Gently Sinking by Alan Hunter

to Blackburn.’
    The cigarette stuck again. A piece tore from it when she tugged it from her lip.
    ‘One day I saw him with her,’ she said.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘A black woman. I don’t know.’
    ‘Where was this?’
    ‘She was in the car with him. Driving down Regent Street, bold as brass.’
    ‘You saw her face?’
    ‘No. Not properly. She was nicely dressed, had a lacy hat. The cat’s whisker. Freddy was grinning. Looked like he was on top of the world.’
    ‘That didn’t prove anything,’ Gently said. ‘She may have been a client, or a client’s wife.’
    ‘Yes, that’s what I told myself,’ Mrs Grey said. ‘Only I asked him about it. And he lied.’
    ‘You asked him outright?’
    ‘I’m not daft. I asked him if he’d made a trip that day. He said no, he hadn’t left the office, they’d had some trouble with bills of lading. So then I knew. And something came over me. Maybe it was then I stopped loving him. It’s the way you said, neglect couldn’t do it, not even that woman. It was the lie.’
    ‘Can you date that day?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Yes. The twenty-second of April.’
    ‘But you didn’t recognize the woman?’
    She shook her head. ‘I don’t know any black people, anyway.’
    ‘You’d seen the woman who was friendly with Blackburn.’
    Mrs Grey paused, watching her cigarette-butt.
    ‘I thought of her,’ she said. ‘She was very lovely. Somehow I didn’t think of her as just sleeping around.’
    ‘But was it she with your husband?’
    ‘I can’t be certain. You know how it is with people in cars. Unless you know them well you haven’t a chance. I can only swear to the car and Freddy.’
    Gently sucked emptiness through his pipe.
    ‘Tell me the rest of it,’ he said.
    She got rid of her butt in a crystal ashtray.
    ‘I don’t know I’m so very proud of that,’ she said. ‘Tommy was nice, but I wasn’t in love with him. He knew what was going on all right. Maybe he thought I’d be an easy lay, and he was right. I just didn’t care.’
    ‘He took the initiative?’ Gently asked.
    Her shoulders hunched. ‘Do men ever do that? Unless a woman shows a flicker of green it never occurs to a man to try. So I gave him the flicker. Not very serious. Probably I only wanted sympathy. Then when he kissed me as though he liked me I felt warm and grateful and it went on from there.’
    ‘Where did you meet?’
    ‘Here mostly. Tommy often called round here anyway. He liked being a bachelor, didn’t like being lonely. Neighbours were used to seeing his car here. Once or twice we went out on the town, but I was mortally afraid in case we ran into Freddy. Tommy would laugh, tell me not to worry, he was pretty certain we were safe from Freddy.’
    ‘Did you fish a bit then?’
    She nodded. ‘But men have a beastly code, of course. Or else he genuinely didn’t know who the woman was, just maybe knew where Freddy went to meet her.’
    ‘What about his own woman?’
    ‘Oh, he didn’t deny her. Just grinned and said she wasn’t jealous.’
    ‘Did you ever meet her when you were with him?’
    ‘No. Not to my knowledge, anyway.’
    Gently sucked. ‘Let me put it together. Blackburn met you when your husband was absent. Blackburn knew when your husband was absent, knew where he was, though perhaps not who with. He knew you wouldn’t meet him if you went down West. And while Blackburn was with you, of course, he wasn’t with his black woman. Did you ever add that lot together?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I thought of most things. And I’m pretty sure Tommy would have done too, if Freddy had been messing about with his girl. Tommy was fond of her, I could sense that. He wasn’t just getting a kick out of her being black. Whoever Freddy’s woman was he was certain it wasn’t her, or he’d have thumped Freddy a lot sooner.’
    ‘She could have deceived Blackburn. It’s not unknown.’
    ‘No.’ Mrs Grey frowned. ‘I never actually met her.’
    ‘He wasn’t so fond of her that