down to Eccle Bridge, the customary Ultima Thule of one-week yachtsmen. Then he had worked back upstream, exploring the Thrin to Hockling Broad and the Awl to Stackham Staithe. By the Friday night, if all had gone well, he would have been in a position to make an easy run to Sloley’s Yard on the following morning.
Ten thousand yachtsmen did exactly the same between Easter and Michaelmas. What was he up to, if it hadn’t been simply a pleasure cruise?
‘Eccle Bridge – we’ll go just where he went.’
Gently settled himself in the launch while Dutt took the helm. Rushm’quick cast off for them, a little disgruntled because he was being left out this time.
And then they were on their way … setting out exactly as the Harrier had set out nine days ago. In Gently’s mind’s eye the scrubby and much-used launch became a trim little auxiliary yacht, the hot afternoon turned to cool, mist-rising evening and the uncompromising figure of Dutt transmuted to a sophisticated beauty with straight black hair, a heart-shaped face and appealing eyes.
What had been in his mind that evening, as he throbbed across the pulk into the river? What did he see ahead of him past the slender mast and wire shrouds, over the symmetrical cabin-top, across the incurving decks with the quant laid one side and the mop the other?
‘Never mind the speed limit … we’ve got to get a move on if we’re to do the trip before dark.’
Dutt advanced the throttle-lever in its quadrant and they surged forward with a sudden thrust of power. There were irate shouts from the more law-abiding users of the river, but Gently seemed deaf to what was going on about him.
You had to go back further than that Friday evening. You had to go back twenty years or more, to an expensive hotel in Torquay of the thirties, when England was still an inviolable island and the Spanish Civil War a remote and somewhat perplexing incident. To that hotel had gone a beautiful young widow and her Welsh maid, a rich young widow, a young widow whose handsome officer-husband had been cruelly wrested from her a few weeks previously; not gloriously, not heroically, but as the result of a miserable scourgetaken while carrying out useless routine duties in a coaling-station at the ends of the earth. Had she not a right to be bitter, that one? Had she not a right to complain at the cynical dispositions of a criminal providence? She had played the game by the rules and this had been her reward. She had asked only the common privileges of life and they had been snatched away with taunting laughter. Yes … she had grounds for bitterness, that beautiful and rich young widow!
But then there had been the other one, this confident businessman in his thirties, just beginning to enjoy his expanding circumstances. Wasn’t it time he took a wife now, with his struggles all behind him? He could afford a wife, just as he could afford his new sports car. He had income and prospects, a handsome face, a trim figure … he was the sort of man that women put on a special voice for. But he would want a striking wife, just as he wanted a striking car. Soon he would be a councillor, one day probably mayor of his important provincial city – it helped, then, to have a wife who caught people’s eye, who could hold her own with a duchess, or steal the picture from visiting royalty.
‘Through the broad, sir?’ enquired Dutt, nodding towards the Little Entrance.
‘Don’t be absurd, Dutt. As though he would parade right under his wife’s nose!’
The launch continued to race downstream.
… And they had met, these two, the rich young widow and the pushing young businessman; they had met and decided that each had what the other wanted. She wanted another husband from life – a secure onethis time, no being dragged away for sacrifice on the altar of Colonialism! And he wanted a superb specimen of the female, an outstanding woman – better still if well-bred, best of all if rich as
Ten thousand yachtsmen did exactly the same between Easter and Michaelmas. What was he up to, if it hadn’t been simply a pleasure cruise?
‘Eccle Bridge – we’ll go just where he went.’
Gently settled himself in the launch while Dutt took the helm. Rushm’quick cast off for them, a little disgruntled because he was being left out this time.
And then they were on their way … setting out exactly as the Harrier had set out nine days ago. In Gently’s mind’s eye the scrubby and much-used launch became a trim little auxiliary yacht, the hot afternoon turned to cool, mist-rising evening and the uncompromising figure of Dutt transmuted to a sophisticated beauty with straight black hair, a heart-shaped face and appealing eyes.
What had been in his mind that evening, as he throbbed across the pulk into the river? What did he see ahead of him past the slender mast and wire shrouds, over the symmetrical cabin-top, across the incurving decks with the quant laid one side and the mop the other?
‘Never mind the speed limit … we’ve got to get a move on if we’re to do the trip before dark.’
Dutt advanced the throttle-lever in its quadrant and they surged forward with a sudden thrust of power. There were irate shouts from the more law-abiding users of the river, but Gently seemed deaf to what was going on about him.
You had to go back further than that Friday evening. You had to go back twenty years or more, to an expensive hotel in Torquay of the thirties, when England was still an inviolable island and the Spanish Civil War a remote and somewhat perplexing incident. To that hotel had gone a beautiful young widow and her Welsh maid, a rich young widow, a young widow whose handsome officer-husband had been cruelly wrested from her a few weeks previously; not gloriously, not heroically, but as the result of a miserable scourgetaken while carrying out useless routine duties in a coaling-station at the ends of the earth. Had she not a right to be bitter, that one? Had she not a right to complain at the cynical dispositions of a criminal providence? She had played the game by the rules and this had been her reward. She had asked only the common privileges of life and they had been snatched away with taunting laughter. Yes … she had grounds for bitterness, that beautiful and rich young widow!
But then there had been the other one, this confident businessman in his thirties, just beginning to enjoy his expanding circumstances. Wasn’t it time he took a wife now, with his struggles all behind him? He could afford a wife, just as he could afford his new sports car. He had income and prospects, a handsome face, a trim figure … he was the sort of man that women put on a special voice for. But he would want a striking wife, just as he wanted a striking car. Soon he would be a councillor, one day probably mayor of his important provincial city – it helped, then, to have a wife who caught people’s eye, who could hold her own with a duchess, or steal the picture from visiting royalty.
‘Through the broad, sir?’ enquired Dutt, nodding towards the Little Entrance.
‘Don’t be absurd, Dutt. As though he would parade right under his wife’s nose!’
The launch continued to race downstream.
… And they had met, these two, the rich young widow and the pushing young businessman; they had met and decided that each had what the other wanted. She wanted another husband from life – a secure onethis time, no being dragged away for sacrifice on the altar of Colonialism! And he wanted a superb specimen of the female, an outstanding woman – better still if well-bred, best of all if rich as
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