by Alan Hunter
They drove back to HQ in the Sceptre, taking along with them the shivering Taylor. Stout stayed behind to get a list from the Sunshines of the customers they remembered being at the club on Tuesday evening. From Sharkey they’d also got two more photographs, one showing Sadie at full length, and from Sarah Sunshine a reluctant description of the clothes Sadie had been wearing when she left. For dab samples, Gently had taken the Après moi . . . and the silver-backed brushes.
At HQ they found Makin. The sad-faced man met them eagerly.
‘You were right, sir,’ he said to Gently. ‘Immigration did have those dabs on record—’
‘We know, we know,’ Tallent cut him off.
‘But I’ve got the woman’s identity, sir!’
‘Look,’ Tallent said, pushing the scent-bottle and brushes at him, ‘just take these and do your job on them.’
‘But . . .’ Makin said, grabbing the package.
‘Wait,’ Gently said. ‘What name did they give you?’
‘Sadie Sunshine,’ Makin said. ‘I have the address—’
‘He’s so bright,’ Tallent said. ‘Now he’s so bright.
They left Taylor in the charge-room while Tallent gave Sadie’s details to Information. They went to his office. From a locked drawer in a cabinet Tallent took a sheath-knife with a label tied to it. He laid the sheath-knife in a desk-tray on top of a pile of papers. He took his seat behind the desk, rang for Taylor to be brought in.
Taylor was brought. Tallent stopped him at the door.
‘Just stand there a minute, boy,’ he said. ‘This is my office. You take a good look at it. Maybe you’ll spend a lot of time in this room.’
‘Yes, sir, yes, sir,’ Taylor mumbled, his eyes rolling.
‘So you get to know it,’ Tallent said. ‘Keep looking.’
‘Yes, sir, I’m looking,’ Taylor said. ‘I’m looking, sir.’
‘That’s a good boy,’ Tallent said. ‘What do you see?’
Taylor gaped, his eyes still going. Then he spotted the knife. He grabbed his breath in a moan.
‘You’re good, boy,’ Tallent said. ‘You case a room real sharp. That your knife?’
‘Th-that sure is like it.’
‘Whadyamean – like it?’
Taylor gulped. ‘It’s mine.’
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Okay.’ He picked the knife out of the tray.
‘Hold it,’ Gently said. He turned to Taylor. ‘These knives are pretty common,’ he said. ‘Were there any marks on the one you owned?’
‘I – I sure disremember, sir,’ Taylor said.
Gently took the knife. ‘Say on the blade?’
‘I – I cain’t remember the blade . . .’
‘Did you ever use your knife, say, for lifting tacks?’
Taylor’s eyes stilled. ‘Yeh – yeh!’ he said. ‘I did do that, sir. I pulled up some tacks with it. There’s surely a nick some place on the blade.’
Gently handed him the knife. ‘Like this?’ he said.
‘Oh gosh, yes – that’s the very same knife!’
Tallent took the knife again, laid it on the desk.
‘Take a seat, sonny,’ he said.
Taylor slumped on a chair.
‘Now,’ Tallent said. ‘Fast answers, boy. That’s your knife. We found it in Blackburn. If you didn’t stick it there, tell us who did.’
‘But sir, if I knew—’
‘You know,’ Tallent said. ‘That’s one sure thing. You know who did it.’
‘I’m telling you, sir—’
‘It has to be you.’
‘No, sir, I never—’
‘Then it was your ex-girlfriend.’
Taylor stared at Tallent huge-eyed for a space, then hid his face in his massive hands.
‘Oh Lord, no, no!’ he snivelled in a falsetto. ‘That cain’t be true. That cain’t be true.’
‘Still love her, do you, boy?’ Tallent jeered. ‘You better start facing facts, sonny. She’s a no-good whoring promiscuous bitch, and a no-hoper like you couldn’t run her.’
‘You just don’t talk that way!’ Taylor screamed, jumping up.
‘Siddown,’ Tallent said, striking the desk. ‘I talk any way I please in here, sonny. You better learn that good and fast.’
‘Sadie ain’t what you’re saying – she ain’t.’
‘Are you going to sit down?’ Tallent said.
‘She ain’t bad. She ain’t a whore.’
‘Listen,’ Tallent said. ‘My hands don’t bruise easily.’
Taylor sat.
‘That’s better,’ Tallent said. ‘Just don’t go hysterical on this policeman. Especially with a knife lying on the desk. It might give me excuses. I might need them.’
‘Oh Lord, she never did that,’ Taylor said.
‘You hope,’ Tallent said. ‘But you don’t sound happy.’
‘She never, never did,’ Taylor said. He covered his face with his hands again.
Tallent picked up the knife. He began paring his nails with it.
‘Let’s look at some points, boy,’ he said. ‘Sadie wasn’t in the club Tuesday evening. So like where would Sadie be?’
Taylor groaned.
‘That’s right,’ Tallent said. ‘Where was Sadie when she wasn’t at home? With the stink of her scent all over Blackburn’s flat, and her dabs there too – especially in the bedroom?’
‘But she is washed-up with that man—’ Taylor quavered.
Tallent laughed. ‘I heard Sharkey saying it. I heard Sharkey saying she was in the club all evening – but you didn’t see her there, did you, boy?’
‘I know she ain’t been seeing that Blackburn.’
‘You weren’t so certain on Tuesday, sonny.’
‘But she ain’t been with him before that – ten days, a fortnight she ain’t been there.’
