Gently Floating

by Hunter Alan

  ‘He’s in the Kiama, you know.’

  Who is in the Kiama?’ Gently said.

  ‘Him,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘The one you want. Him. Him.’

  ‘Do you mean John French?’ Gently said.

  ‘The one you want,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘He’s in the Kiama. I watched him go in. You can get him now and take him away.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m going to take him away?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘You’re going to take him away. I know. Because he did something awful, I know all about it. I’ve been keeping an eye on him for you. You can take him away now.’

  She smiled with great brilliance.

  ‘He’s the one,’ she said. ‘He was there that night, I know, I saw him, I’ll tell the judge I saw him if you like.’

  ‘I see,’ Gently said. He looked about him, found a barrel stave, squatted on it. ‘I expect you’ve kept an eye on him a lot,’ he said.

  Vera Spelton nodded briskly. ‘I keep an eye on them,’ she said. ‘I know all the things that go on. I’ve got my secret places for watching them. Shall I tell you what I know?’

  ‘Why not?’ Gently said.

  ‘Well I know about him and that woman,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘The woman who attracts them so much, though she isn’t half so attractive as I am. But she doesn’t play fair. I keep my clothes on you know. That woman takes her clothes off, it’s the only way she can attract them. And she’s terribly naughty you know, you wouldn’t believe if I told you, she does the very naughtiest things. Don’t you take them away for that?’

  No,’ Gently said, ‘not precisely for that.’

  ‘Well she doesn’t play fair,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘I should take her away if I were you. And she’d been naughtiest of all with him? I don’t mind telling the judge about that. I think she gives him something funny to drink, otherwise he’d never let her do such things.’

  ‘Have you ever attracted him?’ Gently said.

  Vera Spelton pouted. ‘I haven’t tried,’ she said. ‘No, I’m certain I’ve never tried. But I could do. If that would help you to take him away.’

  ‘Why do you want me to take him away?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh I don’t care,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘I don’t mind a bit about that. Except it makes Jackie and Dave so funny.’

  ‘Hmn,’ Gently said.

  ‘Shall I tell you some more?’ Vera Spelton said.

  ‘Tell me about Tuesday night,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh nothing happened that night,’ Vera Spelton said.

  ‘Nothing happened on Tuesday?’

  ‘No,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘The man was there, you know, her husband. She’s never naughty till he goes out. Then they go into the room at the back with the bed and she locks the door and he lies on the bed. But not on Tuesday. The man was there. When he didn’t come out I didn’t bother to watch.’

  ‘But he, John French, went there on Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vera Spelton said, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘About what time?’ Gently said.

  ‘It was after tea,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘I saw him, he didn’t see me. I was watching in one of my secret places. He came up the river in a dinghy with a motor on it and he tied the dinghy up in the bungalow dyke. But the man was there, I knew that, and he didn’t come out as he usually does. So nothing could have happened on Tuesday. I can tell you about some other times.’

  ‘Where’s this secret place of yours?’ Gently said.

  ‘This is a secret place,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘I can watch him from here when he’s on the Kiama. I can creep up to the fence and watch everything.’

  ‘But where’s that other secret place?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh I’ve got all sorts,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘People don’t know my secret places, I’m very clever, they don’t know them.’

  ‘How long were you watching there?’ Gently said.

  ‘We built the Kiama,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘Our grandfather built it. It’s a very fine boat. It won all the races it ever sailed in. I don’t know how it got here in this yard. They’re nothing to do with us here you know.’

  She smiled at Gently. Gently said nothing.

  ‘They can’t build boats here,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘Some yard-hand of Daddy’s set up this yard, but I wouldn’t advise you to hire a boat here.’

  ‘I thought Harry French built the Kiama,’ Gently said.

  Vera Spelton’s smile went blank.

  ‘Yes, the man who was murdered on Tuesday,’ Gently said. ‘He built the Kiama. Harry French.’

  Vera Spelton turned pale. Her face worked. She began to bubble saliva and spit. She made sounds. At last she said:

  ‘I hate you. I hate you. I hate you, I hate you.’

