Death in Little Venice

by Leo McNeir

“Quite a few things seem to happen to us, whether we like it or not,” said Marnie ruefully.

  “Yes, but maybe that’s because of the sort of people you are.”

  “I’m the sort of people who finds bodies floating in the canal?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. You run your own business. Ralph has his theories, conceptual models or whatever.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do have an independent outlook.” Marnie stepped up onto the stern deck of Sally Ann and opened the doors. The air in the cabin was warm and welcoming. They went through to the galley, where Marnie lit the oil lamps and Anne drew the curtains. Waiting for the lamp globes to warm up, Marnie looked around her. “It is good to be home again. Rumpole’s a nice boat, but it isn’t like being on Sally. It’ll be strange moving into cottage number two in a couple of weeks.”

  “Exciting,” said Anne. Changing the subject she said “Ralph’s cottage is beautiful.”

  “Very,” Marnie agreed. She lightly touched the lamp globes and turned the wicks up a fraction. The increased light reflected in the brass curtain rods and rings.

  “Did you have a nice time?” Anne turned to fill the kettle.

  “Really relaxing, just ate, drank and went for walks. I felt much better at the end of the weekend than I did when I arrived.”

  “I suppose you talked about the Tim Edmonds business?”

  “It’s hard to get it out of our minds. It’s always there. At least I think I have a better idea of what’s going on now. And I think Ralph agrees with me.”

  “It’s a pity his theories can’t help you work it all out.” Anne lit the gas under the kettle, and Marnie unscrewed the lid of the pasta jar.

  “That’s what I said. I asked Ralph if his theories could be applied in this case and we talked it over.”

  “Did he come up with anything?”

  “No startling revelations.” Marnie washed tomatoes in the sink and rolled them in a tea towel to dry. She began assembling ingredients on the galley workbench, garlic, mushrooms, shallots, oregano, sage.

  “Why do you think you’ve got things clearer, then?” said Anne, laying the table.

  Do you fancy garlic bread with this or shall I do a green salad?”

  “I’m easy. Either would be fine by me.”

  “Salad, I think. Can you put one of those part-baked baguettes in the oven?”

  Anne rummaged in the cupboard under the sink. “There’s a half-full bottle of wine with a vacuum stopper down here.”

  “Only half?” Marnie laughed. “Is it that Spanish red? Great. Sorry, you asked me a question. I got distracted.”

  “About getting things clearer.”

  “Mm. Some things, perhaps.” Marnie turned the lamp wicks up higher.

  “But you’re no clearer about who actually did it?”

  “No. That’s still unclear. And it’s like Ralph’s hindsight theory. It only works out if you have all the facts, and we certainly don’t have everything we need.”

  “Perhaps you’ve gone as far as you can. Perhaps you’ve just got to let the police sort it all out.”

  “But they might be using Malcolm and me. And I’m not sure that’s going to get them anywhere. I don’t see how it can. Why don’t we talk about it over supper? I suddenly feel hungry, and I could sure do with a glass of that wine.”

  *

  Marnie poured the last drop of red wine into her glass. Anne used her last piece of bread to mop sauce from the plate.

  “I love that balsamic vinegar in the French dressing, Marnie. It’s really smooth and rich.”

  “Yes, we haven’t got much left. Molly doesn’t keep it at the village shop. We’ll have to call in at the Food Centre. For dessert we’ve got yoghurts, I think, and there’s some of that cheese we ought to use up, and those apples. They’re Cox’s. I’ll have one of them. Take your pick. I’ll make coffee.”

  Anne cleared space on the table. “So that house where Mr Carter took you … was it really hers? Her actual home?”

  “The very same. Or rather, that’s what they led me to believe.”

  “But why did he take you there? This hasn’t got anything to do with Mrs Thatcher, has it?”

  “No. Nothing at all. At least, not directly.”

  “Then why?” Anne opened the fridge and took out a yoghurt.

  “The officers on duty said they knew Malcolm and Tim Edmonds. They’d seen them with her over a number of years. Malcolm was certainly a fan of hers. He makes that very obvious.” She grimaced.

