Gently with the Ladies

by Alan Hunter

  ‘It keeps turning over who killed her. Who must have killed her, if I didn’t. And I’m pretty certain it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Only pretty certain?’

  ‘That’s my state. Facts aren’t facts with me any more. It’s like the world has gone back into the melting pot and facts are just what people believe. Maybe that’s always the way with facts and we’re kidding ourselves when we think they’re different. I don’t know. I don’t think I killed her. I was certain yesterday. Not today.’

  ‘Then who must have killed her?’

  ‘It’ll sound too silly. You have to start out knowing it wasn’t me. That’s to say you have to believe it, you have to worship it, make a fact of it, inspire the world to believe it with you. So that it’s true for five minutes.’

  ‘And when you’ve settled the metaphysic?’

  ‘Then it all turns ugly. You’ve got a vacuum that sucks in belief and creates a fact you don’t want.’

  ‘Connected with your sister-in-law?’

  Fazakerly nodded. ‘Brenda told her. I’m sure of that. And I’m sure she was there when we were rowing.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m sure of too much.’

  ‘You went to see her last night. Why was that?’

  ‘Ask yourself, where would you expect me to go? She’s the only relative I have in London, and I had to talk it over with someone.’

  ‘What was her attitude?’

  ‘That’s the rub. She was sore as hell that I’d got out. Sore, shocked. It wasn’t to plan. I could see it. She just wanted me back inside.’

  ‘Did you row?’

  ‘No. She’s too intelligent to start rowing. But she was just like an east wind, and they blow through you and not round you. To make it natural she should have been happy for me, but she was too needled to bother with that. She believes like hell that you’re going to get me. Not that I did it, that you’re going to get me. She wants the money too darned much. She lets it show.’

  ‘That’s human enough. If she thinks you did it.’

  ‘But I know I didn’t, and I know she knows.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She was there. Nobody else could have told Clytie. And Clytie wouldn’t have given it to me so raw unless she had an audience round the corner.’

  Gently’s head slanted. ‘You’re positive of that – it was the only reason for your wife’s anger?’

  ‘The more positive the more I think of it. In fact, I’d swear she was putting it on. It was out of character. She just didn’t care. I was the fool to take her seriously. She had me spinning around like a blue-arsed fly and she didn’t mean a bloody word of it.’

  ‘Miss Johnson meant nothing special to her.’

  ‘Sarah? Sarah was just a name.’

  ‘That was the impression your wife gave you.’

  ‘Of course. What could Clytie know about her?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you.’

  ‘And I’m telling you. Clytie had never set eyes on Sarah. And if she had it would have made no difference, she was chums with half the women I slept around with.’

  ‘So doesn’t that indicate something special about Sarah?’

  Fazakerly hesitated, his flecked eyes searching.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me there is?’ he said. ‘Something you know about and I don’t?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘How long have you known her?’

  ‘Since last October. October the tenth.’

  ‘Never before then?’

  ‘No, never. Well, I may have seen her around once or twice.’

  ‘You didn’t see her around when she lived in Chelsea.’

  ‘In Chelsea?’ Fazakerly went still. ‘She’s never lived this way, she belongs to Rochester. If she’d ever lived here she’d have told me.’

  ‘What makes you so sure she belongs to Rochester?’

  ‘Well . . . everything. Her parents live there.’

  ‘You’ve met them?’

  ‘No, but she talks about them.’

  ‘And in a year you haven’t met them. Isn’t that strange?’

  Fazakerly touched his forehead with his palm. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m going to pieces. Look, Sarah is the only thing I’ve got left. Just leave her with me. Don’t play any tricks with her. She’s my fact and I’m believing in her and I’m going to stay believing in her and you can’t destroy her. Let her be!’ He gave a moan. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What don’t I know about her?’

  ‘Only that she was a friend of Beryl Rogers.’

  ‘Beryl Rogers?’ He looked stupid for a moment. ‘You mean that tart the trouble was about? Oh . . . now I see. Now I’m with it.’

  ‘So your wife’s anger may have been genuine.’

