Gently Sinking

by Alan Hunter

  Beside the juke-box sat a black man staring at a glass of straw-coloured liquid. The juke-box was playing ‘Marianne’. The black man looked at the policeman, didn’t move. Tallent strolled over to him.

  ‘Up,’ he said.

  The man looked at him, slowly rose. He was a tall, thick-featured man. He stood stooping, his long arms loose.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Tallent said.

  ‘How is that, sir?’ the man said.

  Tallent stepped closer. ‘You deaf, boy?’ he said. ‘Don’t play dumb with me or I’ll push your teeth in.’

  The black man edged back, eyes rimming white.

  ‘I don’t know you, sir,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m John Birch,’ Tallent said, following up. ‘You heard of him, boy? Need an introduction?’

  ‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘We’re police officers. We want a word with Mr Sunshine.’

  ‘Yes, sir, yes, sir,’ said the man. ‘That surely is him who just walked in.’

  He flapped a big hand at the counter. Behind it now a man was standing. He was a bearded man with a handsome face and a small ring in each ear. He was tall, wide-shouldered, and had finer cheekbones than most West Indians. He had large, steady brown eyes. The brown eyes were fixed on Tallent.

  ‘Well, well,’ Tallent said, striding to the counter. ‘Long time no see, Mister Sunshine. So you moved to the ghetto. You finally made it. Chiswick’s gain was Brickfield’s loss.’

  The brown eyes didn’t flicker. ‘You got business with me, man?’ Sunshine said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. He struck the counter. ‘And it’s Sir, when you’re talking to me, man,’ he said.

  ‘Man, you don’t change,’ Sunshine said.

  Tallent went still. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten the little talk we had by the river three years back. Maybe I should remind you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sunshine said. ‘Maybe not, man. But you just get the itch out of your knuckles. I knows that gentleman standing behind you, and he ain’t gonna let you beat me up.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Tallent said.

  ‘Yeah’s right,’ Sunshine said. ‘I seen his picture in the papers. He’s a famous big man, Mister Tallent, and he won’t go for you knocking us folk about.’

  Tallent’s hand went to the counter-flap. ‘Does he talk to us this way, sir?’ he jerked to Gently.

  ‘Why not?’ Gently said. ‘It’s a pleasant voice. I’ve heard plenty of singers with far worse.’

  Tallent’s eyes hooked round at him.

  ‘Do you sing?’ Gently asked Sunshine.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sunshine said. ‘I come from Jamaica, man. It’s the most musicallest country you’ll ever hear of.’

  ‘You write your own songs?’

  ‘You bet, man.’

  ‘Accompany yourself?’

  ‘I certainly do. If you like real music, man, you come around. You won’t get it realler any place in London.’

  ‘So isn’t that nice?’ Tallent said.

  ‘Is the coffee-machine working?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sunshine said, moving towards it. ‘Fresh-ground Jamaican beans. Man, you’re going to like this.’

  He set up four enormous cups. Tallent ripped a cigarette from a packet. He lit it, leaned his back to the counter, poured smoke at the coloured lights. Then he came off the counter, stalked across to the other West Indian.

  ‘I asked you a question, sonny,’ he said. ‘Like maybe you forgot I didn’t get an answer. I like to be answered. It sort of stops me getting jumpy, and I’m a jumpy man. What’s your name?’

  ‘Aaron Taylor,’ the man said.

  ‘Ah, how nice,’ Tallent said. ‘Don’t go away, Aaron. Stick around, Aaron. You look so lonely. We must talk.’

  They drank the coffee sitting round a table with Taylor hugging his glass behind them. The juke-box had stopped. Now and then you could hear the subterranean rumble of trains. Sunshine sat between Gently and Stout, facing Tallent across the table. The door was bolted. From the room behind the bar came the sound of someone handling crockery.

  ‘So the coffee’s all right,’ Tallent said, setting his cup down. ‘That’s good. We like our coffee.’

  ‘I aim to make the bestest coffee,’ Sunshine said. ‘With my clientele, I just have to.’

  ‘Yeah, with your clientele,’ Tallent said. ‘We were coming round to that, boy. Like the one we ran across yesterday with a knife sticking out of his back. Or was he a client?’

