Devil in the Detail

by Leo McNeir

  Marnie and Anne had never talked about intimate matters of that sort, nor had Marnie ever felt the need to establish any kind of ground rules. Sure, Anne was in her care with the agreement of her parents, but she treated her like a friend rather than a daughter, and she had always trusted in Anne’s judgment. Why not? But what about boyfriends and that side of life? Was Ronny a boyfriend? Did Anne regard him as one? Did they …? Had they …? Had Anne ever …?

  The solution presented itself in an instant of revelation. On yer bike, Ronny … If Ronny was still there, presumably his bicycle would be parked in the garage barn where he always left it. Elementary, my dear Walker, she told herself and headed off to the barns.

  There was no bike propped against the wall by the MG. If Ronny had stayed, he was not there now. Turning the key to open the office barn, Marnie had an uneasy feeling. Anne was never late getting up. Could something have happened? What if she was not there? She raced to the foot of the ladder and called up.

  “Anne? Are you there?” There was a groan, like an injured animal. “Anne?”

  A more prolonged groan. “I’m dead.”

  “You’re …?” Realisation was dawning.

  “Nearly dead,” came the muted reply from a face buried in a pillow. “No, very dead, stuffed.”

  “That’s what I was wondering.”

  “Mm?”

  “Nothing. Can I come up?”

  “Only if you bring a pistol to shoot me, put me out of my … ugh!”

  Marnie climbed the ladder. Two feet protruded from the bottom of the duvet, the back of a head visible on the pillow. Sympathetic as she was – she had been there herself, knew the pain and wretchedness – Marnie could not help smiling.

  “Have you taken anything?” she said quietly.

  Anne shook her head – big mistake – and groaned again. “Lost my cyanide pills.”

  Marnie descended the ladder, went to the kitchen area and was back in the loft a minute later with two Solpadeine tablets dissolving in a glass of water.

  “Still alive?”

  “Need a second opinion,” Anne murmured.

  “Here, take this.”

  “Strychnine?”

  “Strychnine.”

  “Good.”

  Anne lurched onto an elbow, squinted at the liquid and downed it in one.

  “Well done. You drank it in one go.”

  “I had to, to stop the noise from the bubbles.”

  “I’m going to leave you in peace for a while. Okay? I think you ought to stay in bed this morning. Will you be all right while I go shopping?”

  “Dig out my will when you get back.”

  “Your will?”

  “I’m leaving everything to Battersea Dogs’ Home.”

  “Anne, you haven’t got anything worth leaving.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t like dogs.”

  *

  Saturday morning and all was quiet at Glebe Farm, but not quiet enough for Anne. The steady droning of the cement-mixer sounded as if it was located in her left ear. You’d think people would be more considerate, she thought, given that someone’s dying here. She raised her head experimentally two centimetres from the pillow and attempted a focusing shot on the alarm clock. It revealed two things. One, her eyes were working independently of each other. Two, elephants were no longer doing aerobics inside her head. Three things. It was nine-thirty. She lowered her head gently. The cement-mixer was still grinding away, but that was only to be expected. Or was it …?

  Anne tried to remember what day it was. An inspired guess made it Saturday. Why were the builders on site? She eased her head slowly round to the left, in the direction of the window-slit that looked down on the farmhouse, and found that progress was less good than she had thought. It was as if a black shadow had fallen over her eyesight. At that moment the black shadow moved, and two yellow circles appeared in front of her face.

  “Dolly,” she breathed, while the cat blinked again and continued purring on the pillow beside her.

  *

  Marnie swung the Discovery into a parking slot at the supermarket, hoping she had done the right thing in leaving Anne to struggle through the hang-over with a morning of peace and quiet. If she could keep the tablets down, she had a good chance of feeling almost human again quite soon. Marnie’s only regret was that she had not been able to report back on Ralph’s knowledge of Donovan Smith’s family and its sinister background.

  Grabbing a trolley, she paused at the news-stand to read the headlines. It was a name on the front page of the Telegraph that caught her eye. Where had she heard it before? Garth Brandon. It was definitely familiar. She read the caption under a photograph.

  BRANDON FOR BRITAIN – Garth Brandon, Wunderkind of the far right, gave a press conference in London yesterday to announce his candidature for the European Parliamentary by-election … in Northampton.

  In the photograph Marnie saw a man with hardly a hair on his cranium, dressed in a smart suit. He had an intelligent face, not unpleasant, and was smiling reticently with a knowing twinkle in his eye. Of course! It was Ralph who had mentioned it to her on the phone the other night. What could she recall about him? Nothing. Ralph had just asked if she knew the name. She picked up the paper and began reading the article, but there were only a few lines to the bottom of the page where she was invited to continue the story on page three.

