Smoke and Mirrors: The next instalment of the riveting Marnie Walker series

by Leo McNeir

  Marnie was deadpan. “Ah, you’ve heard her message, then.”

  Anne hooted. “There’s probably someone writing a doctorate about answerphone messages at this very moment.”

  Marnie agreed. “Probably. Someone doing Media Studies, I expect.”

  Anne’s turn to look thoughtful. “Marnie, did you know …?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  *

  When the sun climbed to its highest point of the day, Anne took a five-litre bottle of water from the office fridge and lugged it round to the excavations. Her first stop was at the crash pad, where two girls were flopped out in the shade. She gave each of them a drink and splashed chilled water onto the flannel in its container.

  On the sloping field, little clusters of students were dotted here and there, digging, sieving, recording. Anne went from group to group and was greeted like a guardian angel. With each test pit she visited, she became increasingly doubtful about the value of what they were achieving.

  “I don’t get it,” she said to three girls who paused in their labours to gulp down the cold water. “Surely you won’t find anything much here. No-one would build on a slope like this, would they?”

  One of the girls wiped her forehead, leaving a streak of dirt in the sweat. “Pit nine had some finds this morning.” She pointed up the field. “Stonework, some kind of structure.”

  “What was it?”

  The girl shook her head. “Not sure yet, a shepherd’s hut, or maybe lambing pens?”

  “Made of stone?”

  The girl shrugged. “It’s the local building material. They used what was around.”

  “So you’d say that was a good result?”

  Another girl joined in. “It’ll probably indicate farming patterns hereabouts.”

  “When?” Anne asked. “Hundreds of years ago?”

  “Possibly thousands. We’ve found bits of Roman pottery. Maybe someone like you was up here, Anne, bringing an amphora of water to the peasants.”

  They laughed together, each of them trying to imagine the scene.

  “Romans,” Anne muttered. “You must be very excited to find Roman things.”

  The first girl made a face. “Nah. We want medieval. That’s our period.”

  “But wouldn’t –”

  A cry rang out from somewhere below them. Anne turned and looked down towards the barns.

  “Thank goodness,” one of the girls said. “Lunch break.”

  “What did he call out?” Anne asked.

  “Clear up your loose.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Time to tidy up the pit before break. And Dick means it. He’s a real stickler.”

  All over the hillside Anne saw the students gather up their equipment and begin heading down for lunch, some pushing wheelbarrows, others with mattocks or picks slung over their shoulders. A medieval army on the move.

  *

  Marnie and Anne had a sandwich lunch in the office, neither wanting to stray too far from the fan. The thick stone walls of the little barn were great insulation against the heat, and they pulled the barn doors almost closed to keep out the sun.

  Anne filled trays for ice cubes and slid them into the freezer box in the fridge before pouring two tall glasses of sparkling water and adding ice and a slice of lemon to each.

  “I don’t envy them out there in the field in this weather,” Marnie commented.

  “They’re not. They’ve all moved into the spinney for their lunch break. They look like a gathering of Robin Hood and his merry men out there under the trees.”

  Marnie took a long sip of her designer water. “Merry girls mostly, in our case. They seem like a hardy bunch, too. They don’t give up, out in all weathers.”

  “One of the girls was sick in the spinney. They just buried it, gave her some water and left her on the crash pad to recover.”

  “Blimey, I wonder what her parents would think. This archaeology lark’s a tough old business.”

  Anne agreed. “Not as romantic as it seems, all this digging up the past.”

  “Digging up the past.” Marnie repeated. “Old Mr Devere said that just the other day.”

  “It’s a common enough expression,” Anne said.

  “I know, but you get the impression with him that in this village it’s his past they’re digging up.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s his past, his history, his family.”

  “They’ve been here for centuries, apparently.”

  “How many?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Were they here at the time of Sarah in the civil war?”

  “I expect so. Talking of wars, Celia showed me the memorial in the churchyard the other day. There’s a special stone commemorating Mr Devere’s brother, Roland. He was some kind of war hero, apparently.”

  “I’ve never really noticed it. I’ll have a look next time I go by.”

  *

  Shortly after four-thirty Anne was puffing up the field track on the post run. Halfway up, she turned and looked back at the cluster of buildings. With the angle of the slope, only Glebe Farm’s rooftops were visible among the trees. The afternoon sun was producing a heat haze. Combined with the scorched yellow grass, it made this English countryside resemble the South African veldt. At the end of their tea break the archaeologists were fanning out to their test pits. They conjured up visions of the early vortrekkers advancing to claim the land.

  Anne regretted not taking the car, but she wanted some exercise away from the desk.

  On the way back from the shop, she turned in at the churchyard gate and immediately found the war memorial beside the path. The numbers who had died in the Great War horrified her. Most of the young men from the village must have perished in the fighting, she thought. She began counting the names, but soon gave up. It was too depressing. The inscription read like a litany of clichés:

  … for King and Country … for our tomorrow they gave their today … dulce et decorum est pro patria mori …

  Anne moved back into the shade of a yew tree. Only one name on the main list recorded the dead from the Second World War. There would have been plenty of room to include Roland Devere, but he had been given his own special stone tablet. Anne wondered why.

