Free Gently Floating by Alan Hunter

a boat. And we haven’t got one left. What a pity.’
    ‘I’m not after a boat,’ Gently said.
    ‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘They’re all out. We’re Speltons, we’re always booked right up. I’m extremely sorry. We’ve nothing for you.’
    She smiled again. It was a flashing smile. She had large china-blue eyes and they were opened wide. She had curling golden-brown hair that fell loosely, nearly to her shoulders. She was wearing a flowered knee-length dress and white ankle socks and tennis shoes. But she wasn’t a girl, Gently now saw. Her age would be nearer to thirty.
    ‘Well,’ Gently said. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re booked up.’
    ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘You can come into the office. I don’t mind. Only I can’t let you have anything, of course. All the booking’s done through Hookers, but you’d know that, wouldn’t you, if you’re a policeman.’
    ‘What’s your name?’ Gently said.
    ‘V,’ she said. ‘It stands for Vera. Miss Vera Spelton. Dave and Jackie call me V.’
    She opened the door of the office, went gliding through, stood holding it. She had a slim, narrow-hipped figure with a slight bust, but well-rounded limbs. Her nose was blunt, a little snubbed, had freckles round the bridge. Her mouth was wide and smiling. She was tanned. She smelled of sunwarm hay. She pushed a chair towards Gently.
    ‘Do sit down,’ she said.
    Gently sat. Vera Spelton skipped to a chair behind an old walnut writing-table. There were two other chairs in the office and a filing cabinet and a chest of drawers, and on the walls hung many photographs of yachts and each photograph was in a fretwork frame. In addition there was a fretwork case containing a stock of burgee-badges in the Spelton colours, and a fretwork holder of coloured yacht postcards and a fretwork perpetual calendar on the writing-table. Vera Spelton picked up the calendar, adjusted it, replaced it, smiled at it.
    Now,’ she said, ‘about the yacht you’re having. You can’t have
Victor. Victor’s
out. You can’t have
Damsel, Tomboy
or
Maid
or any of the
Breezes,
they’re all out. Then there’s
Melody, Insignia, Eclipse, Flame, Ensign, Novice
and
Dolly.
Nothing there. Then there’s the
Bird
class, one to six. Fully booked. You don’t seem very lucky, do you?’
    No,’ Gently said. ‘Perhaps some other time.’
    ‘Oh, I’d fix you up if I could,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘Would you be one of our old customers?’
    ‘Not so very old,’ Gently said.
    ‘I’m not old at all,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘Do you think I’m attractive? Do you like me?’ She leaned across the table. ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ she said. ‘Some of our customers think I’m attractive.’
    ‘Some of your customers?’
    ‘Shh,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘It’s a secret. You mustn’t let my brothers know. They’re very angry if people think I’m attractive. Silly, isn’t it? That’s how they are.’ She drew back, still smiling. ‘In the boats,’ she said. ‘Some of them have kissed me and put their arms round me and tried to do naughty things. I don’t let them, of course. But they try. They think I’m attractive.’
    ‘Why do you go in the boats with them?’ Gently said.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there’s lot’s of excuses. To see if they’ve got clean sheets or know about the toilet, any excuse to go in the cabin with them. Then my arm gets round their waist, that’s one of the ways I’m attractive, or I touch them in a special way. It’s very easy when you know how.’
    ‘And your brothers are angry?’ Gently said.
    Vera Spelton pouted. ‘They shout at me. They shout at the customers. That’s not the way to run a business, is it?’
    ‘I’m not a businessman,’ Gently said.
    ‘No,’ Vera Spelton said. ‘It’s silly. But it makes it exciting, knowing they’ll be angry. I don’t mind them shouting at me.’
    ‘I take it you’re only attractive to the customers,’ Gently said.
    ‘Oh, I attract most