Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

more decent than I could ever be.’
    ‘Yet you turned him down on Monday.’
    ‘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