his part, this was. He got into the car. Took off before I was close enough to say anything. That was it.”

“Who did Mrs. Davies say this man was?”