A Traitor to Memory (24 page)

The question seemed to discomfort Wiley. He altered his position on the sofa. “It'd been three years. I wanted to be respectful with her, not like one of these randy modern blokes with nothing more on his mind. I was willing to wait. She finally said that she was ready, but she wanted to have a talk first.”

“Which was what was supposed to happen tonight,” Havers concluded. “That's why you phoned her.”

It was.

Lynley asked the old gentleman to come into the kitchen with them, then. He said that there were other voices on Eugenie Davies' answer machine, and Major Ted Wiley—three years into a relationship with the dead woman, no matter what the relationship was—might be able to identify them.

In the kitchen, Wiley stood by the table and looked at the photographs of the two children. He reached for one of them, but he stopped himself when he finally seemed to take in the fact that Lynley and Havers were wearing gloves for a reason. As Havers readied the answer machine to play its messages again, Lynley said, “Are these Mrs. Davies' children, Major Wiley?”

“Her son and daughter,” Wiley said. “Yes. They're her children. Sonia died a number of years ago. And the boy … They were estranged, Eugenie and the boy. Been estranged for I don't know how long. They had some sort of falling-out ages back. She never spoke of him to me except to say they no longer saw each other.”

“And Sonia? Did Mrs. Davies ever speak to you about Sonia?”

“Just that she died young. But”—Wiley cleared his throat and stepped away from the table as if wishing to distance himself from what he was about to say—“well, look at her. One can't be surprised that she died young. They … they often do.”

Lynley frowned, wondering that Wiley seemed unaware of a case that certainly must have dominated the newspapers at the time. He said, “Were you in the country twenty years ago, Major Wiley?”

No, he'd been … Wiley seemed to do a backward progression in his head, cataloguing the years he'd spent on active duty in the Army. He said he'd been in the Falklands then. But that was long ago and he might have been in Rhodesia at the time … or what was left of Rhodesia. Why?

“Mrs. Davies never told you that Sonia was murdered?”

Dumbly, Wiley returned his gaze to the photographs. He said, “She didn't tell me … She didn't say … No, never once. Good God.” He dug into his back pocket and brought out a handkerchief, but he didn't use it. Instead, he said only, “This lot don't belong here, on the table, you know. Did you move them?” in apparent reference to the pictures.

“This is where we found them,” Lynley told him.

“They should be scattered round the house. The sitting room. Upstairs. In here. That's how they always were.” He pulled out one of the two chairs beneath the table and lowered himself into it heavily.
He looked fairly spent at this point, but he nodded at Havers where she stood by the answer machine.

Lynley studied the major as he listened to the messages. He tried to read Wiley's reaction when he heard the voices of two other men on the machine. From their words and their tone, it was obvious that they were both involved with Eugenie Davies in some way. But if Wiley reached that conclusion himself and if that conclusion distressed him, he gave no indication other than colour in a face already so rubicund as to make measuring further redness impossible.

At the end of the messages, Lynley asked, “Do you recognise anyone?”

“Lynn,” he said. “She did tell me that, Eugenie did. The child of a friend called Lynn passed away suddenly, and Eugenie went to the funeral. She told me that when she'd heard that the child had died, she knew how Lynn felt and she wanted to commiserate.”

“Heard that she'd died?” Havers asked. “Heard from who?”

Wiley didn't know. He hadn't thought to ask. “I assumed the woman must have rung her up. This Lynn person,” he said, “whoever she is.”

“Do you know where the funeral was?”

He shook his head. “She went off for the day.”

“When was this?”

“Last Tuesday. I asked her if she wanted me to go as well. Funerals being what they are, I thought she might welcome the company. But she said she and Lynn had some talking to do. ‘I need to see her,’ she said. That was all.”

“Need to see her?” Lynley asked. “That's what she said?”

“Need. Yes. That's what she said.”

Need, Lynley thought. Not want, but need. He considered the word and everything it implied. What follows need, he knew, is usually action.

But was that the case here in this kitchen in Henley, where it appeared several needs were colliding? There was Eugenie Davies' need to confess sin to Major Wiley. There was an unidentified man's need to talk to Eugenie, declared on her answer machine. And there was Ted Wiley's need … for what?

Lynley asked Havers to play the messages one more time, and he wondered if Wiley's slight change of posture—drawing his arms closer to his body—was an indication of steeling himself. He kept his gaze fixed on the major as once again the two men on the machine declared their need to speak to Eugenie.

I had to ring again
, the one voice declared.
Eugenie, I need to speak with you.

And there it was again: that word
need.
What would a man do with a desperate need?

How wd u do it 2 me if u cd?

TongueMan read the question from LadyFire without his usual surge of gratification. They'd been dancing round this moment for weeks, despite an initial—and inaccurate—assessment of her on his part which had suggested he'd have her ready for a go well in advance of CreamPants. It just went to show that you couldn't judge the outcome by someone's ability to engage in suggestive cyberchat, didn't it? LadyFire had come on strong at first in the descriptive arena, but she'd faded quickly when the talk shifted from fantasy fucks between celebrities (she'd been astonishing in her ability to convey a hot encounter between a purple-haired rock star and their nation's monarch) to fantasy fucks in which she herself was one of the partners. Indeed, TongueMan had thought for a time that he'd lost her altogether by pushing too soon and revealing too much. He'd even considered moving on to the next possibility—EatMe—and he was about to do so when LadyFire reappeared on the cyberscene. She'd needed some time to think, evidently. But now she knew what she wanted. So
How wd u do it 2 me if u cd?

