Gently with the Ladies by Alan Hunter

this woman from what he’d picked up from Fazakerly and Mrs Bannister. But the face altered all his ideas. It had suddenly wiped the record clean. In place of the depraved parasite he had been seeing was this . . . what was it? At the moment, a face!
    A face that excused what the woman had been? Not quite: but a face that helped one understand it. For example, she was amoral, and not immoral: to her, morality would be just a sound. She used her body to secure a fortune, well. It was merely an exercise of her power. If she had that power, why not use it? Why be put off by a clash of words? Then again, in service of that power, why not create conditions to heighten its enjoyment? To exploit to the full its mystical sensualism, unknown in her philosophy as sin?
    No doubt it was the strength of her amorality which fascinated the intellectual Mrs Bannister, which drew into a focus her slightly guilty inversion and set her defensively theorizing. For Mrs Bannister was synthetically amoral. She felt the sting of opinion. She had an answer waiting for the condemnation which Clytie Fazakerly would barely notice. And so she would worship that utter insouciance and discover there a mythic quality and perhaps feel herself the priestess of the myth: and exult a little when left in possession of it. For the priestess is an inferior until she embodies the goddess herself.
    A motive there? Gently mentally shrugged, then reached forward to turn the ignition key. But he must know more of Clytie Fazakerly before he could let the matter alone. Instead of a right turn towards Millbank he made a left turn towards Kensington. He drove to a block of flats in Knightsbridge Place, parked, and climbed two flights of steps.
    ‘Yes – who are you?’
    The door of the flat was being kept ajar by a safety-chain, and the blonde woman who answered it was wearing an embroidered dressing-gown and beaded slippers.
    ‘Are you Miss Merryn?’
    ‘Perhaps. Who are you?’
    Gently identified himself.
    ‘Oh, I see. I thought you might be the Press. They’ve been pestering Daddy ever since it happened.’
    She peered sternly at Gently through the gap, a manicured hand straying over her dressing-gown. If he’d been hoping for a resemblance to the dead woman he was disappointed by what he saw. Brenda Merryn was no Clytie Fazakerly. She had the commonplace good looks of the city woman. In any street you would meet a hundred of her going facelessly about their business.
    ‘Well, have you arrested Siggy yet, or have you come to tell me he’s done your job for you?’
    ‘Our job . . . ?’
    ‘Oh, it wouldn’t be a shock. He’s not the sort to face his responsibilities.’
    Gently shook his head. ‘Fazakerly is in custody. He gave himself up to me this morning.’
    ‘You surprise me. So what do you want, then?’
    ‘Just a chat with you. If it’s convenient.’
    For a moment he could read a curt refusal in her eyes, then she slid back a cuff to reveal a wristwatch, consulted it and sighed.
    ‘All right then, if you have to. But I can’t give you very long. Unlike my sister I work for a living, I have a surgery to attend at five-thirty.’
    She unchained the door and admitted him. They passed through a vestibule into a lounge. It was pleasantly furnished in contemporary style and had curtains of gay cretonne. A meal was set on a tray on a leaf-table under the window. It consisted of poached egg on toast, crisp-bread, honey, an apple and a small pot of tea.
    ‘You don’t mind my eating while we talk? I’d just got this served when you rang.’
    She drew up a chair to the table and began pouring herself a cup of tea.
    ‘I’d offer you some, but it’s a tiny pot, it’s the way you live when you’re alone. At least, it’s the way I live, not being able to run to French maids. What do we chat about?’
    ‘About your sister.’
    Gently also drew up a chair. In spite of himself he was feeling let down by the disparity between this woman and Mrs