  ‘Yes, genuine. Yes, I see.’

  ‘She wasn’t necessarily playing to a gallery.’

  Fazakerly rubbed his forehead and groaned.

  ‘Let me get it straight,’ he said. ‘Sarah didn’t tell me. She didn’t breathe a word of this. During all those times and intimacies when I told her everything, admitted everything. Yet she knew who I was. If it didn’t mean anything it must have come out one time or another. That she knew Clytie. That she’d had a friend. That Clytie had fouled it up for her friend.’

  ‘It’s very natural she wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Natural. Yes. For a woman.’

  ‘You might have suspected she wasn’t genuine.’

  ‘I might have suspected something else.’

  ‘Then can you blame her?’

  He hunched his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. It’s how I said. All to pieces and in the pot. You look around and there’s just nothing. So it’s a small thing, very small, doesn’t have any meaning. But the way I feel it’s enough. It could be a bomb. It could be Gehenna.’

  ‘When people talk like that they are usually excusing themselves in advance.’

  Fazakerly looked at him bitterly. ‘You’re a pal,’ he said. ‘Job and you would have been real cobbers. But it’s over with Sarah and me anyway, I knew it when I slammed the door on her. And now it’s just laughable to think of reviving it. There’s a thousand years gone by since then.’

  ‘Did you ever really love her?’

  ‘Yes. No. You tell me the answer. I built a framework of ideas and emotions round her and accepted the hypothesis of their validity. But I was conscious enough it was hypothetical and that my acceptance was not inevitable. And now that framework has detached itself and is floating away in the general flux. If you want ideas, those are ideas. But they don’t mean anything. Unless you say so.’

  ‘Perhaps you did suspect her in a vague way.’

  ‘Perhaps I did. Who don’t we suspect? In a perfect creation there’s a sickness of egoism. We know that everyone is a little infected.’

  ‘Did she ask much about your wife?’

  ‘She may have led me on. I didn’t need much asking.’

  ‘Did she want to know how she spent her time. How she dressed. What jewellery she wore.’

  Fazakerly hesitated. ‘She did ask about jewellery – yes, she asked quite a lot about that.’

  ‘About her favourite pieces and when she wore them. About that necklace she bought in Paris.’

  ‘The necklace.’ Fazakerly’s eyes caught at him. ‘Just where do you get your information?’ he asked.

  ‘In this instance from Miss Johnson herself.’

  Fazakerly shrugged. ‘Too simple, isn’t it?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She asked me a lot about the necklace. When Clytie wore it, where she kept it, whether and for how much it was insured. And I asked her if she was thinking of pinching it, and we had a giggle. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because it was pinched.’

  ‘What? That necklace?’

  Gently nodded. ‘That same necklace. Your wife had it out on Monday morning, but by the time we arrived it was gone.’

  Fazakerly sat up straight. ‘But you’re not suspecting Sarah! Good lord, I can vouch for her – she was at ho
me all day.’

  Gently shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t vouch for her. And she was up here. She admits it.’

  His light-brown eyes stared incredulously. ‘You’re having me on,’ he said. ‘You must be. I left her there getting down to some work and she was still there when I got back.’

  ‘Still at her work?’

  ‘Not at her work. She’d been down town to buy some bread—’ He broke off. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I took it she had. She brought some bread with her when she came in.’

  ‘So she wasn’t in her apartment when you got there.’

  ‘No. But she turned up ten minutes later.’

  ‘In her car, of course.’

  ‘Yes, in her car—’ He got to his feet. ‘This is madness!’ he said.

  Gently said: ‘She came to London, because she admits it. She had a lunch appointment with one of her editors. And she didn’t return straight away, she admits that, and she can’t offer proof of where she went. But she had time to go to Chelsea and time to beat you back to Rochester. But if she didn’t beat you back there it follows she may have left after you did.’

  ‘Meaning?’ he said.

  ‘Meaning she could have been at the flat later than you.’

  ‘And . . . pinched the necklace?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘If nobody caught her in the act.’

