A Traitor to Memory

“I don't see how that conclusion is at all accurate,” Azoff said, affronted by the implication.

“Don't you, now? Let me enlighten you. Unless I've been dreaming, Mr. Pitchley has just informed us that his hobby is to use the internet to root out women over fifty—to chat up and coax into bed. He's just informed us that he's enjoyed a rather marked degree of success in this arena. So much so that he can't even recall how many women have been on the receiving end of his erotic talents. Am I correct, Mr. Pitchley?”

Pitchley shifted position on his chair and took a sip of water. His skin was still flushed, and his hair—dust-coloured with a central parting that created wings which flopped into his face—swept downwards when he nodded. He kept his head lowered. From embarrassment or regret, as a means of obfuscation … Who the hell could tell?

“Fine. Let's continue. Now, we have an older woman who's run down by a vehicle on Mr. Pitchley's street, a few doors from his own home. This woman just happens to be in possession of Mr. Pitchley's address. What does that suggest to you?”

“I wouldn't draw any conclusion myself,” Azoff said.

“Naturally. But it's my job to draw conclusions. And the conclusion I draw is that this lady was on her way to see Mr. Pitchley.”

“We've made no admission that Mr. Pitchley was expecting or knew the woman in question.”

“And if she was on her way to see him, we have from Mr. Pitchley's own lips one hell of an excellent reason why.” Leach pressed his point by leaning forward, the better to see beneath Pitchley's protection of hair. “She was just round the age you like them, Pitchley. Sixty-two. Nice shape to her body—what was left of it, that is, after the car did its work with her. She was divorced. No remarriage. No children at home. I wonder if she'd got herself a computer? Something to use to while away the nights when she was feeling lonely out there in Henley?”

“That's just not possible,” Pitchley said. “They never know where I live. They never know how to find me after we've … once we've … well, after we've left Cromwell Road.”

“You just fuck 'em and flee,” Leach said. “That's rich, that is. But what if one of them decided she didn't like that arrangement? What if one of them followed you home? Not last night, of course, but on another night. Followed you, saw where you live, and bided her time when you never contacted her again.”

“She didn't. She can't have done.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't ever go directly home. I drive round for at least thirty minutes—sometimes an hour—once we leave the hotel to make certain …” He paused and managed to look relatively miserable about the admission he was making, “I drive round to make certain she's … well, not on my tail.”

“Very wise,” Leach said with irony.

“I know how it sounds. I know it makes me look a perfect shit. And if that's what I am, then that's what I am. But what I'm not is a man who'd run down a woman in the street and you damn well know it if you've examined my car and not used the opportunity to joyride it round London. So I'd like the Boxter returned, Inspector Leach.”

“Would you, now?”

“I would. You wanted information, and I've given you information. I've told you where I was last night, I've told you why, and I've told you with whom.”

“With CreamPants.”

“All right. I'll go on-line again. I'll get her to come forward if that's what you want.”

“You can do and will do,” Leach agreed. “But by your own admission, I don't see how that's going to help much in the larger picture.”

“Why? I can't have been in two places at once.”

“True enough. But even if Miss CreamPants, or perhaps it's Mrs. CreamPants”—Leach couldn't hide his smirk and he didn't bother to try—“confirms your story, there's part of it she can't help you with, isn't there? She can't tell us where you drove for an hour or thirty minutes after you finished with her. And if you're about to argue that she may have followed you, then you're on thin ice again. Because if she followed you, there's a very good chance that Eugenie Davies, after a similar romp on the Cromwell Road, once did the same.”

Abruptly, Pitchley pushed back from the table, and with so much force that his chair shrieked like a siren against the floor. “Who?” His voice was hoarse, as if it were sandpaper trying to speak. “Who did you say?”

“Eugenie Davies. The dead woman.” Even as he spoke, DCI Leach read the new reality on the other man's face. “You know her. And by that name. You know her, Mr. Pitchley?”

“Oh God. Oh hell.” Pitchley moaned.

Azoff said to his client in a flash, “Need five minutes?”

No answer was required of the suspect, because a quick tap sounded on the door of the interview room, and a female PC popped her head inside. She said to Leach, “DI Lynley on the phone, sir. Now or later?”

“Five minutes,” Leach said curtly to Pitchley and Azoff. He picked up his paperwork and left them alone.