by Alan Hunter
‘But she told you where she’d been.’
‘Oh no, sir. She didn’t tell me, I didn’t ask.’
‘You knew.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You guessed.’
She nodded reluctantly.
‘So?’ Gently said.
Her eyes sank.
‘I think she been with a man, sir. Not Mr Tommy. She through with him. It ain’t with Freddy either, sir, because Freddy never cared ’bout her at all.’
‘Oh yes, I think so,’ Gently said.
‘No, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘Never at all. She ain’t his type, he don’t go for her, and she don’t never go for him. That is the truth, sir, cut my throat. You sure is wrong about them two.’
‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘So who was she with?’
She kept her head down, fingers digging.
‘I don’t aim to make trouble for folks, sir,’ she said. ‘Only you so goshawful certain my man killed Tommy.’
‘Well,’ Gently said.
She dug some more.
‘You talked to Mr Jimmy, sir?’ she said.
‘Who’s he?’
‘That’s the one we call Ozzie.’
‘Osgood?’ Gently said.
‘Yes, sir.’
Gently stared at her silently.
Sarah Sunshine said, ‘Sadie surely liked Jimmy. She been out with that man since she broke with Tommy. Two, three times she been out for certain. I think she out with him again on Tuesday.’
‘Sadie – with him?’ Gently said.
‘Yes, sir.’ She nodded.
‘Not a very likely pair,’ Gently said.
‘Him not an educated person, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘But he got pleasant ways along with the ladies. Sadie think he’s nice.’
‘You surprise me,’ Gently said. ‘But thanks for the guess. I’ll keep him in mind.’
Her fingers still held.
‘That ain’t all, sir,’ she said. She glanced again at the bar. ‘There’s something else about Ozzie. You know about Tommy and Freddy’s wife?’
‘I didn’t know it was common knowledge,’ Gently said.
‘You cain’t hide that sort of thing, sir,’ she said. ‘Maybe you know Freddy went home and found them.’
‘So,’ Gently said.
‘Ozzie warned Freddy, sir. That’s the truth. Tommy told Sadie. And Tommy’s most awful angry with Ozzie so’s he talks of firing him out of the business. That’s mostly what I come out to tell you, sir. I think Ozzie’s the most suspicionest man of the lot.’
She relaxed her hold.
‘Does Sharkey know this?’ Gently asked.
She shook her head. ‘We don’t tell Sharkey, sir. He friendly with Ozzie, don’t want to know he tell tales. That’s why I didn’t say nothing in there.’
She gave a little shudder, drawing back from Gently. The door behind the bar snicked open. Sharkey stood there. Sarah Sunshine hastened to unbolt the outer double doors. Gently shrugged, went through, stood a moment.
‘Where’s Sadie?’ he said.
Sarah Sunshine’s eyes sprang open. She was trembling again.
‘I surely don’t know . . .’
They could hear Sharkey coming across the hall. Gently gave another shrug, went down the steps into the rain.
The blue Viva flashed its turn and hissed into the M/T yard ahead of Gently. Makin, wearing a dripping pork-pie hat and a sodden raincoat, climbed out and paddled back to the Sceptre.
‘My God, sir, we do cop the weather,’ he said, hunching.
‘Any luck?’ Gently asked.
‘Could be, sir,’ Makin said.
‘Let’s get inside,’ Gently said.
Tallent was back. He was sitting in the office with his stockinged feet propped up to a radiator. On other radiators draped raincoats were issuing lazy miasmas of steam. Stout sat near the desk, rockering his chair, a shorthand notebook open in his hand. The warm, damp air was heady with tobacco-smoke, seemed to congeal around the neon strip.
‘Come in,’ Tallent said. ‘Find a radiator. We all fell in the river too.’
Makin hastily stripped off his raincoat. Gently unbuttoned, found a chair.
‘We talked to twenty-seven immigrants,’ said Tallent. ‘We drove fifty miles and walked ten. What they call routine or something. I think maybe I killed Blackburn.’
‘You’ve done well,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘I thought I’d better do well. But for all the traipsing around, sir, we haven’t turned up much. It about checks with what we had.’
‘Nothing fresh on Tuesday night?’
‘Nobody saw Sadie,’ Tallent said. ‘Sharkey they saw, Sarah Sunshine, Amorous Aaron. Not Sadie.’
