A Traitor to Memory

So the plans were set and the assignments made, and in short order Lynley and Havers were back in the street and heading for their respective cars. Havers lit a cigarette and said, “What're you going to do with those letters, Inspector?”


Lynley didn't pretend to need clarification. “I'm giving them back to Webberly,” he said, “eventually.”

“Giving them …” Havers drew in on her cigarette and blew the smoke out in a burst of frustration. “If word gets out that you've taken them from the scene and not turned them in … That we've taken them from the scene and not turned them in … Bloody hell, do you know where that puts us, Inspector? And on top of it, there's that computer. Why didn't you tell Leach about that computer?”

“I'll tell him, Havers,” Lynley said. “Once I know exactly what's on it.”

“Jesus in a basket!” Havers cried. “That's suppressing—”

“Listen, Barbara. There's only one way it would come to light right now that we've got the computer and those letters, and we both know what that one way is.” He looked at her evenly and waited for her to connect the dots.

Her expression altered. She said, “Hey. I don't grass, Inspector,” and he could see the affront she'd taken.

He said, “That's why I work with you, Barbara,” and he disarmed the Bentley's security system. He opened the door before he spoke to her again, over the car's roof. “If I've been brought in on this case to keep Webberly protected, I'd like to know that and I'd like it said to my face for once. Wouldn't you?”

“I'd like to keep my nose clean is what I'd like,” Havers replied. “One of us got demoted two months ago, Inspector, and if memory serves me right, it wasn't you.” She was white-faced, watching Lynley with an expression that was completely unlike the belligerent officer he'd worked with for the past several years. She'd taken a professional and psychological beating in the last five months, and Lynley realised that he owed her the opportunity to avoid another one. He said, “Havers, would you prefer to be out of this? That's not a problem. One phone call and—”

“I don't want to be out.”

“But it could get dicey. It's already dicey. I more than understand how you might—”

“Don't talk rubbish. I'm in, Inspector. I'd just like us to have a little care with what we're doing.”

“I'm taking care,” Lynley assured her. “Those letters from Webberly are not an issue in this case.”

“You'd better hope that's true,” Havers replied. She pushed away from the Bentley. “Let's get on with it, then. What's next?”

Lynley accepted her words and dwelt for a moment on how best to approach the next phase of their job. “You've the look of a woman in need of spiritual guidance,” he said. “Track down the Convent of the Immaculate Conception.”

“What about you?”

“I'll follow our DCI's suggestion. Richard Davies. If he's seen or talked to his former wife recently, he might know what she wanted to confess to Wiley.”

“He might be what she wanted to confess to Wiley,” Havers pointed out.

“There's that as well,” Lynley said.



Jill Foster had never run into a serious snag while she was ticking off accomplishments from the Master List that she'd first compiled as a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. Reading all of Shakespeare (done by age twenty), hitchhiking the length of Ireland (done by twenty-one), taking a double first at Cambridge (by age twenty-two), traveling alone in India (by twenty-three), exploring the Amazon River (twenty-six), kayaking the Nile (twenty-seven), writing a definitive study of Proust (still in progress), adapting the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald for television (also in the works) … From athleticism to intellectualism, Jill Foster hadn't experienced even a hiccup on her progress through life.