Free Gently French by Alan Hunter

taken her own counsel to preserve distance, a circumstance not without significance.
    Once or twice she glanced at our table, but each time managed to avoid my eye. Then she would eat silently for a few moments before engaging in some fresh sally with the neighbours. She was as conscious of me as I of her; her rattle of small talk was a screen; through the subdued busyness of the peopled room a strand of tension stretched between us. Excellent: it gave me appetite. Madame was not so confident after all. I had begun to tread a little on her skirt, might have set it fraying at the edges.
    Beside me Dutt ate ploddingly and well, though not without his own eye for the lady. He nudged me once:
    ‘Do you reckon it’s all natural?’
    ‘Get on with your dinner.’
    He chortled into his trifle.
    We had coffee on the lawn, from where we could watch late motor-cruisers raising wash over the quay-headings. While we drank I pondered the utility of tackling Mimi then or of letting her sleep on it. On the whole I favoured the latter (it had been a long day); so I went in to ring Brenda: who for the second time surprised me with quite unpredictable information.
    ‘George. I’ve been talking to Siggy about your corpse.’
    ‘Thank you. But it’s still eating hot dinners.’
    ‘Not that one, idiot! Flash Freddy. Did you know he was going to retire?’
    ‘Retire?’
    ‘That’s what I said. He’d been talking of giving up business. He’d bought a villa in the South of France, Cap Ferrat way. Hadn’t you heard?’
    ‘No, I hadn’t heard.’
    ‘Well, it’s true, because Siggy borrowed it for a week last summer. He says it’s a super place, perched on a cliff, with a private beach and all the etceteras.’
    ‘How nice for Siggy. He knows nice people.’
    ‘George, I think you ought to be grateful. If one of your relatives is chummy with crooks, the least you can do is to profit by it.’
    I grunted. John Sigismund Fazakerly is a relative only by marriage. My first act on meeting him was to arrest him, which doesn’t make him my favourite in-law.
    ‘What was the retiring bit?’
    ‘Just what I said. Siggy and he were chatting about Riviera properties. About Somerset Maugham, the English set. Freddy said soon, he was going to retire there.’
    ‘Did he mention a date?’
    ‘Stupid. He just said he was getting bored with business. I suppose it can happen to crooks like everyone else. The day comes when it doesn’t switch them on. He was rich enough, wasn’t he?’
    ‘Oh quite.’
    ‘There you are, then. He wanted to relax. If some imbecile hadn’t gone sticking a knife in him, Freddy would soon have been out of your hair.’
    A comforting thought.
    ‘Only it isn’t quite like that. Crooks don’t find it so easy to retire.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘They tend to have disapproving associates – men who can make their point with a knife.’
    ‘Hah.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Are you saying that’s what happened to Freddy?’
    ‘I wish I knew. But what you’ve told me does suggest the possibility.’
    A further silence. ‘That’s disappointing.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I’ve got a bet on with Siggy. A fiver on Mimi Deslauriers’ nose. Siggy’s fiver is on Rampant.’
    ‘You could both be wrong.’
    ‘Not me. Never. Don’t you remember my intuition?’
    ‘Not as a viable force.’
    ‘Nuts to you. Just remember to keep your eye on Mimi.’
    Followed a slightly more pregnant silence.
    ‘How are you doing with her?’
    ‘You could say we understand each other.’
    ‘Pig! Is she making a play for you?’
    ‘That wouldn’t single me out in a crowd.’
    Brenda made ferocious noises. ‘You listen, George Gently! That woman’ll be poison if she gets you to bed with her. She’ll have you doing somersaults to keep her out of it. And then bang will go my fiver.’
    ‘Why make these rash bets?’
    ‘Do you hear me talking to you? Just take a tip from someone who knows.’
    ‘I’ll keep it in mind when