A Traitor to Memory (125 page)

26

“H
E WOULDN'T EVEN
take a wheelchair,” the nurse in charge of Casualty told them. Her name badge said she was Sister Darla Magnana and she was in high dudgeon over the manner in which Richard Davies had departed the hospital. Patients were to leave in
wheelchairs
, accompanied by an appropriate staff member who would see them to their vehicles. They were
not
meant to decline this service, and if they
did
decline it, they were not to be discharged.
This
gentleman had actually walked off on his own without being discharged at all. So the hospital could
not
be held responsible if his injuries intensified or caused him further problems. Sister Darla Magnana hoped that was clear. “When we wish to keep someone overnight for observation, we have a very good reason for doing so,” she declared.

Lynley asked to speak to the doctor who'd seen Richard Davies, and from that gentleman—a harassed-looking resident physician with several days' growth of whiskers—he and Havers learned the extent of Davies' injuries: a compound fracture of the right ulna, a single break of the right lateral malleolus. “Right arm and right ankle,” the doctor translated for Havers when she said, “Fractures of the whats?” He went on to say, “Cuts and abrasions on the hands. A possible concussion. He needed some stitches on the face. Overall, he was very lucky, however. It could have been fatal.”

Lynley thought about this as he and Havers left the hospital, having been told that Richard had departed in the company of a heavily pregnant woman. They went to the Bentley, phoned in to Leach, and learned from him that Winston Nkata had given the incident room Noreen McKay's name to be put through the DVLA. Leach had the results: Noreen McKay owned a late-model Toyota RAV4. That was her only vehicle.

“If we get no joy from those prison records, we're back to the Humber,” Leach said. “Bring that car in for a once-over.”

Lynley said, “Right. And as to Eugenie Davies' computer, sir?”

“Deal with that later. After we get our hands on that car. And talk to Foster. I want to know where
she
was this afternoon.”

“Surely not pushing her fiancé under a bus,” Lynley said despite his better judgement, which told him not to do or say anything that might remind Leach of Lynley's own transgressions. “In her condition, she'd be rather conspicuous to witnesses.”

“Just deal with her, Inspector. And get that car.” Leach recited Jill Foster's address. It was a flat in Shepherd's Bush. Directory enquiries gave Lynley a phone number to go along with the address, and within a minute he knew what he'd already assumed when Leach gave him the assignment: Jill wasn't at home. She'd have taken Davies to his own flat in South Kensington.

As they were spinning down Park Lane in preparation for the last leg of the trip from Gower Street to South Kensington, Havers said, “You know, Inspector, we're down to Gideon or Robson shoving Davies into the street this evening. But if either one of them did the job, the basic question remains, doesn't it?
Why?
”

“
If
's the operative word,” Lynley said.

She obviously heard his doubts, because she said, “You don't think either of them pushed him, do you?”

“Killers nearly always choose the same means,” Lynley pointed out.

“But a bus
is
a vehicle,” Havers said.

“But it's not a car and driver. And it's not
that
car, the Humber. Or any antique car for that matter. Nor was the hit as serious as the others, considering what it could have been.”

“And no one saw the shove,” Havers said thoughtfully. “At least so far.”

“I'm betting no one saw it at all, Havers.”

“Okay. So we're back to Davies again. Davies tracking down Kathleen Waddington before going after Eugenie. Davies setting his sights on Webberly to guide our suspicion onto Katja Wolff when we
don't get there fast enough. Davies then throwing himself into the traffic because he's got the sense we're not taking Wolff seriously as a suspect. All right. I see. But
why
’s the question.”

“Because of Gideon. It has to be. Because she was threatening Gideon in some way and Davies lives for Gideon. If, as you suggested, Barbara, she actually meant to stop him playing—”

“I like the idea, but what was it to her? I mean, if anything, it seems that she'd want to keep him playing, not stop him, right? She had a history of his whole career up in her attic. She obviously cared that he played. Why cock it up?”

“Perhaps cocking it up wasn't her intention,” Lynley said. “But perhaps cocking it up was what would have happened—without her knowing it—if she met Gideon again.”

“So Davies killed her? Why not just tell her the truth? Why not just say, ‘Hang on, old girl. 'F you see Gideon, he's done for, professionally speaking.’”