‘Was Sharkey absent at all?’ Gently asked.
Tallent wriggled his toes, said, ‘Yes and no. Some say he was there all the time, some aren’t so sure. You can’t nail him.’
‘What did you get on Blackburn?’
‘Plenty,’ Tallent said. ‘He was a big feature round there. They still don’t quite figure he was a villain, maybe had bad luck, more like that. They really seemed to have liked that louse. He took their dough but he gave value. I have to admit I was surprised.’
‘That’s how I felt, sir,’ Stout said. ‘I honestly think they’re going to miss Blackburn. He was a sort of bridge between them and us, and now they feel they’re on their own.’
‘What about him and Sharkey?’ Gently asked.
‘We’ve got a few things on that,’ Tallent said. ‘Seems there was a regular bust-up in Sharkey’s back room, though everybody’s playing it down. The day after the sinking, that was. Blackburn didn’t show for a few nights. Sharkey, Sadie were both cutting him. Only Sharkey’s missus would say hallo.’
‘Sadie cut him?’
‘They say. She wasn’t in the club much after the row.’
‘Nobody noticed her making up with him?’
‘Nope,’ Tallent said, waggling a toe.
‘Anything on her and the other partners?’ Gently asked.
Tallent peered at him. ‘I didn’t know to ask that,’ he said. ‘You want me to backtrack through twenty-seven interviews, or is this just something by the way?’
‘Grey, I’m most interested in,’ Gently said.
‘Grey,’ Tallent said. ‘The alibi man.’
‘I think it’s a good alibi,’ Gently said, ‘as far as it goes, but it goes too far. Grey shouldn’t have known he’d need one.’
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘Anything about Grey.’
‘He had a black woman-friend,’ Gently said. ‘I’ve just talked to the Sunshines. I’m pretty sure it was Sadie. I think they know, were trying to steer me off it.’
‘Wow!’ Tallent said. ‘This may be worth back-tracking.’
‘Nobody mentioned it to you?’
Tallent shook his head.
‘We’ve got something about Osgood though, sir,’ Stout said. ‘There’s a statement here that links him with Sadie.’
He flicked through his notebook, found a place, began reading:
‘ “No, sir, I never see her speak to him afterwards, no, sir, she acted like she didn’t see him, yes, sir, Mr Ozzie, I see her sitting with him.” ’
‘Well, well,’ Tallent said. ‘Ozzie too. And him another alibi man on Tuesday.’
‘Sir,’ Makin said. ‘This ties in with my information. I’ve just heard Osgood had a black woman in his flat.’
‘On Tuesday?’ Gently asked quickly.
‘No, sir, not Tuesday,’ Makin said. ‘Or if he did, nobody spotted it. But a couple of other times in the last few days. There’s an old lady next-door who keeps an eye on him.’
‘Could she describe the woman?’
‘Youngish, sir. Pretty. Taller than average. A smart dresser.’
‘Sadie,’ Tallent said. ‘That darned tart.’
‘It certainly sounded like her, sir,’ Makin said.
Gently stared a moment at Tallent�
��s neat desk-top.
‘Go on,’ he said to Makin. ‘What about Osgood’s alibi?’
‘I’d say it was pretty dicy, sir,’ Makin said, taking out his notebook. ‘I have two times here, but neither covers him. First, he went up to his flat soon after six. Mrs Jenner, that’s the neighbour, saw him come in. She was watching TV with her light off, so she could see him park and go into the building. She’d just seen the news, which gives us the time. A little later she switched off, could hear a TV still going. These are flats in a terrace house, Beaumont Street, Acton, and there’s only a partition-wall between her and Osgood. Osgood’s TV was going till ten to nine when Mrs Jenner switched on for the news. She switched off afterwards. Osgood had switched off. She didn’t hear any more from his flat.’
‘Jesus, some alibi,’ Tallent said. ‘That leaves Ozzie right in the middle.’
‘Did you ask around,’ Gently said. ‘Anyone see him leave, notice his car gone?’
Makin shook his head. ‘I covered plenty of ground, sir. I worked the pubs round about. They knew Osgood, but they hadn’t seen him. Mrs Jenner was the only neighbour who had anything.’
Tallent fetched his toes down from the telephone-directory and flipped a cigarette into his mouth.