  “Paying your respects, Anne?”

  The voice made her jump. She turned to see George Stubbs standing behind her. Despite the heat he was wearing his usual tweeds, plus a flat cap and a tie. About sixty, stockily built with a podgy face and bulbous nose, his family had lived in Knightly St John for generations. His butcher’s business had thrived, and he lived in one of the finest houses in the village. Anne saw his Range Rover parked at the kerb behind him.

  “Sorry if I startled you. Lost in your thoughts, eh?”

  “Good afternoon, Mr Stubbs.”

  “George, please. We’ve been friends a long time, after all.”

  Anne smiled, knowing that once she got beyond his tendency to look at her as if sizing up a joint of meat, he wasn’t really a bad sort.

  “I was just thinking how awful that so many men from the village had been killed.”

  “Ah, yes, tragic.”

  Anne realised there were two members at least of George’s own family included in the roll of honour. She guessed there might be other relatives listed with different surnames.

  “I was wondering … Roland Devere.” She pointed at the stone. “Why does he have his own marker?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Because he was a hero?”

  “He was, though that’s always been very hush-hush.”

  “Why?”

  “Some things are never talked about, even to this day. Special operations, behind enemy lines.” He tapped the side of his fleshy nose.

  “Then why did he get that separate stone?”

  “The Devere family paid for the memorial. Simple as that.”

  “Is it known where these men are buried?”

  “Some
, not all of them. That’s the nature of war, Anne.”

  On her way back to Glebe Farm Anne could not lift the melancholy that had descended on her. It was as if the sun had baked it into her mind. She was turning in at the field gate when her mobile rang. It was Danny, thanking her for the weekend.

  “Not interrupting your work, am I, Anne?”

  “Just on my way back from posting letters.”

  “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Gorgeous.”

  Anne did her best to sound cheerful. Probably not a good idea, she thought, to tell Danny she had just been reading the names of the dead.

  *

  Ten minutes after Anne arrived back at the office, Celia Devere walked in.

  “Hope you don’t mind me barging in like this, Marnie. I got your phone message. Just thought I’d see how things were coming along and have a look at the dig.”

  Marnie knew her day’s work was over. She stood up and went outside with Celia. In the HQ barn they found Dick Blackwood and a group of students poring over a plan on the side table. He showed no inclination to interrupt their talk for visitors, even for Celia Devere. She made no effort to hide her disappointment, but allowed Marnie to lead her away. The archaeologists in the test pits were too hot for talking and continued their excavations after a perfunctory nod as the women passed by.

  They strolled back and found shelter from the sun under a tree at the edge of the field.

  “Have they actually found anything, Marnie?” Celia sounded tetchy. “Anything at all?”

  “Some stonework, I believe.”

  “Really.” Unimpressed. “I think this whole witches thing is ghastly.”

  “They’re not looking for witches, Celia. Evidence of settlements, remember?”

  “Well, they’re part of it all. I don’t care what they say.”

  “The Timeline people are looking at the witchcraft angle,” Marnie reminded her. “Although I rather wonder what they expect to find down here. What Glebe Farm has to do with witchcraft I really don’t know.”

  Celia turned to look Marnie in the eye. “It is here, you know. It’s all around us.”

  “Witchcraft?” Marnie was astonished. “Are you serious?”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “What do you mean, all around us?”

  “Up in Knightly Woods. I told you about the walk I had with Hugh a couple of weeks ago when we found that witches’ circle.” She grimaced and shuddered.

  “Are you really sure that’s what it was?”

  “Marnie, there were goat skulls, bones, straw effigies, black candle stubs. There’d been a fire. I told you about it.”

  “That doesn’t mean –”

  “It was horrible, Marnie. Everything in my life is horrible at the moment: the witches, the body in the grave, the awful reburial, my husband having an affair, just about everything else.”

  “Oh, Celia.‘

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean you and the redecoration scheme, of course not. That’s the one bright thing in my life right now.”

  Before Marnie could reply, they saw Ralph’s Volvo lumbering down the track, stirring up dust in its wake.

  “Celia, this is Ralph, my partner. I’d like you to meet him and then perhaps you might join us for an aperitif before you go home? Have you got time?”

  If Marnie was honest with herself, she hoped Celia would decline the offer, but she had made it out of a genuine desire to cheer up her client.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly impose on you.”

  Minutes later, after introductions had been made, they were drinking spritzers by the canal. Uncharacteristically, Anne did not join the party but remained behind, dealing with urgent business in the office barn. Celia made no mention of Exodos. She had her own concerns and probably assumed that boats under tarpaulins were a regular feature of waterways life.

  Ralph made a gallant attempt to lift the atmosphere. “I gather you’re having wonderful things done to Knightly Court, Celia. I know Marnie’s really excited about the designs.”

  “Yes, they are … wonderful.”

  Celia’s tone held little enthusiasm.

