by Leo McNeir
Marnie looked towards Anne who was standing alone where Estelle had left her, a picture of misery. “What does she know?”
But when Marnie looked back, Estelle had gone.
*
The camera operator wiped sweat from her forehead and was surprised to see blood on her hand. There was no time to dwell on it; there was too much to do. She stretched forward and peered in at the lens. Thanking God that it was undamaged, she returned to her work.
So many possibilities presented themselves. The police line, becoming ragged under the strain of holding back the surging crowd; the banners waving; the defiant ranks of New Force reduced to throwing stones, but not retreating. She filmed them all, quickly scanning the field of action for the best shots to show the battleground.
Movement among the group of organisers caught her eye. The scouts were falling back in an orderly retreat, their leader signalling them to take cover. The police officer back on the ground after leaping onto the table was locked in heated discussion with the black woman who looked like a model.
She was on the point of altering the shot when a lone woman – the one who had been slumped against the wall – detached herself from the others and walked calmly into the melee. It was a startling image. The operator zoomed in, praying she would not lose sight of her. The woman did not hesitate. Raising both arms in the air she strode on, oblivious to the danger, pushing herself to the front of the anti-Nazi demonstrators. Their chant filled the air.
“Lu-ther! Lu-ther! Lu-ther!”
Still she plunged on, turning to face the onslaught. The hands did not waver and made tracking her all the easier. Looking up from the viewfinder she could see New Force trying to rally. More stones and bricks were hurled high. When she put her eye back to the viewfinder, the woman had disappeared under the shower of missiles.
*
It was Sergeant Marriner who moved first. He raced into the crowd as soon as he saw Estelle go down. Cathy Lamb charged after him, ignoring Bartlett’s shouts to get back. They shouted Police! Police! as they ran. Cursing under his breath, Bartlett set off in pursuit with Marnie at his heels.
Anne rushed forward, but Serena grabbed her and held her fast.
“Let me go!”
“No, Anne. It’s no good.”
“But I’ve got to – ”
“Look!” Serena turned Anne to face the crowd. “It’s all right.”
The group was returning, all of them shaken but uninjured. As they drew nearer Anne could see that Marriner was carrying Estelle, who seemed to be struggling in his arms. The side of her head was covered in blood, her face the colour of chalk.
It had been a lightning strike. Marriner had dived in and seized Estelle where she had fallen while all around were reeling under the missiles. A brick had caught her a glancing blow and knocked her to the ground. A direct hit would have killed her.
The demonstrators were regrouping, undeterred by the battering they had received. Nothing was going to stop them in their lust for revenge.
“Lu-ther! Lu-ther!” The war cry echoed across the battlefield. “Lu-ther!”
Estelle slipped from Marriner’s arms and stood shakily, gasping and unsteady. The others surrounded her, fearing she might even now try to rush back into the action. There was a manic tension about her that they could all sense.
Bartlett planted himself firmly in front of her. “Don’t even think about it.”
Estelle nodded, eyes cast down, swallowing and breathing heavily. She winced with pain and put a hand to her head.
“I’ll take her inside,” Marnie offered. “There’s nothing anyone can do here.”
She took Estelle gently by the arm and began leading her away. To everyone’s surprise, Estelle let herself be guided by Marnie. Anne fell into step beside them. They had walked only a few paces when Estelle stopped. Marnie waited patiently.
“We’ll just take it easy,” she said.
Behind them another roar went up and the chanting resumed.
“Lu-ther!”
Estelle turned towards Marnie and spoke quietly. “You’ve got to let me do one more thing.”
“No way.”
“I promise I won’t try to go back there.” Her voice was weak but determined. “That was a waste of time.”
“It was worse than that. Estelle, you need medical attention. And that’s what you’re going to get. Now.”
“Just one last thing, Marnie. Trust me. Please.”
“After what you just did –”
“No. I mean it, Marnie. I have to do this. You mustn’t stop me. Ask Anne. She’ll explain everything. It’s our last chance. I can’t have all these people’s lives in my hands and do nothing.”
Marnie faltered. “What – what’s Anne got to do with it?”
“Please!”
Estelle backed away. Marnie looked at Anne who was staring into the depths of Hell, immobile.
“What’s going on?”
Anne said nothing.
“Do you understand this, Anne?” Marnie insisted.
Anne nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off Estelle. To Marnie’s surprise she did not attempt to run back to the riot. Calmly, she took the microphone from its stand and walked a few paces to the information desk where Bartlett had stood. She sat on the desk, swung her legs up and got to her feet.
On the far side of the area a TV camera zoomed in on her and, seeing the microphone, the assistant adjusted the settings on his recorder.
Some of the crowd glanced in Estelle’s direction, noticing the blood that had now spread down the right side of her shirt. Over the sound of the chanting a solitary amplified voice rang out.
“Listen to me!” A blast of feedback. Estelle moved the microphone from her mouth. “Listen! All of you listen!”
Many in the anti-Nazi ranks recognised her from the summer scheme. The chanting diminished but the surging continued.
