Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

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