by Leo McNeir
“Well, we could do with one or two more things.”
“Such as?”
“I’ve almost finished my magazine, and we could use a couple of Kit Kats to have with our coffee while we’re travelling this afternoon, or tomorrow morning.”
“Urgent necessities of boating life,” Marnie agreed.
“Great.” Anne joyfully handed back the tiller and went forward along the gunwale to prepare the mooring rope for arrival.
“I hope the visit will live up to expectations,” Marnie murmured to herself.
It took them less than ten minutes to complete their tour of the supermarket. They tied up close to the entrance, locked Perfidia and went in. The problem was when they came out. A small crowd had gathered on the bank, and several people were jostling each other for position, trying to look in through the portholes and windows. One man was standing on the counter, holding on to the tiller while his wife photographed him. Marnie muttered something at him in passing and, once she had gone by, he gave her the finger behind her back. Anne wanted to strangle him, but she suspected that might not help the situation, and the best thing to do was get away as soon as they could.
Pulling the boat key from her pocket, Marnie pushed her way through the onlookers and opened the central door. Some of the people took this as a signal to surge forward and try to stick their heads in through the opening.
“Excuse me!” Marnie eased herself between the interlopers and turned to go backwards down the steps into the cabin.
Anne had less luck. Her attempt to follow Marnie on board was met with resistance and the suggestion that she should wait her turn. Becoming crowded in, Marnie drew the doors closed leaving Anne stranded outside. A movement caught her eye; framed in a porthole, she saw Marnie’s hand pointing towards the stern. Without hesitating, Anne withdrew and walked quickly back towards the tiller. She reached it just as the stern doors flew open. The man, who had been posing so confidently a minute before, jumped in surprise, moved smartly backwards and stepped into air. He paused for a split second before obeying the laws of gravity and dropped straight down into the canal. The sound of his squawking was subsumed into the splash of the fall. His initial landing place left him waist-deep in water, but flapping his arms wildly about him, he staggered in a scrappy interpretation of backstroke, briefly going under before regaining his footing and emerging like Moby Dick or a merman from the deep.
The crowd surged along the bank to get a better view of the spectacle, while the man’s wife screamed and all but dropped the camera in her panic to go to his aid. Spitting water and wiping his face with a slimy hand, the merman began shouting abuse at Marnie who had now come out onto the counter.
She shrugged, palms up. “I didn’t touch you.” Her face was a picture of innocence. “You came on board uninvited, at your own risk, and I asked you to leave.”
Merman staggered and almost lost his balance again, splashing about in the murky water. “You … you … I’ll …”
Marnie leaned down. “The first thing you have to do is seek medical attention. You risk getting Weil’s disease, going in the water like that.” She pronounced it, Vile’s disease.
“What on earth’s that?” merman’s wife asked, horrified. “It sounds ghastly.”
“I suppose it’s like a kind of plague,” Marnie explained calmly. “It’s carried in rat’s urine.”
With a gasp, the woman looked as if she was going to pass out. Her husband became silent and still and seemed to change colour under the coating of mud and weeds that partly decorated his features. The crowd on the canalside retreated a few paces, leaving space for Anne to reach the aft mooring rope, which she promptly untied. She pushed the stern away from the bank, well clear of the aquatic man, who was now attempting to slither out onto the path. Marnie switched on the engine.
No-one rushed to help merman, though the whole crowd was mesmerised by his efforts to clamber out of the water, assisted by the feeble flutterings of his wife. By now, Anne had reached the front mooring rope. Releasing it and coiling it in the bows, she pushed firmly off from the canalside, forgetting they had a bow thruster, and made her way nimbly back along the gunwale to the counter. The push had the effect of swinging the stern round again towards the man who had just failed in his latest effort to crawl out.
It was not out of compassion or altruism that Marnie called over to the spectators. She was reluctant to engage the engine and set the screw turning with a man in the water near the stern. She pointed beyond the crowd.
“Why don’t you throw him the lifebelt? He can put it round his waist and you can help him climb out without getting yourselves dirty.”