  ‘I may be mistaken,’ Gently said.

  ‘You’re wicked, I hate you,’ Vera Spelton said.

  ‘It needn’t have been Harry French who built the Kiama,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh you’re a bad man,’ Vera Spelton said, ‘a bad man. I hate you, I’ll never tell you anything again.’

  ‘Yet why shouldn’t Harry French have built the Kiama?’ Gently said.

  ‘He’s nobody nobody,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘There’s nobody like that, he’s gone, there never was anybody. It’s wicked and I hate you. It was grandfather who built the Kiama. It’s a Spelton boat, you know it is, you’re as bad as he was, bad, bad. I hope someone does something awful to you. You’re nobody either. Nobody. Nobody.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m like Harry French,’ Gently said.

  Vera Spelton stared, spitting, crouching.

  ‘Perhaps I drove my launch up to the quay near yours,’ Gently said, ‘perhaps I went along the cinder path to the bungalow. Perhaps I went into the bungalow and fought the man there. Then perhaps I came out again and went back to my launch. And perhaps you saw it all from a secret place when Jackie and Dave thought you were in bed. And you saw someone come up behind and hit me and you saw me fall into the water and that’s why I’m nobody nobody and couldn’t have built the Kiama.’

  She crouched back deeper into the hut. Her chin was tucked in, her face small. Her mouth bubbled, she stared at Gently. The saliva dripped on the front of her blouse.

  ‘Who was it hit me?’ Gently said.

  She made sounds. She dribbled.

  ‘Someone with a hammer,’ Gently said. ‘You wanted them to hit me, and they hit me. Was it the man from the bungalow?’

  Vera Spelton was silent.

  ‘Was it Jackie, was it Dave?’

  Vera Spelton made a whining noise.

  ‘Was it the one who’s in the Kiama?’

  Vera Spelton stopped dribbling. Her eyes flickered, looked slanting at Gently.

  ‘Was it?’ Gently said.

  Vera Spelton smiled.

  ‘Where were you watching from?’ Gently said.

  Vera Spelton kept smiling.

  ‘From the top end of the yard, wasn’t it?’ Gently said. Vera Spelton kept smiling.

  Gently didn’t say anything.

  Vera Spelton rose, smiling.

  ‘I’m afraid all our boats are let for this week,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes, you’ll have to go elsewhere,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘We’re very popular of course. People always come to Speltons first. But actually all our booking is done through Hookers, the agents.’

  ‘I’ve seen their catalogue,’ Gently said.

  ‘So sorry,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘We may have something later. Why don’t you keep in touch with us?’

  Gently rocked forward, got to his feet. Vera Spelton didn’t stop smiling. She had saliva on her chin and saliva made a dark patch on her blouse. She shook her honey-coloured hair. In the sun it looked like gold wire. Very fine gold wire. Her hair was very clean and well brushed.

  ‘Was there anything else?’ Vera Spelton said. ‘Perhaps my brothers can help you.’

  Gently said nothing, turn
ed away, went through the bush willows back to the fence. When he came to the fence he stopped. John French was standing on the other side of the fence. John French’s face was greyed, his eyes were large, dark. He faced Gently. His eyes were questioning. They stood facing each other for some moments. John French said:

  ‘I, I’ve talked to my lawyer.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ Gently said.

  ‘It was on the phone,’ John French said. ‘I didn’t say much, only about the alibi.’

  ‘So he gave you advice,’ Gently said. ‘He told you not to answer any more of my questions?’

  ‘Yes,’ John French said. ‘Not to answer any questions. Not except in his presence. That’s what he said.’

  The sun beat down.

  ‘Tell me,’ Gently said, ‘who was it built the Kiama?’

  John French looked at Gently. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she’s Brighton’s, Billy Brighton’s.’

  ‘Not one of Speltons’?’ Gently said.

  ‘Not Speltons’,’ John French said. ‘She’s too big.’ He sank his eyes. ‘Vera,’ he said, ‘Vera thinks she’s Speltons’. She thinks a lot of things.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Vera.’

  John French didn’t raise his eyes.

  ‘But she can’t go into the witness box,’ Gently said.

