Gently Sinking (14 page)

‘Take them,’ Gently said. ‘Sharkey would like that.’

He shoved the keys at him, walked on.

The beat of steel drums came through the vestibule and swelled as Gently pushed open the inner doors. The lighting was dim except on the stage where coloured spotlights were weaving patterns. Near the stage some couples were dancing. Perhaps a hundred immigrants sat around the tables. There was laughing and a racket of conversation; then suddenly a lull; then a hush.

Gently kept walking towards the bar. The dancing broke up and the drums stopped. In the silence of the warm air one could hear the spotlight motor buzzing in the rafters. Gently’s step sounded softly. Behind the bar Sharkey was standing. Behind Sharkey stood his wife. They didn’t move. Nobody moved.

Gently reached the bar. He sat on a stool. Sharkey’s eyes never left him. Over Sharkey’s shoulder his wife stared, her pretty face tight with terror. Sharkey’s hands were gripped tight, his face shiny and scowling. Behind Gently were stealthy movements. Gently leaned on the counter, didn’t turn his head.

‘I’d like some coffee,’ he said.

Sharkey moved his hand, didn’t let his eyes shift from Gently’s. Sarah Sunshine gave a little whimper, slunk to the coffee-machine, made a clatter with a cup and saucer. Back at the vestibule the doors parted and the bouncer came in, stood hesitant. There were other movements. One of the musicians accidentally touched his drum.

Sharkey said, ‘You come for me, man?’

Gently shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

‘But you going to come?’

‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘Or perhaps you’ll come to me. When you’re ready.’

He took the coffee from Sarah Sunshine. She’d spilt part of it in the saucer. He spooned in demerara and stirred it. Behind him he heard whispering.

‘So why you here, man?’ Sharkey said.

Gently drank coffee, smiled at Sharkey.

‘You told me to come around for the music,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’d like to hear your calypso again.’

‘You know I ain’t going to sing that calypso.’

‘Why not?’ Gently shrugged. ‘You have your audience.’

‘That ain’t the kind of calypso I sing in public.’ Gently drank again, went on smiling.

Sharkey moved a little towards the counter. He put his hands on it, leaned towards Gently.

‘How many you got out there, man?’ he said. ‘ ’Cause you going to need just about the whole force.’

‘I don’t have anyone,’ Gently said.

‘You ain’t here alone,’ Sharkey said. ‘That’s certain.’

‘Quite alone,’ Gently said. ‘Did I need a bodyguard?’

‘Man, quit kidding,’ Sharkey said. ‘This is serious.’

His dripping face came closer to Gently’s.

‘You just better slide out of here, man,’ he said. ‘If you want me, I come along later. Just don’t let us have no massacres.’

‘You’d do that, would you?’ Gently said.

‘Yeh, man,’ Sharkey said. ‘If that’s how it’s to be. These people won’t let you march me out of here, not unless you got tanks all round.’

‘Nice to know they’re loyal,’ Gently said. ‘But I’m not taking you.’

‘Oh man, I’m telling you,’ Sharkey said.

‘And I’m telling you,’ Gently said. ‘When are we going to have some music?’

Sharkey drew back across the counter, face dragging, staring aslant. He threw a look at the cowering Sarah. She felt his eyes and moaned. The whispering behind Gently had become a buzz, and Sharkey’s eyes darted past him. Then suddenly he snatched a drinks-tray from the counter and struck it a blow with his fist.

‘You peoples out there!’

The buzzing faltered. Sharkey hit the tray again.

‘Listen to me, you bunch of no-goods. Ain’t you seen a white man here before?’

He went through the counter-flap, stood hefting the tray.

‘This man is a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘Yeh, that’s what I’m saying, he’s a friend, so just let me catch you treating him different. He come around here to hear the music, that’s why this man come around, and you going to make me ashamed in front of him? You going to behave like a set of hoodlums?’

He waved the tray.

‘You, Moses, get playing! I don’t recall hearing myself tell you to stop. And you, Josh, get back on the door. And the rest of you sit down, start minding your own business.’

There was a shuffling and creaking, a roll from the drums. Sharkey stood ground a moment, the tray lofted. Then he strutted back into the bar.

Gently was drinking his coffee. He hadn’t turned round.

The band played. There were eight musicians. They were dressed in open-necked white satin shirts and black jeans. One of them was a singer who sang in a language or languages that Gently didn’t understand. They played continuously. Band numbers were connected by solos on drums, xylophone, trumpet and guitar. One member played a chromatic harmonica with an eery virtuousity.

