Gently with the Ladies

by Alan Hunter

  ‘That. Yes. Yes, I did.’ The colour flicked into her cheeks, too strong and sudden to be concealed. ‘I turned him down. It wouldn’t have worked. I knew it was a risk I had to take. If it was to be anything with us at all he had to be jolted into responsibility. It was a terrible temptation just to accept him – I wanted to, so much! – but I could see it would be a sort of betrayal, it would be letting the decent part of him down. After he’d gone I cried and cried. I thought perhaps I’d never see him again.’

  ‘You nearly wouldn’t have done,’ Gently shrugged.

  ‘Oh God. I know now what he did. But that was all right, he wouldn’t have drowned. Johnny is safe enough at sea.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a pass at committing suicide.’

  ‘Suicide? Oh, not Johnny!’

  ‘If he’d left a murdered wife in London—’

  ‘But it wasn’t like that – it simply wasn’t.’

  The tangle of fingers clenched over her knee and she gave her hair a snatching toss. Light fell for a moment on her flushed face, revealing an almost childlike cast of feature. Then it was shadowed again.

  She said carefully: ‘Yes, he was in a state when he came back here on Monday. He was angry and desperate and talking wildly. He was trying to believe he would get a divorce. He knew his wife wouldn’t divorce him but he thought he might manage to divorce her. He thought her relations with that other woman would outweigh anything alleged against him. It wasn’t a trick. I know Johnny. As far as he knew, his wife was alive.’

  ‘I see,’ Gently said. ‘Yet you mentioned none of this to Sergeant Buttifant.’

  ‘Because he wasn’t nagging me like you are. He was only asking a few questions.’

  ‘He would ask what Johnny’s state of mind was.’

  ‘Yes, and I told him: he was upset. And I told him why, because of the row. And that Johnny had wanted to come and live with me.’

  ‘But said nothing about him thinking his wife was alive.’

  ‘No! I didn’t see then how important it was.’

  ‘What could be more important, Miss Johnson?’

  She averted her head and said nothing.

  ‘I’d like to get more into the picture,’ Gently said. ‘Such a lot is vague just at present. For instance, how did you come to meet Johnny? How long has the affair been going on?’

  ‘I met him here. When he joined the Club.’

  ‘You’re fellow members?’

  She shook her head. ‘They use this building to store their gear. In the autumn. When they lay up.’

  ‘But Johnny hasn’t a yacht, has he?’

  ‘He came to give the others a hand.’

  ‘And you mix with them, do you? Know them well?’

  ‘Naturally. I have to see something of them.’

  ‘But Johnny attracted you.’

  She stirred a little. ‘I met him,’ she said. ‘That’s all that matters. A year ago. He was unloading a trailer. I invited him in for a cup of tea.’

  ‘Not knowing who he was?’

  ‘I knew he was a member.’

  ‘Not knowing his name?’

  ‘How would I know that?’

  ‘He was simply a stranger helping to unload a trailer, and you felt a compulsion to make his acquaintance.’

  Her stare was not very friendly. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’d seen him there before. And yes, maybe I’d asked about him and knew his name. Perhaps it was I who made all the advances.’

  ‘It was love at first sight.’

  ‘Must you drag in that cliché?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gently said. ‘I was trying it for size. Or perhaps you were curious, say about his name. One doesn’t often come across Fazakerly.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Did you know that name?’

  She gave a twist of her shoulders.

  ‘By reputation perhaps – in your professional circle: the circle of magazines and fashion intelligence?’

  She got down from the settee and went swiftly to the window, where she stood with her back to him, looking down the Gardens. In a small, dry voice she said:

  ‘You’ve made your point then. Yes, I had heard of her. And I knew Beryl Rogers.’

  Gently waited. Sarah Johnson continued for some while facing the window. She was resting her hands on the dining-table and rocking a little from one to the other. Overhead the pigeons had returned and their confused crooing sounded close and intimate, while an occasional car on the Esplanade made a distant buzz in passing. No clock was ticking. Perhaps it was this that gave the room such a hushed quality.

  ‘Beryl Rogers was a special friend of mine.’

