by McNeir, Leo
“I don’t know how they dream up some of these prices, really I don’t. Hand lasted, I suppose.” Marnie turned and at first failed to find the name to go with the face.
“Janet,” she said. “Sorry. I was …”
“I understand,” said Janet Day. “You were lost in thought.”
“I need a new pair of shoes for the office.”
“Flat and comfortable. What my mother always called sensible shoes. Have you thought of cabbage?”
“Pardon me?” Marnie smiled at the idea. It was her first smile for ages.
“Cabbage. Ends of lines. Clearance stock. Surplus orders, you know.”
“In the market?” said Marnie. She had often bought clothes in markets when she was a student and had found some extraordinary bargains, but that was a long time ago.
“No. Not in the market. There are shops. Shoes at discount. It’s one thing you can say about Northampton that’s in its favour. I could show you where to go, if you like.”
Marnie looked at her watch. “Is it far? I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’m the only one in the office this week.”
“What about a quick cup of coffee, then? I can tell you where to go next time you’re in town. That’s another good thing about Northampton. It has a really good coffee shop just along here.”
“You’ve persuaded me. My accountant’s a nice man, but his coffee…”
They had to queue at the counter and take the coffee to a table, but it was worth the effort. The café was crowded, run by mumsy ladies in brown gingham dresses and little hats perched on top like tiaras. A friendly, old-fashioned atmosphere and the cakes and sandwiches looked home-made. They found a table in the no-smoking section.
“I hope this is all right for you,” said Janet. “There isn’t a seat in the smoking area. It’s usually pretty full in here.”
“That’s fine. I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, I imagined you did. I could picture you smoking those very long cigarettes with the gold band near the filter. I don’t know what make they are.” Marnie smiled again and wondered what kind of impression she had given Janet in their briefest of acquaintances. Or what Janet had heard about her.
“Actually, I used to smoke, but I gave up last year. Your description makes me want to try again. In fact, I’ve been feeling like a cigarette from time to time just recently.” She took a sip. “You were right about the coffee. This is excellent.”
“Good,” said Janet. “I think we’ve all felt we could do with a cigarette, or a stiff drink, these last few days.”
“Yes. The whole village seems quite stunned. It’s like a bad dream.”
“Not just Knightly,” said Janet. “Yore is in a state of shock.”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean …”
“And Frank is very distressed, as you can imagine. It seems like history repeating itself all over again.”
“Sorry. I’m not with you.”
“Well, it’s like the other vicar who was killed,” said Janet, lowering her voice. “Frank’s family were closely involved in the death of the vicar in the Civil War.”
“I didn’t know that. I thought nobody knew exactly what happened.”
“Strictly speaking, nobody does,” said Janet. “But Frank knows his family were involved somehow. That’s how the trouble started. You see, his family supported Parliament and had relatives who were Baptists living in Yore. The vicar and some of the families in Knightly were high church. Staunch royalists.”
“But that isn’t a reason for suspecting they were to blame for the murder,” said Marnie. “Nor should Frank feel involved in what’s happened now.”
“Oh, but he does, you know. His family were suspected of complicity in a plot to kill the vicar, but nothing was ever proved. The knife was never found.”
“Knife?”
“Yes, they never found it,” said Janet. She took a sip from her coffee.
Marnie did the same, wishing she had a cigarette. “Well, Frank can’t be held responsible on the basis of something that happened more than three hundred years ago!”
In the car on the way back to Knightly, Marnie kept hearing voices in her head. Randall, wondering if the same person could be responsible for both murders. What on earth had he meant? Another was a voice she could not recognise, a woman’s voice, whispering in her ear that nowhere had it ever been written or mentioned that the vicar of Knightly St John long ago had been murdered by stabbing.
*
Valerie Paxton looked up as Marriner entered her office. She blushed deeply and began re-arranging the papers on her desk.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said Marriner. Valerie stood up.
“I’ll tell the head you’re here.”
“It’s not Mrs Giles I’ve come to see, actually. It’s you.”
