by Leo McNeir
“So you moved in and everything was hunky dory, until ... ”
“He asked me ... ” Her voice tailed off.
“Don’t tell me. Another shoot? Something creative and artistic?”
Marlene nodded, fighting back tears. “I wouldn’t do it. We had a row. I walked out.”
“Why didn’t you go back to your parents?”
“I was too ashamed, I suppose. I knew they’d ask all sorts of questions. I figured they’d end up sending me away, just as you will.”
“I said I wanted to help you if I could. Tell me, do you live round here?”
“I’m not telling you my address.”
“If you’re a constituent, I could do more to help you.”
“I’ve had enough of people trying to help me.”
“It would make it easier for me. Don’t you see? It would make it different than if I just ... picked you up off the street. Did you get GCSEs at school?”
“Yes. So what?”
“And you do live in this part of London?”
“In a hostel, not far away.”
“Okay, look. If you came to work for me, you could put that down as a reference in future. A job in an MP’s office. It could help you. You could earn some money, get your A levels and go to drama school or something. What do you think?”
*
“What did she think of that?” Marnie shifted in her seat. She was numb.
“She seemed undecided for a while, but gradually came round to the idea.”
“And you really could get her into your office, just like that? Don’t staff in Parliament have to go through all sorts of security checks?”
“Normally, yes. And I set that in motion. But she wasn’t there long enough for me to get her cleared. She’d only been with me for two weeks when the garden thing happened.”
“You said she’d egged you on after a reception when you’d both had a few drinks.”
“And that’s exactly what happened. That’s the honest truth. I swear to you.”
“Yes. I believe you.”
“Good. Thank you. Now let me ask you something, Marnie. What do you really think you can do about it?”
“What I’ve said all along. We get the evidence from the girl back at school, confront Jeremy Hawksby, find Marlene and get her to admit in public that she was a set-up. Then you contact the Press Complaints Commission.”
Anthony smiled. “It doesn’t sound too bad if you say it quickly like that.”
“Ralph says that behind every complex idea lies a simple proposition. That’s my plan. Undermine Hawksby, expose him in public as a hypocrite and a crook. It’s the best I can do.”
“Ralph may be right about that, but he’s not infallible, you know. Frankly, Marnie – with the greatest respect – I don’t think you’re proposition adds up to much by itself.”
Marnie sighed. “What else can we do?”
Anthony leaned forward. “You need to land a big hit. What if we outed him as gay at the same time?”
19
Sunday morning, quiet as a graveyard. They slipped their moorings and set off in convoy, the three boats in line astern pushing through early mist floating on the water, hulls and topsides sweating with dew. As the sky brightened and brought light to the deep cutting, they breakfasted while they travelled, chewing toast at the tiller, gulping down hot coffee that helped kick-start the day. They were soon upon the first lock and began working their way down from the level of the Tring summit in the Chiltern Hills on the long descent that led ultimately to the Thames in London.
Waiting at the lockside while the red boat slowly descended in the chamber, and the working pair pulled away in the next pound, Marnie rang Ralph to outline the plan.
“Anthony’s boat is going to Andrew’s boatyard in Hemel Hempstead. It’ll look like any other craft being worked on. Anne and I will leave them there and get a train back. I’ll fix another time to see Mrs Jolly.”
“I see.”
“What’s the matter?” said Marnie. “You don’t sound very keen,”
“Well, is it wise to let Anthony take the boat on by himself? They’re looking for a man on an unmarked boat.”
“A grey unmarked boat,” Marnie reminded him.
“Yes, but if you can envisage it changing colour, perhaps they could too.”
“You really think they’re watching the canals that closely?”
“Of course they are. Where else?”
“You think we should take the red boat on to Andrew’s boatyard ourselves?”
“It’d be a pity to blow it when you’ve gone so far. Does it really matter to you for the sake of a slightly longer journey?”
“I suppose not. I was just wanting to get back as quickly as possible. I wanted everything to seem normal if anyone turns up in the office on Monday morning.”
“No-one’s going to turn up in the office on Monday morning, Marnie.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“It’s a bank holiday. They won’t expect you to be at work.”
“A bank ... Ah ...” She held the phone away and called down to Anne at the tiller, “Did you realise it was a bank holiday tomorrow?” Anne shrugged and shook her head. Returning to Ralph, Marnie said, “I’d lost track of that.”
“Well, our so-called ‘victim’ is in Intensive Care and presumably your friend Bartlett will still be waiting for his test results.”
Marnie was frowning. “I’ll get back to you.”
Weighing up the implications, she pulled on the heavy balance beam to open the lock gate and waited while the red boat eased out. Shutting the gate and going down the steps to re-board, her mind was elsewhere.
“I hadn’t thought about Monday,” Anne said, looking perplexed. “So much seems to have been happening lately, I’ve hardly looked beyond the next few hours.”
“One day at a time, I know,” Marnie muttered. Somewhere at the back of her mind she could hear Simon saying the same words. She wished she couldn’t.
“Everything keeps changing all the time.” Anne looked downcast. “I hate being caught off-guard.”
“It’s okay.” Marnie smiled at her friend. “You’re not responsible. The point is, what do we do about it?”