  Now she came slowly back from the window. She sat down, this time upon the settee, her head and shoulders drooping forward.

  ‘We were both about the same age. I met her at the school of journalism I attended. We both worked for the United Press group and we lived in a houseboat at Cheyne Steps. It was all very gay and very wonderful and we were both going to marry into Debrett.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  Sarah Johnson shrugged. ‘After the crash she went to New Zealand. There was nothing else for her to do. Clytie Fazakerly saw to that.’

  ‘You’ve heard from her since?’

  ‘A couple of times, but not for several years now. I expect she wanted to forget me, and I can understand that.’

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘She was framed.’

  ‘You mean that Mrs Fazakerly framed her?’

  Sarah Johnson nodded. ‘She planted a necklace on her, then had a C.I.D. man pick her up. There was a prosecution. Beryl got off. But she was finished in the Street. The Fazakerly creature cut a lot of ice there and Beryl lost her job and was blacked.’

  ‘But why would Mrs Fazakerly do a thing like that?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I only know what Beryl told me, but she had no reason to lie.’ She hesitated, swinging her hair back. ‘Beryl was an emotional person,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you can read between the lines. I don’t find it easy to talk about this.’

  Gently nodded.

  ‘She met Sybil Bannister. It was at a private show of Louella Modes. She was there reporting with a staff artist, it was in the Blue Room at the Chat Noir. You perhaps don’t know about that sort of thing, but it’s a beastly sort of alcoholic hen-party, and most of them finish up a bit high and there’s some odd behaviour goes on. Well, Sybil Bannister got a crush on Beryl, and Beryl was dozey enough to feel flattered. She let that woman take her home and she didn’t come back to the houseboat. I’m not defending her, don’t think that. She knew very well what she was in for. And she was weak enough to let it continue, I think she was even rather proud. Sybil Bannister is a remarkable woman in some ways and it was a kind of distinction to be her favourite.’

  ‘And that’s what she became?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Sybil Bannister was crazy about her. She bought her jewellery and clothes and took her round the smart places. She suggested Beryl should throw up her job and go and live with her in Paris. She was sweeping Beryl off her feet. I think she’d have done what Sybil Bannister wanted.’

  ‘But then it all blew up in her face.’

  ‘Yes. Exactly like that. Clytie Fazakerly came back from some holiday and the same evening Beryl was fixed.’

  ‘How did she do it?’

  ‘It was quite unsubtle. She gave a little supper in her flat. She was charming as an angel to poor Beryl and cooing and caressing to Sybil Bannister. She showed them some jewellery she’d brought back including a diamond and emerald necklace. When Beryl got back to the houseboat a detective was waiting for her. He found the necklace in her handbag.’

  ‘But didn’t Mrs Bannister stand by her?’

  Sarah Johnson shook her head. ‘Sybil Bannister left town. Beryl never saw her again. The case was thrown out at the Magistrates’ Court because Clytie Fazakerly failed to appear. Perhaps she
was afraid of what might have come out. But it was all the same to Beryl.’

  ‘And so, because of this, she decided to emigrate.’

  ‘She was completely bowled over. Clytie Fazakerly destroyed her, just as she was trying to destroy Johnny.’

  ‘Johnny, whom you first met a year ago.’

  Sarah Johnson said meekly: ‘I’m not going to deny it. Yes, I had made enquiries about Johnny, and I knew very well who he was when I rubbed an acquaintance with him.’

  She looked around her as though missing something, then sighed and closed her eyes a moment. Gently brought out a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have one of these.’

  She raised her hand. ‘Please don’t tempt me. I’m trying to give them up. Again. But the habit rears its ugly head whenever I’m under nervous strain.’

  ‘You’ve tried before, then?’

  ‘I’m always trying, and this time I’ve gone nearly a month. But if I’m questioned by many more policemen I shall be back to forty a day.’

  Gently shrugged and put the cigarettes away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s a policeman’s function.’

  ‘I know. I wasn’t complaining about that. I’m just in a spot where a fag would count.’

  She sighed again, then smoothed her hair and drew herself straighter.