  “And Tim Edmonds too, presumably?”

  “I’m not so sure. He seems to have been a hanger-on, coat-tailing on Malcolm. I think Malcolm took him along as a sort of protégé.”

  “Like me?” Anne grinned at Marnie.

  “Not quite. I don’t think you have the same ambition, to take over everything. That’s politics.”

  “Are you sure about that, Marnie? About the ambition?” An impish smile.

  “Come to think of it …” Marnie grinned back. She filled the coffee pot and brought it to the table. “But seriously, it was Malcolm who led the way. He always did. And when Tim was in disgrace after the divorce scandal, it was Malcolm who stood by him.”

  “Through thick and thin.”

  “Yes. Of course, that was under the new regime after Major had come in. Malcolm wasn’t such a favourite then, too right wing. Even so, he was still tipped for a government post.”

  “Why didn’t he get one sooner, under Mrs T, if he was such a favourite of hers?”

  “That’s what I asked Ralph. He said Malcolm didn’t have enough experience at that time. By the time he was ready, she was out of office. Tough luck, really. Bad timing.”

  “But things weren’t quite so bad for Tim Edmonds?”

  “No. He’d restored his reputation through hard work, doing things that nobody else wanted to do, all those unwinnable by-elections and so on. In fact it looked for a short time as if they both might get government posts together.”

  “Why didn’t they?” said Anne.

  “First there was the leadership crisis. And then … then Tim Edmonds got murdered. And that was that.”

  “And Mr Grant goes off to the Lords.” They fell silent. Anne spooned her yoghurt. Marnie sliced an apple.

  The cabin was warm and snug against the cold winter night outside. The two oil lamps glowed silently and without odour, casting a soft light on the Liberty curtains in gentle shades of red, blue and cream, held in place by their brass fittings. There was a shine on the varnished tongued-and-grooved pine that lined the walls. A safe and secure place in a world that was not what it seemed.

  “It’s still all very confusing, isn’t it?” said Anne. “I mean, we don’t know much for certain, do we?”

  “We know a fair bit. Look.” Marnie reached over and pulled a notepad from the bookcase. “We know Tim Edmonds made an appointment to see Malcolm before Christmas. I saw the note. It was signed, and the signature was apparently authentic.” Marnie made a brief note. “Second, we know Malcolm was expecting Edmonds to keep the appointment. Indisputable fact. When he failed to turn up, Malcolm left a message on his answerphone.” Another note.

  “And that message led the police to Mr Grant,” said Anne.

  “Yes. It was an unlucky coincidence for him. If he hadn’t tried to ring Tim Edmonds he would probably have been left in peace.”

  “Except he would’ve given his evidence anyway when the police started making inquiries.”

  “Yes. I suppose so. That doesn’t alter the fact that we know for certain why Tim Edmonds was on the towpath that evening and where he was going.” Marnie looked at her notes. “Third point. I found the body soon after the murder. Dodge confirmed the timing and was an eye-witness to there being two men on the towpath shortly before I turned up on Sally.” She scribbled quickly. “It must’ve been a murder. The police question Malcolm and me, treating us as suspects, appearing to be uncertain if it was a murder or not. But they knew from Dodge what had happene
d, even if they couldn’t use his testimony. They never had any doubt about what happened. All the time they were using us to see if we might lead them to the killer.”

  “How could you do that?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps they thought we might uncover something or remember something, some other contact, some link that might prove to be significant.”

  “Like your business card.”

  “Exactly. They were wrong about that, but it could’ve been anything.”

  Anne put her hands to her face. She spoke softly and slowly: “Like the bombings.”

  “One bombing,” said Marnie. “We only know it was a bomb that blew up my car. Magician could’ve been a gas explosion.” She had tried not to dwell on the possibility that someone had deliberately blown up the boat in Little Venice. The docking area at Glebe Farm where Sally Ann was kept was too remote and lonely for that thought to be comfortable.

