by Leo McNeir
They emerged from the spinney into the farmyard where the cluster of buildings was starting to look more finished. Glebe Farm was still in the throes of reconstruction, but it was coming together and looking more like a home with each month that passed. On the far side of the yard in front of them stood the main farmhouse, like all the buildings constructed in stone the colour of set honey. The windows were still boarded, but its stone mullions were visible and its proportions were balanced and pleasing to the eye. At rightangles to the house it was joined on the left to a row of three cottages, one occupied since the previous autumn by Jill and Alex Burton, newly married, the others still in progress.
Marnie and Anne turned to the right, walking across the cobbled yard towards the outbuildings set apart from the houses. Here, there was a group of small barns, all built of the local stone. One of them, known as the office barn, was their workbase, with a bed-sitting room under the roof for Anne. The few other barns were used for storage. One of them housed Marnie’s classic MG sports car, a 1936 model TA, fully restored, in British racing green. It was her only car since her Rover GTi had been destroyed by a bomb in London in January, and she was still wrangling with the insurance company about its replacement.
Anne slid back the barn door revealing full-length windows, while Marnie opened the wooden door into the office and picked up the morning post. Anne followed Dolly in and took a fax message from the machine. She put it on Marnie’s desk, beside the cat who had taken up station under the lamp. It was a routine fax from their main client, Willards Brewery, confirming dates for the completion of projects. Marnie sat and read through the message, absent-mindedly slitting open the mail with a paperknife.
“Those dates are okay, aren’t they?” said Anne. “No surprises.”
“No surprises,” Marnie echoed. As she picked up the first of the letters, a small piece of paper fell onto the desk. It was a note written in a bold hand that had a familiar look. As Marnie read it, she frowned.
Hallo Marnie
It’s been a long time. I read about what happened to you in the papers. I missed it first time round – abroad on business. Nearly murdered, car bombed! I was worried about you, thought I’d look in. I’m in the area – I’ll call back in the next few days. Hope you don’t mind. A lot to catch up on.
Love,
Simon
4
“And he spoke as if he knew me?” Ralph looked bewildered. “I don’t really have any boating friends as such on the cut.”
It was Sunday, and they were having breakfast on Sally Ann. Ralph had driven back early after attending a seminar for a few days at All Saints College Oxford, where he was professor of economics. During the night the sky had clouded over and a breeze had sprung up around dawn, bringing a brief shower that had left everything washed clean and fresh.
Marnie got up to make a second pot of coffee, stepping over Dolly who was busy taking care of a saucer of milk. “Well enough to think he’d found your boat just by seeing its name and making the Oxford connection. He said it was a typical Ralph joke.”
Ralph stood and looked out of the saloon window. “His own boat doesn’t give any clues to identity or to anything else. What did you say he looked like?”
“Not very tall, about my height, say five-seven or eight, slight build, very short hair, dark, receding. About your age, at a guess.”
Ralph continued staring out towards the stranger’s boat. At six feet tall, he could just stand in the cabin without having to stoop. In his mid-forties, with brown hair and brown eyes, he had kept himself in trim. Having known him for two years, Marnie still thought Ralph an unlikely figure to find on a canalboat. He was one of the best-known economists in his field in Europe with a worldwide reputation. All Saints had offered him a personal chair, a professorship, the previous year, but now he was arranging to leave his full-time post for freedom as a ‘visiting professor’ with a number of college engagements each year, spending the rest of his time on writing and research.
Marnie had first met Ralph when she had pulled him out of the canal one dark night in Oxford. A dark night in all ways. Ralph had been trying to commit suicide. Since then, his depression had lifted with her help, and their relationship had developed. Now they were planning to marry at some unspecified future date.
“Oh well,” he said, taking his place at the table,” we’ll find out soon enough, I expect.”
“I thought he was creepy,” said Anne. “Oh sorry, I shouldn’t have said that if he’s your friend, Ralph.”
“If is the word.”
Marnie brought the coffee-pot to the table and sat down. “I must say, I agree with Anne. I don’t want to be disloyal, but I couldn’t imagine him knowing you, somehow.”
“Academics can be a strange breed. And knowing me doesn’t make him a friend.” Ralph laughed. “Could be quite the opposite!”
“But presumably, if he wasn’t a friend of some sort, he wouldn’t come to visit you.”
Marnie poured Ralph some more coffee. Suddenly, Anne craned her neck to see through the window. “There he goes!” All three faces peered out in time to see their visitor setting off through the spinney in jogging gear. He was running with his back to them, and Ralph strained trying to recognise him.
“Any wiser?” Marnie said.
“Good heavens, I don’t believe it. It can’t be ...“
“Who can’t it be?” Anne asked.
“It’s not easy to be sure at this angle, but I think it’s ... no, surely not ...“
“Obviously not the closest of friends,” Marnie muttered.
“It’s just so improbable. What’s he doing on a canalboat?”
“He being?”
“If it’s who I think it is, it’s Anthony Leyton-Brown.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Marnie said. “I think.”
