Free Gently Sinking by Alan Hunter

I check Osgood’s and Grey’s alibis?’ he asked.
    ‘Put someone on Osgood’s,’ Gently said. He puffed. ‘Mrs Grey I’ll talk to myself.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    O SGOOD’S FLAT WAS in Acton. Grey lived across the river in Richmond. Before proceeding there Gently found a parking place near a cafeteria and served himself a pseudo-food snack and a glass of possibly genuine milk. The cashier was a smiling West Indian. Gently deliberately handed her short money.
    ‘Ducks,’ she said, chocolate eyes reproachful, ‘I just cain’t get four-and-tenpence out of two florins.’
    Gently added the tenpence.
    ‘It’s still raining,’ he said.
    She rolled her eyes. ‘Does it ever stop?’
    ‘It’s been known,’ Gently said. ‘They have records.’
    She gave a soft little chuckling laugh.
    He drove over Kew Bridge, below which the Thames and its boats looked seedy, by the gardens, into Richmond, out again towards Petersham. Hilldrop Road was a quiet cul-de-sac of detached houses in shrubby gardens. They were of astringent thirties architecture with sharp gable-fronts and discreet half-timbering. Grey’s house, 27, stood on a slope among dripping laburnums. A gravelled drive swung sharply up to it and ended abruptly at garage doors. The doors were open. A maroon 3.8S Jaguar with a current date-letter stood inside.
    Gently parked, got out, tugged a wrought-iron bell-pull. Westminster chimes sounded within. Shuffling steps approached the door, the door opened, revealed a raddled-faced woman.
    ‘Yays?’ she said.
    ‘Chief Superintendent Gently. I want to speak to Mrs Grey.’
    ‘You ain’t off a paper?’
    ‘I’m a policeman.’
    ‘Ow,’ the woman said. ‘Well, I’ll see.’
    She shut the door again. A minute passed. The door was reopened.
    ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You’re to come in and wait. Mrs Grey ain’t finished dressing.’
    He followed her through a polished-floored hall into a large, overheated lounge. She stared at him severely for a few moments, then shuffled out, leaving the door ajar. Gently shrugged to himself, moved about the room. It was furnished with a suite in imitation black leather. On one wall a break-front bar stood open revealing bottles and glasses against a mirror panel. There were no books. A large TV was flanked by a radiogram in an ebony case. A long, low coffee-table supported big, crystal ashtrays, had glossy magazines in the tidy beneath. On the walls hung coloured prints of vintage cars. The stagnant air smelled of whisky, tobacco-smoke.
    Crisp steps crossed the hall and a woman stood in the doorway. She was a slight-figured blonde in a tailored dress of oatmeal tweed. She was aged thirty-five to forty, wore her hair in a tight turban, had delicate, miniature features and sharp, gold-hazel eyes.
    ‘Are you the policeman?’ she asked coldly.
    Gently repeated his name to her.
    ‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘The top brass. I suppose you know they were here all yesterday evening.’
    ‘This has to do with another matter,’ Gently said. ‘Just routine inquiries, Mrs Grey.’
    ‘Another matter.’ She made a mouth. ‘There are really no depths to Freddy, are there?’
    She closed the door, went across to the bar, began confecting herself a drink. Lean shoulders showed through the close-cut back of the oatmeal dress. She wore small cairngorm eardrops in pierced ears and wedge-toed camelskin shoes. Her voice was accentless and clear. She had an elusive, heather-like perfume.
    ‘I hope this won’t take long,’ she said. ‘I’m going down town shopping. Drink?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ Gently said. ‘I’d like to smoke if I may.’
    ‘Help yourself.’ She waved to a cigarette-box.
    ‘I smoke a pipe.’
    ‘That’s okay. Freddy likes a stronger smoke – oh, I shouldn’t tell you that, should I?’
    Gently glanced at the cigarette-box, lofted a shoulder.
    ‘Do you want to visit your husband, Mrs Grey?’ he asked.
    ‘Should I?’
    She carried her drink to the long settee