“Then you’ve got both of us.” Marriner turned to see Margaret Giles standing in the doorway of her office, cardigan draped over her shoulders, clutching the inevitable file of papers. She advanced into the secretary’s office. “Sergeant, I know you are accustomed to walking in wherever and whenever you wish, but in a school there may be times when we simply cannot abandon what we are doing and give you our full attention. I’d appreciate it if you would in future let us have some advance warning of your visits.”
“I hear what you say,” said Marriner in an even tone. “But we have a job to do as well and we can’t always choose our timing.”
“Even so. We want to help you, of course, but the school and the children are our first responsibility. In any case, we’re very much on the periphery of your investigation. It obviously has nothing to do with any of us. Please just bear in mind what I said.”
“Sure. Actually, I only came to return this.” He produced a packet, from which he removed the SS dagger and handed it to Valerie. “We’ve finished our tests. We’re no longer concerned with it. Thank you. You will remember to keep it safely. Technically, it’s an offensive weapon.” The two women stared at the dagger lying in Valerie’s hands as if she were Lady Macbeth. Their expressions were almost as horrified.
“You couldn’t have thought for one moment that the murder had anything to do with Valerie, surely!” said Mrs Giles slowly and deliberately.
Marriner shrugged. “We have to think about a lot of things in our work, madam. You’d be surprised.” Valerie put the knife in the desk drawer and closed it.
“I take it this means that the vicar was stabbed?” said Margaret quietly. “There’s been no mention of it in the news.”
“We don’t give out details unless we have to,” said Marriner.
“I’m deeply shocked that you could possibly have thought my secretary was in any way implicated.”
“Like I say, madam, we have to consider all sorts of things, none of them pleasant. We also have responsibilities.” Outside in the corridor a line of children walked past, chattering in subdued voices. “Just something to remember as you go about your business. Good morning.” He turned and left.
*
“I didn’t realise you were going to come here,” said Marnie. “Your message was quite a surprise. If I’d known you were coming –”
“You’d have baked a cake,” said Roger Broadbent. “Don’t worry, Marnie. I’m trying to cut down.”
“But seriously, I wouldn’t want to drag you out just for a quick word of advice.” Marnie poured Roger a cup of his favourite Earl Grey. It had already occurred to her that he obviously did not regard it as a trivial matter, otherwise he would not have called in on his way back to London from his meeting in Nottingham.
“It’s no trouble. I was almost passing your door.” He looked around him at the spinney, the canal and Sally Ann nestling in her docking area. “Well, almost almost.” He took a sip. “Delicious. Just what I needed. So, from what you’ve told me so far, the police haven’t indicated that they’re going to charge you with anything?”
“No. They keep making veiled threats, talking about evidence and acting as if they
don’t believe what I say.”
Roger drank some more tea and sat for a moment looking at his cup. “Marnie, I’m not quite sure how to put this to a friend. The police go on facts of course, but experienced officers, like your Bartlett and his sergeant, develop an instinct for what’s going on. They often know when things aren’t quite what they seem and when what they’re told isn’t the whole picture.”
“You think I’m not telling the truth?” Marnie felt annoyed that Roger seemed to be siding with the police. She waited for his rebuttal of the suggestion. It did not come.
“Well, as far as it goes …” They sat in silence, drinking tea.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Marnie eventually began. She sighed. “I think it was because of the shock. I said the first thing that came into my head and then got caught up in a story that only touched on the whole truth.”
“What is the whole truth, Marnie?”
“It sounds so ridiculous. That’s probably what held me back in the first place. Toni and I found a gravestone just outside the churchyard wall. We discovered that it marked the grave of someone who may have been implicated somehow in the murder of the vicar here at the time of the Civil War. She committed suicide in the barn that we now use as our office ... that’s why she was buried in unconsecrated ground.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection with the murder of Toni Petrie,” said Roger softly.