After a few seconds’ hesitation, one person began unhooking the lifebelt from its frame. Merman waited dejectedly in the dark and cloudy water, and Marnie began to feel sorry for him. She was consoled to see Anne kneel down to speak softly to him before he turned away to catch the lifebelt. With the crowd pulling on the rope like Volga boatmen, and the man scrambling a leg up to the bank, Marnie put Perfidia in gear and guided her out into mid-channel.
She spoke to Anne over the gentle humming of the engine. “I’m glad you said something to him. He looked as if he was in need of solace.”
Anne looked back to where merman was now lying on the bank like a beached whale as his wife twittered about him, and the crowed stared. “I wouldn’t exactly say I brought him solace.”
“No? I thought I saw you speaking to him back there.”
“I simply pointed out that boarding a boat without permission and seizing the tiller counted as an act of piracy under maritime law and could have serious consequences. I didn’t want him thinking he could sue us.”
“Maritime law!” Marnie smiled to herself as she accelerated away, steering the boat past the cemetery and the power station. “You know, Anne, you’re all heart.”
Looking back one last time, she saw the windows of the supermarket packed with people enjoying the spectacle that had livened up their shopping trip.
After half an hour of cruising between industrial sites Marnie gave the tiller to Anne. Since their eventful stop at the supermarket Marnie had been deep in thought.
Under Anne’s command, Perfidia eased her way smoothly onto the aqueduct over the North Circular Road, her engine barely a murmur in contrast to the thundering of the traffic below. Anne glanced down at the rushing vehicles, most of whose drivers had no idea the canal was running above their heads, and enjoyed the feeling shared by all boaters, that they are privileged, using a secret path that sets them apart from the normal world. But Marnie seemed to take no pleasure in their exclusive highway and concentrated instead on the cruising guide that she pored over intently on the hatch cover.
As if suddenly noticing the North Circular, Marnie looked up distractedly, blinked and turned to Anne. She pointed at the cruising guide and planted her finger on the open page.
“There.”
The change of plan suited Anne well. She much preferred the idea of eating on Perfidia rather than going to a pub, though she wanted to be sure they had enough provisions on board to make a reasonable meal. Handing the tiller back to Marnie, she went below to the galley to investigate the food situation. It was some time before Anne reappeared on the counter. She brought with her two mugs of tea and two bars of Kit Kat and confirmed that Charles had provided “breakfast food’ of a sufficient amount to feed them that evening.
Muttering that it would do them no harm to live modestly for one night, Marnie tried the tea. “Mm … this is good.”
“Lapsang Souchong,” Anne explained.
“Well, if this is the standard of Charles’s breakfast, we won’t be roughing it too badly.”
Anne sipped her tea in silence.
They reached the mooring spot without encountering any other boats, and few people noticed their passing. On the north side of the canal rolling parkland extended up into the distance, and the cruising guide revealed that it was a golf course. On the towpath side th
ey were sheltered by woodland. This was a secluded landscape, and it was hard to believe they were in the suburbs of the capital, with central London just a bus ride away.
Marnie chose to secure Perfidia to trees that overhung the water from the golf course side, even though this was private land and, technically, they were trespassing. She took a chance that no-one would see the boat there and ask them to move on. The alternative was to moor alongside the towpath, which they had every right to do. But Marnie was concerned about being seen by passers-by and attracting unwanted attention if the boat was recognised. If harmless shoppers could cause a nuisance outside a supermarket in broad daylight, what problems might they have in this lonely place after dark?
She was checking the forward mooring rope when Anne looked out from the cratch doors.
“Marnie, I’ve got an idea. D’you think it could rain in the night?”
“Doubt it. I think the forecast is dry. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve found a dark blue sheet in the locker. What if we draped it over the boat to cover the name? That would make us anonymous.”
They adopted Anne’s idea, holding the sheet in place with flower tubs on the roof and, on the gunwales, stones that they found under the trees. When their camouflage was completed they settled down to watch the early evening news on television in the saloon, and by the time the programme had finished they looked out to discover that dusk was falling. Anne volunteered to make supper while Marnie checked the cruising guide and finalised their plans for the next day.
