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

by Leo McNeir

  Ralph kissed her. “I know how to show a girl a good time.”

  Chapter 29

  Warned Off

  Marnie was surprised how refreshed she felt in the office on Monday morning after just a weekend away on the boat. The unrelenting spell of hot weather was expected to continue, and Marnie sat at her desk in a sleeveless top and lightweight cotton slacks studying the Knightly Court file. Anne had put it on her desk after breakfast. On that particular morning they had a special reason for wanting to be ahead of the game.

  Marnie picked up the phone for her first call at three minutes to nine precisely and talked timings with the Knightly Court decorator. They scheduled an initial planning meeting for later that morning, ready for a start on Wednesday. The call lasted ten minutes. After disconnecting, she hit the button immediately for dialling tone and keyed in the next number. The curtain maker would be coming over that morning for a final measure-up. It was going to be a busy day.

  *

  On Thyrsis, Ralph received a call from Professor Fellheimer in Oxford.

  “Guy here. I’ve been trying to phone you for the past few days.”

  “I’ve been away.”

  “I wondered. Not suffering from jetlag, I hope.”

  “Only mildly. What can I do for you?”

  “Are you coming to Oxford today by any chance?”

  Ralph looked at the pile of documents waiting for his attention and thought of his publisher’s looming deadline. “I wasn’t planning to …” Then he thought of Guy Fellheimer, who never said or did anything without a reason. “But of course if you really –”

  “Would it be convenient for me to come over to Knightly, Ralph?”

  “Of course. Can you come for lunch?”

  Sounds of paper shuffling. “Er, thanks but I’ve got rather a lot on this morning.” More shuffling.

  “Guy, if you’d rather I came to see you –”

  “No. It’s all right. I’d like to have a word with Cardew if he’s around. Also, I’m curious to see the dig. Latter part of the afternoon all right?”

  *

  At ten-thirty Ralph went to the office barn for a coffee break. Marnie was putting the phone down as he closed the door behind him. She looked frustrated.

  “How ironic. I make a big effort to get everything and everyone in place to start Celia’s contract bang on time, and she’s not even at home.”

  “Today’s the big day?”

  “It’s supposed to be.” She looked at the clock. “God, is it that time already? Where has the morning gone?”

  Ralph looked around. “And where’s Anne gone?” He went to the kitchen area and filled the kettle.

  “She’s out checking that everything’s ready for the archaeologists’ break.”

  “There.” Ralph switched on the kettle and looked pleased with himself. “Marnie, Guy Fellheimer’s coming this afternoon. I think he wants to talk to me about the remains in Sarah’s grave.”

  “You think he wants to talk about the remains? Didn’t he say? Why not just tell you on the phone?”

  “I know. He sounded curiously evasive. He wants to see Rob Cardew as well.”

  Marnie sighed. “I’ll be glad when all this –”

  The door swung open and Anne came in at high speed.

  “Hi, Ralph. Oh, kettle’s on.” She grinned at him. “You must’ve been having lessons.” She began putting mugs on a tray.

  “Guess what,” Marnie said. “Celia’s not answering the phone. We’ve got contractors coming this morning and she’s forgotten about them.”

  Anne shook her head. “Don’t worry. She’s here. I’ve just seen her talking to Rob Cardew, talking at Rob, I should say. What you might call a heated discussion. I swear she thinks the archaeologists are her own personal serfs.”

  Marnie looked relieved. “Oh well, could be worse. You’d better put another cup out, for Celia.”

  Anne pulled a face and spoke in an ever-so-’umble voice. “Yes ma’am, I’ll put out the Royal Worcester, ma’am, or perhaps the Spode.”

  She was performing a curtsy when the door opened and Celia stood framed in the entrance, resplendent in a cream shirt-waister dress. Anne lost concentration, wobbled and sat down heavily on the ground. With as much dignity as she could muster, she gathered herself up and turned to kneel by the cupboard to search for a cup.

