Gently Sinking (20 page)

‘You come with us,’ he said. ‘We’ll let you talk to her first.’

Tallent hooked up the phone, said, ‘I’ll inform Division. Do you reckon we need help?’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘It’s just a family affair.’

Sadie Sunshine caught Sharkey’s hand.

T
HE RAIN HAD
left the air softly chill and the night sky like blue-black plush. Tyres still swished in the gleaming streets and lamps shone with a deep brilliance.

They’d taken a Super Snipe. Tallent drove, Gently sat by Tallent. In the back the two Sunshines shared with the grey-eyed policewoman, whose name was Grady.

Nobody spoke. Tallent drove swiftly, touching his siren for the lights.

When they reached the junction of Paradise Road they found a patrol Wolseley parked opposite.

Tallent drifted the Super Snipe in behind it and Makin came to Gently’s window.

‘There could be trouble, sir,’ Makin said. ‘There’s forty or fifty immigrants outside the Club.’

‘Doing what?’ Tallent growled.

‘Just hanging about,’ Makin said. ‘I took a shufti but I didn’t go near them. I thought I’d talk to you first.’

‘Do you know about this?’ Gently said to Sharkey.

‘No,’ Sharkey muttered. ‘It ain’t my arranging.’

‘Maybe now we call help in?’ Tallent said.

Gently shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.

‘But look,’ Tallent said. ‘This could be a bloody slaughter. They’re bound to jump us if that woman kicks up.’

‘That’s a risk we take,’ Gently said, ‘with any arrest. We’ll have to take it here. Keep driving.’

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Now let me pray.’

He wheeled the Super Snipe off the kerb. As they turned into Paradise Road their headlights picked up the black youths grouped together near the Club steps. Tallent drove hard towards the steps, then braked the car to a screeching stop. The crowd pulled apart, giving the car space, but didn’t move far from the steps.

‘Cut your headlights,’ Gently said.

Tallent cut them. Gently got out, walked up to the steps. At the top of the steps stood the bouncer, Josh, and a man who was holding half a brick.

‘Remember me?’ Gently said to Josh.

‘Yeh, man,’ Josh said. ‘I remember you.’

‘So let’s stay friends,’ Gently said. ‘Come down and let me get on with my job.’

‘Maybe we don’t like your job,’ Josh said.

‘Maybe I don’t either,’ Gently said.

He walked up the steps, stood level with the men.

‘Are you planning to attack me?’ he said.

The man with the brick didn’t want to look at Gently.

Josh kept looking, didn’t move.

‘Well?’ Gently said.

‘We ain’t planning to attack you,’ Josh said. ‘Just we don’t like what you come here to do.’

‘So come down,’ Gently said.

He reached for the brick. The man holding the brick let him take it. Gently turned, came down the steps. Josh came down the steps. The other man followed.

The rest of the crowd had drawn round the car where Tallent now leaned, stroking his knuckles. They were silent. They stared at Tallent. Tallent whistled softly, gazing over their heads.

‘Right, you go in now,’ Gently said to Sharkey.

Sharkey got out. Sadie stayed in the car.

Sharkey stood by the car a moment, his eyes wild, then he stumbled up the steps and unlocked the doors.

‘We go in too?’ Tallent said.

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘We wait.’

Sharkey pushed through the doors, leaving them wide. He pushed through the swing doors. A light flared on.

‘No other lights,’ Tallent murmured.

He nodded to the windows apart from the hall.

Sadie said from the car, ‘She’s surely in there. Sarah wouldn’t run away like me.’

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said.

He resumed his whistling.

Now some of the crowd were whispering together.

A train went very slowly by, backed up, went slowly by a second time.

Then the spring doors squeaked and Sharkey lurched out, a bundle sagging in his arms. He stood swaying on the steps, making choking noises. The bundle he carried was Sarah Sunshine.

‘My God, he’s killed her!’ Tallent gaped.

