Gently with the Ladies (2 page)

‘You mean, a Lesbian relationship?’

‘Exactly. Clytie was always a bit that way. She looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but that was all part of the act.’

‘And this Sybil Bannister upset your marriage?’

‘Let’s say she gave it the last nudge. Clytie was fooling with girls before that. We never had much of a sex-life together.’

He tore a mouthful from another sandwich and washed it down with more coffee, then he grinned weakly at Gently.

‘Tell me if I’m shocking you,’ he said.

Gently made a face. ‘So why did you marry her in the first place?’ he asked.

‘Oh, money.’

‘Just that?’

‘It’s all the picture needs, isn’t it? Actually, she had a torso too, and a sort of promising manner. Only it wasn’t promising me anything. Though I didn’t find that out till later.’

‘Didn’t you love her?’

‘I’ve forgotten. Such a long time ago.’

‘And it doesn’t matter to you that she’s dead.’

Fazakerly closed his eyes. ‘Not much,’ he said.

Then his eyes sprang open again. ‘Look, I’m being truthful!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know I’m knocking nails in my coffin, but if I used whitewash you wouldn’t believe me. I’m a bum, I’ve said it before. I’ve got the motives of a bum. The only decent thing left in me is down that river, out at sea. When I’m alone there, then I’m decent, I can look the sun in the face. But I’m a bum the rest of the time: a lousy bum: but not a murderer.’

‘All right, calm down,’ Gently said. ‘Just don’t give answers like that in court.’

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

Gently stared at him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re far from stupid.’

Fazakerly went on eating and drinking, his eyes wide and distant.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s where I’m decent. That’s where I should be all the time.’

Gently sighed and re-lit his pipe. ‘Let’s get back to pure facts,’ he said. ‘You went to the flat at about three p.m. on Monday. What were you doing before that?’

‘I was at Rochester.’

‘With this other woman?’

‘Of course. I’m always there at weekends. I belong to the Cruising Club, you know? It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.’

‘So you’d just come back from a weekend with her when you went to the flat, and your wife had got to know about this, and there was a violent quarrel.’

Fazakerly nodded.

‘How had she found out?’

‘Some nice person told her, I daresay. I mean, I hadn’t been terribly discreet, there’d never seemed any need for it. I’d played around a bit before. Clytie had never taken any notice. In fact, I was more surprised than anything when she started sounding off about Sarah.’

‘Did she know Sarah?’

‘No.’

‘But she was emphatic you were to drop her.’

‘Emphatic is right,’ Fazakerly said ruefully. ‘They don’t come any more emphatic than Clytie.’

‘And she’d have threatened you.’

‘She did. I was to drop Sarah or else. Meaning my allowance would be cut off and I’d be kicked out of the flat. Imagine a bum hearing that sort of threat, and coming from another bum like Clytie – because, hell, where did her beautiful money come from? I’ll tell you – from a step-uncle who used to lay her.’

‘And that made you angry.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘So angry that you picked up the nearest weapon.’

‘But I tell you—’

‘The weapon that has your fingerprints on it: and you hit your wife over the head.’

‘Now look here—!’

‘Isn’t that how it happened? Why you were seen running down the stairs? Why you grabbed a yacht and set a course for Holland – until you remembered your connexion at the Yard?’

Fazakerly stared, mouth open, a sandwich trembling in his hand.

‘This is a trap!’ he cried. ‘You’ve got people listening – a tape-recorder – you’re trying to trap me!’

Gently shook his head. ‘Oh no.’

‘But I trusted you – I’m telling you everything.’

‘Were you going to tell me about the murder weapon?’

‘I don’t know about that. I don’t!’

‘Where was your wife when you left her?’

‘Where we had the row – in the lounge.’

‘That’s where she was found.’

‘I can’t help that!’

‘And where the murder weapon was kept. Nobody else was seen to visit the flat, only your prints are on the weapon. For the second time I’m asking you – if you didn’t kill her, who did?’

Fazakerly’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. A colour that had begun to return to his washed-out face vanished, leaving it a pasty grey.

‘Well?’

He swallowed. ‘You’re trying it on – that’s all you’re doing, isn’t it?’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes, a test. You want to see how I’ll stand up.’

‘I think you’re guilty.’

