Gently Sinking (15 page)

Aaron Taylor sipped a little rum and slid a look towards Gently.

‘Is this your usual table?’ Gently asked.

Aaron Taylor nodded, sipped.

‘On Tuesday night?’

Aaron Taylor nodded.

‘And you didn’t see Sadie?’

Aaron Taylor shook his head.

‘But you do see the bar,’ Gently said. ‘And you’d be watching it. Watching for Sadie. You’d see Sharkey and Sarah Sunshine. All the time till you left.’

‘Yeh, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said.

‘You did see them?’

Aaron Taylor nodded.

‘All the time?’

Aaron Taylor’s head drooped.

‘ ’Most all the time, sir. They’re both of them there.’

‘Till you left,’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor nodded and hunched low over his rum.

Over in the bar, Sharkey, alone, stood leaning with his back to Gently, drinking.

Suddenly the coloured spots above them cut and a single white spot beamed down on the stage.

Aaron Taylor straightened up with a gasp, but slowly sank again into his hunch.

‘Sadie’s spot,’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor groaned, hugged his glass.

The band rippled into slow calypso time and a slim figure crept into the spot. Taylor jerked round again, staring. But the woman in the spot was Sarah Sunshine. She picked up the microphone reluctantly, giving the cable a weak pluck, then she swayed a little with the music, and her soft, quavering voice began to come.

Oh coconut grove—

You sigh where the trade-winds play,

Coconut grove—

You calling to me all day;

I’m so far from you,

Don’t know what I’ll do—

This old smokey town

Won’t let me settle down—

Man I long to be

By that sunny sea—

Near my coconut grove.

Her voice broke slightly on the last line and she pulled the microphone close to her. The steel drums and xylophone took up the air again and played it through with variations. Then she came back with a verse.

Long time ago I was a little girl

Watching those breakers roll by—

Now I ain’t no more that little girl,

I hear the sea and I want to cry.

Over this her voice broke several times.

‘Oh lord, oh lord,’ Aaron Taylor groaned.

‘This’ll be Sadie’s song, too,’ Gently said.

‘But why she singing it?’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘Why she going up there and singing it?’

The tables were quiet. The dancers were standing back in the shadows.

Sarah Sunshine sang the chorus again. The band extemporized. She sang a second verse.

Once I was dreaming of silver and gold,

Dressed me in clothes that were fine—

You take the silver, you take the gold,

Leave me the seashells, they’s all that’s mine.

Now she could barely control her voice, and tears were glinting on her cheeks. In the final chorus she choked down some of the words and couldn’t manage the last line. Applause was emotional. Most of the customers were on their feet and the dancers pushed up to the stage, cheering and clapping. Sarah Sunshine covered her face. Even the band was forgetting to fill in. Only Sharkey had eyes for Gently, only Aaron Taylor had eyes for nobody. The applause went on for over a minute, when Sarah Sunshine ran off and the drums swung into a solo.

Now quite a few eyes were turned towards Gently, accompanied by a buzzing surge of conversation.

Aaron Taylor scrubbed tears from his eyes, took a deep sob of breath, sipped his rum.

Gently drank too.

In a little while he saw Sarah Sunshine reappear in the bar. Sharkey spoke to her. She shook her head wordlessly, went quietly to the counter to take an order.

‘Quite a demonstration,’ Gently said to Aaron Taylor.

‘Oh man,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She hurt.’

‘Just because she was singing Sadie’s song?’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor’s brown eyes stared fixedly at him for a moment.

The drums played ‘Peanut Vendor’, then the rest of the band came in with a cha-cha. Sarah Sunshine moved about the tables, bringing orders, fetching glasses. Gently signalled to her when she passed near them. She obeyed the signal, came slowly to their table.

‘I enjoyed your song,’ Gently said. ‘It was very effective.’

‘That really is Sadie’s song, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said quickly. ‘I make the words, Sharkey make the music. But that really is Sadie’s song.’

‘But you sang it with great feeling,’ Gently said.

About them he could hear the conversation slacken.

‘I guess it says things we all feel about, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘We all get the blues sometimes, want to catch the next boat home.’

‘But you seemed very moved tonight,’ Gently said. ‘And your audience too. Unusually moved.’

‘Maybe that’s because I try to sing it for them, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘They know I ain’t any sort of singer. They just like it ’cause I try.’

