A Traitor to Memory

“I expect it does. How long have you known Mr. Davies?”


With a grunt and a heave, she said, “Bother. This won't do,” and moved from the armchair she'd chosen to lower herself to the sofa, where she raised her legs and put a cushion into position beneath her feet. She said, “God. Two more weeks. I begin to understand why they call it ‘being delivered.’” She rested her back against a second cushion. Both were as threadbare as the furniture. “Three years now.”

“He's looking forward to new fatherhood?”

“When most men his age are looking forward to grandfather-hood,” Jill replied. “But even at his age, yes. He's looking forward.”

Lynley smiled. “My own wife's pregnant.”

Jill's face altered brightly, the connection between them made. “Is she? Is this your first, Inspector?”

Lynley nodded. “I can take a leaf out of Mr. Davies' book. He seems devoted.”

She smiled and rolled her eyes in good humour. “He's like a mother hen. Don't walk down the stairs too quickly, Jill. Don't take public transport. Don't drive in traffic. No. Don't drive at all, my dear. Don't go for a walk without a companion. Don't drink anything that contains caffeine. Carry your mobile everywhere you go. Avoid crowds, cigarette smoke, and preservatives. The list is endless.”

“He's anxious for you.”

“It's rather touching when it doesn't make me want to lock him in a cupboard.”

“Did you have a chance to compare notes with his former wife? About her own pregnancies?”

“Eugenie? No. We never met. Previous wives and current wives. Or in my case wives-to-be. Sometimes it's in the interest of wisdom to keep them apart, isn't it.”

Richard Davies returned to them then, bearing a plastic tray on which sat a single cup and saucer accompanied by a small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. He said to his fiancée, “Darling, you weren't wanting tea as well, were you?”

Jill said that she wasn't, and Richard settled in next to her, raising her painfully swollen feet to his lap after placing Lynley's tea on the side table next to the chair in which Jill had first been sitting.

“How can we help you, Inspector?” he asked.

Lynley took a notebook from his jacket pocket. He thought it an interesting question. Indeed, he thought all of Davies' behaviour interesting. He couldn't remember the last time he'd turned up on someone's doorstep unexpected, offered his identification, and been offered a cup of tea in welcome. The general responses to an unanticipated visit from the police were suspicion, alarm, and anxiety, no matter how hidden the recipient of the visit attempted to keep them.

Davies said, as if in expectation of just this reaction on Lynley's part, “I expect you've come about Eugenie. I wasn't much help to your Hampstead colleagues when I was asked to look … well, to look at her, actually. I hadn't seen Eugenie in years, and the injuries …” He raised his hands from his fiancée's feet, a hopeless gesture.

Lynley said, “I've come about Mrs. Davies. Yes.”

At which point Richard Davies looked at his fiancée, saying, “Would you prefer to have a lie-down, Jill? I can let you know when the estate agent arrives.”

“I'm fine,” she said. “I share your life, Richard.”

He squeezed her leg, saying to Lynley, “If you're here, then it must have been Eugenie. It would have been too much to hope for that someone other than Eugenie would have been carrying her identification.”

“It was Mrs. Davies,” Lynley said. “I'm sorry.”

Davies nodded, but he didn't look mournful. He said, “It's been nearly twenty years since I last saw her. I feel sorry she had such an accident as she had, but my loss of her—our divorce—was long ago. I've had years to recover from her death, if you see what I mean.”

Lynley could see. Permanent mourning on Davies' part would have suggested either a devotion to match Victoria's or an unhealthy obsession, which was fairly much the same. However, Davies had a misconception that wanted correcting. Lynley said, “I'm afraid it wasn't an accident. Your former wife was murdered, Mr. Davies.”

Jill Foster raised herself from the cushion supporting her back. “But wasn't she …? Richard, didn't you say …?”

For his part, Richard Davies looked at Lynley steadily, his pupils growing larger. “I was told a hit-and-run,” he said.