“No need to sound surprised,” said Ralph. “He’s hot news at the moment.”
“Isn’t he that MP caught up in sleaze?” Anne joined in.
”That’s the one.”
“And he’s a friend?” Marnie asked doubtfully.
“Sort of.” It was a very un-Ralph reply.
“Meaning?”
“If it is him, I’ve known him most of my life. We were at school together. Because of our work we’ve often bumped into each other, but I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, more a kind of lifelong acquaintance.”
“So why do you think he’s come looking for you?”
“Is that what he said?”
“I got the impression he’d just spotted your boat and thought he’d tie up nearby,” Anne said.
“Any port in a storm,” Ralph muttered. He looked serious.
“Storm?” said Marnie
“You know, all this business with the under-age call-girl. The stuff in the papers. Yet more sleaze for the government.”
“Which one is he?”
“Marnie, don’t you ever keep up with the news?” Ralph, who devoured every newspaper and listened to every news bulletin, found it hard to grasp that some people, including Marnie, did not live the same way.
Marnie reminded him of this. “And I know it’s part of your work to keep on top of it all, but I’ve also got a full-time job and a life to lead. And there are just so many people in this government who seem to be involved in some scandal or other, it’s quite hard to keep up with it all.”
“The tabloids were full of it about two weeks ago,” Ralph said. “They spoke of almost nothing else.”
“I read the Guardian,” Marnie replied slowly, trying to look superior. “Well, when I get round to it I do. I have a busy life.”
Anne laughed. Ralph smiled at them, raising his hands in surrender. “I give in. Okay, let’s forget sleaze for the moment. What are your plans for today?”
“I’ve got preparations for meetings on Monday and Wednesday, plus two letters to write. After that, if it’s fine, I’d quite like another trip on Sally. Any takers?”
“Lunch on the boat?”
Anne suggested.” Marnie nodded.
“Room for a stowaway?” said Ralph.
“Even a tabloid-reading stowaway,” Marnie agreed generously.
*
By noon the cloud cover had broken up and they had set off on Sally Ann. Preparing to stop for lunch out in the country, Ralph had produced a bottle of Spanish sparkling wine, Cava, from the fridge, and with olives and cashew nuts to keep it company, they drank a toast to a perfect spring day.
There were now only a few clouds spread out over the sky like scattered sheep on a hillside. The real sheep were grazing among the trees that came down to the water, and a warm smell of fresh growth hung in the air. Marnie breathed in deeply and wondered if that was the smell of wild garlic or something filtering up from the galley.
Anne went below to check that the table was laid and returned announcing that they could eat in five minutes. Marnie pointed ahead. “We can tie up after the next bend. There’s a nice view up that steep field to Hanford Hall.”
Ralph kept Sally Ann out in mid-channel. “Isn’t that where you did the redecoration for that strange woman?”
“That’s it. Anne calls her Mrs Frightfully-Frightfully. Mind you, I’m not complaining. It was a complete makeover on the whole place, literally money no object. I wish there were more people like her around.”
Lunch was garlic bread followed by baked trout with almonds, roast peppers and a mixed salad. As they began the first course, Marnie noticed it was almost one o’clock and put on the radio for the weather forecast. She left it on for Ralph to hear the news headlines. It was the usual mixture of hospital waiting lists, cuts in the defence budget and a report on negative equity for home-owners. They were about to switch off when the news reader began the next item:
Concern has been expressed in government circles about the disappearance of Anthony Leyton-Brown, MP for the Docklands West constituency in London. Mr Leyton-Brown has not been seen since reports appeared in the press about his alleged association with a teenage girl who had been working as a temporary researcher in his Westminster office. We have an interview with the wife of the missing MP, plus comment from his agent and a statement from the Globe newspaper in which the original report appeared.
“Do you want to hear about that MP?” Anne asked.
“Might as well,” said Marnie. “So he’s in hiding ... in our back yard.”
Ralph agreed. “He decided to lie low after the photos appeared in the press. That was two weeks ago.”
“And the government’s getting worried about what might have happened to him,” Anne said.
“I doubt it. They probably told him to keep out of the way. The last thing this government wants is any more scandal. They’ve been plagued by it.“
The newscaster began an interview with the MP’s wife, Melissa Leyton-Brown, and Anne turned up the volume.
... the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs Leyton-Brown?
I wish I knew. He left home on the morning those photos were in the paper, and I haven’t seen him since.
You really have no idea where he is? I think many of our listeners will find that hard to believe.
It’s the truth. I have no reason to lie to you.
Has he made any attempt to contact you in the past two weeks?
None at all.
You must be concerned, Mrs Leyton-Brown.
That would be understatement. I’m seriously worried about my husband. He’s been hounded by the press, and I just hope they realise what they’ve done.
I must put it to you, Mrs Leyton-Brown, with great respect, that some might say your husband brought this on himself.
As far as I’m concerned, this has been a case of entrapment. It shows the depths to which the media in this country have sunk.
