Gently 11 - Gently Floating by Hunter Alan

Author:Hunter Alan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781780331539
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2012-08-27T10:50:57+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

THUS: SUPERINTENDENT GENTLY drove back to Haynor in the launch White Heron when it was nearly dark on the evening of Friday August 7th. The water was pallid between heavy-shadowed banks and smoking with fine white mist and the mist hovered in level strata in motionless continents and islands. Lamps were lit in the moored craft which were all large because of the darkness and the light of the lamps was orange-yellow and the boats looked hollow and big inside. Below each lamp a serpent wriggled in the water. About the serpents the water was heavy and glasslike. The flaps of awnings were tied back showing dim outer caves leading to lit inner caves in which mahogany glowed reddishly. In the inner caves people sat eating smoking talking laughing. Occasionally an outer cave was lit and there people were cooking or washing dishes. The mooring ropes of the boats disappeared into the blackness of the rond and the marshes and the alder carrs and the reedbeds and the silence. Past these White Heron slid into the shanty street of the bungalows with Reuben’s lights prickling bluely beyond the stretched silhouette of roofs with Reuben’s Cakewalk hammering the sky and traffic mounting the black bridge and the square flat-roofed building of French’s yard bulking faintly above these. Nothing passed her on the way. The traffic tide was at slack water. Single and double at the quays the lit yachts burned the water. Reuben’s lights gashed the water and it was oily where the lights gashed it. People walked along the ronds. People laughed, called to each other. At the Country Club mooring a man was standing and passing car lights showed the man to be Archer. Archer was watching White Heron. White Heron came slowly in to the Club mooring. Archer didn’t move away. Gently stepped ashore, moored.

Archer said: ‘You’re breaking rules, should’ve had lights coming up here.’

‘I’m always breaking rules,’ Gently said. ‘What would it have cost me, breaking that one?’

‘Christ knows,’ Archer said. ‘There’s never anyone around to book you for it. The police pack up about teatime. Anything goes on the Broads.’

‘Are you working this late?’ Gently said.

Archer shook his head very slowly. ‘Wife’s a nagger,’ he said. ‘She was on a nagging jag tonight. I didn’t strangle her, perhaps I ought to. Do you think I ought to strangle her? But no, I’m forgetting, that’s one of the rules you wouldn’t break. Anyway I didn’t strangle her. I was strong. I came out to booze. Maybe tomorrow I’ll strangle her. I don’t know. Stick around.’

‘Did you want to talk to me?’ Gently said.

‘Hell no, not especially,’ Archer said. ‘I see you haven’t brought back young French in handcuffs, I thought you would when you followed him off.’

‘Why did you think that?’ Gently said.

‘I’m a philosopher,’ Archer said. ‘I get like that on Friday nights. No particular reason I know of. All the week I’m as miserable as sin and the more bottles the more I’m miserable. Maybe it takes a week to tank me up, I wouldn’t know.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.