by Alan Hunter
‘What’s that?’
‘Why did you let Siggy go?’
She blew a thin stream of smoke at him and stirred, as though acknowledging the settle’s hardness. The black diamond pattern of her legs readjusted and went still again. She’d been wearing pointed spur-heel shoes but she’d quietly pushed them off her feet. She watched Gently with amused eyes. Gently smoked, didn’t reply.
‘You’re a suspicious man, George,’ she said. ‘But I can read you like a book. This is what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, This promiscuous bitch has really come here about the money. Am I right?’
Gently shrugged. ‘Doesn’t it rather stand out?’
She laughed. ‘Yes. And it’s partly true. I don’t want to kiss that money goodbye. Be reasonable, George, it’s an awful lot, and I’m only a weak, erring mortal. You dangled that money under my nose and I was rude as hell to the patients this evening.’
‘You’d better make it up with Fazakerly.’
‘Suddenly, I don’t want to make it up with him. I see he’s blown the gaff about me. But I didn’t expect any different.’
‘Perhaps he wouldn’t make it up with you.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t. I’m a lost trend. Miss Johnson has twisted him round her finger and just now, George dear, she’s quite welcome. But marrying Siggy is marrying a murderer, and that’s too exciting for a girl like me. Oh, I probably wouldn’t wind him up like Clytie, but just the same, the thought would be there.’
‘He may not have done it.’
‘Oh quite. But that isn’t your position, is it?’
‘We haven’t charged him.’
‘Not yet. You’re waiting for one more little piece of evidence.’
‘And you can give it me?’
The diamonds moved. ‘You’d be surprised what I could give you. If you’d only climb off that high horse for a minute and let your blood flow normally. Have you talked to Sarah Johnson?’
Gently nodded.
‘How much did she tell you?’
‘That she’d known Beryl Rogers.’
‘Only that?’
‘She told me the reason why Beryl Rogers went abroad.’
‘My, my,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘The slut has more enterprise than I gave her credit for.’ She chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t you think, judging as a man, that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth?’
Gently said: ‘When did you make her acquaintance?’
She smiled from under lowered lids. ‘Maybe I get around,’ she said. ‘Rochester isn’t far from London. Heaven knows it was worth seeing the bint who could bridle and saddle Siggy Fazakerly. I never could, I give her that. Just put it down to curiosity.’
She drew on the cigarette a few times, then looked around for a place to stub it. Gently took the massive glass ashtray from his desk and leaned forward to put it on the floor by her. She said quickly:
‘Don’t go. I don’t want you to miss what I’m going to say.’
He remained leaning. She looked at him steadily. She said: ‘Yes. I can clinch the Fazakerly case for you.’
‘So?’ he said.
She swayed her shoulders. ‘Of course, I’m in it for the money,’ she said. ‘I deserve that money as much as Siggy. More. I perform a useful service. And I’m not going to take up a moral attitude to justify myself for shopping Siggy. He shouldn’t have dropped me so bloody suddenly when he ran across the Johnson chit. No kidding, cards on the table. He killed his wife and I want the money.’
‘Very impressive,’ Gently said.
Her eyes swam up to him. ‘You slay me,’ she said. ‘All that sarcasm, what’s underneath it? But you love what I’m saying, and you’ll love me too.’
‘Just what are you saying?’
‘I was there in the flat.’
‘You?’
‘I could be lying. Don’t forget I’m a liar. But I don’t have an alibi, remember? And it’s only ten minutes walk to Carlyle Court. Yes, I was there. I’m your eyewitness. Perry Mason wins again.’
He paused, staring at her. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why were you at the flat?’
‘Oh, this and that.’ She drew a knee up. ‘Naturally, we’ll need a cast-iron reason. Let’s say, for instance, I was wild with Siggy for throwing me over the way he did, and that I went down to Rochester on Sunday and recognized the creature he was playing around with. Terribly plausible, don’t you think? I’d met the Johnson at the time of the trouble. So there I’d be with a beautiful card which I could hardly help playing. How do you like it?’