‘All the time this case gets more interesting,’ he said. ‘We could have a full-time conspiracy going on here. Sadie plays with Blackburn, cheats with Grey, fills in odd nights with Osgood. Grey’s her fancy, has the alibi. Ozzie’s her tool. He’s expendable.’
‘We’re not sure about her and Osgood, sir,’ Stout ventured.
Tallent drove smoke at him.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘She’s been seen with him, you got it down there, then she’s seen at his flat, with a good description.’
‘When was she seen at his flat?’ Gently asked Makin.
‘Twice,’ Makin said, ‘in the last few days.’
‘Not earlier?’
‘No, sir,’ Makin said.
‘When was she seen at the club with Osgood?’ Gently asked Stout.
Stout said, ‘Last week, sir. After the row.’
‘That’s the point,’ Gently said. ‘After the row. After Sadie had broken with Blackburn.’
He gave a short résumé of his interview with the Sunshines and of Sarah Sunshine’s allegations.
Tallent rasped in a great lungful of smoke.
‘Ozzie,’ he said. ‘Would you credit it?’
‘I’m not sure I would,’ Gently said. ‘He seems to have had the least motive.’
‘You don’t need much motive,’ Tallent said. ‘Like losing your job is a good motive. Like being vampo’d by a beautiful black girl is a good motive. And who knows if Grey didn’t throw in a bonus?’
‘But is Osgood violent?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Tallent said. ‘Push anyone hard and they turn violent. I wouldn’t have put money on Ozzie either, but he’s in the middle now with Sadie.’
Gently shrugged. ‘We’ll talk to him,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘He’s kind of earned it.’
‘Perhaps I’ll talk to him,’ Gently said.
Tallent nodded. ‘Sir,’ he said.
Osgood entered with a sulky expression on his thick-featured face. He squinted warily at Tallent before taking the chair placed for him. Gently was sitting behind the desk. Osgood looked quickly at him then dropped his eyes. His hairy hands, like two primitive animals, shifted and burrowed on his fleshy knees.
‘We’ve one or two questions for you, Osgood,’ Gently said. ‘They concern Blackburn’s death.’
‘Why ask me, then?’ Osgood said. ‘I keep telling you, I don’t know nothing.’
‘Still, we’d like to ask them,’ Gently said. ‘It may just happen you can help us. You’ll know a few things about Blackburn’s affairs. About him and Sadie Sunshine, for instance.’
Osgood hesitated. ‘What about them?’
‘Anything you can think of,’ Gently said. ‘We can’t ask her. She’s cleared out. So maybe you can fill in some details.’
Osgood’s hands moved. ‘She’s cleared out?’
‘Soon after the killing,’ Gently said.
‘You – talked to Sharkey?’
‘Of course,’ Gently said. ‘But he doesn’t know where she’s gone.’
Osgood looked at his hands for a while.
‘She’s all right,’ he said. ‘Sadie. You don’t want to go looking for her. She don’t know nothing. Not Sadie.’
‘What makes you so certain?’ Gently said.
‘She’s all right,’ Osgood said. ‘You was asking.’
‘Blackburn had a woman with him when he was killed,’ Gently said.
‘Not Sadie,’ Osgood said. ‘That’s what I say.’
Gently shrugged, took out his pipe, very slowly began to fill it.
‘She’d broken with Blackburn, of course,’ he said. ‘You’d know all about that. She lost a brother on the Naxos Island. She’d perhaps feel very strongly Blackburn was to blame. She had a knife. It was Aaron Taylor’s knife. That knife we found in the body. She left her dabs all over the flat. Nobody knows where she was on Tuesday. But you think she’s innocent?’
Osgood swallowed twice.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, she’s innocent.’
‘You perhaps know her very well,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Osgood said. ‘Yeah, perhaps I do.’
‘In fact, she got around quite a bit,’ Gently said. ‘She wasn’t only Blackburn’s mistress, was she?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Osgood said. ‘She stuck to Tommy. She’s all right.’
‘But there was Grey, too,’ Gently said, striking a match.
‘Grey,’ Osgood said. ‘She never went with Freddy.’
‘Oh yes,’ Gently said. ‘Grey too. I’ve just spoken to his wife. She’s seen them together. That’s why Mrs Grey took up with Blackburn.’
