Gently with the Ladies (4 page)

‘Any signs of a struggle?’ Gently grunted.

‘No.’

‘Had she tried to defend herself?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘She’d just been sitting there, suspecting nothing, in the middle of a violent row with her husband?’

Reynolds was beginning to turn red. ‘We don’t know she was sitting there. She may have been standing up, perhaps she’d turned her back on him. Then he could have caught her and sat her on the settee. He could have stunned her first. We can’t rule it out.

‘In that case he must have picked up the belaying-pin earlier, which you can hardly suppose she didn’t notice.’

‘He may have concealed it . . .’

‘You try concealing it!’

Well, I don’t know . . . I’m damned sure he did it.’

‘Listen,’ Gently said. ‘The voices stop, the door slams and Fazakerly’s running. At the most he’d only have time to dot her once: anything else would be impossible. And then she’d have fallen with a thump, and Mrs Bannister heard no thump. What she’s describing isn’t murder, it’s the conclusion of a row.’

‘But with everything else . . .’

‘Who was using the lift?’

Reynolds stared uncomprehendingly. ‘He ran down the stairs—’

‘Because the lift was in use! But who was using the lift just then?’

‘Well, one of the tenants—’

‘Have you checked?’

Reynolds slowly shook his head.

‘If we lay off Fazakerly for a moment,’ Gently said, ‘perhaps we can start seeing some other things straight. For instance, there’s half an hour between when Fazakerly left and when Mrs Lipton discovered the body. Plenty of time for another visitor – and the lift was in use as he was leaving.’

‘But there’s nobody else in the picture.’

‘Has she left a will?’

Reynolds nodded.

‘So?’

‘She’s left a few hundred to the housekeeper, but the bulk of it goes to the woman downstairs.’

‘How much?’

‘Nearly two hundred thousand.’

‘And Fazakerly gets nothing?’

‘Not a sou. But just a moment! Mrs Bannister is rolling in it. She’s the widow of Fletcher Bannister, the plastics magnate.’

‘All the same, it puts her in the picture, and you’ll have to admit she had opportunity.’

‘It won’t wash, Chief, really it won’t. You’d do better to blame the job on a burglar.’

No, it wouldn’t wash. None of this by-play was going to wash. It had the ingenuity of a desperate defence which would sound so persuasive in a printed record. But recite the facts, put Fazakerly in the box, and no bunch of red herrings would get him off. It didn’t need Reynolds to tell Gently that his finesses were convincing neither of them.

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s look at the bathroom.’

Reynolds ushered him to it with an air of relief. It was comparatively small, but had been entirely modelled to resemble a grotto of green crystal. It had no window. At the pressure of a switch it was suffused by a dim, subterranean glow, and water was fed to the bath, which was sunken, from inlets concealed beneath the rim. Three extended fingers of a glass hand were levers operating the supply.

‘Would you credit it?’ Reynolds marvelled. ‘Where do they sell this sort of thing, anyway?’

He reached out and moved one of the fingers.

‘Ugh!’ he said. ‘It’s bloody obscene!’

They went next door into the bedroom, which appeared completely dark as they entered it, but after a moment one saw that the windows, two large ones, still filtered light through bottle-green glass cubes.

‘Where’s the switch?’

‘Wait a moment . . . this is it.’

Reynolds fumbled around and located a silk bell-pull. But the light he produced was so feeble and diffused that it scarcely improved what came from the windows. At last one could see a huge four-poster bed, almost as wide as it was long, a low divan, or padded bench, and a big semi-circular stuffed chair. The floor was completely carpeted over what felt like a deep foam base and the walls and ceiling were thickly quilted in green silk with jade studs. The door was similarly quilted. When it closed it seemed to vanish. The air in the room, though apparently fresh, was warm and charged with the odour of cypress.

‘Look over here, Chief!’

Reynolds had lowered his voice, and was pointing furtively to a wall bracket. Hanging from it was a small whip with a bush of very fine thongs. Gently took it down. It had a silver handle set with what may have been emeralds. The thongs were silk and carried no weight. You could barely have swatted a fly with it. He put it back.

‘Just a toy.’

‘Yes . . . she didn’t intend to get hurt, did she? Then there are these.’

He showed some plaited silk cords which had been lying over the back of the chair.

‘Did she actually sleep in this room?’