“That’s just it. I know it all sounds silly. Anyway, the stone was vandalised the week before Toni’s death. That’s the connection. I should have told Bartlett about it, but I thought at first it wasn’t connected and in any case I felt stupid.”
“Why should you feel stupid?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Marnie sighed again. “I kept getting the murders mixed up in my mind. I had this strange idea going round in my head that it could have been the same murderer both times … totally absurd.”
“You’re losing me, Marnie.” He was looking intently at her face, his own expression a frown.
“Sorry. I find it complicated and confusing. Everything gets mixed up. You see, I did tell them about the vandalism, that it had happened. But they made it seem as if I’d been guilty of something.”
“They probably thought you were concealing material facts, Marnie. They have to explore all the circumstances.”
“Do they have to try and antagonise me all the time?”
“I see your problem. Look, the best thing to do is try and make a fresh start, tell them everything you know and just keep to the facts. There’s no need to go back over past history.” Marnie poured more tea. She wondered if she had any old packets of cigarettes lurking at the back of a drawer in her desk.
“I’m sure you’re right. Mind you, I’m equally sure Bartlett will try and twist what I say into something else.”
“If it would help, I could be there when you talk to them.”
“That’s nice of you, Roger. But wouldn’t it make it seem as if I had some reason for needing legal representation?”
“You think you don’t?”
*
“You cannot be serious!”
“I am,” said Marnie, chewing a biro in the saloon on Sally Ann that evening. “Roger said they could get awkward if they thought I was withholding evidence that was important to their enquiry.”
“Are you smoking, Marnie?”
“No, Beth. I’m just chewing a pen, really.”
“But what could they do, charge you with something?”
“Bartlett could take the line that I’ve been obstructing their enquiries by withholding information. It’s bad enough dealing with them at all. If he thought I was deliberately hampering their work, he’d go ballistic. The atmosphere here is not good.”
“But you have told them everything you know, haven’t you? Why would you want to keep things from them? She was your friend, for goodness sake!”
“I suppose I got used to being secretive to protect Anne. She was really nervous about the tower, so I played it down, didn’t tell her about the vandalism until I had no choice. I never did tell her about Sarah Anne hanging herself in the barn.”
“Not nice to think about as you climb up to bed, I suppose,” said Beth. “But she’s bound to find out the whole story sooner or later.”
“I suppose so. I wish I’d never taken an interest in the murder of the first vicar or heard about Sarah Anne Day.”
“You know what I think?” said Beth. “I think you’ve got to bring everything out into the open. Tell Anne what you know. You don’t have to say where Sarah Anne hanged herself. Talk it over and put it behind you.”
“We’ll never be able to put Toni’s death behind us. And there’s the question of who did it. That person is still here somewhere.”
“Yes. And that means you’ve got to see Bartlett and tell him everything, too. Forget about what he might think. Just tell him the whole story as you know it. Your solicitor friend is right.”
“Roger said he’d come up after the weekend and arrange an interview with them.”
“Probably a good idea. One thing’s certain. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.”
*
the mobile phone rang at eight o’clock the next morning, Marnie was sure who it would be.
“Hallo … hallo …” She waited, wondering if the battery was low on charge. “Beth, is that you? I can’t hear you.” She pressed her ear close to the phone and strained to listen. Several seconds went by but no-one spoke. She pressed the button and put the phone down, returning to her toast and coffee. It may have been a trick of the acoustics, but she had the distinct impression that someone had been at the other end. She dismissed it as probably just a fault on the line.
Five minutes later it rang again. “Marnie, it’s me. Can you hear me all right?”
“Anne, hi! Yes, I can. Have you got a problem?”
“You’re not kidding! We’re flooded out. What’s it like where you are?”
“Cloudy at the moment. I think the forecast is okay. What’s happened?”
“A terrific storm here in the night. Where we camped is like a river. We nearly got washed away. Everything is soaked and it’s still pouring down.”
“That’s terrible. Are you all right?”
“We are, but all our things are soaked through. We’re going to have to come back today. We’ve packed as best we can and we’re setting off now. Is it all right if mum and dad drop me off on the way down?”