  ‘You know he was,’ Sunshine said. ‘Else why you come around here?’

  ‘So that we know,’ Tallent said. ‘And perhaps some other things, boy. You like to demonstrate a little singing, and me asking you, all polite?’

  Sunshine gulped a mouthful of coffee, holding the cup in both hands.

  ‘I don’t hide nothing, man,’ he said. ‘You got no reason being tough with me. I knew Tommy a long while. Him and me were good friends. Tommy was round this club a lot. I teach him how to play the guitar.’

  ‘Every day something fresh,’ Tallent said. ‘You taught him how to play the guitar.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sunshine said. ‘I teach him that. Though he never play that damn-thing well.’

  ‘And you charged him for it?’ Tallent said. ‘Like knocking the lessons off his percentage?’

  Sunshine drank. ‘If you know, man,’ he said, ‘why you sit around here asking questions?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘You have a point, boy. I don’t have to sit here asking. I got the proof out of Blackburn’s flat. He was shaking you down for sixty, seventy a week. And that’s a helluva lot from a place like this if you’re running it on the up-and-up – maybe with books that check out and proper returns to Her Majesty’s Servants.’

  ‘I got books,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘Showing Blackburn’s cut?’ Tallent said.

  ‘Sure,’ Sunshine said. ‘That was capital repayment. Tommy put up the money for this place, man.’

  ‘Put up how much?’ Tallent said. ‘You could buy this joint for one year’s shakedown.’

  ‘There’s interest, man.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Tallent said. ‘It had to be two or three hundred per cent. And you loved it, didn’t you? You loved being skinned, having a white man doing you down, a white man who was trading in illegals anyway, who was laying your sister odd nights. Tommy Blackburn. Sharkey’s pal.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘No?’ Tallent said. ‘Take your sister.’

  ‘You just don’t talk about her,’ Sunshine said. ‘There ain’t no call to talk that way.’

  ‘I’ll decide that, boy,’ Tallent said. ‘And I say take your sister Sadie. A real piece, so they tell me. Got it stacked. Likes the action. And Blackburn can’t keep his paws off her, keeps running her home and banging her rotten. A white guy laying your pretty sister. And her liking it. Her wide open. You kept smiling about that, did you? Just slapped his back, gave him guitar-lessons?’

  The cup chattered on Sunshine’s saucer. ‘You lay off Sadie, man,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t get temperamental, sonny,’ Tallent said. ‘Why shouldn’t she like being banged by one of us?’

  ‘You make it evil,’ Sunshine said. ‘You make it dirt, the way you talk, man.’

  ‘So it’s dirty, a white guy with a black girl?’

  ‘It just don’t signify,’ Sunshine said. ‘You got a bad, bad spirit inside you, man. You goin’ to hate, and you goin’ to hate. Ain’t white nor black got any consequence, all that stuff’s inside your head.’

  ‘Now,’ Tallent said, ‘metaphysics. Didn’t I say this boy was educated?’

  ‘Inside your head,’ Sunshine said. ‘It ain’t real, not none of that. There ain’t no black men. I never saw one. There ain’t no white men. You ain’t white.’

  ‘Say that again,’ Tallent said.

  ‘You just ain’t white,’ Sunshine said. ‘You’s mixed colouring, kind of reddy. There ain’t
no white men in nature.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Tallent said, staring at him. ‘Keep on, boy. Spill your guts.’

  ‘We’s all some kind of colour,’ Sunshine said. ‘Every goddam last member of the human race. If you’s a man, you’s some kind of colour, like you got two legs and one nose.’

  ‘Or one prick,’ Tallent said. ‘Still I’m learning. Don’t stop.’

  ‘So how’s it going to matter,’ Sunshine said, ‘about Tommy and Sadie liking each other? That’s okay, man, that’s fine, man. I don’t mind him loving my sister.’

  ‘You kind of threw it in with the drinks.’

  ‘Man,’ Sunshine said. ‘How do I reach you?’

  ‘For a start,’ Tallent said, ‘you can stop being a sanctimonious tosser trying to teach an old cop morals. What are you kidding about, boy? Where do you get the edge? A black guy running a shady deal and mixed-up with people traffickers like Blackburn. You over at Reading in the summer, boy?’

