Gently Sinking (8 page)

Tallent stared at him, hook-browed.

‘Try pulling the other one, sir,’ he said.

‘I’m quite serious,’ Gently said. ‘And I happen to know we have vacancies.’

Tallent rose again, stood facing the window.

‘Look, sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t know your angle. I’m not the sort of bloke who’d fit in the Central Office, and you bloody well know I’m not that sort. I’m all right. I’m a good cop. I know my job. I run a quiet manor. But that’s all I am, a good cop. They wouldn’t look at me up there.’

Gently smoked, blew rings.

‘Yeah, they wouldn’t look at me,’ Tallent said. ‘And you know why. I play it old-fashioned. I aim to make the villains jump. So you don’t like it, they wouldn’t like it, but it keeps the peace pretty good. And it’ll get a conviction on the Blackburn case while the pussyfoots are still wondering.’

Gently kept smoking.

‘No,’ Tallent said. ‘I don’t want your recommendation. I’m no class, I know that. I’m where I belong, a working policeman. I’ll stick to that, doing my job, getting results the way I know. Maybe I’m just a bloody loud-mouth, but the record says I get by.’

‘Were you in the services?’ Gently asked.

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Other ranks.’

‘Did you see any fighting?’

Tallent glared at the window. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘Just the once.’

‘Where was that?’

Tallent’s hands were tightening. ‘You wouldn’t want to know, sir,’ he said. ‘Or maybe you would. Maybe it explains things. Maybe you’d think it had me tagged.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Gently said.

‘No,’ Tallent said. ‘I don’t have to.’

He came back from the window, dropped in his chair. He sat with head slanted forward.

‘I don’t like black people,’ he said. ‘They don’t like me. Yeah, I’m prejudiced as hell. There was a time they didn’t bother me. Now they do. So there’s a reason.’

‘What happened during the war?’

Tallent shook his head. ‘I’m a damn fool to talk about this,’ he said. ‘It’s not on my record, here or at Uxbridge, and telling you won’t do me any good. I was a Corporal-fitter in the airworks.’

‘Overseas?’

‘In this country. All the war. Bomber Command. I did a circuit in 3 Group. End of the war we were shifted around, misemployed, that sort of caper. I got my ticket in ’46. My last station was Blackbushe.’ He glanced at Gently. ‘Mean anything?’

‘Not so far,’ Gently said.

‘I guess it wouldn’t,’ Tallent said. ‘Somehow it never made the papers. We had black servicemen there, West Indians, maybe a couple of hundred of them. There was trouble. We armed up, drove them out of camp.’

He locked his fingers together, squeezed.

‘It was me who triggered it off,’ he said. ‘One lunchtime a black guy beat me up. After that came the riot.’

‘I see,’ Gently said. He smoked.

‘No, you don’t see,’ Tallent said, squeezing. ‘When I walked into that bloody canteen at lunchtime it was like walking into a bucket of lightning. There were eighty, a hundred black guys standing around, one or two white blokes sitting at the tables. It stank of violence. You could smell it. It made the hair prickle on your head. I wouldn’t back out. I walked to the counter. A bloody great black thug came up and kneed me. Then he butted my face and I went down and he stood there kicking me, spitting on me. And none of the white blokes lifted a finger. Like they couldn’t see what was going on.’

Tallent breathed tightly, dragging, squeezing.

‘Next day we made the coshes,’ he said. ‘Loaded hose, bound with wire. All the workshops were turning them out. Lunchtime nobody went near the canteen. The black guys were strutting around like heroes. Then after work we set about them, sent them running and screaming like pigs. And I fixed the one that gave me the kicking. I cut him down. I smashed his skull and his ribs and his knees. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t walk. All he could do was grovel and scream. Maybe he’s going on crutches still. The rest we drove out into the fields. That was it. They never came back.’

‘And you live with it,’ Gently said.

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘You have to live with it. When I see a black face it all comes up, I have to beat him to the punch. Before that happened it was okay, I could see one of them and let him live. But not now. The beating spoiled me. One of us has to be the boss.’

‘Beating him didn’t get it out of your system.’

Tallent pulled his hands apart. ‘Nope,’ he said.

‘Would beating all of them do it?’

‘Nope,’ Tallent said. ‘Not beating all of them.’

Gently smoked. Tallent stared at his hands, leaning forward towards the desk. His lips were thin and pale. He pulled his breath in in snatches.

‘So I’m warped,’ he said. ‘I can’t help it. What I’ve been through would warp any man. If you want me off this case, okay I can understand your point.’

‘You kept going into that canteen,’ Gently said.

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Always a sucker.’

‘So you’d better keep going with this case,’ Gently said.

Tallent’s head jerked. He said nothing.

‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘Stout will be coming up with that list of club members soon. I’d like you to get on with questioning them, seeing what they remember about Tuesday evening.’

Tallent just nodded. ‘Do 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.’

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 and sat, tucking in her legs. Gently sat in the chair nearest.

‘It’s entirely up to you,’ he said.

‘I mean, would it help him?’ she asked, sipping. ‘If it would help, I owe him that much.’

‘Otherwise, you don’t want to see him?’

‘Heavens no. Let him stew.’

‘You are not on good terms with him?’

‘Not, as you say. I’m scarcely on any terms at all.’

She looked angrily across at a photograph of Grey which stood propped on a corner-bracket.

‘This being about the last straw,’ she said. ‘Him getting picked up by the police. I’ve been insulted every way by that man. I’ve nearly walked out a dozen times. I don’t care, you can know it. Freddy and I are strictly kaput.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Gently said.

‘No need to be sorry,’ said Mrs Grey. ‘We’ve been kaput for a long time now. There’s nothing novel about the sensation.’

‘Yet you’re still friends with him,’ Gently said.

‘Friends.’ She laughed. ‘He still foots the bill.’

‘You go about with him.’

‘You wouldn’t notice it.’

‘This week, for example.’

Mrs Grey was silent. She shifted her legs, sipped the drink.

‘This isn’t that immigration business,’ she said. ‘You want to know where Freddy was on Tuesday – Tuesday evening. Am I right?’

‘A routine inquiry,’ Gently shrugged.

‘Oh, very routine,’ Mrs Grey said. ‘That’s why a big noise from the Yard comes to see me. You don’t have enough to do up there.’ She finished the drink. She shivered. ‘I know what happened to Tommy,’ she said. ‘I saw that paragraph in the
Evening News
, heard them talking about it last night.’

‘Heard who talking about it?’

‘The police.’

‘How did your husband take the news?’

‘He’d seen it earlier. He showed me the paper. He wasn’t crying, I can tell you that.’

‘Did he talk to you about it?’

‘Oh yes. He said the illegals had done for Tommy. That was because of the
Naxos Island
and Tommy knowing it wasn’t safe.’

‘Your husband knew they’d done it?’

Mrs Grey hesitated. ‘No, he didn’t say he knew it. But the way he spoke he was quite certain. Maybe he did know. He sees plenty of them.’

‘Did he see them yesterday?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘He was at the office till early afternoon, then he came home to show me the paper. Wanted to make quite sure I saw it.’

‘Why, Mrs Grey?’

She twirled the glass, made a movement with her thin shoulders.

‘He didn’t do it,’ she said. ‘You know that. He was with me from teatime Tuesday, right through. That’s his alibi, isn’t it? And it’s true. Quite true. He had tickets for the Aldwych, he’d rung me about it, and he’d booked a table at the Waldorf for supper afterwards.’

‘And you carried out that programme?’

‘Yes, all of it.’

‘Did you enjoy the play at the Aldwych?’

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘It was called
The Criminals.
Maybe it would make a night out for you.’

‘Did your husband like it?’

‘Stop foxing,’ she said. ‘We really did go there, see the play. Freddy wasn’t out of my sight for a moment. He even took me to the bar with him.’

‘Doesn’t he usually?’

‘Well, he doesn’t make a point of it.’

‘But Tuesday he did.’

‘I suppose you’d say that. I would have settled for a quiet smoke, but Freddy insisted I had a drink.’

‘Who did you meet there?’

‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘But they’ll remember us, don’t worry. Freddy knocked my glass out of my hand, then made a fuss about paying up.’

‘What time did you leave there?’

‘Elevenish.’

‘Any memorable accidents at the Waldorf?’

‘Didn’t need any,’ she said. ‘They know us there. Just ask the head-waiter. He’ll tell you.’

‘And you left?’

‘About oneish, say quarter to. We were home here before half-past one. Then we went to bed in the same bed, and that’s that. He couldn’t have done it.’

‘Did he make a phone-call during the evening?’

‘No.’

‘Talk to anyone?’

‘The barman. The waiter.

‘What did he tell you about the ticket stubs?’

‘Before they took him away he told me to keep them in a safe place.’

‘And this was all of a pattern,’ Gently said, ‘with your other nights-out – the usual thing?’

She made the glass ting with a flick of her nail.

‘Christ,’ she said. ‘It was the first time in months.’

‘So going back a little,’ Gently said. ‘Now we seem to have established your husband didn’t murder Blackburn. You said he wanted to make sure you saw the notice in the paper, and I asked you why. I’m asking you again.’

She got up, carried her glass to the bar, began putting together a fresh drink.

‘It’s a question of how much I owe Freddy,’ she said. ‘I like to be square. I don’t owe him so much. Maybe playing ball about his alibi clears me. I don’t want him sent up for what he didn’t do.’