A Traitor to Memory

  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.

  Lynley explained. Given information was always scant until they had the first of their reports from forensic. An initial inspection of the dead woman's body—not to mention where she'd been found—had certainly called for the conclusion that she'd been hit by someone who then fled the scene. But a closer examination had revealed that she'd been hit more than once, her body had been moved, and what tyre tracks they had found on her clothing and her corpse indicated the damage had been done by a single vehicle. So their hit-and-run motorist was a murderer, and the death was no accident but a homicide.

  “Good God.” Jill held out a hand to Richard Davies, but he didn't take it. Instead, he seemed to go into himself, stunned, to a dark place from which she couldn't draw him.

  Davies said, “But they gave me absolutely no indication …” He stared into nothing, murmuring, “God. How can things possibly get worse?” Then he looked at Lynley. “I shall have to tell Gideon. You will allow me to be the one to tell my son? He's been unwell for several months. He's been unable to play. This could push him … You will allow me to be the one? It won't be in the papers yet, will it? In the Evening Standard? Not before Gideon's been told?”

  “That's in the hands of the press office,” Lynley said. “But they'll hold back till the family's been notified. And you can help us with that. Aside from Gideon, are there other family members?”

  “Her brothers, but God only knows where they are. Her parents were still alive twenty years ago, but they may well be dead by now. Frank and Lesley Staines. Frank was an Anglican priest, so you might start there—through the Church—to find him.”

  “And the brothers?”

  “One younger, one older. Douglas and Ian. Again, I can't say if they're living or dead. When I first met Eugenie, she hadn't seen any of her family in years and she never saw them the entire time we were married.”

  “We'll try to find them.” Lynley took up his cup in which a Typhoo tea bag drooped soggily against the side. He removed it and added a splash of milk before he said, “And you, Mr. Davies? When exactly did you last see your former wife?”

  “When we were divorced. Perhaps … sixteen years ago? There were papers to sign in the course of the proceedings, and that was when I saw her.”

  “Since then?”

  “Nothing. I'd spoken to her recently, though.”

  Lynley set his cup down. “When was this?”

  “She'd been phoning regularly to ask about Gideon. She'd learned he wasn't well. This would have been …” He turned to his fiancée. “When was that awful concert, darling?”

  Jill Foster met his gaze so steadily that the fact that he knew exactly when the concert had been was more than apparent. She said, “The thirtieth of July, wasn't it?”

  “That sounds right, yes.” And to Lynley, “Eugenie phoned shortly afterwards. I can't recall exactly when. Perhaps round the fifteenth of August. She'd kept in touch since then.”

  “The last time you spoke to her?”

  “Sometime last week? I don't know exactly. I didn't think to make note of it. She phoned here and left a message. I phoned her back. There wasn't much to tell her, so the conversation was brief. Gideon—and I'd very much appreciate this bit staying confidential, Inspector—is suffering from acute stage fright. We've given out that it's exhaustion, but that's a bit of a euphemism. Eugenie wasn't taken in by it, and I doubt the public's going to accept it much longer.”

  “But she didn't visit your son? Did she contact him?”

  “If she did, Gideon's said nothing to me about it. Which in itself would be a surprise. My son and I are quite close, Inspector.”

  Davies' fiancée lowered her eyes. Lynley made a mental tick next to the possibility of filial-paternal devotion's being a one-way street with only Richard Davies traveling down it. He said, “Your wife was on her way to see a man in Hampstead, evidently. She had his address with her. He's called J. W. Pitchley, but you may know him by his previous name, James Pitchford.”

  Davies' hands stopped caressing Jill Foster's feet. He became as still as a life-size Rodin.

  “You remember him?” Lynley asked.

  “Yes. I remember him. But …” Again, to his fiancée, “Darling, are you certain you don't want a lie-down?”

  Her expression said volumes about her intentions: There was no way on earth that Jill Foster was going to toddle off to the bedroom now.

  Davies said, “I'd be unlikely to forget anyone from that period of time, Inspector. Nor would you had you lived through it. James lodged with us for a number of years before Sonia, our daughter …” He left off the rest of the sentence, using that gesture with his fingers lifted briefly to express the rest.

  “Have you any idea if your former wife kept in touch with this man? He's been interviewed and he himself says no. But in your phone conversations, did your wife ever mention him?”

  Davies shook his head. “We never entertained any subject at all other than Gideon and Gideon's health.”

  “She made no mention of her family, then, of her life in Henley-on-Thames, of friends she may have made there? Of lovers?”

