Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

please remember, to come interfering on his behalf.’
    ‘Sybil, you’re slipping,’ Fazakerly said. ‘I used to admire your turn for fiction.’
    Reynolds gave Gently an embarrassed look. ‘Have you any evidence of this, Mrs Bannister?’ he asked.
    ‘Plenty of evidence. You heard Beryl say how Merryn went to check her identity. That could only be to tell Clytemnestra to put Clytemnestra into a rage.’
    ‘But did it matter if she were really Beryl Rogers? For the purpose of telling Mrs Fazakerly?’
    ‘Check,’ Fazakerly said. ‘Check. Take your time, Sybil. You’re punching air.’
    ‘It did matter! It gave verisimilitude. It was a truth and not a lie. Clytemnestra could check it if she wanted: her husband was really pursuing Beryl.’
    Reynolds looked doubtful. ‘It doesn’t seem to prove anything, Mrs Bannister.’
    ‘Sybil,’ Brenda Merryn said, ‘you’ve had a shock. You’re not your old ingenious self.’
    Mrs Bannister scythed her with a glance. ‘This woman is a psychopathic liar,’ she said. ‘She is unhinged, as her behaviour has shown, and she has delusions to match her effrontery. Believe nothing she says without proof. She will doubtless deny having been here on Monday.’
    ‘That’s my Sybil,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘And I could deny it if I wanted.’
    ‘You were seen.’ The dark eyes flickered. ‘Deny it if you will. You won’t be believed.’
    ‘Oh, but I wasn’t seen.’
    Mrs Bannister nodded. ‘Didn’t I tell you? A compulsive liar. You have only to allege against her the most obvious of truths and she will start up with a denial.’
    ‘You didn’t see me here, Sybil.’
    ‘I have never claimed to. But you were seen.’
    ‘Yet you are the only person who could have seen me.’
    ‘Oh no. That is your blunder.’
    ‘Who did see me then?’
    ‘Albertine.’
    Brenda Merryn laughed. ‘It was her day off. She wouldn’t have been within a mile of the place. You’re too handy at finding her jobs, Sybil.’
    ‘Yes,’ Mrs Bannister said, ‘that may be, Merryn. But on Monday afternoon she came back here. You were unlucky, weren’t you? It was very unlikely. But back here she came. And she saw you.’
    ‘Oh Mademoiselle, I am sorry!’ Albertine burst out. ‘I did not mean any harm to you. It is to help Mr Johnny, this understand. I am sorry, so sorry.’
    Brenda Merryn gazed at her. For once she seemed nonplussed. She turned to catch Gently’s eye.
    ‘George,’ she said. ‘There’s something funny about this and I’m not certain what it is.’
    ‘Mademoiselle, you were here,’ Albertine wailed.
    ‘Yes. But where was it you saw me?’
    ‘It is when I am on the landing downstairs, Mademoiselle. I see you through the doors, going up.’
    ‘You were on the landing outside Madame’s flat.’
    ‘Yes, Mademoiselle. It is true.’
    Brenda Merryn shook her head. ‘That’s just the point. It isn’t true. You didn’t see me.’
    ‘She’s lying, of course,’ Mrs Bannister sneered. ‘Why wouldn’t she lie in this situation? It is her word against Albertine’s; but I assure you Albertine is commonly truthful.’
    ‘Yes, but I can prove it,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘Or rather, you can prove it for me, Sybil. Because though you didn’t see me on Monday I saw you. I was careful to check I wasn’t seen from your landing.’
    ‘You would not have seen me on the landing.’
    Brenda Merryn nodded. ‘And what you were doing.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘You were feeding crumbs from the table to the goldfish in the illuminated basin. And you were alone.’
    Mrs Bannister’s eyes flicked wider. ‘I . . . yes, I did feed the goldfish.’
    ‘Alone.’
    ‘Yes. I was alone.’
    ‘Which is what is so funny,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘Albertine didn’t see me. You didn’t see me. I’ll take my oath nobody else saw me. Yet Albertine knew I was here.
    ‘Albertine . . .’
    Mrs Bannister turned sharply. Albertine’s hand had flown to her mouth. The staring look she’d had on the ledge had come again into her eyes.
    ‘But if she didn’t see me, and still knew, then she must have heard me,’ Brenda Merryn said. ‘And she couldn’t have heard me from below, so she must have been up here. Mustn’t she?’
     
    Albertine whimpered. It was the only sound to be heard in the lounge which, in spite of the labouring Belling, seemed of a sudden extra chilly. Everyone looked at her. She stood shaking, her hand still near her mouth, her eyes rolling like an idiot’s,