The Memory Trap dda-19

by Anthony Price

  She breathed out: it was as though she had held her breath as he had re-created his day in May long ago for her. 'I remember you, Dr Audley.'

  'Then you know what I want, Mrs Kenyon. Can I come in?'

  Sophie Kenyon chewed on that for a moment. 'I remember you. But I'd still like to see your identification.'

  'Of course.' He waited patiently. 'Very sensible.'

  'Thank you.' But she remained unmoving. 'Is there anyone with you?'

  'No. I am quite alone, Mrs Kenyon. I have been very careful, I do assure you.' He smiled at her. 'Quite alone. Quite unarmed. And quite cold.'

  She unchained the door. One step down, he remembered.

  And then mind the beams (although that did not call for any special memory-trick: the old English had been a stunted race, and he had learnt to stoop automatically in parts of his own home from his fifteenth year onwards).

  The smell of the house refined remembrance further. Every house had its smell, but old-house smells were more individual and distinctive, mostly derived from the working of damp on their building materials. And in this house the damp had been memorable; although now there were hints dummy1

  of wood-smoke and hot cooking added to it, as one might expect in October. And also, just possibly, dog (he wrinkled his nose at that: dog he couldn't recall from that last time, as he surely ought to if there had been one: it would have barked its way into his memory then; and, as an after-dark visitor now, it ought to have barked even louder at his arrival this evening).

  'You know where to go?' There was a curious intentness in the question.

  'It's this door, isn't it?' There damn-well was a dog-paw scratch mark on the lowest corner of the door, all the same —

  he caught himself staring at it.

  'Yes. What's the matter?'

  Warmth and more pronounced wood-smoke greeted him.

  The curtains and the chair-covers and the carpet were different, but the room and the major things in it were the same.

  'Have you got a dog?' In spite of himself, he couldn't resist the question.

  'Yes.' She stared at him, for a fraction of a second incredulously, but then with a slow smile. 'So it is true, then.'

  'What's true?'

  'He said you'd come. Would you like a drink?'

  What he would like, he thought, was to follow up that cooking smell: it promised something he hadn't had for more days than he cared to think about, never mind since the day dummy1

  before yesterday: a good square English home-cooked dinner

  — preferably with cabbage. 'Thank you. A very small scotch?'

  In the full light of her sitting-room he could study her for the first — or, more accurately, the second time. 'What's true, Mrs Kenyon?'

  She poured two very small scotches and handed one of them to him. The years, he thought, had been kind and not-kind to her: she still had her figure and the natural grace to go with it. But fifteen Cotswold winters, at least some of which must have been lavished on her dying husband (and the rest of which had presumably been wasted on loneliness and good works? But now he was making pictures!) . . . those fifteen winters had added Cotswold grey to her.

  'He's not here at the moment, Dr Audley,' she said simply.

  'No?' He took comfort from the lack of emphasis on "here".

  'But not too far away, I hope?'

  She considered him and his question together across her small untouched scotch. 'You really are alone, Dr Audley?'

  'You called me "David" once — after Peter had introduced me, Mrs Kenyon. And I then called you "Sophie" over lunch, I remember.'

  The smile, slow as before but gentler for the memory, returned. 'And what did we have for lunch . . . when we were

  "David" and "Sophie" . . . David?'

  'I don't remember. Salad, was it?'

  'So you're not perfect!' She nodded, nevertheless.

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  She was not an enemy. But she was something much more worrying than that to a man running out of time. 'Not quite perfect. But alone.' He felt time at his back. 'I do need to see him very badly, though. And the longer you delay our meeting, the less certain I can be that either of us will be able to stay out of trouble.'

  She raised an eyebrow. 'What sort of trouble?'

  It was always the same: to get more he had to give more. 'He told you what happened on Capri, did he?'

  The eyebrow came down. 'Yes. But he doesn't know why it happened, he also told me.'

  'He thinks he doesn't, perhaps.' He shook his head at her.

  'But he does.'