  “Celia, come in.” Marnie stood and offered her a chair.

  As she sat, Celia spoke quietly. “Does she go in for amateur dramatics?”

  “The whole time,” Ralph replied in a stage whisper. “It’s her consuming passion.”

  “Celia,” Marnie said brightly. “Coffee? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. We have contractors coming today. Actually, it’s just to make final checks before work starts later in the week, but we’re ready to roll.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “The decorator and curtain maker are both coming at about eleven. I hope that’s convenient. You recall I mentioned it to you last week, before we went off on the boat?”

  “Yes. Marnie, I’ll not have coffee, thanks. Can we go up to the Court? I’d like a chat before your people arrive.”

  *

  Following Celia’s open-topped Audi through the village, Marnie tried to guess what pressing matter was up for discussion. The possibilities ranged from cancelling the refurbishment altogether, to complaints about the archaeologists neglecting her grave site and renewed fears about witchcraft. Whatever was on Celia’s mind, Marnie was in no mood for playing games.

  On arrival, Marnie headed for the front door, but Celia steered her round to the terrace. The garden looked glorious, with sprinklers spraying a pale rainbow over the emerald lawn, reflecting the colours in the herbaceous beds on the far side. Celia made no move to sit but continued walking slowly, eyes cast down, arms folded. Marnie fell into step beside her and waited.

  “Marnie, there’s something I have to talk to you about.”

  Marnie suddenly guessed what that something was. Celia continued.

  “You’re probably the only person in the world I can –”

  “Celia, if this concerns your private life I’d really rather not –”

  “Oh, Marnie!” Celia turned and took hold of her by the arms. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Please don’t say that. There’s no-one else I can turn to.”

  “Celia, after that unfortunate misunderstanding concerning your husband, I thought we’d agreed to let it rest at that.”

  “I know that was a big mistake, and I apologised, Marnie.”

  “That’s okay. It’s all in the past. I thought we’d moved on from there.”

  Celia resumed walking. “I need some help, and you’re the only person I know I can trust to be discreet.”

  “Of course I’m discreet, Celia, you’re a client.”

  “Aren’t I a friend as well?”

  She turned appealing doe-eyes in Marnie’s direction. Marnie knew she had to choose her next words with care.

  “Whatever our relationship might be, Celia, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that it has to be professional. We have to work together and it isn’t a good idea to let personal –”

  “That’s what I have in mind, Marnie.”

  “Oh?” Suspicion. “I don’t follow.”

  “I want you to help me in a kind of … professional way.”

  The two women stopped, each assessing the other, but from vastly differing perspectives.

  “Go on. In what professional way can I help you?”

  Celia gazed across the lawn, avoiding eye contact. “Hugh and I went to our cottage in Norfolk at the weekend …”

  This doesn’t concern a redecoration job, Marnie thought. She said nothing.

  “… and I’m convinced he’d been there with another woman.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a –”

  “Hear me out, Marnie, please, before you jump to any conclusions. I’ve got pro
of this time, actual evidence.”

  “Then you have two options, Celia. Either you confront your husband with the evidence and have it out with him, or you take steps to make sure he doesn’t have the leeway to keep on seeing this other woman. Both courses have their own risks, and only you can judge which way to go. There, that’s my advice on the subject.”

  “But you don’t understand, Marnie. It isn’t as simple as that.”

  Surprise, surprise. Marnie looked pointedly at her watch. Where were the trades people?

  “Celia, I really can’t get involved in your affairs. Sorry, I mean your private life. It isn’t practical. If you think about it you’ll realise –”

  “I said I wanted your help in a professional way, Marnie.”

  “How?”

  “My evidence, the proof. I need help with it.” She produced an envelope from a pocket and held it out. “It’s in there.”

  Marnie eyed the envelope with suspicion. Celia gestured for her to take it, but she shook her head.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s only hair.”

  Marnie imagined Celia scrutinising the pillows at the cottage, shouting Eureka! as she detected a long strand of auburn or brown hair where her blonde head usually lay.