  He faced Gently agonizedly. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘It’s too utterly, bloodily preposterous. She couldn’t have come back from doing such a thing and then behaved as she did with me. There must be something solid, somewhere. No woman on earth could have been such a hypocrite. It was genuine. If it wasn’t genuine then chaos is come, and I’m a raving lunatic.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you where she’d been,’ Gently said.

  ‘I didn’t give her a chance to tell me that. I was spilling over with injured egoism and wanting her to sacrifice to my degradation. And there was no question of Clytie being dead or any possible change in my situation. What we were arguing about was Clytie alive and me trying to find some honest work.’

  ‘And she convinced you.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Nothing can be genuine if she wasn’t, then. Good God, I’ve seen enough of women’s games not to be taken in any longer. If you won’t believe me on my own behalf, at least believe me on Sarah’s.’

  ‘She had a grudge against your wife,’ Gently said. ‘She seems to have shared in the Beryl Rogers disaster. That necklace was a sort of symbol, you know. Miss Johnson may have felt an irresistible urge to deprive your wife of it.’

  ‘And all this while she was making me a tool?’

  ‘She knew who you were when she picked up with you.’

  ‘You can’t make me believe it. There’s no proof strong enough. Though she swore it herself, it wouldn’t be true.’

  ‘In part true. We have mixed motives.’

  ‘Not even in part. I won’t have that, either. If there’s any connexion it’s separate, coincidental. First she loved me, that’s single and immaculate.’

  ‘In the way you defined love?’

  Fazakerly sank into the chair again. ‘Why did I ever go to you?’ he said. ‘It must have been my evil star driving me along. The trouble is you’re too damned understanding. I can’t make any sort of front against you. You even stop me doing it with myself, you take the belief out of my words. So you want Sarah. Take Sarah. But Sarah isn’t going to be any use to you.’

  ‘Because,’ Gently said.

  ‘I’m confessing, damn you. It was me who killed Clytie and stole the necklace.’

  There was a service bell on the wall near them and Gently reached over and rang the bell. A waiter came running through the swing doors as though his only duty was to answer that bell. He clicked his heels and smiled.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ Gently said.

  Fazakerly glowered. ‘Scotch,’ he snapped.

  ‘Export lager,’ Gently said.

  The waiter ducked and ran out again.

  ‘This is one thing that money can buy,’ Gently said. ‘I can’t afford to buy it myself, but I agree it’s worth whatever you’re paying for it. Just answer one question and I’ll take you seriously.’

  ‘I’m tired of answering questions,’ Fazakerly said.

  ‘What did you do with the necklace?’

  ‘I slung it in the Medway.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to stay free and rich.’

  The drinks came, a jar of Scotch with jumbo ice-cubes clattering in it, and a misty vase of lager. Fazakerly sat pat. Gently paid. Fazakerly drank slowly from amongst his bergs. His eyes were steady and distant. Just while he drank you would think he was dreaming of far atolls and sleepy guitars.

  ‘So you’re chopping Sarah.’

  ‘I didn’t say so.’

  ‘That’s the worst of you. You never say anything. You just apply pressures – that’s your technique, isn’t it? You harp away on one string till you drive a person gaga. And all the time you don’t mean it. You’re merely operating on their brain.’

  ‘You think I don’t mean it about Miss Johnson?’

  ‘I think you’ve been laying it on too thick. She’s a nice sharp tool for dealing with me. A bright lancet. The right-shaped blade.’

  ‘I wanted your reactions. That’s natural.’

  ‘And now you’ve got them, what next?’

  Gently grinned. ‘I may even begin believing in your innocence.’

  ‘That’s crazy. Right when I’ve stopped believing in it myself.’

  They drank some more.

  ‘You said you’d never met Beryl Rogers,’ Gently said.

  Fazakerly nodded. ‘I heard what happened though. Brenda filled me in on that. And it must have made an impression on Clytie because she always kept the memory fresh. That necklace was a symbol all right. It was pointing straight at La Bannister’s heart.’

  ‘Who would know your wife had it out on Monday?’