‘No you don’t! You’re testing me, seeing if I go to pieces. You know damned well it wasn’t me, I’m not the type, I wouldn’t kill anyone.’

‘So why are your prints all over the weapon.’

‘That’s another try-on!’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Then it’s something I’ve handled at another time – that’s possible, isn’t it? If it belongs in the flat?’

Gently looked at him, said nothing.

‘Yes, it’s something I’ve handled,’ Fazakerly said. ‘Something that would take a set of prints . . .’ He stopped. ‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘Not that!’

‘Not what?’

‘Not the belaying-pin.’

Gently said flatly: ‘The belaying-pin?’

‘A trophy – a silver-plated belaying-pin – it hung on the wall in the lounge!’

‘It did, did it,’ Gently said.

Fazakerly’s pale eyes fixed on him. For a moment there was no sound in the office, not even of two men breathing. Then Fazakerly’s face seemed to crumple.

He said hoarsely: ‘So that’s it, isn’t it? Not you nor anyone will believe me now, not if the weapon was my belaying-pin.’ His eyes closed. ‘Oh Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s coming home. That poor bitch.’

Gently picked up the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have to do this.’

‘I thought there was a chance,’ Fazakerly said. ‘I didn’t know. It wasn’t in the paper.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Gently said, then he spoke into the phone. Fazakerly sat silently, his head in his hands, the abrasion livid on his pale forehead.

Gently hung up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘There’s only one thing I can do for you. This chat of ours is off the record. You can start afresh with Inspector Reynolds.’

‘But what’s the point?’

Gently shrugged. ‘You let your hair down with me. Maybe you’ve learned what not to say, it could be a little help.’

‘But you’re through with me, aren’t you?’

‘Did you expect anything different?’

‘I didn’t kill her. I thought if I saw you, if I could tell you, you’d know it was true.’

‘I’m not psychic,’ Gently said.

‘Of course . . . but there must be a difference. Even with a lying bum like me, it must sound different when I’m telling the truth. When I’ve nothing to hide, when I’m right behind it, when I’m naked there with the fact. Something in my eyes, in my voice. God, there
has
to be a difference!’

‘Perhaps you’ll convince Inspector Reynolds.’

‘But you – you can’t tell?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’m sunk. Because being innocent is all I’ve got.’

He let his head sink into his hands again, but raised it again a moment later.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What shall I get . . . fourteen years, something like that?’

Gently sighed, but said nothing.

There was a knock on the door.

After they’d taken him away Gently strode over to the window and stood looking out at the yellowy Thames. A patrol boat coming up was making heavy weather against the brute force of the ebb. The dull sky of the past few days was still heavy over the city, but the boisterous wind of yesterday had fallen almost to a flat calm. Gently returned to his desk and picked up the phone.

‘Put me through to Records.’

Ellis, the organizing brain of Records, was also a keen yachtsman.

‘Hullo . . . Ellis?’

‘Oh – Gently.’

‘Look, I want some yachting information. If someone took a yacht out of Rochester last Monday p.m., would yesterday’s wind have affected him much?’

‘What moron did that?’

‘Would he need to be a moron?’

‘There were gale warnings out for the whole coast. He was either a moron or an intending suicide.’

‘Well, he might have been an intending suicide,’ Gently said. ‘He was certainly under some stress. But either way, what would have happened after he’d sailed out of Rochester?’

‘Just a minute, I’ll do some homework.’

There was a rustling and squeaking at the other end. Then Ellis said:

‘He couldn’t have left Rochester much before half past six. By then it was blowing Force 6 from the sou’west, and soon it was gusting Force 8, and by midnight it was blowing a full gale, and it didn’t ease for the next twenty hours.’

‘What would he have done?’

‘He might have put out a sea-anchor, and perhaps set a jib to keep him heading. He’d be just running before it, if that’s what you mean, there’d be no chance of him steering a course.’

‘Where would that take him?’

‘Oh . . . the Hook. Perhaps higher up, Ijmuiden way.’

‘Then, if he set a course back when the wind eased . . .’

‘With a bit of luck he’d lay Harwich.’

Gently hung up and sat frowning. So Fazakerly was perhaps telling the truth about his sea-trip. But that proved nothing, as he admitted himself: he had no reason to lie about that. All the same . . .

He grabbed up the phone again.