Four waitresses in scarlet overalls carried trays of food and drinks to the tables. Sharkey and Sarah Sunshine served at the bar, both occasionally retiring to the kitchen.

Nobody now appeared to pay much attention to Gently. At the tables they were noisy and laughter was continual. They were mostly youngsters. Some of the girls were very pretty. Corduroy jackets were popular wear with the men.

Near the stage was an open space used by the dancers, who joined in or dropped out as the mood took them. In spite of the noise there was an air of decorousness, a gay politeness. It had a family feeling.

Sharkey ignored Gently. He served customers on each side of him with an intent, silent energy. His expression daunted the customers, who seemed ready to chat, but then took their orders and went quietly away. One felt that normally he was central to the scene but now was deliberately effacing himself. Tonight the bar was a sideshow, existed at the periphery of the noise, the music.

Sarah Sunshine couldn’t ignore Gently. She was on a perpetual tremble. Her big dark eyes were helplessly drawn to him at every interval of serving.

Gently himself might as well not have been there for all the attention he was paying anyone. A heavy figure in a grey raincoat, he sat smoking and leaning over his cup.

His eyes looked sleepy. After a casual look round he’d lapsed into dreamy appreciation of the music.

When at last he stirred it was to give an order. He beckoned to the wide-eyed Sarah Sunshine.

‘What’s that salad dish you’re serving?’

‘That’s – that’s the fried chicken with banana salad, sir.’

Sarah Sunshine stood quivering, mesmerized. Sharkey had gone still, was watching the pair of them.

‘I’ll try some of that.’

‘Oh yes, yes, sir. If you sit down at a table, sir, I bring it to you.’

‘What do you drink with it?’

‘ ’Most anything, sir.’

‘Fix me a lime drink with a dash of rum.’

Sarah scuttled, almost ran into the kitchen, and Sharkey reached for a tall glass.

‘You ain’t a member, man,’ he said, not looking at Gently. ‘How you think you going to get rum?’

‘Put me down as a friend,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll pay a surcharge on the salad.’

‘A friend,’ Sharkey said. ‘A friend. When you’s a friend, man, I’ll eat my guitar.’

Gently got his drink. He picked it up and slid lazily off his stool. A number of eyes turned towards the bar unitedly sought a fresh direction. Gently looked over the tables. Except one next the juke-box all the tables were filled. At the one next the juke-box sat a single customer. He was Aaron Taylor. Gently carried his drink there.

‘All right if I share with you?’

Aaron Taylor ducked his head but didn’t say anything.

Gently pushed back a chair and sat so he could see both bar and stage. Eyes from the other tables were switching back to him, but switched away again as quickly. From across the bar Sharkey was staring. Aaron Taylor stared at nothing.

Gently drank.

‘You still waiting for Sadie to turn up?’ he asked.

Aaron Taylor jerked his head slightly, his thick lips in a twist.

‘You know she ain’t going to turn up, sir,’ he said.

‘One day, perhaps,’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor drooped his head. On the table by him stood an empty glass. He sat slouched, his long legs splayed.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But that don’t matter.’

‘I think it matters,’ Gently said.

‘No, sir, no, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘It’s like Mr Tallent says. She don’t look at me.’

‘Perhaps she will,’ Gently said.

‘No, sir, no,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She got altogether too much class. I’m just a poor man, ain’t got nothing.’

He picked up the empty glass, set it down again with an irritable bang. Gently sipped. The band was playing a rumba. Aaron Taylor wasn’t noticing the music.

‘Where do you think she is?’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor scrubbed with the glass.

‘I tell you something, sir,’ he said. ‘You better run me in for killing that white man.’

‘Is this a confession?’ Gently said.

‘You just run me in,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You don’t have to worry ’bout these folk here, they won’t raise a finger to save this fellow.’

‘But did you do it?’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor swirled the glass.

‘I was there, sir,’ he said. ‘That was surely my knife. Maybe I did go inside that flat, maybe I stuck that knife in Tommy.’

His eyes met Gently’s. Gently said nothing.

‘It don’t matter about me,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘I go to jail for a whole lot of years and that don’t signify. I ain’t nothing.’

‘Only we can’t play it that way,’ Gently said.

‘That’s the best, best way,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You take my word, sir. You just take it.’

Gently shook his head.

Aaron Taylor was silent.

* * *

The rumba finished, left the drums filling in.

Sarah Sunshine came out with a tray.