“Perhaps he did say that,” Lynley pointed out. “And perhaps she said, ‘I've not got a choice, Richard. It's been years and it's time …’”

“For what?” Havers asked. “A family reunion? An explanation of why she ran off in the first place? An announcement that she was going to hook up with Major Wiley? What?”

“Something,” Lynley said. “Something that we may never find out.”

“Which toasts our muffins good and proper,” Havers noted. “And doesn't go very far towards putting Richard Davies in the nick.
If
he's our man. And we've got sod all for evidence of that. He has an alibi, Inspector. Hasn't he?”

“Asleep. With Jill Foster. Who was, herself, most likely asleep. So he could have gone and returned without her knowledge, Havers, using her car and then bringing it back.”

“We're at the car again.”

“It's the only thing we have.”

“Right. Well. The CPS aren't likely to do backflips over that, Inspector. Access to the car's not exactly hard evidence.”

“Access isn't,” Lynley agreed. “But it's not access alone that I'm depending on.”

GIDEON

20 November

I saw Dad before he looked up and saw me. He was coming along the pavement in Chalcot Square, and I could tell from his posture that he was brooding. I felt some concern but no alarm.

Then something odd happened. Raphael appeared at the far end of the garden in the centre of the square. He must have called out to Dad, because Dad hesitated on the pavement, turned, and then waited for him a few doors away from my own house. As I watched from the music room window, they exchanged a few words, Dad doing the talking. As he spoke, Raphael staggered back two steps, his face crumpling the way a man's face crumples when he's received a punch to the gut. Dad continued to talk. Raphael turned back towards the garden. Dad watched as Raphael walked back through the gates to where two wooden benches face each other. He sat. No, he
dropped
, all of his weight falling in a mass that was merely bones and flesh, reaction incarnate.

I should have known then. But I did not.

Dad walked on, at which point he looked up and saw me watching from the window. He raised a hand but didn't wait for me to respond. In a moment, he disappeared beneath me and I heard the sound of his key in the lock of my front door. When he came into the music room, he removed his coat and laid it deliberately along the back of a chair.

“What's Raphael doing?” I asked him. “Has something happened?”

He looked at me, and I could see that his face was awash with sorrow. “I've some news,” he told me, “some very bad news.”

“What?” I felt fear lap against my skin.

“There's no easy way to tell you,” he said.

“Then tell me.”

“Your mother's dead, son.”

“But you said she's been phoning you. About what happened at Wigmore Hall. She can't be—”

“She was killed last night, Gideon. She was hit by a car in West Hampstead. The police rang me this morning.” He cleared his throat and squeezed his temples as if to contain an emotion there. “They asked if I would try to identify her body. I looked. I couldn't tell for certain…. It's been years since I saw her….” He made an aimless gesture. “I'm so sorry, son.”

“But she can't be … If you didn't recognise her, perhaps it's not—”

“The woman was carrying your mother's identification. Driving licence, credit cards, chequebook. What are the possibilities that someone else would have had all of Eugenie's identification?”

“So you said it was her? You said it was my mother?”

“I said I didn't know, that I couldn't be sure. I gave them the name of her dentist … the man she used to see when we were still together. They'll be able to check that way. And there are fingerprints, I suppose.”

“Did you ring her?” I asked. “Did she know I wanted to … Was she
willing
…?” But what was the point of asking, the point of knowing? What did it matter if she was dead?

“I left a message for her, son. She hadn't got back to me yet.”

“That's it, then.”

Dad's head had been dropped forward, but he raised it then. “That's what?” he asked.

“There's no one to tell me.”

“I've told you.”

“No.”

“Gideon, for God's sake …”

“You've told me what you think will make me believe that I'm not at fault. But you'd say anything to get me back on the violin.”

“Gideon, please.”

“No.” Everything was becoming so much clearer. It was as if the shock of learning of her death suddenly blew the fog from my mind. I said, “It doesn't make sense that Katja Wolff would have agreed to your plan. That she would give up so many years of her life … for what, Dad? For me? For you? I wasn't anything to her and neither were you. Isn't that true? You weren't her lover. You weren't the father of her child. Raphael was, wasn't he? So it makes no sense that she agreed. You must have tricked her. You must have … what? Planted evidence? Twisted the facts?”