  ‘If you think I deliberately went after Johnny and seduced him,’ she said, ‘you’d be more or less right. I think that’s what I had in mind, though it’s hard to separate and label motives. They have a way of being something else which somehow won’t go into words. But you may think the worst by all means. Let’s say I wanted to seduce Clytie Fazakerly’s husband. Not knowing, of course, he’d been seduced so many times that my poor effort was academic.’

  ‘You felt it was revenge for what she’d done to Beryl.’

  ‘Oh, and to me. I had a personal grudge. What happened to Beryl seemed to hit me too, it was like bad luck that rubbed off. First, I had to give up the houseboat. Then I lost my job with United Press. Then, I don’t know, I was on a losing streak, I had a miserable affair with a married man. So all my bright promise had come to nothing and I slunk back home to lick my wounds. And I laid it at Clytie Fazakerly’s door: Beryl in New Zealand, me in Rochester.’

  ‘But you’d soon find out that Johnny was a womaniser.’

  She winced. ‘I’d rather you used a different word. It isn’t true, either. He was driven that way. I trust him. I believe he’s been faithful to me.’

  ‘Does he know what made him attractive?’

  ‘No.’ Her eyes found his. ‘And perhaps you’ll be charitable enough not to tell him, especially since it’s so different now. You see, I love Johnny. Like that. It doesn’t matter why I picked up with him. In fact, it might have been the reason after all, with his being who he is a special bonus. I said it was hard to separate motives. But I love Johnny. And he loves me.’

  ‘Then of course you’d have had some plans for him.’

  ‘Plans?’

  ‘If you’d loved him and he’d loved you. Carrying on as you were wasn’t very satisfactory. Going shares with a yacht club in Johnny’s weekends.’

  ‘You’re so complimentary, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Just constitutionally curious, Miss Johnson.’

  ‘I’d say you were too cynical for your own good. But that’s probably a policeman’s function too.’

  Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘So what were your plans?’

  ‘We didn’t have any plans,’ she said. ‘I was just trying to build up Johnny’s confidence, that was the only plan I ever had.’

  ‘But where was that going?’

  ‘Nowhere at all.’

  ‘And nowhere at all was satisfactory?’

  ‘I tell you,’ she said, twisting, ‘it was too impossible. There was nothing to be done while Johnny was down.’

  ‘But perhaps you had thought a little beyond that, to the time when you’d put some stuffing in him, to the time when he might stand up to his wife: to the time, even, when he might be rid of her?’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’

  ‘It didn’t enter your thoughts?’

  ‘Oh, God, yes, I thought about it, then! Yes, I thought about it, like a win on the pools or anything else that could never happen. But that’s all I did. I thought about it.

  ‘But never how it might be brought about?’

  ‘A divorce. I dreamed of a divorce.’

  ‘And nothing else?’

  ‘I hoped the house would fall on her!’

  She covered her face with her hands and gave a few moaning sobs, but they were over in a moment and she was facing him again, tearfully fierce.

  ‘You don’t mean that!’ she cried. ‘It’s too ridiculous to take seriously.’

  ‘What don’t I mean, Miss Johnson?’

  ‘That I – that I was a sort of Lady Macbeth! That I egged Johnny on to kill his wife, and hoped the fool would get away with it – or that the police would never guess. No – you can’t be serious.’

  ‘But that wasn’t my meaning, Miss Johnson.’

  ‘If it wasn’t, what was?’

  ‘I think you’ve guessed already. You had a vital stake in this business.’

  ‘Me!’ Her eyes expanded. ‘No, this is just a bad joke. As though there were a way to drag me in, with all the nagging in the world.’

  ‘For instance, Johnny left you here, and found you here when he returned. But I believe Sergeant Buttifant omitted to ask how you spent the time between.’

  ‘And if I say I was in town you’ll arrest me?’

  ‘Were you in town, Miss Johnson?’

  ‘Oh yes. I go there, you know. I had a lunch appointment with the editor of Ton.’

  ‘On Monday?’

  ‘On Monday. Now why don’t you produce the hand-cuffs?’

  Gently paused. There was a touch of virago in the way Sarah Johnson was glaring at him. Her head was drawn down on her shoulders and her small mouth was dragged.

  ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ll give me details. How do you make the journey to town.’

  ‘I drive there. I’m not so impoverished that I can’t afford a car. I left here at half past eleven and I was in Southampton Street at about a quarter to one. I met Molly Steward, she’s the fashion editor, and we had a pub lunch in the Prince of Wales. She was giving me the new line they’re going to push this winter. And after that I ordered some wool at Mallenders’ branch in the Strand. Then I pottered a bit round the shops. Then I drove back here.’

  ‘When did you arrive?’

  ‘Fivish.’

  ‘So you were only just ahead of Johnny?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t a leg to stand on. I drive a TR3, too.’

  ‘How long were you pottering around the shops?’

  ‘Over an hour. Nearly two. And I didn’t meet anyone who would remember me, so I might just as well have been in Chelsea.’

  ‘You had time to go there, Miss Johnson.’

  ‘Yes. It’s too perfect.’

  ‘And you didn’t go there . . . not perhaps to have an interview with Mrs Fazakerly?’

  She stared at him, then laughed bitterly. ‘You can work it all in, can’t you?’ she said. ‘Just show you the hind-leg of a rabbit and already there’s game-pie on the menu. But I’m not your game-pie, Superintendent. You’ll have to make shift with poor Johnny. Because I was nowhere near Chelsea on Monday, and I certainly didn’t interview Clytie Fazakerly.’

  ‘Then why was she suddenly so inimical towards you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, why, Miss Johnson. That’s the question. Apparently you were just another woman of Johnny’s. Why weren’t you ignored like all the others?’

  Sarah Johnson got up. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And furthermore I don’t care. It’s because of nothing I’ve said or done to her, you can write that down in your note-book. And now if you don’t mind, and if you’re not arresting me, I’ve things to get on wit
h.’

  She went to the table and opened a drawer and took out a new twenty packet of Player’s. She lit one and inhaled deeply. She drove a cloud of smoke towards Gently.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HIS RETURN TRIP was made with lights and with less bravura than the outward run. In town, the rush-hour jamming had eased again into a respite of semi-free movement. He drove through New Cross and Camberwell and crossed the river at Vauxhall Bridge. Outside Divisional H.Q. he parked in the V.I.P. slot, which the Sceptre was now clicking into as though it owned it.

  ‘Sir.’

  A uniformed man came over and saluted.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘A message from Inspector Reynolds, sir. He’s been called out on the Fazakerly case, and he’d like you to wait for him if it’s convenient.’

  Gently stared at him. ‘Where’s the Inspector gone?’

  ‘To Carlyle Court, sir. About half an hour ago.’

  ‘What was he after?’

  ‘He didn’t say, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ Gently grunted. ‘I’ll be in his office.’

  He went on up, yielding to a compulsion to flick one of the rubber plants as he passed it, and let himself into the fluorescent brightness and bleak unhospitality of Reynolds’ office. His eye searched for a palliative, and found an evening paper spread on the desk. He dumped himself down by it. The paper, predictably, was open at an account of Fazakerly’s apprehension.

  PENTHOUSE SLAYING HUSBAND FOUND

  Walks Into Yard

  Fazakerly Assists Police

  John Sigismund Fazakerly, 38, husband of the woman whose battered body was found in a luxury flat in Chelsea, today walked into Scotland Yard and offered the Police his assistance. They had been searching for him since Monday when the body was found. He has been taken to Chelsea Police Station where he is helping the Police investigation. According to one source Fazakerly claims to have spent the past three days on a sea trip. A police spokesman said that an arrest was probable ‘within the next few hours’.

  Gently was mentioned cautiously as having visited Divisional H.Q. after the transfer, and Reynolds was pictured striding sharp-eyed down the steps of Carlyle Court. No picture of Fazakerly was apparently available. Instead they had one of the Murdered Woman. She was wearing a sack coat of two seasons ago and had a bemused, almost imbecile, expression. It had no hint of that strange nakedness which was the essence of her identity. She was merely another woman in another press picture, illustrating another story, by accident this one. Gently lit a pipe and smoked and stared at the vacuity of the picture.