Gently Sinking by Alan Hunter Page A

he didn’t play with you.’
    ‘That’s how men are. I still think he was fond of her.’
    ‘It could have been her.’
    ‘All right,’ Mrs Grey said. ‘It could have been. Just at the time I didn’t think it likely. But women are bitches and men are swine, so it could have been her, and I wish her the joy of him.’ Her eyes thrust at Gently’s. ‘Who is she?’
    Gently shrugged. ‘We haven’t talked to her yet.’
    ‘But you know who she is?’
    ‘We know.’
    ‘I’d like to talk to her, too,’ Mrs Grey said.
    She stared for a long while at the coffee-table, her unusual eyes big.
    ‘You think she did it, don’t you?’ she said slowly. ‘That’s why you want her tied in with Freddy. He hated Tommy. If she was stuck on Freddy she might just have done it to please him. And she tipped him off. He knew she was going to do it. That’s why he took me out on Tuesday. He’s in it with her, an accessory. His alibi doesn’t mean a thing.’
    ‘You’re going ahead too fast,’ Gently said. ‘We haven’t talked to the girl yet.’
    ‘Oh God,’ Mrs Grey said. ‘My husband’s a murderer. Freddy. He let her kill him.’
    ‘Did she look like a murderer to you?’
    Her dazed eyes turned to him.
    ‘None of this is proved,’ Gently said. ‘Character counts for something, you know.’
    ‘My husband’s character!’
    ‘Hers.’
    ‘An immigrant. You don’t know what they’ll do.’
    ‘That wasn’t the way you talked at first.’
    ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It fits. It fits. Freddy is cruel. And he’s clever. I knew he’d get even with Tommy somehow. He hated him before this business with me, that only put the tin hat on it.’
    ‘What was his other grievance?’
    ‘Money,’ she said. ‘Always that. Tommy had it. Freddy wanted it. Said Tommy never paid him enough.’
    ‘Does Blackburn’s death benefit your husband?’
    ‘My God,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know? If one of them dies, it goes to the other. Freddy owns the business now.’
    She lit another cigarette and sat hunched over it, her crossed arms against her stomach.
    ‘That’s how it was,’ she said dully. ‘I know. Freddy. That’s how it was.’
    ‘Where did Osgood come into it?’ Gently asked. ‘Was he included in the reversion arrangement?’
    ‘Oh, Ozzie.’ She tossed her head. ‘He’s not really a partner, you know.’
    ‘What do you know about him?’
    ‘You can forget him. Ozzie’s all right. Just simple. He wouldn’t plan anything deep, rotten. It isn’t in him. Either way.’
    ‘He’s implicated in the immigration offences.’
    ‘He’d hardly know he was doing wrong.’
    ‘Had he a grievance?’
    ‘Too dumb.’
    ‘He seems to be hiding something,’ Gently said.
    Mrs Grey kneaded her arms, breathed smoke through little nostrils.
    ‘Forget him,’ she said. ‘He isn’t in the picture. You just scare him, that’s all. Ozzie’s a stupid. I like him. There’s nothing vicious about Ozzie. If Ozzie ever stuck a knife in someone he’d give himself up to the next policeman.’
    ‘Could he have known if your husband had planned anything?’
    Scornfully she shook her head.
    ‘Or the identity of the other woman?’
    Mrs Grey breathed smoke.
    ‘He could have known that,’ she admitted. ‘He went around with Freddy and Tommy. They met their black friends in Brickfields. Yes, I didn’t think of Ozzie.’
    ‘Then perhaps he knows more,’ Gently said. ‘He has an alibi for Tuesday too.’
    She thought about that, shook her head again.
    ‘If he’d known, he would have warned Tommy,’ she said. ‘No. There’s only one man in this. You may not prove it, but I know. I remember the way he showed me that paper. Freddy. He did it, let it be done.’
    ‘What exactly happened when he found you with Blackburn?’
    ‘We were in bed.’
    She closed her eyes.
    ‘He came back early. Christ knows why. Perhaps his woman had the curse.’
    ‘Then?’
    ‘He yanked Tommy out of bed. He’d put all the