TongueMan studied the question and took note of the fact that his mind didn't kick into high gear at the thought of another supercharged semi-anonymous encounter with another cyberlover so soon after his last. He was doing his best to forget his last anyway, and especially to forget everything that had followed: the flashing lights, the barriers blocking off both ends of his street, the eyes of suspicion coming to rest on him, the Boxter—damn them—being hauled off for police inspection. But he'd handled it all well enough, he decided. Yes. He'd handled it like a pro.

The Met certainly weren't prepared for someone who was wise to their ways, TongueMan thought. They expected one to lie down, belly up, the moment they started to ask their questions. They reckoned that Joseph Q. Average Citizen—eager to prove he had nothing to hide—would jump onto the cooperation trolley car and ride it to whatever destination the cops were hoping to take. So when the police said, “We have a few questions, if you wouldn't mind coming down to the station for a chat,” most people sauntered right along
without a second thought, assuming they had some sort of immunity from a legal system that anyone with a grain of sense knew could ride roughshod over the uninitiated in about five minutes.

TongueMan, however, was anything but a member of the uninitiated. He knew what could happen when one cooperated, blithely believing that doing one's civic duty was synonymous with demonstrating one's guilelessness. Bollocks, that. So when the cops said that his address had been in the possession of that woman in the street and could they ask him a few questions please, TongueMan knew which way the trolley ride was heading, and in short order he had his solicitor on the phone.

Not that Jake Azoff had liked being torn from his bed at midnight. Not that he didn't whine privately about “duty solicitors and what they are being paid by the Government to do.” But there was no way on earth that TongueMan was going to place his future—not to mention his present—into the hands of a duty solicitor. True, the representation wouldn't have cost him a penny, but a duty solicitor had no vested interest in TongueMan's future, whereas Azoff—with whom he enjoyed a rather complicated relationship involving shares, bonds, mutual funds, and the like—actually did. Besides, what was he paying Azoff for, if not to be ready when legal advice of any sort was needed?

But TongueMan was worried. Obviously. He could lie to himself about it. He could attempt to distract himself by phoning in sick from work and logging onto the net for a few hours of pornographic fantasising with utter strangers. But his body couldn't prevaricate when it came to unacknowledged anxiety. And the fact that he was enjoying no physical reaction whatsoever to
How wd u do it 2 me if u cd?
said it all.

He typed
U wdnt 4get it soon
.

She typed
R u shy 2day? Cm on. Tell how.

How? he wondered. Yes, that was it. How? He tried to be loose. Just let the mind roam. He was good at this. He was a master. And she was certainly what all the others had been: older and looking for a sign that she still had what it took.

He typed
Whr do u want my tong?
in an attempt to get her to do the work.

She typed
No fair. R U jst all tlk?

He wasn't even talk today, TongueMan thought, which she'd discover soon enough if they carried on much longer in this vein. It was time to get huffy with LadyFire. A break was called for till he sorted himself out.

He typed
If thts wt u thnk, bby
and logged off. Let her stew in that juice for a day or two.

He checked how the market was doing before he pushed back from the keyboard. He swung his chair round and left the study, descending to the kitchen where the glass carafe on the coffee maker offered him a final cup. He poured and savoured the flavour of coffee the way he liked it: strong, black, and bitter. Rather like life itself, he decided.

He gave a brief laugh devoid of amusement. There was a real irony to the last twelve hours, and he was sure if he thought about it long enough, he'd discover what that irony was. But thinking about it was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. With a Hampstead murder squad breathing down his neck, he knew he had to maintain his composure. That was the secret to life, composure: in the face of adversity, in the face of triumph, in the face of—

Something flicked against the kitchen window. Roused, Tongue-Man looked out to see two roughly dressed, unshaven men standing in the middle of his back garden. They'd come in from the park that ran the length of nearly all the Crediton Hill back gardens on the east side of the street. Since he had no fence between his property and the park, his visitors hadn't encountered much of an obstacle in gaining access. He was going to have to do something about that.

The two men saw him and nudged each other simultaneously. One of them called out, “Open up, Jay. Long time, no see,” and the other added, “We're giving you a break, coming in the back way” with a maddening smirk.

TongueMan cursed. First a body in the street, then the Boxter towed away, then himself under the eyes of the cops. And now this. Always guard against thinking a day couldn't possibly get worse, he told himself as he went to the dining room and opened the french windows.

“Robbie, Brent,” he said to the men in greeting, every bit as if he'd seen them only last week. It was cold outside, and they were hunched against it, stamping their feet and blowing steam like two bulls waiting for the matador. “What're you doing here?”

“Ask us in?” Robbie said. “Not a very pleasant day for the garden, this.”

TongueMan sighed. It seemed as if every time he took a step forward, something came along to drag him two steps back. He said, “What's this about, then?” But what he meant was, How did you find me this time?

Brent grinned, saying, “The usual, Jay,” but at least he had the decency to look uncomfortable and to shift his feet.

Robbie, on the other hand, was the one to watch out for. Always had been and always would be. He'd throw Granny from the underground train if he thought he stood to gain by it, and TongueMan knew the last thing he could hope for was consideration, respect, or sympathy from the bloke.

“Street's blocked off.” Robbie cocked his head in the general direction of the bottom of the road. “Something happen?”

“A woman was hit by a car last night.”

“Ah.” But the way Robbie said the word declared that he wasn't learning anything new. “And that's why you're not at work today?”

“I work from home sometimes. I've told you that.”

“Might've, yeah. But it's been a while, ha'n't it?” He didn't go on to mention what hung between them unspoken: the time it had been since he'd last come calling and what he'd gone through to track down this address. Instead, he said, “But your office tol' me you had to cancel a meeting today and you phoned in with flu. Or was it a head cold? You remember, Brent?”