‘Yes. That’s what I asked Fazakerly.’

‘Quite a woman.’

‘She was queer as hell, Chief. If you ask me, she had it coming to her.’

They went out again into the corridor, the door closing noiselessly behind them. Reynolds, eager to show all the gimmicks, switched on the fountain and stood admiring it. As he had said, the water was green. It fell with a tinkle in the glass basin.

‘Well . . . that’s about it, Chief. What do you really think . . . now?’

‘I think he’s guilty,’ Gently said.

‘He is. You don’t have to worry about that.’

‘Just the same.’

Reynolds nodded. ‘I’ll see it’s tied up a bit tighter. This’ll do me some good, this case, I’m not going to slip up on the details. Can I charge him now?’

Gently made a face. ‘Let it stick till tomorrow lunchtime. That’ll give me an alibi with the family.’

‘As you like, Chief. It’s all one to me.’

They took a cursory glance at the rest of the flat, including Fazakerly’s untidy bedroom; then, on the landing, Gently pointed to the second door.

‘What do they keep in that?’ he asked.

‘It’s just a boxroom.’

Reynolds shoved open the door. Inside was a stack of expensive luggage. Colourful labels, now marked and rubbed, spoke of Paris, Cannes, Monaco, Capri.

‘Did you find the door locked when you came here?’

Reynolds frowned, said: ‘I don’t remember.’

‘That’s fresh cigarette ash down there.’

‘That’d probably be Buttifant. He always has a fag on.’

Gently nodded, remembering Buttifant, a sad-faced man who smoked self-rolled cigarettes.

Just his trademark on the floor.

What was the point of trying too hard?

I
N THAT CASE
, why was he still hesitating, while the two of them stood waiting for the lift to ascend? Not because of his celebrated intuition: that was backing Reynolds all the way! Nor was it for any family reason. Honour was satisfied there. Already he was choosing the words he would use to Geoffrey (‘I checked each stage of the case . . . frankly, it was hopeless.’) So what was it?

He turned to Reynolds. ‘I think I’ll talk to the Bannister woman, since I’m round here.’

Reynolds looked at him quickly. ‘You’re still not satisfied—?’

‘Oh yes. But I’m bloody curious too.’

And that was the fact of the matter: he was bloody curious too. Not about Fazakerly, who he’d written off, but about that surprising woman, his victim. Clytie Fazakerly, invert, voluptuary, who had whored her way to a big fortune, who’d created this strange green mansion, and along with it the germ of her own destruction. A laudable motive? Perhaps not! But a strong motive, without doubt. And who could say that it might not lead him to . . . well . . . some truth, some new understanding. In his profession, at his rank, a degree of creative latitude was defensible . . .

‘If you don’t mind, Chief, I’ll get along. I’m expecting Buttifant from Rochester.’

‘Good. Let me know if you find any bloodstains.’

‘Of course, Chief. I’ll keep in touch.’

The lift arrived, but on second thoughts Gently went down by the stairs: those same stairs which Fazakerly had run down, at the same hour, three days previously. They were prosaic enough. They proceeded in a single flight to the floor below, bare concrete treads with a steel handrail and lit by a clumsy, industrial-pattern wall lamp-unit. Glass panelled swing doors gave access to them from the end of each landing. From the foot of one flight you passed the doors to the top of the next flight down.

Gently came to the sixth-floor landing. It was more impersonal than the one above. A varnished sign-board pointed to a hallway and was lettered: FLATS 21–25. The landing however was similarly carpeted and had its own quota of chairs, while in place of the boxroom on the other landing was an illuminated basin in which goldfish swam.

He rang the bell of Flat 20. The door was answered by a maid. She wore a neat uniform and apron and make-up which carried pinkness above the cheekbones.

‘Please?’

Her accent was un-English.

‘Chief Superintendent Gently. I’d like to speak to Mrs Bannister.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. Please wait here.’

Behind her she left a fulsome fragrance which suggested poppies or chrysanthemums. Gently heard her tap at an inner door and say something unintelligible in her lisping twitter. ‘Who?’ a powerful voice demanded. ‘Very well. Show him in, Albertine.’ Albertine re-appeared and made a slight curtsey.

‘Please, Monsieur is to enter.’