  “Nothing at all like that, Inspector. Eugenie and I didn't part under the best circumstances. She walked out one day and that was the end of it. No explanation, no argument, no excuse. One day she was there; the next day she was gone, and four years later I heard from her solicitors. So the blood between us wasn't exactly flowing with the milk of human kindness. I'll admit that I wasn't particularly pleased to hear from her when I finally did.”

  “Could she have been involved with another man at the time she left you? This would be someone who may have recently re-entered her life.”

  “Pitches?”

  “Pitchley,” Lynley said. “Yes. Could she have been involved with Pitchley when he was James Pitchford?”

  Davies considered this. “He was a good deal younger than Eugenie—fifteen years, perhaps? Ten? But Eugenie was an attractive woman, so I suppose it's possible there was something between them. Let me top up your tea, Inspector.”

  Lynley acquiesced to this idea. Davies eased himself from beneath Jill Foster's legs and took himself into the kitchen, where running water indicated a minute or two in which he'd be waiting for the kettle to boil. Lynley wondered about the time that this gained the m
an: why he wanted it, why he needed it. Surprise was piling upon shock, it was true, and Davies was of the generation for whom a display of emotion was tantamount to baring one's backside in Piccadilly Circus. And his fiancée was taking much careful notice of his every reaction, so he had good reason to want some moments to pull himself together. But still …

  Richard Davies returned to them then, this time carrying a glass of orange juice as well, which he pressed upon his fiancée, saying, “You need the vitamins, Jill.”

  Lynley took his tea cup with thanks and said, “Your wife was involved with a man in Henley-on-Thames, a man called Wiley. Did she mention him to you in any of your conversations?”

  “No,” Davies said. “Really, Inspector, we confined ourselves to Gideon.”

  “Major Wiley tells us they were estranged, Gideon and his mother.”

  “Does he?” Richard asked. “I wouldn't choose that word myself. Eugenie left one day and never returned. If you want to call it estrangement, I suppose you can. I prefer abandonment.”

  “Her sin?” Lynley asked.

  “What?”

  “She told Major Wiley she had something she wished to confess to him. Perhaps abandoning her child and her husband was it. She never was able to confess, by the way. Or so Major Wiley tells us.”

  “You think that Wiley …?”

  “We're just gathering information at this point, Mr. Davies. Is there anything you can add to what you've already told me? Is there anything your former wife might have said in passing that you didn't think of at the time as having significance, but that now—”

  “Cresswell-White.” Davies said it almost like a meditation, but when he repeated the name, he did so with more conviction. “Yes. There's Cresswell-White. I had a letter from him, so Eugenie must have done as well.”

  “And Cresswell-White is …?”

  “She would have had a letter from him, certainly, because when killers are released, the families are informed as a matter of course. At least, that's what my letter said.”

  “Killers?” Lynley said. “Have you had word about your daughter's killer?”

  In answer, Richard Davies left the room and walked down a short corridor, where he entered another room. The sound of drawers and cupboards opening and shutting ensued. When he returned, he bore a legal-size envelope, which he handed over to Lynley. It contained a letter from one Bertram Cresswell-White, Esq., Queen's Counsel and all the window dressing, and it had been sent from Number Five Paper Buildings, Temple, London. It informed Mr. Richard Davies that HM Prison Holloway would be releasing Miss Katja Wolff on parole on the date given below. Should Miss Katja Wolff harass, threaten, or even contact Mr. Davies in any way, Mr. Davies was to inform Mr. Cresswell-White, Q.C., immediately.

  Lynley read the message and examined the date: twelve weeks to the day that Eugenie Davies had died. He said to Richard Davies, “Has she made contact with you?”

  “No,” Davies answered. “Had she done so, believe me, I swear to God I would have …” His bravado receded, the stuff of the younger man he no longer was. He said, “Might she have located Eugenie?”

  “Mrs. Davies didn't mention her?”

  “No.”

  “Would she have mentioned her had she seen her?”

  Davies shook his head, not so much in denial as in confusion. “I don't know. At one time, yes. Of course she would have said something to me. But after all this time … I just don't know, Inspector.”

  “May I keep this letter?”

  “Of course. Will you look for her, Inspector?”

  “I'll have a man track her down.” Lynley went through the rest of his questions, from which he learned only the identity of the Cecilia who'd written the note to Eugenie Davies: Sister Cecilia Mahoney, she was called, Eugenie Davies' close friend at the Convent of the Immaculate Conception. The convent itself was in Kensington Square, where the Davies family had long ago lived. “Eugenie was a convert to Catholicism,” Richard Davies said. “She hated her father—he was a raging maniac when he wasn't holier-than-thou from the pulpit—and it seemed the best way to get vengeance on him for a hellish childhood. At least that's what she told me.”

  “Were your children baptised Catholics, then?” Lynley asked.