  “But what about the bombing of your car? That couldn’t have just been a coincidence, could it?”

  *

  By an unspoken agreement, they decided that Anne would sleep on the camp bed in the saloon on Sally Ann that night. While Anne pulled her sleeping bag from its case, Marnie folded the table, trying hard to keep images of burning narrowboats out of her mind. They extended the camp bed and put the pillow in place.

  “Marnie? We didn’t get very far with your list, did we?”

  “I thought I’d written down everything we knew, all the facts that were certain.”

  “Three facts,” said Anne. She sat down cross-legged on the camp bed.

  “Not enough to make Ralph’s hindsight theory come to life, you mean.” Marnie slid down and sat on the floor, her back against one of the galley units.

  Anne said: “Does Ralph’s theory mean you have to have all of the facts and you can only use facts?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there are other things, aren’t there? There aren’t just facts.”

  “Things like what?”

  Anne shrugged. “Reasons for doing things, things people believe, things they like, things they don’t like. Don’t they count?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it like that,” said Marnie. “I just supposed you had to have facts, like a scientific experiment. Ralph’s always said economics was a sort of science.”

  “Yes, but he did say you could put all the economists end-to-end and they’d fail to reach a conclusion, or something like that.” In her mind she saw economists lying beside the road all the way from Land’s End to John O’Groats and she smiled. “So it can’t just be about facts, can it? Or can it?”

  “I see what you mean. But what else do we have to go on?”

  “I don’t know.” said Anne. “I’m just trying to grab anything and everything that might help. I want to get this sorted. I want to be able to go back to my own room in the loft and not have to worry if there’s somebody out there wanting to …” She shivered. At that moment Marnie would have done anything to keep Anne out of it.

  “Yes. Yes, I know. But what else do we have?”

  “What about Dodge?” said Anne unconvincingly.

  “Yes. I was thinking about him. Can we really just take some of his evidence and throw out the rest? What would Ralph think of that? Shouldn’t we follow up everything he told us?”

  “The police didn’t. They didn’t take anything on board, not properly.”

  “No, but then they deal in facts. Maybe you’ve got a point, Anne. The trouble is, what he told us was so far-fetched that nobody would believe a word of it. I think he was sozzled and imagined he saw people behaving like other winos, like himself. Perhaps he was confusing something he’d seen another time.”

  “And what if he wasn’t?”

  “I don’t know. I wish Ralph was here to talk it over with us.”

  “You wish Ralph was here full stop.”

  Marnie smiled. “D’you know what Ralph told me?” She laughed. “This is girl talk. We’re like schoolgirls in the dorm in one of those old stories … The Fifth Form at Saint Bede’s … Ralph said he felt inferior to me.”

  “Inferior? How?”

  “He said I had a quick mind, flair and I thought fast on my feet. It made me feel like action woman!” They laughed together.

  “But that’s true,” said Anne.

  “Even if it is, it doesn’t make him inferior. Actually, I don’t like that idea. I don’t like him putting himself down. Ralph’s an intellectual with a brilliant mind. I’m not. Look at all the things he does.”

  “I think he’s great,” said Anne. “You’re just different characters, that’s all. And I know he’s brilliant, but theories haven’t helped us solve the big problem.”

  “No. Have we even found a KSF?”

  “Dunno. Could Dodge be that? Can it be a person? I thought it had to be an event or a happening.”

  “Our meeting with him was an event. Our conversation happened. It certainly made me see things differently, more clearly.”

  “Then perhaps you’ve got to believe what he said. Perhaps you’ve got to accept it as a KSF. I bet that’s what Ralph would say.”

  Marnie looked down at the floor. “You know, Anne, I sometimes think you’re the one who sees things clearly. Tell me something. Do you believe what Dodge told us?”

  “Mm … it’s difficult, isn’t it?”

  “You mean about him seeing Tim Edmonds and another man drinking?”

  “Yeah, but more than that.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, something’s been bothering me all along.” Anne frowned. “How could that person – the killer – get out if the towpath gates were all locked?”

  “He must’ve climbed over.”