She crossed from the bar with a nervous, flitting step, got around somehow behind Gently, tumbled cutlery on the table before him.

Aaron Taylor kept his eyes from her, still shunted the empty glass.

She set down a green plate loaded with hot fried chicken, chopped banana, pineapple, rice and watercress; then a curved green side-dish containing mango chutney, olives and small white pickled onions. She stood aside.

‘How much?’ Gently said.

‘That sure is on the house, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said.

‘Oh no,’ Gently said. ‘How much?’

‘Oh gosh, sir, that’s ten and six,’ Sarah Sunshine said. Gently pulled out a pound.

‘And the drink?’ he said.

‘We cain’t charge for no drink,’ Sarah Sunshine said.

‘And the coffee and the tip,’ Gently said. ‘And another drink for Mr Taylor.’

He shoved the note in her shaking hand.

‘Where did Sadie go?’ he asked.

Above the soft drumming he could hear her teeth nicking and the tray she was holding had begun to flutter.

‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘Never mind. Fetch Mr Taylor his drink.’

‘Oh, sir, I just don’t know,’ Sarah Sunshine quavered. ‘I really don’t know where that girl go to.’

‘So fetch the drink,’ Gently said.

‘If I know that, sir, I tell you.’

‘Your husband is getting restive,’ Gently said. ‘Do as I say. Fetch the drink.’

He began to eat. Sarah Sunshine hesitated, then flitted back to the bar. Sharkey had watched every move. He snapped something at Sarah as she went into the bar.

‘She never going to tell you,’ Aaron Taylor said to his glass. ‘You keep asking, but she ain’t going to tell you.’

‘She knows,’ Gently said.

‘Yeh, sir, she knows.’

‘And Sharkey too.’

Aaron Taylor said nothing.

Sarah Sunshine came back with a glass of rum, set it slopping on the table before Taylor. Taylor quietly moved the glass a few inches, didn’t look up at Sarah Sunshine.

‘Sir,’ Sarah Sunshine stammered. ‘You got the wrong idea, sir. You don’t need Sadie. That woman is innocent.’

‘So where is she?’ Gently said.

‘She just gone away, sir. But you don’t need her. She ain’t the right one.’

‘I still need to talk to her,’ Gently said.

‘Oh gosh, no,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘You forget about her, sir.’

Gently went on eating his chicken.

Sarah Sunshine grabbed Taylor’s empty glass and scurried away.

The steel drums throbbed. Gently helped himself to chutney.

‘Perhaps Sadie isn’t anywhere,’ he said through a mouthful.

‘How you mean, sir?’ Aaron Taylor said.

‘She knows too much,’ Gently said. ‘And we haven’t found her.’

Aaron Taylor’s eyes went to him, jumping large.

‘Could even be Blackburn’s death was cover,’ Gently said. ‘Somebody wanting to put Sadie away, killing Blackburn first to put us on a wrong scent.’

He paused to drink.

‘It’s odd,’ he said, ‘we don’t find Sadie.’

Aaron Taylor’s eyes were staring, his breath coming quick. He crammed his glass to his mouth with clumsy fingers, gulped about half of it, set the glass down hard.

‘Nobody wouldn’t do that thing,’ he said.

‘Oh yes,’ Gently said. ‘I can think of a couple of prospects.’

‘That’s too wicked – they wouldn’t do it!’

Gently shrugged, loaded his fork, ate.

‘No, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘Sadie ain’t dead. Nobody going to make me believe she dead. That’s a bad, bad business, but it ain’t like you say. Sadie’s all right. She turn up again one day.’

‘Then where is she now?’ Gently said.

‘You find her, you find her,’ Aaron Taylor said.

‘Not without help, it seems,’ Gently said. ‘We’ve got a big hunt on, but we haven’t found Sadie.’

He paused over a mouthful, watching Taylor. Taylor’s broad-boned face was dragging. His thick lips hung apart, his pupils had gone small and sightless. He spoke again without focusing his eyes.

‘Take me in, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s the bestest.’

‘You,’ Gently said. ‘You’re in the clear, Taylor.’

‘Oh lordy, don’t push it,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You cain’t understand, sir. Just take me.’

Gently finished the chicken salad. The air in the hall was growing too warm. Following the fashion around him, he stripped off raincoat and jacket and hung them over the back of his chair. Somebody cheered and there was laughter. Sharkey glared over the bar and the laughter died. Then he turned to argue with Sarah Sunshine, who, after a moment, slunk out of the bar.