“Does it make a big difference?”
“Everything makes a difference. We may’ve just gained an extra day. And Ralph doesn’t like my plan to let Anthony take the boat on. I’ve got to work it out all over again.” She pointed ahead. “There’s the next lock coming up. Pull over just before it. I’m going up to talk to the others.”
They tied up at the bank and Anne watched Marnie jog along the towpath, off to marshal her troops, tugging the mobile out of her back pocket.
*
“You’ve been busy!”
Marnie slithered the last metre or two down the bank from the lockside, scattering pebbles under her feet. She was breathing heavily, a pink flush in her cheeks, and smiling. Anne had the red boat tied up below the lock. She had taken it through by herself and refilled the lock, opening the gates ready for Totteridge and Shardlow to make their approach.
Anne pushed the red boat’s nose out and stepped onto the gunwale as Marnie pressed on the accelerator and they moved away. The new plan was simple. They would take Anthony’s boat to Hemel and leave it at Andrew’s yard before continuing on to London to visit Mrs Jolly and have a talk with Jane Rutherford. Jane was an old friend, a well-known boat signwriter. She and her husband kept their own boat in Little Venice and, more importantly for Marnie, they had a daughter who worked in the media. Anthony would stay on with Andrew and Kate for a while longer, safely out of the way. Marnie and Anne would return home that evening.
Mid-morning, chugging through Berkhamstead, Anne said, “That was a bombshell, wasn’t it? The editor bloke being, well, gay ... as well as making that girl pregnant. What did you make of all that?”
“Well, it’s unusual, but not impossible.” Marnie smiled. “I suppose it’s what the tabloids are for.”
“But seriously, Marnie. I thought people were either one way or the other.”
“It’s probably more complicated than that. You can find some people who are inclined in both directions.” Marnie laughed. “Unfortunate choice of words! But it’s hard to judge how common it is.”
“How do you know about that sort of thing?”
“Oh, reading books, magazines, in films, in conversation ...”
“But, you’ve never ...”
Marnie was startled. “Me? Blimey, no! Boringly normal, I am. What gave you that idea?”
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant, have you ever known people who were like that?”
“AC/DC? By the law of averages, I suppose I must have. Never given it much thought. For some people, life can certainly be complicated.”
Anne frowned.
“We’ve never talked about things like this before, have we?” said Marnie
Anne shook her head. “Never come up before.”
“No. Well, after Simon and I split up, I went off relationships in a big way, including sex. I did have a kind of affair after a couple of years, but it was unsatisfactory and in the end it just sort of ... fizzled out. Then nothing, until I met Ralph.”
“Marnie, I didn’t mean to pry into your personal life.”
“You weren’t prying. I just thought it might help to make things clear.”
“But if people accept that things can be so complicated, why does Anthony think we can use that against Hawksby? It’s no real ammunition, is it?”
“Ah, that’s different. We’re back to what Anthony called the British national sport, good old hypocrisy. If Hawksby was open about it, then it probably doesn’t matter a great deal. For some people it’ll be a problem, but society as a whole is reasonably tolerant about unorthodox relationships these days. They see them on TV the whole time and they’ve grown used to them, I suppose.”
“But the hypocrisy?”
“Simple. If Hawksby uses his paper to attack people for their morals – or lack of them – but has an exotic private life of his own, or a murky past, he’d be seen to have double standards. Publicly attacking gay people while being gay, and condemning immorality having left a girl pregnant as a teenager, could just be regarded as a tad inconsistent.”
“Why does he do all that?”
Marnie shrugged. “Smokescreen? It sells papers?”
“He must be really horrible.”
“But that’s not the worst part, don’t forget. Think of the collateral damage, the consequences of what he’s done. Melissa Leyton-Brown paid the price. Who knows who else has suffered because of Jeremy Hawksby?”
*
Chief Superintendent Scutt and DCI Bartlett met for a drink that Sunday morning at a pub by the canal in Stoke Bruerne. They ordered non-alcoholic lager and took a table on the terrace near the water. At the first sip of the uninspiring drinks Bartlett wanted to remark that sometimes it was a bugger being in the police, but he thought better of it. Scutt was wearing a three-piece suit and looked as if he had just been to church.
“So how do things stand, Jack?”
“Not looking too good, I’m afraid, sir.”
“But I thought you had things pretty well sewn up. You know Walker was there at about the right time. It was late in the evening – very odd for them both to be on a canal towpath at that time, but they were. She doesn’t deny it. You’ve got an ear-ring found at the scene; she admits it’s hers. There must’ve been a fight or a struggle. Walker’s got a scratch on her face. The victim regains consciousness and you ask who attacked him. He puts the finger on Marnie Walker.”
“And she shows no concern at all,” said Bartlett. “Treats the whole affair as if she has other things on her mind and just discounts everything we’ve got on her.”
“What about her solicitor?”
“He said she maintains she’s completely innocent and will give us full co-operation. He says he believes her. I think he does.”
“What do you think, Jack?”
“Bugg- ... blowed if I know, sir. Forensic can give us nothing to show she was in that field behind the hedge. Same goes for her professor bloke and the girl who works with her.”
