A Traitor to Memory

Not at first. He just sits with me. But after a moment he moves to place his hands on my shoulders as if he expects me to rise and wishes to hold me still where I lie so I might listen to him. So that's what I do. I lie there and we gaze at each other and then finally he starts to speak.

He says, “You're safe, Gideon. You are safe.”





What's he talking about? you ask. Have you had a bad dream? Is that why he's there? Or is it something more? Katja Wolff, perhaps? Are you safe from her? Or is this something from further back, Gideon, from the time before Katja lived at your house?

There've been people at the house. I remember that. I've been sent to my room in the company of Sarah-Jane Beckett, and she's talking talking talking to herself in a voice that I'm not meant to hear. She's pacing, talking, and pulling at her fingernails as if she wants to tear them off. She's saying, “I knew it. I could see this coming.” She's saying, “Bloody little whore,” and I know those are bad words, and I'm surprised and frightened because Sarah-Jane Beckett doesn't use bad words. “Thought we wouldn't know,” she says. “Thought we wouldn't notice.”





Notice what?

I don't know.

Outside my bedroom, there are footsteps and someone is crying, “Here! In here!” I recognise the voice as barely my father's because it is tinged with so much panic. Above his cries, I hear my mother, and she's saying, “Richard! Oh my God, Richard! Richard!” Granddad is raving, Gran is keening, and someone is calling for everyone to “clear the room, clear the room.” This last is a voice I don't recognise, and when Sarah-Jane hears it, she stops pacing and murmuring and she waits with her head bent, standing next to the door.

And there are other voices—more strangers' voices—that I hear. One asks a series of sharp questions beginning with how.

And there are more footsteps, constant movement, metal toolboxes hitting the floor, orders being barked by a man, other tense male voices responding, and through it all, someone is crying out, “No! I do not leave her alone!”





That must be Katja, because she says do instead of did, which might be what someone unfamiliar with English would say in a moment of panic. And when she says this, weeping as she says it, Sarah-Jane Beckett puts her hand on the doorknob and says, “Little bitch.”





I think she means to go into the corridor where all the noise is, but she doesn't do that. Instead, she looks towards the bed, where I'm watching her, and she says, “I won't be leaving now, I expect.”





Leaving, Gideon? Had she been going somewhere? Was it time for her annual holiday?

No. I don't think that's what she's talking about. Somehow I think this leaving was to be permanent.

Perhaps she's been sacked as your home teacher?

That doesn't seem reasonable. If she's been sacked for incompetence, dishonesty, or some sort of malfeasance, what does Sonia's death have to do with keeping her on as my teacher? Which is what happens, Dr. Rose: Sarah-Jane Beckett remains my teacher until I'm sixteen, when she marries and moves to Cheltenham. So she was planning to leave for another reason, but that reason is cancelled with Sonia's death.

Does that make Sonia the reason that Sarah-Jane Beckett was leaving?

It seems so, doesn't it? But I can't think why.

6





DOLL COTTAGE POSSESSED an attic, which was the last stop DC Barbara Havers and her superior officer made in Eugenie Davies' house. It was a tiny garret tucked into the eaves. They gained access to it through a hatch in the ceiling just outside the bathroom. Once inside, they were reduced to crawling across an expanse of flooring whose dust-free condition suggested that someone made regular visits, either to clean or to look through the small room's contents.

“So what d'you think?” Barbara asked as Lynley pulled on a cord affixed to a light bulb in the ceiling. A cone of yellow illumination shone down on him, casting shadows from his forehead that hid his eyes. “Wiley says she wanted to talk to him, but all he would really have to do is play a little fast and loose with the time line he's given us, and Bob would definitely be your et cetera.”

“Is that your colourful way of indicating Major Wiley has a motive?” Lynley asked her. “There are no cobwebs in here, Havers.”

“Already noted. No dust either.”

Lynley ran his hand over a wooden sea chest that stood next to several large cardboard boxes. It had a hasp as a fastener, but there was no lock, so he lifted the top and peered inside as Barbara crawled to the first of the boxes. He said, “Three years of patient effort, establishing a relationship that he hoped would be more than what she had on offer. She informs him, reluctantly, that there can never be more between them than there is because—”

“Because of some bloke driving a navy—or black—Audi with whom she has a row in a car park?”

“Possibly. In frustration he follows her to London—Major Wiley, this is—and runs her down. Yes. I suppose it could have happened that way.”

“But you don't think so?”

“I think it's early days yet. What've you got there?”

Barbara examined the contents of the box she'd opened. “Clothes.”