  John French was quite still.

  ‘I suppose,’ Gently said, ‘your lawyer didn’t bar you from sailing.’

  ‘I’m not going sailing,’ John French said.

  ‘Oh I think you are,’ Gently said. ‘You’re going to sail that half-decker of yours to the far end of Hickstead Broad and back. The same wind, the same tides, the same distance, the same course. Eleven miles there and back. You tell me it takes four and a half hours.’

  ‘But there isn’t as much wind,’ John French said.

  Gently nodded. ‘The same wind. I’ll ring Willard and have it confirmed. And you don’t need much wind, you can sail, remember?’

  ‘No,’ John French said. ‘It isn’t fair.’

  ‘Come on,’ Gently said, ‘let’s rig the half-decker.’

  He got through the fence. He touched John French’s shoulder. John French shuddered, followed Gently.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THUS: TOWARDS LUNCHTIME on August 8th John French went to the half-decker mooring and rigged a half-decker while Superintendent Gently rang the local meteorological office and was assured that the wind conditions matched those of Tuesday: also being a provident man Superintendent Gently visited the Country Club where he ordered and was supplied with a wicker lunch-basket and a big vacuum flask. These he carried to the mooring. John French was sitting in the half-decker at the mooring. The half-decker was moored by the bow and was swinging upstream her sail being empty and the tide at flood. She was eighteen feet L.O.A. by six feet six inches by two feet six draught and she was built of dark lustrous red mahogany rails coamings transom all of her. She had an entry between fine and bluff like the solid breast of a gamecock and amidships the slightest tumblehome and a shaling lotus-blossom exit. She was rigged with a balanced lugsail though not the common balanced lugsail this being an aristocrat among lugsails like the sheerly perfect wing of a bird marrying exactly precisely entirely with the intention of the hull the balance the genius of the hull as notes in an immaculate musical chord. The name of the half-decker was Shakuntala which is properly pronounced Sha-koon’-ta-lah: Shakuntala the beloved of a Hindu king who was descended from the moon: Shakuntala who swayed the Moon’s son who swayed the moon who swayed the waters Shakuntala Shakuntala: so the half-decker was named.

  Gently stood looking at the half-decker with its name Shakuntala. He said:

  ‘Is she one of your father’s boats?’

  John French looked at him, tossed his head. ‘She’s one of the Old Man’s boats,’ he said. ‘My father only built motor-cruisers.’

  ‘No yachts at all?’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ John French said, ‘no yachts. You can’t go wrong building motor-cruisers. As long as they’ll float they’ll work.’

  ‘What about you,’ Gently said. ‘Don’t you want to build yachts?’

  John French looked at the water. ‘There’s no point,’ he said. ‘There’s no more room here for sail. The Broads have been handed over. Nobody cares. Anything goes. So build cruisers. Take the suckers’ money.’

  Gently motioned towards the half-decker.

  ‘Take the suckers’ money,’ John French said. ‘Money is all that counts here. Give them the spiel and take their money.’

  Gently shrugged, didn’t say anything. He handed the basket and flask down to John French. John French stowed them forward next to the tabernacle. Gently looked at his watch. The time was noon.

  ‘This isn’t going to prove anything,’ John French said. ‘Nobody can sail without wind.’

  ‘That’s just what we’re going to prove,’ Gently said. ‘Up till now I thought you held a different opinion.’

  ‘Yes, but there was more wind on Tuesday,’ John French said. ‘I could sail. There was more wind.’

  ‘You can argue it out with Mr Willard,’ Gently said. ‘For me, you’ve to be back here by five p.m.’

  ‘It’s a damned waste of time,’ John French said.

  ‘I’ll cast off,’ Gently said, ‘then you can demonstrate.’

  He loosed the painter, pushed the head out, stepped aboard, took a seat to looard. His weight swung the sail out on the port tack but the sail hung slack and slightly wrinkled. They were under the lee of Speltons’ sheds and later they would be under the lee of a mile of bungalows. The tops of the willows by the Bridge Inn moved but Shakuntala’s burgee trailed heavy, still. John French ruddered across to the lee bank. No wind was there either. John French huddled by the tiller, looked at nothing. They inched upstream on the tide.