She reached a shaking hand for Gently’s plate.

‘It sounded more personal,’ Gently said.

‘Oh no, no, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘That ain’t nothing personal. You don’t take it that way.’

‘Perhaps you’re homesick yourself,’ Gently said. ‘You must miss the sunshine, your own family.’

‘No, sir, no, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘I’s happy. I’s quite happy.’

‘You don’t want to go home?’

Sarah Sunshine’s mouth crumpled.

‘She ain’t got no home, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She ain’t got no people, they’re all gone. She ain’t got nobody but Sharkey.’

‘I see. I’m sorry,’ Gently said.

‘She got nobody at all,’ Aaron Taylor said.

Sarah Sunshine held her head away from Gently as though staring at something to her side.

‘Please, you don’t treat her rough, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said.

Sharkey came striding over from the bar. Sarah Sunshine grabbed Gently’s side-dish and glass. Her face was working. She ran.

At 10 the band had a break and clustered round the bar for drinks. They took the chance to look Gently over but they didn’t make any jokes about him. He wasn’t noticing them. He sat smoking his pipe. Aaron Taylor still sat opposite him. Aaron Taylor had an inch of rum. Gently hadn’t drunk again. Aaron Taylor sat with elbows on the table, forehead in his hands, shoulders big.

Six or seven minutes later the musicians strolled back to the stage and began a fresh, slow number. Nobody danced. There were big clusters round the tables, though the two next to Gently had been quietly vacated.

‘How many breaks do the band get?’ Gently asked Aaron Taylor.

Aaron Taylor slowly lifted his head.

‘Just this one, sir,’ he said.

Sharkey, rinsing glasses, caught Taylor’s movement and turned to stare.

‘Where did Blackburn sit?’

‘That table near the bar, sir. He ’most always used that table.’

‘Did he on Tuesday?’

Aaron Taylor hesitated.

‘I ain’t ab’slutely sure, sir.’

‘He didn’t,’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor lifted his glass and gulped.

‘He’d sit over this way,’ Gently said. ‘Perhaps not far from you. Am I right? At a guess I’d say that table by the wall, the last one, farthest from the others.’

Aaron Taylor kept the glass near his face.

‘That’s where he ate, watched the band,’ Gently said. ‘Where he maybe expected to hear Sadie sing, only Sadie didn’t show. There was only the band singer.’

Aaron Taylor moaned.

‘Not much more to fill in, is there?’ Gently said. ‘And Sadie could fill it in for us. If we had her. Had her alive.’

‘Sir, don’t you say that . . .!’

Gently shrugged and took short puffs at his pipe.

‘Oh, you find her,’ Aaron Taylor moaned. ‘You find her, sir. You just must.’

‘So where do I look?’

‘I cain’t say, sir . . .’

Gently gave Taylor a hard look. Taylor’s knuckles whitened over the rum-glass. He screwed his eyes shut. He said nothing.

The band changed its tempo, brought in a trumpet.

Gently stood up, walked over to the bar. Both the Sunshines were behind the bar. Both went still, watched him coming. Sharkey came forward a step to the counter. Sarah Sunshine edged behind him. Sharkey’s face was hard-lined, his eyes glaring, over-large.

He breathed hard through his nostrils.

‘So when you make your move, man?’ he said.

Gently looked from him to Sarah Sunshine. Sarah Sunshine snatched her face aside.

‘When we find Sadie,’ Gently said.

‘Suppose you don’t find her?’ Sharkey said.

‘Oh, we’ll find her,’ Gently said. ‘Even under fresh-turned earth, we’ll find her.’

Sharkey sucked in breath.

‘You don’t want her,’ he said. ‘You just torturing us here, man. Sadie ain’t dead.’

‘Aaron thinks she may be,’ Gently said. ‘And Grey is certain he can’t be implicated.’

‘You never mind about that man Grey!’

‘I mind about everyone,’ Gently said, ‘in this case.’

Sharkey hung on, glaring, rough-breathed, his hands gripping the edge of the counter.

‘I’ll go now,’ Gently said. ‘Before the riot. I think perhaps your wife’s song was not very wise.’

‘Yeh man, you go, you devilman,’ Sharkey said. ‘You done enough trouble. You just go.’

