Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

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