A Traitor to Memory

“Hers?”


Barbara lifted the first garment out and held it up: a small child's pair of corduroy dungarees, pink, embroidered with yellow flowers. “The daughter's, I expect.” She rustled downwards and scooped out an entire pile of clothing: dresses, jumpers, pyjamas, shorts, T-shirts, Babygros, shoes, and socks. All of it was thematically identical: The colours and the decorations indicated it had been used to dress the child who'd been murdered. Barbara packed it back into the box that had held it and turned to the next box as Lynley lifted out the contents of the wooden sea chest.

The second box contained what appeared to be the linens and the other objects that had been used on a baby's cot. Peter Rabbit sheets lay folded neatly inside, and what accompanied them were a musical mobile, a well-worn Jemima Puddleduck, six other stuffed animals in a condition that suggested they'd been less favoured than Jemima, and the padding that was used round the sides of a cot to prevent a small child from banging her head.

The third box held bathing accoutrements: everything from rubber duckies to a miniature dressing gown. Barbara was about to comment on the macabre nature of having kept this particular set of items—considering the end that the child had met—when Lynley said: “This is interesting, Havers.”

She looked up to see that he'd put on his glasses and was holding a stack of newspaper articles, the first of which he'd opened to peruse. Next to him on the floor he'd piled the rest of the sea chest's contents, which comprised a collection of magazines and newspapers and five leather albums suitable for photographs or scrapbooks. “What?” she asked him.

“She's kept a virtual library on Gideon.”

“From newspapers? For what?”

“For playing his violin.” Lynley lowered the magazine article he was looking at and said, “Gideon Davies, Havers.”

Barbara rested back on her heels, a washing mitt shaped like a cat in her hand. “Should I be swooning at this bit of news?”

“You don't know …? Never mind,” Lynley said. “I forget myself. Classical music isn't your forte. Were he the lead guitarist for Rotting Teeth—”

“Do I sense scorn for my musical preference?”

“—or some other group, no doubt you'd have leapt upon his name.”

“Right,” Barbara said. “So who is this bloke when he's at home in the shower?”

Lynley explained: a virtuoso violinist, a former child prodigy, the possessor of a worldwide reputation who'd made his professional debut before he was ten years old. “It appears that his mother kept everything associated with his career.”

“In spite of her estrangement from him?” Havers said. “That suggests he was the one who wanted it. Or the dad, perhaps.”

“Doesn't it, though,” Lynley agreed, sifting through the material. “She's got a treasure trove here. Everything from his latest appearance especially, tabloids included.”

“Well, if he's famous …” Barbara pulled out a smaller box from among the bathing items. She opened it to discover a collection of prescription medicines, all made out to the same person: Sonia Davies.

“No. This was something of a fiasco,” Lynley told her. “A piece of music for a trio. At Wigmore Hall, this was. He refused to play. He left the platform at the start of the piece, and he hasn't played in public since.”

“Got his knickers in a twist about something?”

“Perhaps.”

“Stage fright?”

“Also possible.” Lynley held up the newspapers: tabloids and broadsheets. “She appears to have collected every article that made mention of it, no matter how small.”

“Well, she was his mum. What's in the albums?”

Lynley opened the first of these as Barbara moved to look over his shoulder. More newspaper articles had been preserved inside the leather volumes. These were accompanied by concert programmes, publicity pictures, and brochures for an organisation called East London Conservatory.

“I wonder exactly why they were estranged,” Barbara asked, seeing all of this.

“That's certainly the question,” Lynley replied.

They sorted through the rest of the contents of the boxes and the chest and found that everything inside was associated with either Gideon or Sonia Davies. It was as if, Barbara thought, Eugenie Davies had herself not existed before her children had. It was as if she had ceased to exist when she'd lost them. Except, of course, she'd actually lost only one of them.

“I expect we're going to have to track down Gideon,” Barbara noted.

“He's on the list,” Lynley agreed.