He was shown into a room corresponding to the lounge in the flat above, but there was no nonsense about this room, though it was expensively furnished. On the floor lay an Indian carpet which may have cost four figures, and three Kashmir rugs which would have totalled little less. A settee and set of six chairs and a bow-fronted cabinet were Sheraton, and there was a Chippendale bureau-bookcase faced by a Chinese Chippendale chair. Some other good pieces had been quietly added. There was glass and lustre in the cabinet. A single large picture, apparently a Wilson, occupied the end wall above a Sheraton side-table. But in all, though these furnishings would have set a connoisseur’s eye roving, the general impact of the room was of expensive restraint.

‘You have come about poor Clytemnestra again?’

A woman had risen from the settee to meet him. She was tall, in her forties, and had straight black hair, and the hair was parted in the centre and drawn into brackets round her face. She wore a severe green dress with a square neck and no sleeves. She was appraising Gently with intense, chocolate-brown eyes.

‘Mrs Bannister?’

‘Yes. But I don’t think I know you, do I?’

Gently shook his head. I’m from the Central Office. I’m merely advising on the case.’

‘The Central Office! Isn’t that the Yard?’

‘Until they build us new premises.’

‘But I thought—’

‘We sometimes confer with our colleagues on a case.’

Her brown eyes regarded him challengingly. She had intelligent, patrician features; a straight nose, rather lank cheeks, and a firm, though delicately-rounded, chin. She used no make-up. On her dress was pinned a large silver brooch set with an agate.

‘Of course, I know nothing of these affairs, and I should prefer to retain my ignorance, but isn’t it unusual for you to be consulted on such a straightforward case?’

Gently shrugged. ‘Is it straightforward?’

‘I don’t see how you can make it a mystery. It isn’t a mystery to me, I assure you, and I made a plain statement of what I know of it. Have you caught him yet?’

‘He came to my office.’

‘Ah, that explains it – trust Siggy to be devious!’

‘Siggy?’

‘His second name is Sigismund. For some reason, Siggy seemed to suit him.’

‘I take it you didn’t like him, Mrs Bannister.’

She made a beautifully controlled gesture. ‘In the end I didn’t care either way, because I saw very little of him. He was about as conspicuous as an outdoor cat and had much the same place in Clytemnestra’s household. She fed him and gave him a corner on a wet night. That was all.’

‘They were completely estranged.’

‘If you wish.’

‘She didn’t care what he did with himself.’

‘Oh dear! Do you need me to make it plainer? If he’d done it quietly, he might have gone and hung himself.’

‘That’s been my impression,’ Gently said.

‘I’m glad, so glad. I thought you had missed it.’

‘But doesn’t that make it a little strange that they should quarrel violently over another woman?’

Her bold eyes challenged him again, implying an impertinence to be stared down.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’d best take a seat. If you want to be clever, it will take time.’

Gently silently chose a Sheraton chair and turned it back to the windows. Mrs Bannister frowned at him for some seconds, then went to give a tug to a tasselled bell-pull. Albertine entered. Mrs Bannister addressed her in a stream of resonant French. Albertine curtseyed and withdrew. Mrs Bannister took her seat on the settee. She caught Gently’s eye.

‘Well?’

‘I was wondering . . . is your maid’s name really Albertine?’

‘It most certainly is. There would be no satisfaction in having a false Albertine.’ Her stare held for a moment, then she grudgingly gave him a smile. ‘For a policeman,’ she said, ‘you seem to be a very determined reader.’

‘Did you get her by accident?’

‘Oh no. One must take trouble over worthwhile things. We interviewed maids by the dozen in Paris before we discovered
our
Albertine.’

‘We?’

‘Does that surprise you? Clytemnestra was no illiterate. And here’s a little test for you, Superintendent: Albertine actually comes from Illiers.’

Gently shook his head. ‘I’d have to look that up . . .’

‘Then I’ll save you the trouble. Illiers is Combray.’

Now her smile was triumphant, but it quickly faded again.

‘And all that’s past,’ she said dully. ‘As though it had never been . . . so suddenly. And what should be Wagner splitting the skies is just Cole Porter in the next room.’

‘Yet you’re wearing no mourning.’

She pointed to her dress. ‘Not mourning as you’d understand it. But this is the colour she’d expect, the colour of death and love. Her colour: she was the Green Lady. That was the myth she made real.’