"Time Off: A Proctor Novel"

Just a quick post - this is the first page and a half (or so) of Time Off.  It's raw and unedited and may look quite different in the finished article, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of what I'll be aiming for in the finished novel.

It's progressing quite well - just under 4000 words at the time of posting - I expect it to be around 70,000 when finished, or 240 pages, so not an epic.  I'm pitching it somewhere between the deeply descriptive Night Time in Shanghai and the more pacy Proctor Novellas.  The Proctor Novellas are best read in order as they occasionally reference the earlier books, but this one is aimed to be more 'stand-alone'.

"Chapter One

Spreading the Good News.

He pulled the dark brown rough woollen robe over his head and stuffed his arms into the voluminous sleeves, then pushed the hood back and smoothed himself down. He reached for the white rope cord and swung it around his waist and tied it, then slipped on his sandals. Finally, he picked up his long thin-bladed knife and wiped it on the small yellow dress hung over the back of the cheaply printed white plastic chair next to the bed and slipped it's shiny ceramalloy blade into the sheath in his left sleeve. He looked around him.

As was usual with rooms aboard space stations, the ceiling was low. On three sides, the walls were covered with smoky mirrors with red light strips recessed behind the tops, casting an eerie soft light upwards on to the matt white ceramalloy. Set into the fourth wall's left end was a door which took you out to a corridor. Next to this was a cheap white shelving unit covered in worthless knick-knacks and trinkets of the type that you could pick up for a small handful of loose change in station markets and planetary bazaars across the whole of human space. Maybe some of them were gifts from her regulars. The only thing of any interest was a brass-bound dark wooden box with a small key jutting from it's front, pushed back on the right side of the shelf slightly higher than Sirdar's waist. He quickly rifled through it and removed a few items of jewellery which he stuffed into the right hand pocket of his habit. Maybe a few more gifts from punters, not really worth much, but she wouldn't be needing it any longer.

A large double bed filled three quarters of the floor space, butting up to the three wall mirrors. At one end of the bed, half a dozen large puffy pillows were covered with ruff-edged deep red faux-satin pillow cases over a sheet made of the same material. In the middle of the bed the small young woman lay, beaten and bloody, her body bruised and her life crushed out of her. Pools of blood seeping from the wounds in her chest looked black under the red lighting. The seeping would soon stop. Sirdar looked down at her and crossed himself and said a short prayer. Then he turned to leave. As he opened the door, he connected to the room's cameras and made sure that the short loop of video of the young woman fast asleep was still feeding back to the brothel's systems. He turned and looked once more at the small, dead, crumpled form laying on the bed.

“Tonight you shall rest in the loving embrace of Our Lord.” he said, softly and tenderly. ..."

Anyway - I hope you enjoyed that taster - back to writing it now...

Andy Ellis, 1 April 2017 (in Mercia Marina, but maybe taking a short trip out today if the rain holds off)