She rose, went through into the bedroom. Gently hesitated, followed after her. The square bedroom window was closed and curtained and the curtain was yellow and made the room yellowish. She gave a few more puffs to her cigarette and then stubbed it in the tray. She went to the wardrobe and opened the door, stood looking at the clothes inside.
‘Are you sure I shouldn’t dress a little?’ she said. ‘I could bear a girdle, something of that sort.’
‘It would be a waste of time,’ Gently said.
‘I’ve some mink garters.’
He didn’t say anything. He walked across to the inside wall, tapped it, put his shoulder against it. The wall was made of panelled hardboard. He ran his fingers over it. They came away dusty.
‘Positively no deception,’ Wanda said. ‘That backs on the lounge if you want to know. There’s a three-inch air space between the panels, that’s all. No concealed doors.’
‘Thank you for the information,’ Gently said.
‘Oh, no charge,’ Wanda said. ‘But I wish you wouldn’t be so damned professional, even here, in my very bedroom.’
‘I’m here professionally,’ Gently said.
‘We could still be friends,’ she said, ‘while you’re about it. As I said before, I’m not trying to bribe you, you’re welcome to prowl and ask what you like.’
‘Do you take a paper?’ Gently asked.
‘Not The Times. But I take one.’
‘We have a case against Sawney,’ Gently said. ‘If we want to press that case, of course.’
She looked at him. Her eyes were narrowed. ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’ she said. ‘I couldn’t care less what happened to Sawney, your beautiful subtlety is being wasted.’
‘It means we’re not certain that Sawney did it. Though the evidence is stacked against him.’
‘Hurrah for Sawney,’ Wanda said. ‘It’ll make a nice surprise for him when you catch him. Who is the leading suspect now?’
‘Perhaps somebody not very far away.’
‘How exciting,’ Wanda said. ‘No wonder I don’t seem able to hold your attention.’
She closed the door of the wardrobe, came over, stood close beside him.
‘Can’t you forget it for just a moment,’ she said. ‘We can always talk about it some other time.’ She brushed against him, stood firm. ‘It’s so damned hot,’ she said. ‘You look boiled in all those clothes. I shan’t pinch your wallet. Take them off. I’m not boring you?’
Gently shrugged. She moved away from him, sat on the bed. Her shiny face looked up at him. The eyes were smiling. The lips didn’t smile.
‘You remind me of a kid I had here once,’ she said. ‘He was another queer customer. He’d never made any love before. He was stark scared to take his clothes off.’
Gently took the chair and sat on it. She watched him, the eyes still smiling.
‘And Tom,’ she said. ‘There was Tom. He liked me to tie him up with lighting flex. Hand and foot.’ She patted the bed-frame. ‘Then he struggled and groaned all the time. You know about that sort of thing, do you? I should think the police know a good deal about it.’
‘It isn’t my department,’ Gently said. ‘I’m a homicide specialist.’
‘It’s wrong to specialize too much,’ she said. ‘You could be extending your general knowledge. I’m a specialist too, in my way, and my subject isn’t quite so morbid.’
He didn’t say anything, sat quite still, listened to the heavy silence of the building; the silence existing outside the moan of the traffic, which sounded subdued. In the room it was very silent. He could hear the quickness of Wanda’s breathing. Her eyes were narrowing as the pause lengthened. At last she moved, making the springs creak.
‘So I’m a specialist,’ she went on. ‘And this is my laboratory, in here. That’s why it’s a bare little room and why it’s a bare little bed. I want to control all the stimuli when I’m engaged in an experiment, I want to know exactly how they tick. I ought to keep bloody records. What are you thinking about?’
‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘I was thinking how quiet it was.’
‘It’s always quiet,’ Wanda said. ‘You don’t hear the traffic after a while. You don’t want the radio on, do you?’
‘No,’ Gently said.
‘Thank heaven for that. One of that type is enough, I don’t want to be stuck with another one.’
She leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin rested on her hands, bringing her face to front his, easing forward to the edge of the bed.
‘Are you married?’ she said.
He shook his head.
‘Got a woman?’
He shook it again.
‘You like me,’ she said. ‘You think I’m a nympho, but you like me. And I am a nympho. I admit that. I’ve got the appetite of the devil. I had a man when I was twelve and I was playing around before that. But that’s all. That’s saying it all. That’s just the way I happen to be. I may be a liar into the bargain, but that’s something you can’t help. I’m nothing else, and you know it. And you like me. Though you won’t play.’
‘Where are you going?’ Gently said.
The eyes didn’t smile. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You’re going somewhere,’ Gently said. ‘What’s the end going to be?’
‘Don’t get moral,’ Wanda said. ‘My father was a moralist. I’ve heard too much of it. And he finished up in court over a schoolboy, but he was as moral as they come.’
‘I wasn’t being moral,’ Gently said. ‘A policeman sees too much to be moral. I was being practical. You’re planning to leave here. I was asking what the end was to be.’
She breathed harder, looking at him. He could smell the sharpness of her perspiration.
‘Who says I was planning to leave here?’ Her husky voice had a rougher edge on it. Her eyes were wide, challenging, the pupils enlarged by the dim light.
‘Nobody said it,’ Gently said. ‘It’s merely a logical deduction. When the heat is slackened a little you’ll be off. When you think it’s safe to make a move.’
‘What are you saying?’ she said. ‘I’m free to come and go as I please. I don’t know what the devil you think you’ve got on me, but it isn’t true, whatever it is. You can’t touch me.’
Gently nodded. ‘We can limit your movements.’
‘Like hell you can,’ Wanda said.
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘and we can cordon this place. That will mean nobody coming in, going out, except we check their credentials, and your phone tapped too. And a tail on you. Think what that’s going to mean.’
‘You bloody bastard,’ Wanda said. ‘You think I’ll lie down under police persecution? I’ll get a lawyer, I’ll talk to the press. I’ll tell them you’ve laid me from here to breakfast.’
‘But what’s the end going to be?’ Gently said. ‘Do you even know the next step? You’re right. I like you. I don’t think you’re dirt. But you’ll be over the edge if you run from here.’
She dragged back from him, pulling on her knees. ‘I go where I like, screw,’ she said. ‘I don’t ask anyone what I do, and I don’t want to hear anyone telling me. I’ve had a lot of that from people, from my father, my husband, divorce court judges — men, the whole bloody bag of them! Filthy bastards. Filthy men. Men who invented bloody morals so they could sneer at women they couldn’t get — that’s the long and the short of morals. Have you ever thought about it, screw?’
Gently shrugged. ‘You could be right-’
‘Too true I’m right,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m not dumb. I don’t just take it. I can see through their dirty tricks. If I believed them I’d hang myself for being outside the pale — some bloody sub-creature who shouldn’t breathe. That’s what I’d do with myself. But it’s a lie. A stinking lie. And I’ll ram it back down their throats. To hear a man talk of morals is enough to make an angel puke.’
‘I’m not talking of morals,’ Gently said.
‘You sounded like it,’ Wanda said. ‘And I’m just warning you not to do it, I’ve had all I can take of that sort of thing. Always I’ve had it, right from the start. From men as randy as old toms. You lock your bedroom door on a
