Gently Sinking Read online

  It was late, very late in Tallent’s office, and Tallent had smoked too many cigarettes.

  Empty coffee cups were piled on his desk and smoke hung on the hot air in slanting bands.

  Twice Gently had risen to go, twice Tallent had held him back.

  Makin sat in his raincoat, stifling yawns. Stout was hunched against a radiator, probably dozing.

  ‘Look,’ Tallent was saying. ‘I still don’t love black people. I’ll live and die not loving black people. I don’t love them, big period, and I don’t expect them to love me.’

  Gently hesitated, once more at the door.

  ‘So why bother loving them?’ he said flatly.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m supposed to love them,’ Tallent said. ‘Not loving them makes me a bastard.’

  ‘They don’t want you to love them,’ Gently said.

  ‘Never mind what they want,’ Tallent said.

  Gently leaned on the door.

  ‘Leave love out,’ he said. ‘Love and hate are joined down the middle.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Tallent said.

  ‘Two sides,’ Gently said. ‘One coin. They come together.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ Tallent said.

  ‘You walk down the street,’ Gently said. ‘You don’t love the people. You don’t hate the people. Coming and going, just people. If one of them trips you help him up, maybe give him a brush down. Then you forget him and keep walking. No question of love and hate.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s too easy,’ Tallent said.

  ‘So why make it hard?’ Gently said. ‘Leave it alone. Let be. Tampering with love is a Christian heresy.’

  ‘You mean, sort of loving by not-loving,’ Stout murmured dreamily from his radiator.

  ‘You go to sleep, sonny,’ Tallent said. ‘Leave the big questions to the big men.’

  He stubbed the last of his too-many cigarettes.

  ‘Yeah, but see here,’ he began.

  Then he squinted across the smoky room.

  The door had closed.

  Gently was gone.

  Osgood received eighteen months on the Immigration Act charge. Grey pleaded ignorance of the offences and his counsel gained him an acquittal.

  As he was leaving court by the rear entrance he ran into some reporters and other people. He was heard to scream. He collapsed. A cheap sheath-knife was found buried in his back.

  The case was very carefully investigated and one Albert Quintos assisted the police. But nothing definite was ever proved.

  Except Grey’s alibi, of course.