Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

crossed, skirt arranged and hands together.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Do you remember a Beryl Rogers?’
    That was the last question she’d expected. Her eyes widened and then blurred, and a gloved hand twitched towards her bosom. But she said icily:
    ‘Am I supposed to?’
    ‘I’m asking you, Mrs Bannister.’
    ‘Very well then. Yes, I remember her. I remember a Beryl Rogers.’
    ‘She was a friend of yours.’
    ‘Not exactly a friend, just a very brief acquaintance. A few weeks. I know nothing about her. It was several years ago.’
    ‘You’ve lost sight of her completely.’
    ‘Yes, completely. She went abroad.’
    ‘She hasn’t, to your knowledge, returned to this country?’
    Her eyes jumped to his. ‘No. Not to my knowledge.’
    ‘Would she have contacted you if she had?’
    She shook her head slightly, eyes still fixed on him.
    ‘But you were an acquaintance of hers, you could probably have helped her. I mean, you might have contacts that would help her professionally.’
    She shook her head again. ‘No. I couldn’t have helped her. And she wouldn’t have come after help. I’m sorry, I can’t give you information about her. She simply went abroad about five years ago.’
    ‘Did you know the friend she was living with?’
    Mrs Bannister said sharply: ‘What friend?’
    ‘Another journalist. A Miss Johnson. They were sharing accommodation at the time you knew her.’
    Mrs Bannister’s eyes glinted. ‘No, I didn’t know her. Beryl never mentioned a friend to me. She was living in a houseboat down at the Steps, a frightful old wreck. I never went aboard it. Who told you about the friend?’
    ‘You don’t know who she is?’
    ‘Haven’t I already said so?’
    ‘Or that she lives in Rochester?’
    Mrs Bannister went still. ‘Not – Siggy’s woman?’ Gently nodded.
    ‘Oh my God.’ Mrs Bannister paled, and this time her hand reached her bosom. She stared haggardly at nothing and rocked a little in her chair.
    ‘Perhaps now you appreciate our interest,’ Gently said. ‘There’s an unusual connexion here with Mrs Fazakerly. And if by chance Miss Rogers has returned to this country we shall be very interested to interview her.’
    Mrs Bannister closed her eyes. ‘What a mess,’ she said.
    ‘Is that all you have to tell us?’
    ‘Beryl isn’t mixed up with it. She’s in New Zealand. She’d never have come back over here.’
    ‘You’re quite certain.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It wasn’t the reason why Mrs Fazakerly was angry.’
    ‘No! It couldn’t have been.’
    ‘Nor, for example, why this was taken from the flat?’
    She stared at his slowly-opening hand and at the necklace lying in it. She caught her breath and made a trembling gesture. She was paler than before.
     
    Reynolds also was gaping big-eyed, though not, in his case, at the necklace. Quite apparently the Beryl Rogers angle was fresh ground to him. Gently had produced it, like a conjurer’s silks, from nothing accountable or consequent, and the reaction to it of Mrs Bannister was proof enough of its validity. But where, how, could he have come by this draft of seeming omniscience?
    ‘Well, Mrs Bannister?’
    ‘It’s . . . Clytemnestra’s necklace.’
    ‘You have no doubt of that?’
    She shuddered. ‘None. I know it too well. I know it better than anything of mine.’
    ‘Because Mrs Fazakerly was always wearing it?’
    ‘Because, yes, she was always wearing it. Whenever we went anywhere together she wore that necklace. It was a symbol.’
    ‘A symbol of what?’
    ‘Of domination. Of triumph. Of threat. In one word, of her power. Of the power she had to destroy people.’
    ‘And she wore it for your benefit?’
    ‘Entirely for my benefit.’
    ‘She had the power to destroy you?’
    Mrs Bannister shuddered again, and said ‘Yes.’
    ‘So,’ Gently said, ‘you went in fear of her.’
    But now she shook her head vigorously. ‘No. I loved her, you understand? And she loved me, in her own fashion. I loved her even because she wore the symbol, because she had that power over me; it was right, it belonged to her, she had the prerogative of life or death. But I see you don’t understand, and perhaps it’s impossible that you should. You are mere men, and your love is egotism. The esoteric side is beyond you.’
    ‘Perhaps you thought she wouldn’t have destroyed you.’
    ‘Quite the contrary. I believed she would. Every loving is a destruction and without it is no love. She destroyed me once and made me live