“Listen to what I say! Listen!”
It was becoming a mantra. The persistent tone of voice was slowly winning their attention.
“Listen to me! Luther was my partner. He was my boyfriend, my whole life. Everything I had depended on him. All my future. Absolutely everything.”
Some demonstrators were beginning to think this was going to be the signal for their final push. More of them listened.
“You want revenge for Luther!” Estelle intoned.
A cheer went up.
“You can have your revenge!”
Marnie turned to Anne, alarmed. “What’s she playing at? What the Hell is this?”
Anne nodded towards Estelle. “The truth. It’s all quite simple, really. The devil was in the detail.”
Marnie frowned.
Estelle raised her free hand in the air. “If you want revenge, you can take it! I know who killed Luther!” She took a deep breath and screamed into the microphone. “I know who killed Luther!”
A deafening blast of feedback shrieked from every speaker in the grounds like a howl of anguished ghosts wailing. There was a stirring on both sides of the divide. The police turned their heads to look up at Estelle. In a million homes people stopped what they were doing to stare at their TV screens.
“You can take your revenge …” Estelle put a hand to her chest, “… on me!”
The incipient cheer turned into a moan of doubt, turning to puzzlement, to disbelief. Even New Force grew quieter.
“I killed Luther!” Estelle’s voice was firm and steady.
Shouts of No! rose from all over the anti-Nazi side of the crowd.
“I killed Luther. It was my fault he died.” She pointed towards New Force. “They didn’t do it. It was me. I destroyed him. I destroyed myself … I …”
She swayed, tottered and fell. If it had not been for Marnie’s fast reflexes, she would have hit the ground head first. Kneeling, Marnie held Estelle’s limp body in her arms, unaware of the tears falling down her own cheeks. She felt Anne touch her shoulder at the moment when the first sound of the sirens reach
ed her ears.
32
Marnie felt something close to her face and was instantly awake, eyes wide open. The sudden wakening made her momentarily dizzy, and it took a second or two to focus. A little longer to remember where she was.
She had been trying to hide. Pursuers had chased her down a long dark alley. It had been night. They had caught her against a brick wall at the furthest end that was too high to climb. There had been no way out. She was trapped like a rat in a sewer pipe.
Slowly she turned her head. Ralph was hovering over her. He kissed her on the cheek.
“Good morning.” He spoke quietly. “Did you manage to get some sleep?”
“What?”
“You don’t look very rested. Can I get you something? The hospital canteen produces quite drinkable coffee.”
The hospital. Of course. It all came back. She had travelled in the ambulance with Estelle who had been rushed into Accident and Emergency unconscious, her head still bleeding after being hit by the brick. They had taken her straight to Radiology for X-rays, and eventually admitted her to the Intensive Therapy Unit. Marnie and Anne had sat with her till too exhausted to stay awake, and the doctors had offered accommodation for the night in guest rooms.
“Where’s Anne?”
“In the next room, still sleeping.”
“What about Estelle?”
“Not much change. The nurse said she had a hairline fracture of the skull.”
Marnie got up on one elbow. “Will she be all right?”
Ralph shrugged. “She looks worse than you do.”
“That bad? I feel shattered.”
“You look wonderful, wonderful but … shattered. I’ve brought you both some clothes. There’s a shower next door down the corridor, first right.”
“Sounds good. I’ll give it a whirl.”
“Oh, I forgot to bring your dressing gown.”
Marnie was wearing only pants. “No problem. I can hop along like this. They’ve seen it all before.”
Anne came into the room while Marnie was gone. She was yawning, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Ralph hugged her.
Anne kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve been to see Estelle. The nurse said you were here, said you’d brought some clothes.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not a very good advert for the hospital. I fell asleep like this.”
Her T-shirt and jeans were dirty, crumpled and stained with Estelle’s blood.
“I’d never have known,” said Ralph. “How are you feeling?”
“Actually, I’m quite hungry. Ravenous, in fact. I could eat a horse.”
“You’re vegetarian.”
“You’re pedantic.” She yawned.
*
In the canteen only a few groups of nurses and ancillary staff were having a break. They found a table by the window and breakfasted on orange juice, coffee and toast. The showers and change of clothes had done wonders.
Marnie sipped the coffee. Ralph had been right; it was drinkable. “I’m amazed I just crashed out like that.”
“Nervous exhaustion. You’d been through the mill. You’d been through Hell.”
“I don’t want too many more days like that one,” Anne muttered.
Marnie touched her hand. “No. I wish you hadn’t been there at all.” Suddenly she picked up a thread that had been bothering her sub-consciously since the riot. “Anne, what was all that business about Anne will understand … Anne will explain it all …?”
Anne hesitated. “Oh well, it was – you know – about Luther and what happened.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know?”
“Well, I sort of guessed, really. But it was the only thing that made sense.”
“That’s more than you’re doing,” Marnie said gently. “Can you spell it out for us?”
Anne stirred her coffee. “It was like Mr Crawford said …”
“Rex? Our accountant? What’s he got to do with it?”