‘Now we’re learning,’ Tallent said. ‘So you’ve been watching that flat, have you? Every night, under the limetree. Angry Aaron, the boy with the knife.’
‘I didn’t have no knife!’
‘I was forgetting,’ Tallent said. ‘Sadie had the knife. In her handbag. For two, three months. Always took it to Blackburn’s flat.’
‘She didn’t . . .’ Taylor hesitated, fingers on his sweaty brow.
‘Didn’t have the knife?’
‘What for would she have it . . . all that time . . . in her handbag?’
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Yeah, that’s nice. Keep pushing your brains with your fingers, sonny. Maybe she didn’t have it at that. Why keep a knife like that in a handbag? So what would she do with it?’
‘I sure don’t know—’
‘Oh, come on, now,’ Tallent said.
‘I don’t know!’ Taylor said. ‘I guess she got rid of it.’
‘Sure she did,’ Tallent said. ‘Back to you.’
‘She never did that!’
‘Oh yes,’ Tallent said. ‘That nice girl Sadie didn’t keep your knife. She might have had it off you when you flipped, but then she gave it back. It checks, boy.’
‘No,’ Taylor said. ‘No, sir.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Tallent said. ‘But it checks. You had that knife, that knife killed Blackburn, you were there. It checks.’
Taylor sobbed into his hands.
‘Let’s reconstruct it,’ Tallent said. ‘There wasn’t any break between Sadie and Blackburn, that’s a load of Sharkey’s eyewash. She was still cutting it out at the flat, and you knew she was, because you were watching. And Tuesday night you flipped again, just the way you flipped before. You slid round the back and up the steps and through the flat, and caught them at it. So you cut him. It was dark in there. She wouldn’t know anything till Blackburn flaked on her. By then you were out of the flat and clear, and she maybe doesn’t know now who did it. She could guess, and she saw the knife-handle, but she didn’t know. And she didn’t want to be questioned. How am I doing, sonny?’
‘No, no!’ Taylor sobbed.
‘Yeah, it’s understandable,�
� Tallent said. ‘You had provocation, that’s plain enough. The jury may recommend mercy on that.’
‘You’s just so wrong!’ Taylor sobbed.
‘No, I’m not wrong,’ Tallent said. ‘You can’t hide these things, boy. That’s the mistake all killers make. So now we know, now it’s out, you better play along and tell me everything. That way you’ll make me a friend, boy, and you sure need a friend just now. Come on, now. You’ll feel better.’
‘But I ain’t d’guilty one!’ Taylor sobbed.
‘So you and Sadie did it,’ Tallent said. ‘That’s okay with me, I can understand. You’ll do all right. You tell me.’
‘Oh Lord, no, no!’ Taylor sobbed. ‘It ain’t so. None of it ain’t so.’
‘You stupid bloody fool,’ Tallent said. ‘And me here trying to be your friend.’
He slammed the knife back in the tray.
‘Anything to ask him, sir?’ he said to Gently.
Gently shook his head. ‘Nothing. You can turn him loose now.’
Tallent went stiff. ‘Turn him loose?’
Gently nodded. ‘And provide him with transport.’
Tallent stared a long time at Gently. His eyes dropped. ‘All right,’ he said to the attending constable. ‘You heard what the Superintendent said.’
The door closed behind Taylor. Tallent got up and went to the window. In the M/T yard outside the window somebody was revving a car engine. Tallent threw up the window, bawled through it. The engine was cut. He closed the window. He came back into the room, stood staring at a duty roster that was pinned to the door with red-capped drawing-pins.
‘You didn’t like how I handled that, sir,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you haven’t liked how I’ve handled any of the case up to now.’
Gently said nothing.
‘Perhaps,’ Tallent said, ‘I should ask to be taken off this case. Let you run it how you want. Maybe that would be best for everyone.’
‘Come and sit down again,’ Gently said.
‘I know pretty well,’ Tallent said, ‘when I’m not wanted. You don’t want me. You’ve been against me ever since you walked in. I could feel it. We don’t click. You think I’m just a loud-mouthed bastard. I can’t do anything right, for you. And you’re the boss. So I’d better drop out.’
‘I can’t talk to your back,’ Gently said.
‘You can’t talk to me, period,’ Tallent said. ‘We don’t have a common bloody language, sir, just between us and the four walls.’
‘Well, come and sit down,’ Gently said.
‘I want to have this out, sir,’ Tallent said.
‘Of course, we both do,’ Gently said. ‘Come and sit down.’
Tallent stalked to his chair.
Gently scratched a light for his pipe, blew a couple of rings towards Tallent.
‘You were a boxing man,’ he said. ‘Haven’t I seen your name on the area championship shield?’
‘So what?’ Tallent said.
‘So that’s a high standard,’ Gently said. ‘It takes more than beef to become a champion. It takes discipline, intelligence, the imagination to read a fight, the skill to exploit an opponent’s style. A good champion is a good policeman.’
‘I was a bad champion,’ Tallent said.
‘I didn’t see your fights,’ Gently said. ‘I’d say you were a good one, just meeting you today for the first time.’
‘So I’ve gone back,’ Tallent said. ‘I was a good champion, I’m a bad policeman.’
‘That isn’t my reading,’ Gently said. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’d shape if you joined us.’
‘If I joined who?’ Tallent’s small eyes jumped.
‘If you joined us,’ Gently said. ‘That’s a possible step for an ambitious officer. We’re always short of likely material.’
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.’
CHAPTER FIVE
OSGOOD’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.