  She stared at him for another over-long moment. 'What he thinks ... is that you are a very dangerous man, David. You were in the old days. And you still are.'

  Audley sighed. It was not unreasonable on Peter Richardson's part that he should think that — however unjustly. 'I don't know about dangerous. More like endangered, I would say.'

  Another long stare. But for that ailing husband and her Catholic scruples she would have been Peter Richardson's woman long ago, not just his friend and his friend's wife. So now she was more than all of that.

  'But you get people killed.' It was a statement, not an accusation.

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  He had to correct it, nevertheless. 'When I make mistakes, people get killed sometimes. Peter was a soldier — he should understand that.' He felt the iron entering his soul. 'And now, if I don't get to talk to him very soon, more people are going to get killed.' He could almost taste the iron: it was because, if he let himself be, he was tired as well as hungry. 'Almost certainly, whatever we do, I think that more people are going to get killed. But it may be within our power . . . how many.

  Or whether they're the innocent ones or the guilty.'

  She didn't reply. But this time she nodded, and then reached down into the hearth. Audley watched her as she lit a candle with a thin wooden spill and placed the brass candlestick on the ledge of a tiny window to the right of the stone chimney-breast.

  Then he met her eyes. 'Did he go out as soon as he heard the car?'

  'No.' She shook her head. 'He's been indoors all day —ever since I collected him late last night, in fact.'

  He must have got his skates on! Audley thought admiringly.

  But then, in his line of retirement-business and with his training, Peter would have had his contingency plans worked out, right down to passports, spare cash and safe houses.

  Which, of course, brought him to the old moment-of-truth, which they had rehearsed together on that unfor-gettable-unforgotten night, straight out of Kipling, on which they had both relied now: If one told thee that all had been betrayed, what wouldst thou do? — I would run away. It might be dummy1

  true!

  Now she smiled again at him. 'He wanted a breath of air, he said. But . . . he's been watching all day, through John's old field-glasses, out of the attic windows front and back.' The smile trembled slightly, and the corner of her unpainted lip turned down. 'He said that, if anyone came in daylight, it wouldn't be you. But he didn't think you'd be so quick — or so careless.' She looked down at his glass. 'Would you like another drink, David?'

  He looked down at his glass, which had somehow emptied itself. 'Only if I'm not driving — and if you've got enough supper for three — ?'

  'I always make too much.' The smile turned up again.

  'Although Peter's done most of the cooking: we're having spaghetti bolognese. Only with a lot more meat than is proper, apparently. So there'll be enough, I'm sure.'

  There was much more whisky in the glass this time. 'If I drink this I'll need a bed too, Sophie.'

  She let him take the glass from her. 'There's a camp-bed ... if you have time — ? But you said — ?'

  'I'll be leaving early.' He couldn't risk saying we, even now.

  'But . . . I'm not as young as I was.' Let them all worry — the others! From Paul and Jake to General Lukianov and Others (always supposing they were still worrying, by God!) 'If I don't get a few hours . . . then I
won't be able to think straight tomorrow.' He felt only slightly guilty at disturbing two dummy1

  middle-aged love-birds (which, under pressure and without any sign or mention of poor old John, to whom they had once been so faithful, they probably were now, at last). 'Is it very inconvenient?'

  'Not at all, David.' She sounded almost relieved. 'Peter didn't really expect you tonight. He thought it would be tomorrow night, more likely. If at all.' Her mouth tightened suddenly.

  'No — he didn't say "if at all" — I did. He was almost certain that you'd come.' She touched her lips with her glass. 'But he was afraid someone else might come with you.'

  'He thought I'd be careless.' That was disappointing.

  'No.' She closed her eyes for an instant. 'He just wasn't quite sure that they'd let you come alone.' She sighed. 'After what had happened on Capri.'

  'That's all in the past.' He shook his head reassuringly at her.

  'How long will he be?'

  She glanced at the candle. 'Not long, I shouldn't think. It all depends on whether he's on top or down below at the moment. He said he was just going to stretch his legs . . . and take Buster for a night-jaunt.' She came back to him. 'You're quite right: I didn't have a dog, that time you came. I only got one three years ago, when . . . after John died.'