‘Get me Q Division, Inspector Reynolds.’

While he waited he snatched up a ball-pen and began sketching a belaying-pin on his blotter.

‘Reynolds? Gently here. About Fazakerly.’

But first he had to endure Reynolds’ congratulations. An earnest, moustached man from Battersea, he never missed a chance of paying Gently homage.

‘Yes . . . well, I want to ask you a favour. It turns out he’s connected with my in-laws. No, I think he’s guilty too, but I feel I ought to make the motions . . . What I want is you don’t charge him for the next twenty-four hours, right?’

Reynolds hesitated, and Gently could picture the consternation on his solemn, Saxon face.

‘But if I don’t charge him, Chief . . .’

‘You’ll be able to hold him. You’ll need some time to check his story.’

‘Are you taking over, then?’

‘No, nothing of that sort. I’m just clearing my slate with the family. Please understand I’m not interfering, I’m only concerned with getting the facts.’

‘Yes, of course, Chief. I’ll do what you say.’

‘Thanks. I’ll drop round after lunch.’

Under the belaying-pin he printed in capitals:

WITH REMISSION, SAY NINE YEARS
.

A
T DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS
in Chelsea Reynolds greeted Gently with anxious eyes. He shook hands respectfully, but his first words were:

‘Chief, I’m afraid he’s for the high jump.’

‘Of course he is,’ Gently shrugged.

He pushed into the C.I.D. man’s office. Lying on Reynolds’ desk, with a label tied to it, was the silver-plated belaying-pin. Gently hefted it curiously. It was probably an antique which had been prettied-up to make a trophy, and it was inscribed: ‘Rochester Sail Cruising Club’, with a list of names, ending: ‘J. S. Fazakerly.’

‘Which end would he have held?’ Gently asked.

‘Well, there was blood and some hair on the sharp end. It was kept in a bracket on the wall, so if you snatched it down you’d be holding the knob.’

‘Would he have got some blood on himself?’

‘Perhaps, but she was wearing a turban hair-style. He says the clothes he was wearing are in a locker at Rochester. I’ve sent down to fetch them and pick up his car.’

‘His prints check?’

‘Oh yes. They’re identical with those we had from his gear. His right index finger matches the print on the weapon. I’ve some photographs here.’

He handed Gently a bunch of glossies which were still cockled and smelling of developer. Gently leafed through them quickly, pausing to stare only at one. He handed them back.

‘Just one clear print – and the others partial and erased.’

‘Do you think he tried to wipe them off?’

‘He made a curious job of it if he did.’

‘What do you think, then?’

Gently grunted. ‘I know what his counsel will suggest we think – that someone wearing gloves handled the pin. Do you have any answer to that?’

Reynolds gazed at the photographs. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Yes – the housekeeper was wearing gloves. She was the one who found the body. She still had her gloves on when we got there.’

‘And she’d handled the pin?’

‘I’ll bet she had.’

‘But do you know it for a fact?’

Reynolds shook his head impatiently. ‘I soon will do. I’ll send Buttifant round to ask her.’

‘Still,’ Gently said, ‘if she didn’t, that’s a point you’ll have to watch. And while I’m playing the Devil’s advocate, I’ll just ask you something else. You’ll have had a long session with Fazakerly?’

‘Of course, Chief.’

‘Did you let him smoke?’

Reynolds wriggled his shoulders. ‘It’s an open-and-shut case. I didn’t see any need to be tough with him.’

‘But did you notice anything?’

‘Well . . . nothing special.’

‘In the way he lit his fag, or stubbed it out?’

Reynolds gazed at him glumly.

‘Fazakerly is left-handed,’ Gently said. ‘And you’ve got a dab from a right-hand finger.’

He picked up the pin again, weighing it, balancing it. It had plainly not been intended for use on a yacht. It was over a foot long and probably weighed three pounds: more likely it had been salvaged from one of the big barges. But it was lethal . . . oh yes! A tap from that would crack a skull. And however angry you were, when you picked it up, its weight would give you pause unless your intention was to kill . . .

Yes: a killer’s weapon. You could rule out manslaughter.

‘Are you busy for an hour?’

Reynolds shook his head lyingly. He could scarcely be anything else than busy, but one didn’t argue with Gently.

‘Let’s go over to the flat, then, and you can fill me in on the spot.’