Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

Gehenna.’
    ‘When people talk like that they are usually excusing themselves in advance.’
    Fazakerly looked at him bitterly. ‘You’re a pal,’ he said. ‘Job and you would have been real cobbers. But it’s over with Sarah and me anyway, I knew it when I slammed the door on her. And now it’s just laughable to think of reviving it. There’s a thousand years gone by since then.’
    ‘Did you ever really love her?’
    ‘Yes. No. You tell me the answer. I built a framework of ideas and emotions round her and accepted the hypothesis of their validity. But I was conscious enough it was hypothetical and that my acceptance was not inevitable. And now that framework has detached itself and is floating away in the general flux. If you want ideas, those are ideas. But they don’t mean anything. Unless you say so.’
    ‘Perhaps you did suspect her in a vague way.’
    ‘Perhaps I did. Who don’t we suspect? In a perfect creation there’s a sickness of egoism. We know that everyone is a little infected.’
    ‘Did she ask much about your wife?’
    ‘She may have led me on. I didn’t need much asking.’
    ‘Did she want to know how she spent her time. How she dressed. What jewellery she wore.’
    Fazakerly hesitated. ‘She did ask about jewellery – yes, she asked quite a lot about that.’
    ‘About her favourite pieces and when she wore them. About that necklace she bought in Paris.’
    ‘The necklace.’ Fazakerly’s eyes caught at him. ‘Just where do you get your information?’ he asked.
    ‘In this instance from Miss Johnson herself.’
    Fazakerly shrugged. ‘Too simple, isn’t it?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She asked me a lot about the necklace. When Clytie wore it, where she kept it, whether and for how much it was insured. And I asked her if she was thinking of pinching it, and we had a giggle. Why do you ask?’
    ‘Because it was pinched.’
    ‘What? That necklace?’
    Gently nodded. ‘That same necklace. Your wife had it out on Monday morning, but by the time we arrived it was gone.’
    Fazakerly sat up straight. ‘But you’re not suspecting Sarah! Good lord, I can vouch for her – she was at home all day.’
    Gently shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t vouch for her. And she was up here. She admits it.’
    His light-brown eyes stared incredulously. ‘You’re having me on,’ he said. ‘You must be. I left her there getting down to some work and she was still there when I got back.’
    ‘Still at her work?’
    ‘Not at her work. She’d been down town to buy some bread—’ He broke off. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I took it she had. She brought some bread with her when she came in.’
    ‘So she wasn’t in her apartment when you got there.’
    ‘No. But she turned up ten minutes later.’
    ‘In her car, of course.’
    ‘Yes, in her car—’ He got to his feet. ‘This is madness!’ he said.
    Gently said: ‘She came to London, because she admits it. She had a lunch appointment with one of her editors. And she didn’t return straight away, she admits that, and she can’t offer proof of where she went. But she had time to go to Chelsea and time to beat you back to Rochester. But if she didn’t beat you back there it follows she may have left after you did.’
    ‘Meaning?’ he said.
    ‘Meaning she could have been at the flat later than you.’
    ‘And . . . pinched the necklace?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘If nobody caught her in the act.’
    He faced Gently agonizedly. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘It’s too utterly, bloodily preposterous. She couldn’t have come back from doing such a thing and then behaved as she did with me. There must be something solid, somewhere. No woman on earth could have been such a hypocrite. It was genuine. If it wasn’t genuine then chaos is come, and I’m a raving lunatic.’
    ‘She didn’t tell you where she’d been,’ Gently said.
    ‘I didn’t give her a chance to tell me that. I was spilling over with injured egoism and wanting her to sacrifice to my degradation. And there was no question of Clytie being dead or any possible change in my situation. What we were arguing about was Clytie alive and me trying to find some honest work.’
    ‘And she convinced you.’
    ‘Yes. Yes. Nothing can be genuine if she wasn’t, then. Good God, I’ve seen enough of women’s games not to be taken in any longer. If you won’t believe me on my own behalf, at least believe me on Sarah’s.’
    ‘She had a