  Anne shook her head firmly. “No way. It doesn’t work. The gates are too high. I’ve seen them.”

  Marnie sighed. “So we have to discount Dodge as a witness, just like the police. It was crazy to think we could do what they failed to do.”

  “No it’s not,” said Anne, as firmly as before. “We’ve got to go along with Dodge. I saw him. I believed him. I think he’s all we’ve got.”

  “But you just cast doubts on his whole story.”

  “I know, but I think we’ve got to accept what he said and move on from there, even if it does seem strange. What else can we do?”

  Marnie tried to think this through. She tried to imagine the scene that dark evening when Tim Edmonds met an unknown person by the canal under the blow-up bridge. She tried to imagine him having drunk so much that he fell into a stupor and toppled into the water. There he was, waiting for her to come along and find him. She saw his face, pale and cold, his lips blue and slightly parted, the water in his mouth, his eyes closed. It was horrible. Then she saw Dodge watching from the other bank in the darkness, half hidden by trees and bushes. What did he see? What did he think he saw? He certainly saw her and heard her on the phone calling for backup. He saw Sally Ann clearly enough to know that she was not Rumpole. Yes. His evidence was accurate.

  “You’re right, Anne.”

  “Mm?” Anne must have been lost in her own thoughts. Marnie’s voice jerked her back to their conversation.

  “Who gives you a drink?”

  Anne blinked. “What?”

  “Just follow it through. Who gives you a drink?”

  “A barman?”

  “No. I mean socially.”

  “I’m not sure I get you.”

  Marnie imitated the tramp’s voice. “You’re a real mate, love … Well, would we have accepted a drink from the tramp?” Anne pulled a face. Marnie went on. “What if he’d offered us a swig from his bottle?” Anne gasped, clutched her throat and pretended to throw up. “Quite. So who gives you a drink?”

  “A friend? Someone who’s like you?”

  “Exactly. Whoever gave Tim Edmonds a drink on the towpath must’ve been known to him, if we can believe Dodge.”

  “Which we do?”

  “Yes. The police believed him to
o, or gave him the benefit of the doubt. They were convinced Tim Edmonds knew the man he met, knew his killer. If he knew that person, chances are that Malcolm Grant also knew him.”

  “And because he had your business card, you might’ve known him.”

  “Yes. We weren’t suspects. We were bait.”

  23

  Tuesday 17 January

  Anne was in charge of the office and she loved it. That Tuesday morning Marnie had spent twenty minutes on the phone to Beth before dashing off to a site meeting at one of Willards’ restaurants further north up the Grand Union Canal. Not quite dashing. It was the first time she had used the MG for a business meeting. It was the first time she had gone to a meeting of any sort armed with a hot water bottle. They had warmed up the car as usual with fan heaters, and Marnie had sat in the office with her leather flying jacket and helmet slung over the back of the chair like a Spitfire pilot waiting to be scrambled.

  Now Anne was left to keep things under control and spent a happy hour or two bringing the month’s accounts up to date, drafting replies to correspondence for Marnie to check and, best of all, studying Marnie’s designs for the pubs and restaurants that were their biggest contract. She was delighted to see that some of her own ideas had been incorporated into the schemes, and made notes of some refinements that she thought were worth trying out to talk over with Marnie at their project review meeting later that afternoon.

  The arrival of Dolly beside the desk told Anne it was time to make coffee for herself and pour a well-earned saucer of milk for a cat who had spent most of the morning curled up under a radiator. The sound of tyres rolling over hard ground outside made them both prick up their ears. Anne glanced through the window to see an ancient VW beetle pulling up in the yard. Randall Hughes got out, wearing a dark grey coat over his long black cassock. He saw Anne at the window, smiled and raised a hand. True to Marnie’s promise, the kettle was already heating up as he came through the door.

  “It’s only Dolly and me, I’m afraid. Marnie’s had to go to a meeting.”

  “And you probably have jobs to see to,” said Randall, hesitating by the door.

  “I’ve just put the kettle on for coffee. Can you stay?”