Sharkey sank on the steps, tears squeezing from his eyes.

Sarah’s head dangled heavy, her small teeth showing.

Through his sobs Sharkey choked, ‘Hung. She’m hung.’

‘Keep back, keep back!’ Gently snapped at the crowd as they hustled round him at the foot of the steps.

In Sarah’s neck was a deep, fresh weal. An envelope was pinned to the breast of her dress.

She was warm, but she was dead. Her mouth, her eyes were slightly open. Perhaps at the last she’d snatched at the noose, since a nail was torn and the finger bleeding.

‘Oh, she’m hung,’ Sharkey sobbed, and those gathered round him gave a rustling moan.

Sadie Sunshine clawed free of the mob to throw herself weeping on her brother’s shoulder.

‘Give me some light here!’ Gently snapped to Tallent.

Tallent bulled his way through with a service handlamp.

Gently unpinned the envelope, shook out the contents, poked open a folded sheet with one finger. The writing on it was uneven and scattered, as though blown through by the wind.

I sory
, the note read,
Key man I know you dont love me eny more now I bad to you I sory if they come for me that is truble for us peeple I have to be brave Key man maybe we meet agn sumplace Key man I did love you I sory man.

The last words tailed away and the note was unsigned.

In Tallent’s hand the lamp wavered.

‘Oh Christ,’ he muttered.

He switched the lamp to her upturned face. The eyes glittered faintly through the lashes, the mouth was parted like a dead animal’s, the smooth cheeks had no expression.

‘She’m hung,’ Sharkey sobbed. ‘Oh why?’

‘That bloody bitch,’ Tallent said.

‘Come on,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s get things moving.’

‘Bloody,’ Tallent said. ‘Bloody.’

It was late, very late in Tallent’s office, and Tallent had smoked too many cigarettes.

Empty coffee cups were piled on his desk and smoke hung on the hot air in slanting bands.

Twice Gently had risen to go, twice Tallent had held him back.

Makin sat in his raincoat, stifling yawns. Stout was hunched against a radiator, probably dozing.

‘Look,’ Tallent was saying. ‘I still don’t love black people. I’ll live and die not loving black people. I don’t love them, big period, and I don’t expect them to love me.’

Gently hesitated, once more at the door.

‘So why bother loving them?’ he said flatly.

‘Yeah, but I’m supposed to love them,’ Tallent said. ‘Not loving them makes me a bastard.’

‘They don’t want you to love them,’ Gently said.

‘Never mind what they want,’ Tallent said.

Gently leaned on the door.

‘Leave love out,’ he said. ‘Love and hate are joined down the middle.’

‘Yeah?’ Tallent said.

‘Two sides,’ Gently said. ‘One coin. They come together.’

‘Maybe so,’ Tallent said.

‘You walk down the street,’ Gently said. ‘You don’t love the people. You don’t hate the people. Coming and going, just people. If one of them trips you help him up, maybe give him a brush down. Then you forget him and keep walking. No question of love and hate.’

‘Yeah, but that’s too easy,’ Tallent said.

‘So why make it hard?’ Gently said. ‘Leave it alone. Let be. Tampering with love is a Christian heresy.’

‘You mean, sort of loving by not-loving,’ Stout murmured dreamily from his radiator.

‘You go to sleep, sonny,’ Tallent said. ‘Leave the big questions to the big men.’

He stubbed the last of his too-many cigarettes.

‘Yeah, but see here,’ he began.

Then he squinted across the smoky room.

The door had closed.

Gently was gone.

Osgood received eighteen months on the Immigration Act charge. Grey pleaded ignorance of the offences and his counsel gained him an acquittal.

As he was leaving court by the rear entrance he ran into some reporters and other people. He was heard to scream. He collapsed. A cheap sheath-knife was found buried in his back.

The case was very carefully investigated and one Albert Quintos assisted the police. But nothing definite was ever proved.

Except Grey’s alibi, of course.