A Traitor to Memory

Like the hotels, the In tray, Barbara found, wasn't exactly a fountain of riveting information. It held three applications for membership to the Sixty Plus Club—all from recent widows in their seventies—as well as what appeared to be drafts of announcements for upcoming activities. Barbara whistled softly when she saw what the club had on offer for its members. With the approaching holiday season, the pensioners were scheduling themselves into an admirable round of events: Everything from a coach trip to Bath for dinner and the panto to a New Year's Eve Gala was available. There were cocktail parties, dinners, dances, Boxing Day outings, and midnight church services advertised for the over-sixties crowd who certainly weren't taking their golden years in anything resembling a supine position.

Behind her, Barbara heard the whir and beep of Eugenie Davies' computer coming out of sleep. She got up and went to the single filing cabinet as Lynley took her place at the desk and swung the chair round to face the computer behind it. The filing cabinet had a lock, but it wasn't fastened, so Barbara pulled open the first drawer and began leafing through the files. These appeared to be largely devoted to correspondence with other pensioners' organisations in the UK. However, there were also documents that dealt with the National Health, with a travel-and-study programme called Elder Hostel, with geriatric issues from Alzheimer's to osteoporosis, and with legal issues surrounding wills, trusts, and investments. A manila folder was devoted to correspondence from the children of adult members of the Sixty Plus Club. Most of these were letters of gratitude and appreciation for what the club was doing to bring Mum or Dad out of his or her shell. A few questioned the devotion Mum or Dad had apparently developed for an organisation unrelated to the immediate family. Barbara pulled this last group out and set them on the desk. No telling if a pensioner's relative had got a bit worried over Mum's or Dad's affection for the director of the club, not to mention where that affection might have led. She checked to make sure none of the letters were signed Wiley. None were, but that didn't mean that the major had no married daughter who'd written to Eugenie.

One of the files was particularly interesting, as it was filled with photographs of the club during a variety of events. As Barbara flipped through these, she noted that Major Wiley was a frequent subject of the pictures and that he was generally in the company of a woman who hung on his arm, draped herself over his shoulder, or sat in his lap. Georgia Ramsbottom. Dear Teddy. Ah yes, Barbara thought. She said, “Inspector,” at the same moment as Lynley said, “Here's something, Havers.”

Photographs in hand, she went to the computer. She saw that he had accessed the internet and that he'd brought Eugenie Davies' e-mail onto the screen. “She didn't have a password?” Barbara asked as she handed him the pictures.

“She had,” Lynley said. “But it was easy enough to suss out, all things considered.”

“One of the kids' names?” Barbara asked.

“Sonia,” he said, and then a moment later, “Damn.”

“What?”

“There's nothing here.”

“No convenient message threatening her life? No arrangement for a trip to Hampstead? What about an invitation to Le Meridien?”

“Nothing at all.” Lynley peered at the screen. “How do you trace someone's e-mail, Havers? Might she have old messages hidden somewhere?”

“You're asking me? I've only just got used to mobile phones.”

“We need to find them. If they're here.”

“We'll need to take it, then,” Barbara said. “The computer, sir. There's going to be someone in London who'll be able to sort it out.”

“There is indeed,” Lynley replied. He sifted through the pictures she'd handed to him, but he didn't appear to give them much attention.

“Georgia Ramsbottom,” Barbara prompted him. “She and dear Teddy appear to have been quite an item at one time.”

“Sixty-year-old women running each other down in the road?” Lynley queried.

“It's a thought,” Barbara said. “I wonder if her car's bashed up.”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Lynley replied.

“But we should have a look. I don't think we can—”

“Yes, yes. We'll have a look. It's bound to be in the car park.” But he sounded dismissive, and Barbara didn't much like it when he set the photographs down summarily and returned to the computer, his mind made up. He logged off Eugenie Davies' e-mail, shut down the machine, and began to unplug it. “Let's trace where Mrs. Davies has been on the internet,” he told her. “No one goes on-line without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.”



“CreamPants.” DCI Eric Leach kept his face impassive. He'd been a cop for twenty-six years, and he'd long ago realised that in his line of work only a numbskull optimistically concluded he'd heard everything there was to hear from fellow members of the human race. But this one was clearly something for the books. “You did say CreamPants, Mr. Pitchley?”