‘Yeah,’ Osgood gaped. ‘But listen—’
‘You’ll remember about Mrs Grey and Blackburn,’ Gently said. ‘It was you who told Grey what was going on. That’s why Blackburn was threatening to sack you.’
He put the match to his pipe, puffed.
Osgood was staring, his mouth open.
‘Listen,’ he gulped. ‘That ain’t nothing to do with it. Tommy never meant that. I could have grassed on him.’
‘Not without grassing on yourself,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah, I could’ve grassed on him,’ Osgood said. ‘I told him that. I told him I’d grass on him. And he come round. He wasn’t going to sack me.’
Gently smoked.
‘It’s bleeding true,’ Osgood said.
‘We’ve checked your alibi for Tuesday,’ Gently said.
‘I was home Tuesday.’
‘We’ve checked it out. We can’t place you there all evening.’
‘Listen,’ Osgood said. ‘I was there. You can’t prove I wasn’t there. I come home. I stayed home. I never shifted all evening.’
‘But,’ Gently said. ‘Why were you there?’
‘Why?’ Osgood gaped.
Gently nodded. ‘Why weren’t you at the Coconut Grove, for example, or Grey either? On Tuesday?’
Osgood’s mouth opened and closed.
‘I don’t know nothing about Grey,’ he said.
‘Oh, you’d know something about him,’ Gently said. ‘You and he sharing the same girl-friend.’
‘That ain’t true!’
‘The same girl-friend,’ Gently said. ‘Grey and Sadie, Sadie and you.’
‘She never had nothing to do with Freddy!’
‘But she did with you.’
‘She didn’t. She didn’t!’
‘She did,’ Gently said. ‘She’s been seen with you, Osgood. At the club. At your flat. After she’d broken with Blackburn. Sarah Sunshine says she’s been out with you. She broke with Blackburn, switched to you. I wonder why?’
‘It’s lies!’ Osgood gabbled. ‘All bleeding lies. You
can’t prove none of it.’
‘I can prove all of it,’ Gently said. ‘I have one, two, three witnesses. She switched to you – not to Grey, who she was running around with before – but you. And Blackburn dies. And Grey comes up with a rot-proof alibi. So where does that leave you, Osgood?’
‘I ain’t saying any more! I didn’t kill him!’
‘Prove where you were Tuesday evening.’
Osgood’s blue eyes rolled.
‘You can’t,’ Gently said. ‘After 9 p.m. you can’t be placed at your flat. Sadie Sunshine was missing all evening. Blackburn died about 10 p.m. She set him up. He was too much of a handful for his killer to tackle man-to-man, so he had to be made defenceless. Then the killer came. Right on cue.’
‘Gawd, but I was home!’ Osgood croaked.
‘No,’ Gently said. ‘You weren’t at home.’
‘I was, I was,’ Osgood croaked. ‘I can prove it, bloody prove it.’
‘So why not prove it?’
‘I bloody will!’
But he hung on, panting, eyes swelling at Gently. All his heavy face was dragging, working, creasing with indecision.
‘So?’ Gently said.
‘I don’t have to prove it!’
Gently shrugged, reached for his matches.
‘Listen!’ Osgood said. ‘You bloody got to listen – it’s all lies about me and Sadie! So she went with Freddy – I don’t know – Freddy’s laid a few black girls – but not with me. That’s lies! She ain’t never been with me.’
‘Three witnesses lying?’
‘Yeah – lying!’
‘And you don’t want to prove where you were on Tuesday?’
‘I don’t have to—’
Osgood broke off, his face sagging in bafflement.
‘I want a lawyer,’ he said. ‘I ain’t saying any more.’
‘Perhaps you’ve said too much already,’ Gently said.
‘I didn’t kill him! I want a lawyer.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘You want a lawyer.’
They took Osgood out. Gently ordered Grey to be brought in. Tallent watched thoughtfully as Osgood went, then snatched himself a cigarette.
‘There’s a lying bastard,’ he said. ‘And a stupid bastard on top.’
‘Perhaps not so stupid,’ Gently said. ‘He had an idea where to stop.’
‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘You had him somehow. He damn nearly came across. Then like he was figuring he would make matters worse, so he started blocking and bawling for a lawyer.’