‘Carry on,’ Gently grunted.
‘Praise enough,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘So then I’d go round to the flat to play my card, which would be after lunch, after morning surgery. And I did go, and I did play it, and I just loved what it did to Clytie, and I knew that Siggy was due back so after I’d left Clytie I stuck around.’
‘Stuck around where?’
‘Do you remember the flat?’
Gently nodded.
‘Then you’ll remember the box-room. It’s at the end of the landing and has a transom light, and I went in there and stood on a trunk.’
‘And there you lit a cigarette . . . and waited.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that doesn’t need clairvoyance. And Siggy came in about ten minutes later, and Clytie hit him with all she’d got. For quarter of an hour, or thereabouts. I had the door ajar, listening. This was the pay-off, don’t forget, and I was lapping it up like cream. But then it started to go wrong. Siggy was getting violent too. Suddenly Clytie began screaming “No, Siggy!” and there was a sound of a struggle and a shriek and a thump. How am I doing?’
‘Keep right on talking.’
‘Well, then Siggy bolted out of the door. He rang for the lift but it was in use, so he swore and ran down the stairs.’
‘What was he carrying?’
‘Carrying?’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t remember him carrying anything. But if you say he was, that’s dinkum with me. Only between ourselves, I didn’t see it.’
‘Then?’
‘Then I went in and found her.’
‘Where?’
‘In the lounge. That’s where the row was.’
‘Where in the lounge?’
‘Ah. I’m not too certain. Subject to correction, I’d say the floor. Yes, she was lying on the floor, with Siggy’s belaying-pin beside her.’
‘Did you touch the belaying-pin?’
‘Not likely. After so much indoctrination by T.V. I didn’t touch anything, especially Clytie. The way she was bashed didn’t call for inspection. No, I spent a minute figuring my position and then I decided to follow Siggy. If I stayed and got myself mixed up in it I’d have some crude explaining to do.’
‘You touched nothing, took nothing?’
‘I’m wide open to suggestions.’
‘How did you leave the building?’
‘Inconspicuously. Down the stairs and through the mews.’
‘Through the yard where the dustbins are kept?’
‘Through the yard and straight ahead. But Siggy would have gone out through the front – he had his car there, remember. Then I went home, still inconspicuously. I honestly thought Siggy hadn’t a chance. And it’s a fact that I’m only here now because you didn’t have enough on him to hold him.’
She smiled beautifully at Gently, lifting her face towards his. Her knee lifted and sagged, then lifted again and sagged again.
‘And,’ she said, ‘you believe me, don’t you?’
Gently gave a shake of his head.
‘Yes, say you do,’ she said. ‘Flatter me.’
He looked at her, said nothing.
‘At least,’ she said, ‘you don’t know, can’t be certain, whether I’m telling the truth or not. All the truth. Some of it. Most of it, bridged by intelligent guessing. You don’t know, and you don’t have to. That’s for the jury to decide.’
‘Your account doesn’t square with Mrs Bannister’s.’
She pouted. ‘It can�
��t be very different! Not if La Bannister told you the truth, though I daresay that isn’t a blank certainty. But I’m not greedy. If it makes it easier, I’ll square my details with hers.’
‘And you think I’m going to accept that?’
‘Of course. What do you have to lose?’
‘By offering a perjured witness?’
‘You don’t know I’m perjured. And it will put Siggy where he belongs. I suppose you’re not going to tell me he didn’t do it?’
‘I’m going to tell you you didn’t go back into the flat. And there was no struggle and no screaming. All the frills are imaginary.’
Brenda Merryn sighed. ‘You’re hard,’ she said. ‘And you’re not being very intelligent, George. This isn’t slipping halfbricks into somebody’s pocket, it’s really assisting the course of justice. You’ll get the murderer, I’ll get the money. Even Siggy can’t grumble. And when it’s all over George, wouldn’t you rather have a rich mistress in Kensington than a poor one? Or since you’re a bachelor, let’s go further – say a rich Mrs George?’
‘You’d go to that length?’ Gently said.