  She read enough on the front page to learn that Garth Brandon, sometime Conservative MP, had resigned from the party some years earlier in protest at Mrs Thatcher signing the Maastricht Treaty. Wow! Marnie thought. That must be a first – someone resigning because they thought Maggie was too left wing! Mentally Marnie shook herself and read on. Brandon had abandoned a promising career and retired to an obscure post at one of the new universities. He had vanished from public life, but was now emerging from the shadows to be revealed as a leading member – some thought the leading member – of the Britain First Party. Some commentators were suggesting a link between the BFP and the organisation …

  How annoying! End of the page. Marnie was aware that she was blocking access to the rack of newspapers and took a step backwards, quickly pulling back the front page. At first she failed to locate the article on Brandon, but while hunting for it, realised that she knew what she was going to find. And she was right. The next words in the continuation piece were … New Force.

  Marnie dropped the paper into her trolley and moved on.

  *

  So far, so good. Anne had advanced three paces from the office barn without the sky falling on her head. Apart from a slight trembling in the hands, she felt surprisingly together. Standing still in the courtyard, she ran an operations check on her senses and began taking deep breaths. All departments were functioning, she estimated, at around seventy per cent. Appetite was on hold. Thirst on overtime.

  She set off slowly. The whole place felt deserted. Glancing at the garage barn, she saw that Estelle’s car was missing, and so was the Burtons’. There was only Dolly, keeping a discreet distance, for company. Fine by me, Anne thought.

  A glass of sparkling water on Sally Ann made her burp, and for an awful few seconds disaster loomed, but her luck held. Fearing the ignominy of sea-sickness on a narrowboat, she decided on a breakfast of fresh air. Out on the stern deck, she saw that the Muddy Fox was absent from the roof of X O 2, so that was one less complication to bother her.

  Breathing in slowly and deeply, Anne stepped ashore and began walking, one foot after the other, towards the bridge. She crossed the canal and turned north, away from the U-boat, making sure that there were no bikes visible along the towpath and no-one lurking in the hedgerow. As she walked, the impossible happened. Her head cleared; the unpleasant taste in her mouth evaporated; her eyes began pointing in the same direction; the tremble in her hand abated. Life was worth living again. This called for a list to celebrate. At the top, the first item was a reminder never to drink more than two glasses of wine. Ever. The next two items were the same.
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br />   Anne turned for home, amazed to feel a hunger pang. Approaching the bridge, she scanned the path, the moorings and the surrounding fields. All clear. She strode forward, as happy as ever with her lot. She turned onto the bridge to find Donovan Smith lying in wait.

  To be fair, he was in fact sitting down. And he seemed to be fixing the chain on his bike, but that did not prevent Anne from feeling ambushed. A momentary dizziness overcame her, and she reached for the parapet. The young man looked up and quickly sprang to his feet.

  “Are you all right? You look rather pale.”

  He reached forward and lightly held her arm.

  “No, I’m fine, I’m fine. You just sort of … surprised me.”

  “You’ve got purple marks under your eyes and you’re face is the colour of starched linen.”

  “Thanks. You’ve made me feel better already.”

  “I can do better than that,” he said.

  “That wouldn’t be difficult. Trust me.”

  “How would toast, honey and orange juice grab you?”

  *

  On the way out of the supermarket, Marnie stopped to look at the other newspapers on the stand. The Times and the Independent both ran the Garth Brandon story on the front page. The tabloids were playing safe, with exclusives on breast implants among the stars of various soap operas, a pop singer going into rehab to cure his addiction to amphetamines and a famous football player’s confession to a ‘sex romp’ with a ‘television personality’.

  She decided to take the broadsheets and queued at the kiosk to buy them, noticing that she was in the minority.

  *

  Anne had to admit the toast smelled good. She was back on the U-boat, watching Donovan in the galley from the comfort of the eating unit. He had washed his hands thoroughly before starting on the food, and she had a sneaking suspicion he might be an inveterate list-writer. He bent down to open the fridge and brought out a carton of juice.

  “You came to Glebe Farm last night,” said Anne. “I was wondering why. And don’t tell me it’s obvious. I’d just like a straight answer.”

  Donovan put down the carton, walked swiftly towards her and placed a glass of orange on the table. In doing this, his hand brushed her arm. Anne felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She went rigid. He had simply touched her very gently, probably without noticing, but it caused a definite frisson.

  “I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all,” he said quietly.

  He turned and went back to the galley before Anne could react. She thought the colour may have returned to her cheeks.

  “What about?” she said, struggling to regain her presence of mind and sound casual.

  “Anything. Whatever turns you on.” He reflected. “Well, not in the sense of … you know what I mean.”

  He set a rack of toast down on the table with a pot of honey and went back for plates. Finally he took the seat opposite and invited her to begin. After a tentative bite, Anne spoke.

  “All right. Why don’t you tell me about you, who you are, why you’re here, what you do?”

  “The life story thing? Does it matter?”

  “I thought the choice was up to me. You could start by telling me where you go at nights.”

  Anne realised this was a hazardous direction to take, but she was tired of being in the dark, and her return of strength after the hang-over was restoring her self-confidence.

  “Nights?” Bemused.

  “You stay out all night sometimes. I’ve noticed.” Her eyes strayed to the shelves containing the cameras and the German books. From where she sat, the car photos were invisible. “I wondered where you went.”

  “I told you. I have work to do.”

  “Work? You said it was out of a sense of duty, or something like that.”