“Of course it is. What time will you be here, roughly?”
“Dad thinks early afternoon.” Anne was having to raise her voice over the sound of the storm.
“Stay for tea. I’ll make a cake. Anne, tell me something. Did you try and ring a few minutes ago?”
“Yes.” An engine was revving in the background.
“I couldn’t hear you at all. Could you hear me speaking?”
“No. Your line was engaged, so I gave it five minutes before trying again.”
“Engaged?”
“Marnie, I’ve got to go. My money’s run out.” The line went dead.
*
“Got visitors, have you?” Molly Appleton loaded the flour, butter and apples into a carrier bag.
“Anne’s coming back a week early, bad weather in the Highlands.”
“So you’re baking something to cheer her up?”
“She’s coming to tea with her family. I thought I’d make a Dutch apple cake. Do you have any whipping cream, Molly?”
“I don’t stock it as a rule, but the ordinary double will whip. Don’t take the extra thick by mistake. It clots if you so much as stir it.”
“That’s all for now, I think.” Marnie put the carton on the counter and Molly began adding the items on the till. “No sign of the boys in blue today?” said Marnie.
“They won’t be here today.”
“How can you be sure? I was thinking of having car park tickets printed, they’re so often down at my place.”
“Oh no
. They’ll be over at Buckingham. The Queen’s opening the County Show. It’s all hands on deck today. They have a lot of security these days. She likes to do a walkabout. Cathy Lamb – she’s the woman PC – she was in here yesterday, said they all get nervous when she does that. I think we’ve got the weekend off.”
“You haven’t seen Randall Hughes lately have you, Molly?”
“Funny you should say that. Three pounds twenty, please. Mrs Ingram said she thought she saw him just recently at the vicarage.”
“That was probably Tuesday,” said Marnie. “You remember he came down to talk to me. You saw him that day.”
“No. This was since then. Thursday or Friday, I think. She said he didn’t look too good. Rough was what she said.”
Without thinking of it, Marnie found herself walking down the road towards the vicarage. It was the first time she had approached the house since the Saturday before Toni’s death. One week ago. Just one week. She put her shopping bag down by the front door and rang the bell. It echoed emptily. Marnie was glad Bartlett and Marriner were away. She had no idea what she would say if they asked why she was there. Leaving the bag on the doorstep, she walked round to the rear of the house. Already the lawn looked unkempt. The sense of order and neatness had gone in just a week of neglect. Nature had started to reclaim the land. Weeds were visible in the flower beds. There were deadheads on the roses. Marnie wondered if there was anything more melancholy than dead flowers. Away in the far corner stood an ancient gnarled apple tree, its boughs bent and twisted but still full of life. Through its branches a honeysuckle had insinuated itself, weighing the tree down with a mass of flowers, cream and pink. Toni would never look on them again.
Marnie shuddered at the thought of Toni lying under a shroud in the mortuary, reassembled after the autopsy. In a week she had become history, no longer a person. Soon she would be laid in her grave and a stone would be erected at her head, like Sarah Anne Day. Perhaps someone would come along with a sledgehammer and destroy her tombstone, too. The hatred would go on for ever and for ever. And why? What was it all about? Who cared so much about what had happened three hundred and fifty years ago?
In fact, thought Marnie, that was the question. Who did care and why did they care? In that moment she began to doubt that anything that had happened in recent times had led to Toni’s death. She could not believe it had anything to do with the ordination of women or the changes that Randall Hughes had instigated. Whoever had carried out the crime must have felt all the ancient hatred as if it was still alive. What sort of person could harbour such grudges after so long? She realised that the flaw in her argument was the vandalism to Sarah Anne’s headstone. And there was the strange non-phone call of that morning. But smashing a stone was one thing, stabbing someone to death in cold blood, with a steel blade, on a Monday morning was a different matter. She could not imagine a passion so strong it could rise up and kill an innocent woman who had been in the village for only a few weeks.