  “Only if she and Cecilia did it in secret. My own dad would have had a stroke otherwise.” Davies smiled with fondness. “He was quite a tyrannical paterfamilias in his own way.”

  And have you taken a page from that book, Lynley wondered, despite your air of helpfulness now? But that was something he'd have to learn from Gideon.

  GIDEON

  1 October

  Where is this taking us, Dr. Rose? You ask me to consider my dreams now as well as my memories, and I wonder if you know what you're doing. You ask me to write my random thoughts, to free myself from worrying about how they connect or where they might lead or how they might produce the key that will fit into the lock of my mind, and my patience with this process is wearing thin.

  Dad informs me that your previous work in New York was primarily with eating disorders. He's been doing his prep where you're concerned—a few phone calls to the States was all it took—because as he sees no progress, he's begun to question how much more time I want to devote to dredging up the past instead of dealing with the present. “For God's sake, she doesn't work with musicians,” he said when I spoke to him today. “She doesn't even work with other artists. So you can continue to fill her purse with money and get nothing in return—which is all that's been happening so far, Gideon—or you can try something else.”

  “What?” I asked him.

  “If you're so insistent upon psychiatry as the answer, then at least try someone who'll address the problem. And the problem is the violin, Gideon. The problem is not what you do or do not remember about the past.”

  I said, “Raphael told me.”

  “What?”

  “That Katja Wolff drowned Sonia.”

  There was silence at this, and as we were on the phone and not having the conversation in person, I could only guess at Dad's expression. His face would have hardened as the muscles tightened, and his eyes would have gone opaque. In telling me even as little as he told, Raphael had broken an agreement of twenty years' standing. Dad would not like that.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I won't discuss this.”

  “It's why Mother left us, isn't it?”

  “I've told you—”

  “Nothing. You've told me nothing. If you're so intent on helping me, why won't you help me with this?”

  “Because this has sod all to do with your problem. But digging it all up, dissecting every nuance, and dwelling on them ad infinitum are brilliant ways to side-step the real issues, Gideon.”

  “I'm going at this the only way I can.”

  “Bollocks. You're following her dance steps like a nancy boy.”

  “That's bloody unfair.”

  “Unfair is being asked to stand to one side and watch your son throw his life away. Unfair is having lived solely for that son's benefit for a quarter of a century so that he can become the musician he wishes to be, only to have him fall to pieces the first time he has a setback. Unfair is crafting a relationship with that son unlike any I could ever have had with my own father and then being asked to step back while the love and trust that I've had with him for years gets transferred to some female psychiatrist with nothing more to recommend her than having managed to hike to Machu Picchu without having to be carried to the top.”

  “Jesus. How much nosing round have you done?”

  “Enough to know how much time you're wasting. God damn it, Gideon”—but his voice wasn't hard when he said those words—“have you even tried?”

  To play, naturally. That was what he needed to know. It was as if, to him, I'd ceased to be anything other than a music-making machine.

  When I didn't reply, he said not unreasonably, “Don't you see, then, that this could be nothing more than a momentary blackout?
A loose connection in your brain. But because you've never had the smallest blip in your career, you've panicked. Pick up the violin, for God's sake. Do it for yourself before it's too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “To overcome the fear. Don't let it drag you down. Don't dwell on it.”

  At the end, his words didn't seem illogical. Instead, they seemed to indicate an action that was reasonable and sound. Perhaps I was making a mountain out of a dust speck, using a manufactured “illness of spirit” as a cover for a wound to my professional pride.

  So I picked up the Guarneri, Dr. Rose. In the cause of optimism, I put the shoulder rest in place. I gave myself the break of sheet music—alleviating the pressure of having to produce a measure from memory by choosing the Mendelssohn that I'd played a thousand times before—and I found my body, as Miss Orr would have told me. I could even hear her: “Body up, shoulders down. Upbow with the whole arm. Only the tops of the fingers move.”

  I heard it all, but I could do none of it. The bow skittered across the strings, and my fingers flailed the gut with as much delicacy as a butcher dressing a pig.

  Nerves, I thought. This is all about nerves.

  So I tried a second time, and the sound was worse. And that's all it was that I produced: sound, Dr. Rose. I didn't come close to approaching music. As for actually playing the Mendelssohn … I might have been attempting a moon landing from the music room, so impossible was the task I'd undertaken.

  How did it feel to make the attempt? you want to know.

  How did it feel to close the coffin on Tim Freeman? I reply. Husband, companion, victim of cancer, and everything else that he was to you, Dr. Rose. How did it feel when your husband died? Because this is a death to me, and if there's going to be a resurrection, what I need to know is how it's going to be effected by sifting through the past and writing down my damn dreams. Tell me that, please. For God's sake, tell me.