  “In a way,” Donovan followed her gaze. “You seem very interested in my possessions. Why is that?”

  “I’m not sure. They’re not the kinds of things you usually find on a narrowboat, collections of old cameras. Marnie says even old Leicas are worth hundreds.”

  Donovan shook his head slowly, smiling faintly. “Not those ones,” he said quietly.

  “They look all right to me,” Anne said generously.

  “For those ones, I have the original boxes – even for the extra lenses – and the original leather cases. And the operating manuals, in the original German. I sometimes think I’m stupid to have them on display like that, but I like them so much. They’re part of my family.”

  Anne looked at them with a new insight. “You mean …?”

  Donovan nodded.

  “Not hundreds?” said Anne.

  “No.”

  “How did you … get them?”

  “You nearly asked how did I come by them.” He smiled. “Simple. I inherited them. They belonged since new to a great-uncle who left them to his son, my uncle, who gave them to me.”

  “And he was German, your great-uncle?”

  “Strictly speaking, he was Czech, though I think he was probably Austrian when he was born – or he might even have been Polish – but anyway, he was an ethnic German, from the Sudetenland.”

  “Did he come here to escape from the communists and the Russians?”

  Donovan gave this some thought. “Indirectly, I suppose he did. But he didn’t get out as such. He was – shall we say – rescued …” He smiled faintly, “… by Hitler, or by his army, to be precise.”

  “By…? Really?”

  “Well, in as much as –”

  He was interrupted by the ringing of a phone from somewhere beyond Anne in the study area. Donovan stood up and went to the desk. Picking up the phone, he gave his name.

  “Na, Anna. Guten Morgen.”

  While listening, he looked towards Anne and mouthed excuse me a moment. He spoke briefly in German for a minute or so before disconnecting. When he turned round, he found the cabin empty. A half-eaten piece of toast lay on the plate. Anne had gone.

  *

  It was ideal weather for a tootle on Sally Ann. But then again, Marnie thought as she drove home down the dual carriageway, it probably wouldn’t please Anne to have the boat’s diesel engine clattering away beneath her feet, not if she was still suffering with her hang-over. Marnie smiled to herself and began changing plans. She would do some work in the garden at the back of the farmhouse. For garden, she thought, read jungle. Then she would sit out by the canal with a book. It would be good to have some sort of tan for when Beth and Paul got back from their travels in far-flung places, including the real jungle of Thailand.

  Anne might join in for the second part of the plan, unless she felt like staying in the shade for the whole day. One thing was certain: Anne would not be wanting to go near alcohol for a while. Musing on the importance of learning by painful experience, Marnie turned the car off the main road and down to the village.

  So it was that, as she motored along the high street, she was more than surprised to see a familiar red Mini parked right outside the pub. In disbelief she slowed to check the number-plate. Her first thought was that Anne had driven up to the shop and could find nowhere nearer to park. But the kerb was clear on the shop side of the street. And if Anne really was in the pub – surely, impossible – why not use its car park? Marnie’s brain was telling her the answer as her foot was pressing down on the brake pedal.

  She parked opposite the pub and by the time she was halfway across the street, Anne was waving from under a Carlsberg parasol at a table in the garden.

  “This I don’t believe,” said Marnie.

  “I needed to be here. I was hoping you’d see the Mini and stop.”

  “You’ve become a hardened drinker in one day? What are you on?”

  Marnie eyed Anne’s glass. It was obviously sparkling mineral water.

  “Gin … neat.”

  “Good choice for clearing the head. Any other reason you’ve come?”

  “Marnie, I’m almost certain he’s a Nazi. He as good as admitted it. Well, at least, he was on
the point of admitting it when the phone rang. And he was speaking German – I’m pretty sure it was German – so I legged it … again.” It all came out in a rush.

  “Now would be a good time to pause for breath,” Marnie said evenly. “Why don’t we sit down together and you can tell me all about it, in a way that I can follow. All right?”

  Grace Parchman, the publican’s daughter, appeared at the back door. Marnie pointed at Anne’s glass and at herself. Grace smiled and went inside. The pub had scarcely been open a few minutes, and they were the only patrons so far. As they went and took their seats, Marnie thought it was time to lighten the atmosphere.

  “What’s the good of my organising drunken orgies in the privacy of Glebe Farm, if you’re going to get us a reputation as alcoholics unanimous?”

  “I’m serious, Marnie. He’s got me really spooked. I don’t like all this Nazi stuff. It gives me the creeps.”

  Marnie reached over and patted her hand.

  “Hey, come on. We can sort it out. Just try to look cheerful for a moment.”

  Grace came over and put Marnie’s glass on the table.

  “Thanks. How are the wedding plans going, Grace?”

  “Usual hassle, or so I’m told.” She beamed. “I don’t mind. We just can’t wait for the day to arrive when we move into the cottage. We’re so looking forward to it. It’ll be great.”

  “It’ll be lovely having you at Glebe Farm.” Marnie reached for her bag.

  Grace waved it away. “On the house.”

  “Oh no, really,” Marnie protested.