Gently turned for the door. He paused briefly. In spite of the band there was a silence in the hall. In knots at the tables the customers were staring at him, shadowy in the soft lights, eye-whites gleaming. He walked slowly towards the vestibule. The silence filled in behind him. A foot shod in patent-leather was thrust into his path. He walked carefully round it. He reached the vestibule.

Outside, the massive figure of the bouncer stood black and poised at the foot of the steps. Gently went down to him. He held out his hand. The bouncer hesitated, then passed the keys.

Gently got in his car, started it, backed it.

From the vestibule came a cry and the sound of a scuffle.

A man came through the swing-doors fast, half-stumbling, half-falling down the steps. It was Aaron Taylor. Gently pushed open his nearside door. Taylor stumbled in. Gently drove away.

‘You hurt?’ he said.

Taylor’s cheek was bleeding and his lip was split and puffing up.

‘No, sir,’ he panted. ‘I don’t hurt easy. Just someone catched me with a bottle.’

‘You know who?’

Taylor wiped at the blood.

‘They don’t like me talking to you, sir,’ he jerked.

Gently grunted, kept driving slowly through the empty streets, the rain.

Taylor pulled out a handkerchief and patted his cheek, making dark blotches on the white fabric. He sat low in his seat, knees hooking high, eyes staring forward through the screen.

‘You drop me some place, sir,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Where?’

‘Just near the canal, sir. If you’s going that way.’

Gently drove under the railway, reached the canal.

He parked. Aaron Taylor didn’t get out.

‘I don’t know where Sadie is, sir,’ he said.

‘So I keep hearing,’ Gently said.

‘But I sure know where I’d start looking,’ Aaron Taylor said.

He moulded the handkerchief against his cheek.

‘You just look Manchester way,’ he said.

‘Manchester,’ Gently said.

Aaron Taylor nodded.

‘That’s where they have friends, sir. Manchester way. Sadie stayed in Manchester when she first come over. You going to look, you look there.’

‘Thanks,’ Gently said. ‘Where in Manchester?’

‘I don’t know no more than that, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said.

He got out of the car, closed the door, padded away in the rain.

N
OTHING CAME IN
from Manchester overnight.

Before breakfast, Gently rang Divisional HQ. Tallent had left no message for him, so Gently ate lei-suredly and read his papers.

Through the window he could see Elphinstone Road beginning to dry off in patches. The sky over Finchley was yellowish and drained-looking, but the radio forecast had been doubtful.

Across in the Gardens, plane trees shed leaves of the same tints as the leaves in Calonne Road.

At half-past nine he set out, taking the North Circular Road to Twyford. He found Tallent waiting for him in the office, along with Makin and Stout.

Tallent looked Gently over quizzically.

‘No knife-wounds,’ he said.

‘They don’t take with me,’ Gently said. ‘Someone coshed Aaron Taylor with a bottle.’

Tallent blew a raspberry.

‘Kids’ stuff,’ he said. ‘But maybe it knocked sense into his thick skull. He give you the Manchester bit?’

Gently nodded.

‘So it’s just paid off,’ Tallent said.

He flipped a message-form across the desk. The message originated with Salford Constabulary. It said that Sadie Virginia Sunshine had been located at 252 Ponsford St., Salford. She was lodging there with a family named Quintos. She had arrived in Salford late Wednesday evening. She was being detained at Salford HQ pending instructions from requester.

‘You rang them?’ Gently said.

‘Pronto,’ Tallent said. ‘She’s on her way. This is the breakthrough. One hour with her and we can get back to chivvying motorists.’

‘Does the name Quintos mean anything to you?’

‘It ought to,’ Tallent said. ‘It keeps trying to ring a bell.’

Gently picked up the Immigration Department list from Tallent’s tray and laid it on the desk facing Tallent.

Tallent stared at it. Then he whistled softly.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘They took a knock.’

‘Nothing else from Salford?’ Gently said.

‘Nope,’ Tallent said.

He grabbed the phone.

After a while he talked with someone, scribbled notes, slapped the phone down.

‘There’s an Albert Quintos,’ he said. ‘He drives an articulated truck. He was away from home Tuesday, Wednesday.’

‘Do they know where?’

‘He says Bristol. Claims to have checked in there around 6 p.m.’

‘Bristol is rather distant.’

‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘But he could have been lying about when he checked in. And there’s quick trains. Give or take a little and Albert could be our chummie.’

‘It fits in,’ Makin said. ‘If he’s a friend of the Sunshines’.’