She looked at him intently. ‘Not for the money. But yes, I’d certainly go to that length. Because you don’t quite hate me, do you?’
‘In fact . . . you’re offering me a cut?’
‘Perhaps I am. Money is important.’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Merryn. It isn’t on.’
‘You’re still not calling me Brenda,’ she said.
She lay back on the settle, her face gaunt in the dimmed light, one arm hanging over the settle-back, a hand trailing on the floor.
‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘I’m levelling with you. You’re not a kid for me to fool. You’re not a hypocrite with froth on you. You’re a realist, like me. And what I’m offering is real enough though it doesn’t add up to soap-powder ethics.’
Gently rose. She looked up at him.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Are you tossing me out?’
‘Have you transport?’
‘I’d like to say I haven’t. But that’s my 1100 by the gate.’
‘I suppose you can guess the advice I’ll give you.’
She smiled ruefully at her lofted knee. ‘I’m to go to Inspector Reynolds and give him a statement, and this time keep the screams and bodies out of it. Do you think I’ll do that?’
‘I think you’d better. It isn’t just a question of the money, you know. You’re placing yourself squarely at the scene of the killing at the right time. And with motive.’
Now she laughed. ‘But you don’t suspect me.’
‘Also you’ve offered bribes to a police officer.’
‘Not bribes and not to a police officer. Just myself. To you.’
They were silent a moment, then she said quietly:
‘This is the queerest sort of thing, George. But I’m sincere, and you ought to believe it. Try to believe it. Even though I’m a liar. And now to surprise you I’ll go quietly. Only help me on with my coat.’
She got up from the settle and he held the coat for her. When it was on she turned to face him. But all she did was give a little shrug and a long look. Then she went.
He heard the drone of the 1100 and its gears pass away down Elphinstone Road, then he took up the phone and dialled a number with raking strokes.
‘Chief Superintendent Gently.’
‘Hullo Chiefie. What can we do for you tonight?’
‘I want information about Fletcher Bannister. Was a big man in plastics.’
‘You name it, we have it. What do you want to know about him?’
‘How he died.’
‘Put your feet up. I’ll have the details in half a minute.’
In half a minute exactly the man in the Express morgue was picking up his phone again.
‘Fletcher Bannister, Chiefie. Killed in a car smash, October ten, fifty-nine. Was driving alone on the A4 at two-thirty a.m. Came off the road at Cherhill and hit a tree head-on. Estimated speed eighty-ninety. Bannister killed instantly.’
‘Have you the inquest report?’
‘This is it. Accident was witnessed by a truck-driver. Gave his opinion the crash was deliberate. No evidence of any contributory factor. Wife Sybil Bannister testified her husband’s state of mind was normal, did not know he had taken the car out, knew of no business he might be attending to. Bannister wearing pyjamas, dressing-gown, slippers when found. Verdict, took own life while balance of mind was disturbed. Is it what you want, Chiefie?’
Gently grunted. ‘Any mention of house-guests?’
‘Not down here. Is there something we can print?’
‘Not if you don’t want a libel suit wrapped round you.’
He hung up and glanced at his watch. It was after eleven-thirty. He went down to the kitchen. There, as he’d expected, Mrs Jarvis was still sitting. As he entered she came out of a doze.
‘Oh, Mr Gently! You’ll be after your nightcap.’
Immediately she was bustling with milk in a saucepan and spooning rum into a beaker.
But she was giving him one or two sharp glances.
‘Mr Gently,’ she said. ‘Was that – person – a client?’
And Gently lied slyly: ‘She’s one of our officers. She’s doing decoy work round the Gardens.’
CHAPTER NINE
IN THE MORNING, resolving he might as well be hung for a sheep, he rang the office and left a message with Dutt and then drove direct to Chelsea H.Q. Reynolds had not yet come in, but Buttifant sat heavy-eyed in the C.I.D. room. He had a cigarette stuck to his lip and a piled ashtray at his elbow. He ducked his head and rose wearily. Gently motioned him to sit again. On the table in front of him was a scribbling pad and some pencilled-over sheets.