  “Celia, hair can get onto a pillow in a variety of ways. You should be careful before accusing Hugh of infidelity. He might’ve brushed against someone in a restaurant and later thrown his jacket on the bed.”

  “It wasn’t on the pillow, Marnie. It’s not that kind of hair.”

  Marnie did not want to pursue the matter, but she was becoming intrigued. Celia opened the envelope and held it out for inspection. Marnie was on the brink of leaning forward.

  “It’s pubic hair, Marnie. I found it on the loo seat.”

  Marnie gulped and took a step backwards. “It’s what?”

  “Yes. You see, I went straight to the loo as soon as we arrived. And there it was. I knew at once it didn’t belong to Hugh or me.”

  Marnie was aware that Celia was prattling on about finding an envelope and using her eyebrow tweezers, but she shut out the rest of the details. A dozen thoughts rushed through her mind. Several of them involved dashing to her car and roaring off down the drive, never to return to Knightly Court again. Then one thought rose to the surface above the others.

  “Celia, how do you envisage me helping you in a professional way with this?”

  “Well, I wondered if you could put in a word … with Cathy Lamb.”

  “You think Hugh’s involved with Cathy Lamb, the detective?”

  Celia gave a girlish sigh. “No, silly! You get on well with her and she has access to a lab where they do tests on things. I thought she might be able to get someone to have a look at the hair and provide proof that it came from another woman.”

  “But that’s a forensic lab only available to the police and –”

  “Then I could confront Hugh and have it out with him, like you suggested.”

  “Suggested? No, no, Celia. I didn’t suggest anything. I merely pointed out what options you might have.”

  “Well anyway, I don’t suppose these labs are busy all the time and –”

  “Listen! That’s a car. If I’m not mistaken, the contractors have arrived.”

  *

  The meeting went well and at lunchtime, under the parasol on the bank beside the boats, Marnie outlined her encounter with Celia over a meal of houmous, tsatsiki and taramasalata, with chopped raw vegetables and ‘designer water’. Ralph, Anne and Danny could hardly believe their ears.

  “She’s certainly singled you out to be her confidante,” Ralph observed.

  “But why me? Why not someone like, say, Angela Hemingway?”

  “Angela? Come on, Marnie. Can you imagine it?” Ralph’s voice modulated into a sprightly falsetto. “Oh by the way, vicar, I’ve identified strange pubic hair on the toilet seat. Could you provide me with a sample of yours … purely to eliminate you from our enquiries, of course.”

  Anne and Danny hooted, and even Marnie had to smile at the thought.

  “What gets me is she tries to make me feel guilty and heartless when I don’t agree to co-operate.”

  “Moral blackmail. Does she get tearful?”

  Marnie smiled wryly. “She’s elevated it to an art form, Ralph. She can turn on the tears, but not so much that they actually flow and spoil her make-up. It’s a wonder to behold.”

  “She probably uses waterproof mascara,” Danny suggested.

  They were interrupted by Marnie’s mobile warbling.

  “Marnie Walker, good afternoon.”

  It was a short conversation of one-word replies. Marnie disconnected with a thoughtful expression.

  “That was Cathy Lamb. She and Binns are coming down this afternoon. They wanted to make sure we were going to be around. I wonder what they want.”

  *

  On their way back to the office after lunch they heard raised voices as they walked through the spinney. Anne and Danny veered off to investigate and found Dick Blackwood and one of the older archaeologists remonstrating with a small crowd of people milling round the HQ barn.

  He turned to Anne and asked her to confirm that they were on private land and that only authorised persons were allowed to be there. Anne did her best to look impressive and announced that Glebe Farm had given permission to the university and Timeline archaeologists to work on site. Other visitors were strictly by invitation only, at the insistence of the police. She glanced meaningfully back towards the shallow graves site.

