A Traitor to Memory

“They should be scattered round the house. The sitting room. Upstairs. In here. That's how they always were.” He pulled out one of the two chairs beneath the table and lowered himself into it heavily. He looked fairly spent at this point, but he nodded at Havers where she stood by the answer machine.

Lynley studied the major as he listened to the messages. He tried to read Wiley's reaction when he heard the voices of two other men on the machine. From their words and their tone, it was obvious that they were both involved with Eugenie Davies in some way. But if Wiley reached that conclusion himself and if that conclusion distressed him, he gave no indication other than colour in a face already so rubicund as to make measuring further redness impossible.

At the end of the messages, Lynley asked, “Do you recognise anyone?”

“Lynn,” he said. “She did tell me that, Eugenie did. The child of a friend called Lynn passed away suddenly, and Eugenie went to the funeral. She told me that when she'd heard that the child had died, she knew how Lynn felt and she wanted to commiserate.”

“Heard that she'd died?” Havers asked. “Heard from who?”

Wiley didn't know. He hadn't thought to ask. “I assumed the woman must have rung her up. This Lynn person,” he said, “whoever she is.”

“Do you know where the funeral was?”

He shook his head. “She went off for the day.”

“When was this?”

“Last Tuesday. I asked her if she wanted me to go as well. Funerals being what they are, I thought she might welcome the company. But she said she and Lynn had some talking to do. ‘I need to see her,’ she said. That was all.”

“Need to see her?” Lynley asked. “That's what she said?”

“Need. Yes. That's what she said.”

Need, Lynley thought. Not want, but need. He considered the word and everything it implied. What follows need, he knew, is usually action.

But was that the case here in this kitchen in Henley, where it appeared several needs were colliding? There was Eugenie Davies' need to confess sin to Major Wiley. There was an unidentified man's need to talk to Eugenie, declared on her answer machine. And there was Ted Wiley's need … for what?

Lynley asked Havers to play the messages one more time, and he wondered if Wiley's slight change of posture—drawing his arms closer to his body—was an indication of steeling himself. He kept his gaze fixed on the major as once again the two men on the machine declared their need to speak to Eugenie.

I had to ring again, the one voice declared. Eugenie, I need to speak with you.

And there it was again: that word need. What would a man do with a desperate need?



How wd u do it 2 me if u cd?

TongueMan read the question from LadyFire without his usual surge of gratification. They'd been dancing round this moment for weeks, despite an initial—and inaccurate—assessment of her on his part which had suggested he'd have her ready for a go well in advance of CreamPants. It just went to show that you couldn't judge the outcome by someone's ability to engage in suggestive cyberchat, didn't it? LadyFire had come on strong at first in the descriptive arena, but she'd faded quickly when the talk shifted from fantasy fucks between celebrities (she'd been astonishing in her ability to convey a hot encounter between a purple-haired rock star and their nation's monarch) to fantasy fucks in which she herself was one of the partners. Indeed, TongueMan had thought for a time that he'd lost her altogether by pushing too soon and revealing too much. He'd even considered moving on to the next possibility—EatMe—and he was about to do so when LadyFire reappeared on the cyberscene. She'd needed some time to think, evidently. But now she knew what she wanted. So How wd u do it 2 me if u cd?

TongueMan studied the question and took note of the fact that his mind didn't kick into high gear at the thought of another supercharged semi-anonymous encounter with another cyberlover so soon after his last. He was doing his best to forget his last anyway, and especially to forget everything that had followed: the flashing lights, the barriers blocking off both ends of his street, the eyes of suspicion coming to rest on him, the Boxter—damn them—being hauled off for police inspection. But he'd handled it all well enough, he decided. Yes. He'd handled it like a pro.