  Sunshine hesitated. ‘Yeh, man. I went there.’

  ‘Yeah, you went there,’ Tallent said. ‘A bright boy like you is political fodder.’

  ‘I go listen to that man,’ Sunshine said. ‘It don’t mean I take in everything he says. He’s wrong about violence. It don’t do no good. Ain’t nothing come of violence but a lot more violence.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tallent said. ‘You were against it. And killing white folks, you were against that bit. But somehow a knife got into Tommy Blackburn, like your front man was recommending.’

  ‘Man, Tommy’s my friend—’

  ‘Some friend,’ Tallent said. ‘Him squeezing you dry, whoring your sister. Then drowning a score of illegals on top. You wouldn’t need orders, boy – would you?’

  ‘You saying I killed him?’

  ‘You’re quick,’ Tallent said. ‘You jump down my throat. I was going to say that.’

  ‘But man, I was here all Tuesday evening—’

  ‘Like with witnesses,’ Tallent said. ‘All black.’

  ‘But—’ Sunshine said.

  ‘But,’ Tallent said. ‘You could have done that job in an hour. Just jumped in that heap of yours outside, driven down to Chiswick, cut him, driven back. And fifty black clubbers to say you never left here. Or maybe didn’t notice you’d gone. And little sister comes back, throws her gear on, is next seen shaking her hips up there. So where is this little sister, boy?’

  ‘Oh man, you’re crazy,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘Yeah, but where is she?’ Tallent said.

  Sunshine was trembling. He said, ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone,’ Tallent said.

  He looked at Gently. Gently sat hunched over a pipe, chin on hand, eyes casual, smoke trickling from his nostrils. Stout, scratching shorthand notes, also broke off to look at Gently. Then he ducked his head again, pencilled a cross into the shorthand.

  ‘Gone where?’ Tallent said.

  ‘I just don’t know, man,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘ ’Bout lunchtime yesterday she’s gone. She didn’t leave no note, nothing.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘She lives right here. She got a room in with us.’

  ‘That wasn’t her shuffling the saucers.’

  ‘No, man. That’s my wife in there.’

  Tallent jumped up, stepped into the bar, threw open a door at the back. Behind it a black woman was crouching, her ear at the level of the keyhole. Her arm rose to cover her face. She sprang to her feet and backwards from Tallent. She stood a yard into the room beyond, arm still raised, eyes rimming.

  ‘Whadyahknow,’ Tallent said. ‘And she was here all the time.’

  ‘That’s my wife, man,’ Sunshine said, rising. ‘You ain’t got no business with her.’

  ‘Siddown,’ Tallent said. ‘I got lots of business. Eavesdropping snoopers are always my business. And how do I know she’s your wife anyway? How do I know she isn’t your tart of a sister?’

  ‘I ain’t Sadie,’ the woman said, shivering.

  ‘You ain’t Sadie,’ Tallent said.

  ‘No, sir, I’m Sharkey’s wife Sarah. You ask Aaron. He tell you.’

  ‘That right, Taylor?’ Tallent jerked over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, sir, sure is right,’ Taylor mumbled.

  ‘Well, we’ll get round to it,’ Tallent said. ‘You people lie to me only the once. Let’s see your left hand, Monah.’

  The woman put out a long-fingered hand. It shook. On the ring finger were a solitaire ring and a gold band.

  ‘So perhaps,’ Tallent said. ‘You better join the party, Monah.’

  ‘You leave her out of this, man,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘I talk, you wrap up,’ Tallent said.

  The woman came out, closing the door, taking a quick step past Tallent. She was tall, slim, with small-boned features and a ripe mouth that ought to smile. She wore a flowered and frilled bib apron over a mini-length linen dress. She had on fur-lined slippers. She moved silently, had poise.

  Stout hastily got up and placed a chair for her. She smiled without looking at him.

  ‘Now that’s all cosy,’ Tallent said, sitting down again. ‘What you might call a family conference. Just one member missing who ought to be here. And her unaccountably gone away.’