  The unwanted visitors were mostly middle-aged, and Anne hoped they would be basically law-abiding. One of the women was muttering that Anne looked like little more than a schoolgirl when, as if on cue, two people came round the corner of the barn.

  Anne addressed the group. “Let me introduce Detective Sergeant Binns and Detective Constable Lamb.” She paused to let the identities sink in. “Now I’m sure that if you leave immediately and I promise that Glebe Farm management won’t press charges, the detectives will not detain you for trespassing and compromising their crime scene.”

  The unauthorised persons jostled each other in their rush to get away, and within seconds the area was cleared.

  “What was all that about?” Binns asked. “Press charges … crime scene?”

  “This is why we went away on Friday,” Anne declared. “Too many interruptions to our work. It’s hopeless. I don’t know how these people can be here on a Monday afternoon. Don’t they have jobs to go to?”

  “Morbid interest,” Binns confirmed. “We see it all the time.”

  “Are you coming to see us?” Anne asked.

  “Shortly. Is Mrs Walker there?”

  “Of course. Cathy phoned to make an appointment. We won’t be running away, tempting though that may seem.”

  *

  Sergeant Binns came straight to the point.

  “We’ve had results back about the bodies. They appear to have been in the ground for around two hundred years.”

  Marnie indicated the chairs and sat down. “Does that mean you’re giving active consideration to taking me off the suspects’ list?”

  Binns was deadpan. “We’re giving it serious thought.”

  “So who were they? Has this anything to do with witchcraft? Are the archaeologists involved?”

  “Too early to know for sure, but we’ve had the remains moved to Oxford for further examination.”

  “The Archaeological Materials Laboratory?”

  A pause. “That’s the place.”

  “Dr Rosemary Goodchild?”

  “As usual, you’re ahead of us, Mrs Walker.”

  *

  Ralph was engrossed in proof-reading an article he had just completed for The Economist when he heard knocking on the side door. As Guy Fellheimer came backwards down the steps, Ralph warned him about the low ceiling height and led him to the study, where he folded himself onto a chair and examined his surroundings.

  “So this is
the famous floating college I’ve heard so much about. Not a bad environment for researching. What do you do for a library?”

  “Believe it or not, Guy, I get a lot of material from the Internet.”

  “Yes, I suppose you can do that in your field of study.”

  “Tell me about your line of enquiry, Guy. I’m agog to know what it was that brought you here that you didn’t want to discuss on the phone.”

  Fellheimer stretched out his long legs, a serious look on his face.

  “Can I offer you something?” Ralph asked. “Coffee, tea, something stronger?”

  “I’m driving, so I need to be careful, but a small Scotch wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Ralph went to the galley and returned with a tray holding a bottle of Glenmorangie, two glasses, a small jug of water and a bowl of ice cubes. He set them down on the footstool and invited Fellheimer to help himself. When they were settled, they clinked glasses and sipped.

  “I’m being blocked, Ralph. You know, there’s a lot more to this matter than meets the eye. When I raised the issue with Henry Eustace – my contact at Pembroke College, you remember – I thought he’d get back in touch with the inside story. I guessed it would have something to do with the man-who-never-was and that it would probably be something still covered by the Official Secrets Act, hence all the mystery.”

  “Even though that relates to the second world war?”

  “There’s quite a lot that can’t be discussed even today, Ralph.”

  “I didn’t realise.”

  “Oh yes. I have a cousin, charming old spinster, lives in a flat off Maida Vale. I expect her neighbours think she’s just a harmless old biddy, devoted to her cat and her memories. In fact, she came to Britain before the war as a Jewish refugee, escaping from Hitler. Fluent in English, mother tongue German, she was recruited into military intelligence. She ran a covert operations unit – what the popular press would call a spy ring – from an office in Curzon Street. That’s all I know, except that she linked up with a group in Geneva.”

  “After all these years.”

  “Yes. Once you sign the forms, that part of your life remains secret for the rest of your days.”

  “And you think that’s what’s happened in this case.”