  The poor devil had lasted all those years! God — small wonder she was grey and stretched! And that, of course, accounted for Peter's own behaviour over the years, taken together with his own problems.

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  But he had to think of Peter now — out there somewhere.

  And not just "stretching his legs and the dog's", either: the dark would be his friend equally. And especially with a dog at his side, for "Buster" would be both a useful ally in casing the area for strangers and a splendid cover for such an enterprise: a dog was worth several men, day or night — and a man walking a dog at night would pass for a local man, not a stranger.

  'Either way, he will have seen the car lights anyway, David.'

  'Yes.' And then he'd be thinking hard, thought Audley. In fact, if he had known near-enough what had happened on Capri, but not why . . . and also with the name David Audley in the forefront of his mind . . . he'd be thinking very hard indeed —

  But she was watching him intently again with that stretched look of hers. Only now that look must have more to do with her living Peter than her dead John. 'Don't worry, Sophie.

  We're both being careful, that's all.'

  She drew a long breath. 'It's easy to say that. But I don't know why you're being careful. And neither does Peter. Except he knows that someone wants him dead —and maybe you, too.'

  'Uh-huh.' Knowing so much, yet so little, no wonder the poor woman was so frightened behind her brave front. 'Well, that's why I'm here, my dear: because I don't know either.

  And that's why we're both in danger. It's like having poison in your bloodstream — not knowing enough, either of us. But together, you see, we may also have the antidote. That's what dummy1

  I'm hoping, anyway.'

  Another long, almost shuddering breath. 'It doesn't make sense.'

  'Why not?' The heat of the fire and the whisky were getting to him. Only hunger kept him awake.

  'It's just . . .' She gestured despairingly '. . . how did you know he'd be here, with me? How could you be so sure, I mean?'

  'He was sure, wasn't he?'

  'Yes. But —'

  'Why was he sure?'

  She pulled herself together. 'He said you'd remember. He said you never forget anything — that you've got a memory like an elephant.'

  'And so has he. I knew he'd remember — he knew I'd remember. It's the gift the good fairy gave to each of us.

  Sometimes it's a mixed blessing. But it gives us an advantage.'

  'Like now.'

  'Like now maybe. But maybe not. Because when we remember the past we recall the bad things just as vividly as the good ones. The saving grace of ordinary fallible memory is that old unhappiness blurs, and then it often becomes a joke before it's virtually forgotten. But the good times get rosier . . . like, my wife can never remember it raining when she was a child. And she's got crystal-clear recollection of her dummy1

  father looking handsome in his uniform, and bringing her sweets and books and toys, even though she knows she was only a tiny tot, and he only saw her a few times . . . and he was a bit of a rascal — ' he caught himself too late, knowing he must go on ' —if not actually a villain.' He saw from her face that Peter Richardson had come clean with her. So in another moment she would conclude that his faux pas had been deliberate. 'I know that my temps perdu really are the lost good old days . . . But anyway, one reason why Peter and I were first recruited was that we didn't always have to be looking up the files: we remembered what was in them once we'd read them — ' Damn! She had made the connection, and was looking even more desolate at the thought of Richardson's rascality.

  'How much trouble is Peter in? Apart from . . . this trouble of yours, David?'

  'He isn't in any trouble in England, Sophie. Apart from my trouble, that is.' He half-smiled at her. 'What I was going to say was that he and I have a special reason for remembering each other. Or ... two special reasons, actually. Because he saved my bacon once, in Italy . . . But, before that, there was this little experiment our mutual boss set up, you see.'

  'What. . . experiment?' She frowned at him.

  It was working, his diversion. 'He ordered me to invite Peter to dinner — to a dinner-party in my home. He — our esteemed master ... he implied it was so we could get to know each other. But then, some time afterwards, he offered a dummy1

  crate of champagne to whichever of us could more exactly remember everything that had been said that evening. And the loser was to match the crate with another one — '

  Unbidden, the image of Sir Frederick Clinton superimposed itself on Sophie Kenyon ' — the wicked old devil! He said if I didn't want to take part the crate would be Peter's by default.