  ‘Stockbridge of course. Perhaps Mother Lipton.’

  ‘It was Mrs Lipton’s day off.’

  ‘She’d know that Clytie was going out.’

  ‘Is she dishonest?’

  Fazakerly shook his head. ‘She’s a damned old bitch, but she’s honest. We’ve had her ever since we moved there. She could’ve pinched a fortune if she’d wanted.’

  ‘Who else would know?’

  ‘La Bannister herself, and anyone who knew Clytie and knew she was going out. She always wore it. People would notice. If she’d booked a table, say, somebody might have done some guessing.’

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No. So I couldn’t have told Sarah. And it’s daft even beginning to suspect Sarah with La Bannister right on the spot. It couldn’t have meant such a damn sight to Sarah, not enough to make her turn burglar. But it was vitriol to dear Sybil. The wonder would be she waited so long.’

  ‘Tell me some more about your wife and Mrs Bannister.’

  ‘More in what way.’

  ‘About their relations.’

  Fazakerly sipped.

  ‘I’ve tried to believe that Sybil could do it,’ he said. ‘And I can’t. Not quite. Though she may have done it, for all that.’

  ‘Did she really love your wife?’

  ‘Love-hate. That’s the cliché. But all love is hate, you can’t have one without the other. The trouble comes when you interfere with the natural balance of the phenomenon. Which is what Christ did. Which is why his results were so deplorable. Any creed that makes love a cult is on the straight road to Belsen.’

  ‘And Mrs Bannister did that.’

  ‘Yes. She made a cult of their relations. She had to, it’s her character. She’s a curious strain of emotion and intellect. Clytie was a beast, but a natural beast, and in a strange sort of way you could sympathize with her. Perhaps that’s why I stuck her so long and let myself drift into being a bum. But La Bannister is an unnatural beast. She’s outside herself, pulling the strings. Her intellect won’t let her emo
tions alone. She’s an adulterated ego. So she wouldn’t just love and hate like the grass growing but she’d try to separate one from the other and she’d set up love to be worshipped and in fact she loathed Clytie.’

  ‘While at the same time being fascinated.’

  ‘More than that. Parasitical.’

  ‘She drew spiritual strength from your wife.’

  ‘That’s the key to the relation. You notice it with these split-types, they’re drawn to more primitive kinds of ego. Perhaps Albert Schweitzer is such a one. What Hamlet needed was an aboriginal mistress. And Sybil found her primitive in Clytie. They’d known each other for years, you know.’

  ‘And you can’t believe Mrs Bannister would have killed her.’

  ‘No. The other way round, I could believe that. Or somebody else, that I’d believe. But she’d always cringe before Clytie.’

  ‘Someone else?’

  ‘Say me for example. I daresay Sybil wouldn’t stop at me.’

  ‘Or say, a husband?’

  Fazakerly took a long swig. He looked at Gently over the glass.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Dig, dig. You’re always ahead of the game, aren’t you? Dig and push. Dig and push. The art of being a top detective.’

  ‘Inquest verdicts are no secret.’

  ‘But knowing to look for them is a trick. What set you digging up Fletcher Bannister?’

  ‘I like to know how people get rich.’

  Fazakerly nodded. ‘It’s logical,’ he said. ‘That’s what we murderers will never learn. But Fletcher Bannister did smash himself up, for all the wild women at the back of him.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘I was there. October fifty-nine. Greystone Manor. Fletcher was a man and I was a mouse. He went out and got it over and I hung on and made squeaking noises. I’d been married just six weeks then. Him and me found out together.’

  Gently drank. ‘I thought it might have been that way.’

  ‘It wasn’t deliberate. Nothing of that sort. Clytie hadn’t been seeing Sybil for a while and when they got together it hit the eye. Fletcher was one of these Podsnap busters who flinch if you happen to mention a choir-boy. He kept his head for a couple of days then flipped and broke into Sybil’s bedroom. Not pretty. He took me with him. There was a stinking row which he didn’t win. The next we heard him take off in his Mercedes and there was a lot of telephoning in the night.’