  Ralph was not to be deterred. “Are the archaeologists digging test pits up at the Court?”

  “No.”

  “Really? I thought that’s where it all started.”

  “They’ve lost interest in us, except for the grave, of course. And that seems to have come to a standstill.”

  “No further progress?”

  Celia gave a short impatient sigh. “I told Sergeant Binns I wanted it all sorted out without any more delays.”

  Surprise, surprise, Marnie thought. She sipped her drink.

  “He’s rather in the hands of the laboratory people, isn’t he?” Ralph persisted.

  “That’s what he says. But the truth is, the police haven’t a clue. And they’re still banging on about Sarah being a witch.”

  “We have evidence to show that she wasn’t.”

  “Yes. Angela told me. And I tried to tell Binns that she wasn’t, but he just won’t listen. Why can’t people just get on and do things? I wish they were all like you, Marnie.”

  Marnie choked on her spritzer. Ralph intervened.

  “Look, why don’t I get my colleague Guy Fellheimer to talk to Binns – and the Timeline people – and give them access to his original material? That will knock any suggestion that Sarah was a witch firmly on the head.”

  Celia looked appealingly at Ralph, blue eyes wide and earnest. “Could you, Ralph? Would you do that for me? I’d be so grateful.”

  Chapter 20

  Missing

  It was Thursday before Ralph had the chance to speak with Guy Fellheimer. They sat in Fellheimer’s study in his set of rooms on the ground floor of All Saints’ College, in the corner of Old Quad, looking across to the cloister. The room was panelled in dark oak, much of it lined from floor to low ceiling with bookshelves that contained a lifetime’s scholarship. A cool place on a hot day.

  “Simplest thing in the world, Ralph.” Fellheimer stretched his long legs. “I published an article in Modern History last year based on the research we carried out at Knightly St John. Everything about the will written by Sarah Anne Day’s father is in the public domain. I can let you have a copy. That’ll settle the matter.”

  “And there’s no possible room for an alternative interpretation?”

  “None. Sarah was not a witch. She was not hanged but committed suicide while under severe emotional stress. You can tell anyone who wants to know, and if they have doubts, they can talk to me. That should satisfy the archdeacon, the police, anyone who’s interested.”

  “Thank you, Guy.”

  “But that’s not the point here, is it?”

  “You think there’s something else going on.”

  “I do, Ralph, and so do you.”

  “Timeline,” Ralph said simply.

  “Quite. They say their programme is about – what do they call it? – Witchcraft, Ancient and Modern. That’s supposed to give it a suitably ecclesiastical tone, no doubt, a kind of clerical soundbite.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “Look. All these media types like nothing more than to talk about their programmes. Mention this project and … silence.”

  “It is curious.”

  “To say the least. I’m no medievalist, but I’m pretty convinced they aren’t interested in – no – they aren’t just interested in witches. That isn’t to say they couldn’t make a reasonably interesting programme about witches. There’s the ritual angle, paganism, persecution by the Church – they probably invented the idea of witchcraft anyway as a weapon against heresy – and then you’ve got all the gory aspects: the trials, the torture, the ordeals, the floggings, the burnings, the hangings. Add to that the superstitions, the ghost stories, the legends, Devil worship. What more could they want, to cram into a one-hour slot on a Wednesday night when there’s no snooker on the telly.”

  Ralph threw his head b
ack and laughed. Long, thin, ascetic Guy Fellheimer, fifty-something Fellow of All Saints’ College, Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, seemed the last person to know either about snooker or the viewing habits of ordinary people.

  “So why the wall of silence, Guy?”

  Fellheimer steepled his long fingers, his expression bordering on distaste.

  “This isn’t about witches. I think that’s a smokescreen.”

  Ralph nodded slowly. “The other remains in Sarah’s grave.”

  “What else could it be? What do you know about them, Ralph?”

  “I gather they’re modern, modern in the usual sense, not the historical sense. The body seems to have been in the ground around half a century.”

  “Quite recent, then. Not my period. Might be worth asking locally if anyone went missing at about that time.”

  “That’s presumably a police matter, Guy, a missing persons enquiry, suspicious circumstances, all that sort of thing.”

  Fellheimer shook his head. “That wouldn’t explain why Timeline are interested or why no-one wants to talk about it.”

  “Something deeper, you think.”

  “It has to be.” Fellheimer went over to his desk and began typing at the computer. “Yes, here he is, chap I know, Fellow at Pembroke. We play chess together. He’s ex-army intelligence, specialises in military history.”

  “There’s nothing to suggest this is a military matter, Guy.”

  “No, but he was involved in a Timeline programme on coastal defences from Martello towers to the early use of radar.”

  “He has contacts inside Timeline.”

  “Correct. And also, he’ll have insights into the period in question. He published a rather good book on espionage, based on his doctoral research: The Fifth Column in World War Two.” Fellheimer scribbled a note. “I’ll give him a ring and get back to you.”

  The two men left Fellheimer’s rooms and walked across the quadrangle that had been built around 1450. They headed for a pub down the road that was almost as old.