  ‘There’s where your father moored his launch,’ Gently said.

  ‘All right,’ John French said. ‘So it is.’

  ‘He came up here very quietly without lights,’ Gently said. ‘But the man in that houseboat saw him. He saw him moor, turn up the path to the bungalow.’

  ‘Oh you’ve got it all taped,’ John French said.

  ‘There was a light in the Speltons’ sheds,’ Gently said. ‘You can see them watching us. Perhaps they were watching then. Vera Spelton, she was watching. She saw an outboard dinghy go upstream.’

  ‘There are dozens of outboard dinghies,’ John French said.

  ‘This was a particular one,’ Gently said. ‘I daresay you’d have seen it too. It came up here at the time you say you set off.’

  ‘Do you think I’m watching all the outboard dinghies?’ John French said.

  ‘You’d have plenty of opportunity,’ Gently said, ‘going upstream at approximately a mile an hour, cursing any wash that knocked the wind out of your sail. This is Saturday lunchtime, we’re having it quiet. There’d have been traffic about on Tuesday evening. It wouldn’t have helped you to get along. I think you might have noticed that outboard dinghy.’

  ‘Shit on outboard dinghies,’ John French said. ‘Here’s some wind. Watch this.’

  Gently looked at his watch. ‘Make the most of it,’ he said. ‘The tide turns around two.’

  A draught of warm air filled the sail. It came through the gap above the Speltons’ sheds. The blocks ticked as John French drew his sail and Shakuntala leaned, accelerated, trilled a ripple under her forefoot. From being asleep she became alive. Her sail curved perfectly and without wrinkle. A silent compression wave slid from under her transom and left no eddy on the flat surface. For two or three seconds she sailed thus before the draught of warm air thinned and collapsed. Then the wrinkles crept back into the sail and the reef points tapped it and she leaned no more and her music died. She slept. John French breathed hard. He drew on the sheet. Shakuntala slept. They had sailed perhaps thirty yards. They were drifting again, empty-sailed.

  ‘She’s a pretty boat,’ Gently said.
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br />   John French looked at Gently, cuddled the tiller.

  ‘If any boat would do it she would,’ Gently said. ‘I mean sail without wind, the way you’re claiming.’

  John French said: ‘We aren’t through yet. When we get past the bungalows, you’ll see.’

  ‘But we’ve only just come to them,’ Gently said. ‘We aren’t up to Lidney’s. Where your father was going.’

  ‘Just let me sail, will you?’ John French said.

  ‘I still think you need some wind for it,’ Gently said.

  There was no more wind. Everything was still. The sun beat flashing on the yellow-brown water. The lawns of the bungalows were deserted and there was no other river-traffic nor even an angler on the bank nor a bird nor a cloud in the sky. At the bungalow quays lay launches and rowboats of ugly design and rough maintenance. Silent. Weed growing at their waterlines. Sun spangling their bruised paint. Fishing rods lay neglected with lines and floats dragging upstream and cheap garden furniture stood abandoned and air simmered above felt-tiled roofs. Foot by foot Shakuntala crept by them. She was more silent than the river. Her looped sheet hung an inch above the surface and the surface moved equally with the sheet. She drew abreast of Lidney’s bungalow. The door and windows of the bungalow were closed. In the cutting beside the bungalow had collected green scum a waterlogged tin the rind of a melon. John French didn’t look at Lidney’s bungalow. John French scowled and stared upstream. Wind feathered a willow which grew beside Lidney’s bungalow but the wind didn’t reach Shakuntala’s sail.

  ‘That’s where the dinghy was moored,’ Gently said.

  John French kept scowling upstream.

  ‘Your father would see the dinghy of course,’ Gently said. ‘Light from the sitting-room window would fall on the cut.’

  ‘Can’t you leave me alone?’ John French said. ‘Don’t you think I have any damn feelings?’

  ‘Don’t show them without your lawyer’s permission,’ Gently said. ‘You’ve shown none so far. Don’t start now.’