“What did he say?” said Ralph.
“The devil is in the detail.”
“Go on.”
“I was putting Estelle’s receipts together for her expenses claim – to save her having to worry about it – and it didn’t add up. I mean it didn’t make sense. The return flight number was wrong.”
“And you spotted a detail like that, in spite of everything?”
“Yeah. Remember, I’d altered her flight back, had to confirm it by fax. The date and flight number had both changed. I’d got her a booking on the flight that only comes back on Saturdays. Her boarding card showed the original flight number for the Friday plane. I just glanced at it when I was stapling it to the receipt and I saw that number. Naturally I looked for the changed one with the right number. Then I realised I was holding an actual ticket stub – from a boarding card – with the original number.”
Marnie said reflectively, “She came back a day early.”
“Yes. It was the only explanation possible. She must have changed it herself in Italy, got the plane back on Friday morning.”
“But why?”
Anne shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Anne,” Ralph began, “why did Estelle think you knew about Luther, what she’d done?”
“She was there in the office with me when I was clipping the receipts together, when I realised she must’ve changed the flight. She saw I was confused at first, then I worked it out.”
“Did you in fact understand the implications, suspect she’d been involved in Luther’s death?”
“Well no, not straight away. I was just going to query why the ticket was wrong when Estelle looked at me. She looked so haunted, and …”
“And you knew,” said Marnie.
“It made me wonder. It’s not the first thing you think about, is it? I mean, that the person sitting opposite you – your friend – has actually killed her boyfriend. You look for other possibilities.”
“But?”
“It was the way she looked at me. That’s when I knew she’d been involved somehow.”
“When you discovered Luther in the tunnel,” Ralph said, “did you see anything there to link Estelle with his death?”
“No. It was only when I saw the airline ticket afterwards.”
“No other actual evidence that she’d been there?”
“Nothing I could see. Nothing at all.”
“What do we do about this?” said Marnie.
Ralph sat back and folded his arms. “Good question. No-one else is likely to spot the different flight number, or understand its significance. Who else will see the ticket?”
“Our accountants, eventually. They won’t realise what it means.”
“The devil is in the detail,” Ralph reminded her.
“Sure, but they won’t do the accounts till some time next year. The date will mean nothing to them. They’ll only want to check the figures add up.”
“So who else will know about this?”
“You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?” Anne said. “Estelle did actually confess in public, in front of dozens of police officers, not to mention thousands of rioters and a TV crew. She told the world she’d killed him.”
“Mm …” Ralph made a non-committal sound. “After she’d just been struck on the head by a brick that fractured her skull. Not the most reliable testimony, perhaps.”
Marnie looked doubtful. “You think we could argue she was somehow deranged, or just did what she did – confessed – to stop the fighting?”
“It’s a possibility, in the absence of any proof, any evidence that’s likely to be brought forward.”
“But –”
“Did she?” Marnie cut across Anne’s interjection. “I mean, did she in fact stop the fighting? What happened?”
“You were there, Marnie, both of you. I was stuck in a jam on the by-pass, remember?”
“But we went off in the ambulance. My mind was on other things. There was all that blood. I thoug
ht Estelle was going to die. I think I saw police vans but, I dunno, it was nothing but chaos and confusion. Didn’t you hear anything on the car radio?”
“The reports kept hopping about. It was all very unclear. Then the police began waving us on, shepherding us away from the town. I had to watch where I was going in that crush.”
“But Marnie – ”
Before Anne could continue, Ralph raised a finger from the tabletop and pointed towards the entrance. They turned to see DCI Bartlett and DS Marriner in the doorway, scanning the canteen. The detectives spotted them and came over.
Bartlett looked more friendly than usual. “Good morning. We’d like to talk to you. Perhaps somewhere private?”
“I think these two deserve their breakfast, don’t you?” said Ralph. “Why don’t you join us?”
They pulled up chairs. Bartlett sat down while Marriner went to the servery. Marnie got in first.
“What’s happening on the summer scheme, do you know?”
Bartlett frowned. “It’s been stopped while the school area is cleaned up after the riot. I believe they’re hoping to restart it next week.”
“We were just talking about the riot. What happened after we left in the ambulance?”
“It ended pretty quickly. A load of our blokes – in full riot gear – arrived on the scene as you were pulling away. They piled into the New Force side who took one look at their weapons and equipment and decided the game was up. Their opponents backed off and just melted away.”
“No cause for revenge after Estelle had spoken like that.”
“Presumably not. Talking of whom, the medics say your friend’s still unconscious and has a fractured skull.”
“So what can we do for you?” said Ralph. “You said you wanted to talk to us.”
”There’s not much we can add to what you know already.” Marnie picked up her coffee cup. “You were there, after all.”
“Of course. No, it’s not about Estelle. We can only wait till she comes round and hear what she has to say. It’s the other matter that concerns me this morning.”
“Other matter?”
“What the newspapers are calling the body in the skip.”
Anne dropped her knife onto the plate. It clattered and fell to the floor. “Body? You found a body?”