  Sunshine slanted his bearded face. ‘I just can’t help you with that, man,’ he said. ‘And it ain’t no use you coming the plantation-boss, because what I don’t know I can’t tell you. Sadie is the most independent female that ever strutted round on two legs. When Sadie’s coming, she comes. When Sadie’s going, she goes.’

  ‘I hear you talking,’ Tallent said. He switched suddenly to Sarah Sunshine. ‘But you’d know where she went, Monah, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘Like girls together? You’d know?’

  ‘Me, I don’t know,’ Sarah Sunshine said hastily.

  ‘Oh, come on, now,’ Tallent said. ‘You and her in each other’s pockets, fixing hair, swapping clothes. When did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know that, sir.’

  ‘Sure you do. You’d help her pack.’

  ‘No.’ She flickered a glance at her husband. ‘I was out down the shops. Sharkey will tell you.’

  ‘Never mind Sharkey, Monah,’ Tallent said. ‘I’m asking you, you tell me. I want to know how Sadie Sunshine lit out of here without you spotting her.’

  ‘Sarah surely went out,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘You shut up,’ Tallent said. ‘Come on, Monah.’

  ‘I – it’s just that way,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘When I come back, Sadie is gone.’

  ‘Try again,’ Tallent said.

  ‘It ain’t no use—’

  ‘I’m being so nice, Monah.’

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ Sarah Sunshine said. She swung aside, hand pushing the table.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘You knew, Monah. Sadie wouldn’t go without a word to her buddy. The way she was getting out ahead of the cops, where she was running, how to get in touch.’

  ‘That ain’t so, man!’ Sunshine burst out.

  ‘Shuddup,’ Tallent jerked. ‘I’ve told you twice.’

  ‘Sadie ain’t running from the cops nor nobody—’

  Tallent struck the table. Sunshine was silent.

  ‘Sharkey – didn’t know,’ Sarah said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Tallent said. ‘Who would tell Sharkey?’

  ‘Sadie say there’ll be a lot of trouble over Tommy, it’s best she go away, take a job somewhere else.’

  ‘Smart,’ Tallent said. ‘Where?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask her. Right, the next question.’

  Sarah sank her head. ‘Yes, I asked her,’ she said. ‘She say better I don’t know, can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Still smart,’ Tallent said. ‘So you began guessing.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘But you guessed,’ Tallent said. ‘You knowing Sadie. Where her friends lived, relatives, background.’

&n
bsp; ‘We don’t have no relatives this way,’ Sunshine put in quickly. ‘All our folks is back in Jamaica.’

  ‘Little man,’ Tallent said. ‘If you speak again I won’t be responsible for what happens.’

  Sarah Sunshine rocked her head.

  ‘Yes, Monah?’ Tallent said.

  ‘No, sir, no, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘It’s like Sharkey says, all our folks is back home.’

  Tallent pulled back in his chair, staring at her. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I’m the nicest person, Monah. I go for months not raising my voice, letting other people walk all over me. Other times I’m not like that. Other times I’m a bloody devil. You wouldn’t like me when I’m not nice, Monah – you people never do. And I’m not nice when some black girl is lying to me. Around them I’m worst of all.’

  Sarah Sunshine swayed, her teeth nicking.

  ‘Where did Sadie go?’ Tallent said.

  ‘Honest to the Lord—’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  Sarah Sunshine shook. She said nothing.

  Gently took his pipe from his mouth, tapped it, laid it in the ashtray. Tallent looked aside at him, but Gently didn’t seem to notice Tallent.

  ‘How long have you people been married?’ he asked Sunshine.

  Sunshine hesitated, watching Tallent.

  ‘Answer the Superintendent!’ Tallent snapped. ‘Don’t you try going dumb too, boy.’

  ‘Four years,’ Sunshine said quickly.

  ‘That would be in Jamaica,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes, sir, in Kingston,’ Sunshine said. He paused, then said, ‘Man, it was pretty wild.’

  ‘No children yet?’

  ‘No, sir. But we aim to start some right soon now. We like about four, Sarah and me, we reckon about four’s a nice little family.’

  ‘When did you emigrate?’

  ‘June ’64. Legal, man. You can check.’