Did you know the, er, researcher who appeared in the photographs?
No. I don’t think so. My husband has several people working for him at any given time. They come and go.
The newspaper alleged that she was fifteen. You didn’t think it strange that he should have someone so young working in his private office in the Commons?
Not at all. In the past he’s had school leavers on short spells of work experience. A lot of MPs do that. It’s good experience for them, usually the children of constituents.
How did he come to have this particular girl working for him?
I don’t know. She must have applied, I suppose. I think that’s how it usually works.
Knowing your husband as you do, where do you think he might have gone?
If I knew that, I’d contact him myself ... and I certainly wouldn’t be telling anyone in the news media.
You sound very upset, Mrs Leyton-Brown.
How do you think I should sound? My husband has been harassed by the gutter press. It’s disgraceful. I just don’t know how they can get away with this. We seem powerless to do anything to stop them. The media are out of control in this country.
You don’t think they have a duty to report on the lives of the people who run the country and set standards for everybody else?
Not when they deliberately set out to trap people and make up lies to suit their own ends.
That is a serious allegation, Mrs Leyton-Brown.
I’m sorry ... I can’t ... It’s so unfair ... I just ...
“That poor woman,” said Marnie. “Do you really think he hasn’t spoken to her?”
“I certainly think she’s telling the truth,” said Ralph.
“But that’s terrible, just clearing off and leaving her to face the music all by herself.”
“Perhaps he thinks they’re bugging her phone. Perhaps he’s trying to protect her.”
Marnie was incredulous. “Protect her ... by running away?”
“Perhaps he just can’t cope with it,” said Anne.
Another interview came on.
... who has been the agent for Docklands West for many years. Mr Haslam, do you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of Anthony Leyton-Brown?
None. My last contact with Anthony was the day before the newspaper articles came out. We had a regular business meeting in my office, made a few appointments, had a drink in the Conservative Club. That was it.
So, business as usual.
Absolutely.
And you don’t know his whereabouts?
I’ve already told you that.
How did he seem when you saw him last? Was he in any way different?
Not at all.
Did he seem to have any particular worries or anxieties?
Nothing out of the ordinary ... the problems of constituents, routine office matters..
Did he mention his research staff in the Commons?
No. He handles all that side of things from Westminster. I just deal with local issues in the constituency.
Who appoints temporary research staff?
Sometimes people write in offering to do voluntary work in the office for a while. Sometimes Central Office might offer someone who wants a short-term assignment. It depends. But I leave all that to Anthony.
Does anyone vet the applicants as to their suitability? After all, an MP’s office is full of confidential papers.
It’s a matter of personal judgment on the whole. It depends on the circumstances.
Did you meet the so-called ‘researcher’ who was in the photos that were printed?
No.
Do you normally meet them?
Sometimes, if they come with Anthony to a meeting.
But not this one?
No.
How do you and the other constituency workers feel about his disappearance?
(Pause) I shall have to be careful what I say here.
Are you worried about possible action from the press?
Huh! No. I’m concerned that I might lose my temper and use bad language on your programme.
You don’t think Mr Leyton-Brown has brought the problem on himself, having a relationship with a schoolgirl?
That’s ridiculous! A respected
and respectable Member of Parliament has been dragged through the mud by the gutter press. They’ve used foul tactics to entrap Anthony. It’s time something was done to stop this kind of thing from happening.
You wouldn’t want the media to be gagged to prevent them from exposing sleaze and corruption?
I didn’t say that. But if they don’t act in a responsible way they’ll find themselves in trouble.
“Do you think it was a frame-up, Ralph?” Marnie asked.
“Well, some journalists are unscrupulous, no doubt about that. But he was photographed in a compromising position. That can’t be denied.”
“You saw the photos yourself?”
“In the Globe, yes.”
“I didn’t think you read that sort of paper. No, I mean it, really. I’m not joking.”
“I read most of the nationals every day. They rarely tell you what’s going on, but even the tabloids have some sharp journalists. I like to see the range of opinions. It’s a way of picking up clues about what’s really happening. Ah, this sounds like them now.”
“ ... but we stand by our story and our right to print the truth. The photographs published in the Globe two weeks ago were taken by a staff photographer, not a freelance, and we can vouch for their authenticity. They were taken with a long lens in the garden of the MP in question. We did not invade his privacy unnecessarily, but took the view that this story was definitely in the public interest. We have not infringed the voluntary code of conduct to which Globe International Newspapers are signatories. We regret any distress that publication may have caused the family of Mr Leyton-Brown, but our concern to report news of national interest led us to the editorial decision to publish.”
That was the end of the statement from Globe Newspapers. No-one from the company was available for interview this lunchtime. The MP himself is still in hiding, but one thing is clear ... this story is not going to go away.
Anne turned off the radio. A thoughtful silence descended on the cabin. Marnie spoke first. “I still think he should at least reassure his wife that he’s okay. You can’t just run away like that. Do you think he’ll have heard that broadcast?”