Gently Sinking Read Online Free

I was saying, Osgood,’ he said. ‘You’ve been charged, don’t have to answer questions. Don’t have to answer them, but you can do. You still want to call your lawyer?’
    ‘No,’ Osgood said. ‘I don’t want him.’
    ‘You’re sure of that?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Osgood said.
    ‘You can have him,’ Tallent said. ‘That’s the rule.’
    ‘I don’t want him,’ Osgood said. ‘I don’t want my lawyer.’
    ‘You know,’ Tallent said. ‘I think we’ll get along. I think you’re a pretty good fella, Ozzie. You like a cigarette?’
    ‘No,’ Osgood said.
    ‘Ah, you’re giving them up,’ Tallent said. ‘That’s wise.’
    He blew smoke towards Osgood.
    ‘So who did it, Ozzie?’ he said. ‘You can tell me, we’re good friends. Who stuck that knife into Blackburn?’
    Osgood pulled aside from the smoke, his hands lifting, fanning nervously.
    ‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ he said. ‘Not who killed him. Nothing.’
    ‘Nothing at all, Ozzie?’ Tallent said.
    ‘Not about who killed him,’ Osgood said.
    ‘That’s very disappointing, Ozzie,’ Tallent said. ‘And me prepared to be so friendly. You didn’t do it yourself, I suppose, Ozzie?’
    Osgood shuddered. ‘I didn’t do it.’
    ‘No?’ Tallent said. ‘Where were you, Ozzie – when that knife was going into Blackburn’s back?’
    ‘I was at home.’
    ‘You were at home.’
    ‘Yes,’ Osgood said. ‘I bloody was. I was at home. I was in my flat. I was watching TV. I was at home.’
    ‘Like when would that be?’ Tallent said.
    ‘It was all the evening,’ Osgood said. ‘I had a meal out in a caff, then I went home. All the evening.’
    ‘All the evening,’ Tallent said. ‘That must have been lonesome for you, Ozzie. Or did you have friends in?’
    ‘No, I didn’t have friends in.’
    ‘A pity,’ Tallent said. ‘Isn’t that a pity?’
    ‘Look, I can prove it,’ Osgood said. ‘The old girl next door, she see me come in. She can hear my TV through the wall. I can bloody prove it. I was in all the evening.’
    Tallent kneaded his hands together. ‘You’re not proving anything, Osgood,’ he said. ‘You’re just telling me you faked an alibi, like leaving the TV switched on.’
    ‘But I didn’t fake no alibi!’
    ‘Yeah,’ Tallent said. ‘That could be the answer. You didn’t love Blackburn, did you, Osgood – with him only paying you in peanuts?’
    ‘I never killed Tommy!’
    ‘It could stand up.’
    ‘I tell you I never!’
    ‘The jury might go for it. A stupid berk with a big grudge. Oh yes, they’d go for it.’
    ‘But I never did it!’
    ‘I can hear you,’ Tallent said. ‘You don’t have to tell me three or four times. Only the way things are I can’t believe it, there’s nobody else fits in so well. You don’t know anybody, do you?’
    ‘It was an illegal what did it!’ Osgood blurted. ‘You bleeding know it was – they was all agin him after what happened.’
    ‘An illegal, was it?’
    ‘A bleeding illegal.’
    ‘Like what was his name?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    ‘You don’t know enough,’ Tallent said. ‘Not nearly enough, Ozzie boy.’
    Osgood gulped breath, his hands working. His pale eyebrows were hooked high. Sweat glinted on his forehead. You could smell him. He was afraid.
    Gently said, ‘You say the black community had it in for Blackburn?’
    Osgood’s fishlike stare switched to him.
    ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s right.’
    ‘People known to you?’
    ‘I ain’t saying—’
    ‘You don’t know any black people?’
    Osgood swallowed with his mouth open. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know some.’
    ‘You have black friends?’
    ‘I never said that.’
    ‘Black acquaintances?’
    ‘Yeah, maybe. I live up Acton way, don’t I? There’s black guys wherever you look.’
    ‘And Blackburn knew black people?’
    ‘Course he did.’
    ‘The same black people that you know?’
    ‘How should I know—’
    ‘Did he?’
    Osgood swallowed again. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Now that’s