“But all three of them were there.”
“They admit it.”
“At that time.”
“That evening, sir, yes. They say it was later.”
“So what was going on? And why did this Rawlings say it was Walker?”
Bartlett shook his head. “Something was going on. I wondered if he was following her, she thought he was a stalker and decided to confront him.”
“How?” said Scutt. “Clobber him with a golf club from the other side of the hedge? In which case, how did her ear-ring get pulled off, and what about the scratch on her face? And why didn’t she say she thought he was a stalker, argue it was a matter of self-defence?”
“And why is she so relaxed and confident about the whole thing?” said Bartlett.
“Jack, you’re supposed to be coming up with the answers, not the questions.”
“I know, sir, but she’s hardly a master criminal, is she? She’s just a bloody interior designer. Most people at least get a bit nervous when they’re under investigation by the police. This one’s far too cool.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Could it be she knows we’ve got no evidence to go on because she didn’t do it? We’ve been wrong about her before, sir. Maybe we’re just not on her wavelength. Maybe she does have some bigger problem on her mind and isn’t taking our charges seriously because of that.”
“Then she could be making a big mistake, Jack. If that photographer swears she was the one who attacked him – and nearly killed him – she’s going to have to come up with something more than being too busy to take the accusation seriously.”
“I know, I know.” Bartlett sipped his lager and grimaced. “I’ll talk to Rawlings as soon as he’s fit to be questioned. The medics want us to give him another day or two, till he’s out of Intensive Care.”
“Cheer up, Jack. You’ve got a cast-iron witness there. Play it by the book. Talk to Rawlings as soon as the doc says he’s up to it. No rush. He’s not going anywhere.”
*
Marnie and Anne subsided gratefully onto cream and blue chintz loose covers in Mrs Jolly’s house overlooking the canal in Little Venice. The old lady had answered the door wiping flour from her hands on a National Trust apron. She had a friend coming to stay for a few days that evening and, true countrywoman that she was, she was busy baking bread. Instantly assessing that they were gasping for a cup of tea, she had ushered them into the front sitting room, leaving their bags in the hall, and was now tinkling tea-cups in the kitchen.
The room was furnished with antiques of polished mahogany. Family photos in silver frames lined the mantelpiece, and two table lights with gold shades cast a pleasing glow. A tray loaded with scones and biscuits was already waiting for them on a low table, the lamplight reflecting off a Georgian silver milk jug.
Marnie sat back in the armchair and stretched her long legs in front of her. “This house always makes me feel I’ve arrived at an oasis of peace in a crazy world.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Anne. “Mrs Jolly’s like a favourite aunt or a granny.”
The favourite aunt-granny bustled in carrying a teapot, with the offer of milk, lemon or sugar in various combinations. “It’s lovely to see you both. You must tell me all your news.”
It seemed a thousand miles away from the sordid gossip in the newspaper and the paparazzi hunting them down at every turn. Over Darjeeling with lemon Marnie outlined Anthony’s story, giving just enough detail to let Mrs Jolly understand the situation.
“And you want to expose this ... Hawksby. My goodness, you do get into some scrapes, the pair of you. Do have another scone, Anne. They’re never as good the next day. I know what you’re thinking. I’m just an old biddy who’d have a seat-belt fitted to a Stannah stairlift.” Marnie and An
ne laughed. “Well, what next?”
“That’s the problem,” said Marnie. “We’ve got to find the two women and the man involved.”
“And you think it would be helpful to have contacts in the press and media,” said Mrs Jolly. “Such a pity Jane couldn’t be here.”
Marnie sat up. “What? I thought you said she was coming round.”
“She rang to say she won’t be back till late and had to send her apologies. Oh dear, I can see you’re more than disappointed.”
“We desperately need contacts in the media,” said Marnie. “Jane’s daughter works for a TV company. I thought she might be able to help us.”
Mrs Jolly looked anxious. “Perhaps you can talk about it on the phone, or see her some other time.”
*
The three boats travelling in convoy reached Andrew’s base near Hemel after an easy journey. Andrew showed Anthony round the boatyard in under five minutes and offered him the use of the shower in the small cottage where he and Kate lived when not on their travels.
Anthony would continue to sleep on Totteridge as the cottage had no spare room and he went to collect his sponge bag and toiletries from the tiny cupboard above his bunk. He was just emerging through the stern doors, when he caught sight of Andrew talking to a man at the far side of the yard. Instinctively he pulled back. A movement in the cottage caught his eye, and he looked out to see Kate at an upstairs window, waving at him to retreat into the cabin. After a few minutes sitting on the bunk, he heard footsteps approaching, followed by a tap on the hatch.
“That was close.” Andrew slipped in and pulled the doors shut behind him.
“Who was it?”
“Said he was looking for a boat. Wanted something fitted out but not painted, so he could do his own colour scheme.”
“Oh, good.” said Anthony, relieved. “Just a customer.”
“Doubt it. He said he was interested in a boat painted in grey undercoat. Did I know of anyone who had one?”
“Damn!”
“I told him there were loads of boats like that. He asked what colour they were painted after the grey. He pointed at your boat and asked how long it had been red.”