  But he reckoned Peter would win it anyway.'

  A dog barked joyously outside the house, at the back in the distance.

  'Go on, David.' She swam back into focus, strangely relaxed now. 'Peter has a key — he can let himself in.'

  The back had been a jumble of out-buildings and greenhouses full of carefully-wintered plants, he remembered, using the picture to obliterate Fred's obnoxious self-satisfaction. But could Peter ever exchange his exotic Amain coast for the rigours of even a south-facing Cotswold hillside?

  'Go on, David.' She was almost serene now that her living man was back under her roof. 'But . . . how was it going to be judged, though?'

  He could hear other noises now, so that it was hard to concentrate. 'He said he would leave us to judge ourselves.

  But if we didn't agree then we could turn our entries over to the guests.'

  The noises resolved themselves into a door clattering and the wretched dog scampering and sliding on the flagstones dummy1

  outside before it started removing more paint from the sitting-room door.

  And then the door opened and the creature hurtled through the gap, filling the room with furious uninhibited activity —

  making for its mistress first, and then happily and incorrectly assuming that any friend of hers must be another friend.

  'Down, Buster!' She attempted half-heartedly to restrain the animal's enthusiasm for his new pretended friend. 'Do you have a dog, David?'

  'He hates dogs.' Peter Richardson spoke from the doorway.

  'He has geese to protect him. Although he probably has electronic sensors now . . . Good to see you, David. I never thought I'd say that. But. . . autres temps, autres moeurs, eh?'

  'I don't actually.' The years had greyed Richardson, too: he looked like a distinguished Italian nobleman fancy-dressed in someone's old clothes. (The dead husband's dothes, maybe?) 'I am relieved to see you, too, Mr Dalingridge.'

  'Is that a fact?' The brown well-tanned face and the too-knowing
smile on it hadn't changed. 'But ... as a matter of fact . . . you've just given me a nasty turn.' Richardson spread his hands out towards the fire. 'Brrr! I'd forgotten how chilly England can get . . .' He gave Audley a sidelong glance. 'The thing outside . . . You always used to drive a sedate Austin ...

  not your thing at all, I thought.'

  The thing was the Porsche, of course. 'No, Peter. Not my dummy1

  thing at all — you're right.' He needed to assert himself. 'I borrowed it. Because it doesn't have a bug in it.' He managed to smile at Richardson at last. 'It belongs to one of your successors actually.'

  'One of my successors?' Richardson turned to Sophie Kenyon at last, and his face softened. 'Give me a drink, Sophie . . .

  And don't worry, dear: it's like I said, isn't it? It'll be David.

  And that means someone else should be worrying a lot more than us.' He nodded at her, with a half-knowing, half-bitter little smile. Then glanced sidelong again at Audley over his outstretched arm. 'One of my successors, eh? Well, he never bought that on his pay — thanks, Sophie dear — but then, the Department of Intelligence Research and Development always favoured well-heeled young gentry, didn't it?' He sipped his drink. 'But it did give me a bit of a turn, I tell you.

  I saw the lights from the copse by the road — that was fair enough, I just thought you'd been quick off the mark. But then I saw the back of the car . . . very nice, I'd have thought at any other time — like Cardinal Alberoni when he saw Philippe d'Orleans' backside: Que culo d'angelo . . . but not your sort of car, David. And that worried me for a bit . . .

  Still, he must trust you, to lend you his Porsche. In fact, if he knows how you drive, he must be a friend indeed!'

  There was an edge of bitterness there as well as strain, beneath the old banter: once upon a time Richardson had taken an equally ridiculous car of his own like that for granted. But Audley was not of a mind to soften the contrast dummy1

  by recounting the tale of Mitchell's purchase of the thing second-hand, for cash, after last autumn's Stock Exchange debacle. Instead, he let the thump of Buster's over-worked tail fill the silence between them.