‘Is that about the Rogers woman?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes sir. As far as we’ve got with her.’
‘How far is that?’
‘Well, we’ve traced her back here, sir. But nothing after she stepped off the boat.’
‘But she is back here?’
‘Yes sir. Landed in May of last year. I’m waiting to make some inquiries at the magazine offices, but their staffs don’t seem to get in very early.’
‘Compact influence,’ Gently said. ‘Where did you pick up with the Rogers?’
‘At United Press sir, when she was working for them. They remembered about her and why she was sacked. Then we’ve traced her sailing on the Rangitane and coming back last May on the Orontes. But Worcester haven’t found her family for us, and nobody we’ve talked to yet has seen her.’
‘You wouldn’t have a photograph of her, of course.’
Buttifant shook his head. ‘We may have one coming. United Press run a staff magazine, and they’re going to search their files for us.’
So Beryl Rogers was in the running; in the flesh, not merely as a ghost. Unless she had taken herself off again to some other distant part of the Commonwealth. She had returned, the necklace had been stolen and Clytie Fazakerly had died: if it were coincidence it was coincidence that needed a meticulous examination. And until then, in any event, Johnny Fazakerly was safe from a charge.
‘Keep with it, Sergeant.’
Buttifant nodded dully and began rolling a fresh cigarette. Gently went out again, flicking a rubber plant, and sending a dry tab-end rattling to the parquet.
He drove to Vincent Street and parked the Sceptre as near as he could get to the Coq d’Or. The Coq d’Or was an opulent hotel with a ‘family’ tag and was popular with a certain class of visiting American. A commissionaire smiled at him in the foyer and a young waiter smiled at him in the reception hall and behind the desk were two other young men who smiled attentively when he approached.
‘You have a John Fazakerly staying here?’
Yes; they didn’t need to consult the register.
‘Is he expecting you, sir?’
‘I should think it likely.’
They smiled at Gently and at each other.
‘If you’ll
follow me sir, please.’
One of them came out, beating the other to it by a head, and led Gently into a large, plush but empty lounge and set a leather-upholstered chair for him.
‘What was the name sir? I’ll find Mr Fazakerly for you.’
He darted out again, still smiling. Five minutes later he returned beaming to usher Fazakerly across the carpet. Fazakerly himself was not beaming. He stood looking at Gently till the young man left. Then he shrugged, threw himself into a chair and slowly held out his wrists.
‘So it’s a fair cop,’ he said. ‘I should have put Smith in the register.’
‘Did you think we wouldn’t keep tabs on you?’ Gently said.
‘I didn’t think. That’s my trouble. You wanted to see what I’d do, was that it?’
‘No. Your being released was quite genuine.’
‘Then why are you pinching me again the next moment?’
‘This isn’t a pinch. Just a morning visit.’
Fazakerly let his wrists fall again. He was perhaps still a little behind on his sleep. Some shadow remained about his eyes and his face was drained and colourless.
‘Just a morning visit,’ he said. ‘Like that you still don’t have me fixed up. I’m nearly inside but not quite, I’m dangling around on a piece of string. Oh, it’s great to be alive. I love a visit from the Chief Inquisitor.’
‘This is better than a cell,’ Gently said.
‘You mean the smiling faces,’ Fazakerly said. ‘And how would you know about a cell anyway, when you’re always on the outside looking in? No, it isn’t better than a cell. I slept in that cell. I really slept. I didn’t have to worry, I could relax, it was all over, I could sleep. Then you let me out and it started again, everything crowding in on me. You didn’t free me. You set me adrift. I’m not even the bum I started out as.’
‘Perhaps you never were that bum,’ Gently said.
‘Maybe I was, maybe not. But one thing’s certain. In that cell I knew who I was, where I was. And since I came out my mind’s been spinning. It’s like a crazy machine I can’t stop. It thinks and thinks, and I have to go with it. And I hate it. I hate what it keeps turning over.’
‘What does it keep turning over?’