As Anne headed for the galley Marnie remarked that it had been nice of Charles to bring food for them.
“Oh, he didn’t bring it,” Anne replied. “He had it delivered.”
Marnie was already engrossed in calculating distances and failed to grasp the significance of the reply.
Anne suggested that Marnie boil the kettle and have her wash before eating, while she prepared supper. Recalling Somerset Maugham’s dictum that the best way to eat in Britain – before the country became obsessed with food and celebrity chefs – was to have breakfast three times a day, Marnie was expecting something pleasant on her return.
Her first reaction was that having silver candlesticks on the table was OTT. Then she checked the table, which was covered by a cloth of white linen that contrasted well with the dark blue crockery. Marnie accepted Anne’s invitation to take her seat.
“What’s all this?”
“Posh breakfast à la Fortnum and Mason,” Anne announced with a flourish. “Ahem. Sorry I didn’t have time to get menus printed. We’re dining – can’t really call it breakfasting – on quails’ eggs with smoked salmon – from Loch Fyne – gentlemen’s relish on Melba toast, followed by strawberries from Andalusia and kiwi fruit. To drink, we have fresh orange juice, something sparkling that’s in the fridge and ground coffee – Jamaican Blue Mountain blend – with cream. I don’t think we’ll need to break into the cornflakes, do you?”
Marnie laughed. “Probably not. One thing surprises me, though. You didn’t make Bucks Fizz with the orange juice and sparkling wine.”
“Actually, Marnie, I was going to do that … until I saw what the fizz was.” Anne opened the fridge and produced a bottle of champagne. It was Veuve Clicquot “89. “I didn’t think it was right to … dilute the orange juice.”
“Wise choice.”
Perfidia slipped her mooring at first light under an overcast sky. It had been a dry and quiet night. No-one had detected their presence tucked into the bank by the golf course. Their breath vaporising in the chilly air, Marnie and Anne were glad of the warm clothing in their kit bags. They breakfasted on hot rolls and coffee taken at the tiller as they set off to cover the six miles or so to Bull’s Bridge. With no locks ahead of them, Marnie estimated a journey time of around two hours maximum. The plan was to have Perfidia safely berthed at the boatyard while most people were enjoying their Sunday morning lie-in.
The vast city did not stir – not so much as a jogger on the towpath or an angler on the bank – while they cruised noiselessly through the suburbs. Eventually they passed under a railway bridge, and the junction with the main line of the Grand Union Canal came into view. Anne stood in the bows to watch for traffic while Marnie steered across to Jock Mackenzie’s boatyard.
They were making ready to tie up alongside the boats that were moored two and three-deep at the bank when Marnie had an idea. She called Anne back to outline the plan, and Anne skipped across the other boats to go ashore. Loosening the mooring ropes of Jock’s other clients, they eased them away from the wharf and slotted Perfidia in to the inside position where her name would be concealed behind the other craft.
Within half an hour of posting the boat’s keys through the letterbox at Jock’s office, Marnie and Anne were deposited by taxi at Euston station where they caught a West Coast express and headed for home.
Settling into their seats, Marnie had a sudden flash of memory.
“Anne, I was meaning to ask you. When we were in Little Venice, Inspector Bruere said something to you when he left the boat. You were standing on the path with our bags and I’m sure I saw him speak to you when he went by. Do you remember?”
“Oh, yes. He wanted to give me some words of encouragement for our trip.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“I think it was something along the lines of, sooner you than me.”
When Marnie did not go to the sleeping cabin on Thyrsis after her shower that night, Ralph put down his book, got out of bed and went to the stern.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
“Oh!” Marnie was standing by the doors dressed only in a thin bathrobe, looking out at the canal in the moonlight. “Yes – as you’ve sometimes pointed out – I come here when I’ve got something on my mind. I didn’t want to disturb you by brooding in the bed chamber.”
She spoke with a smile in her voice, but Ralph knew there was something bothering her.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
A hint of a sigh. “There’s more than one thing that concerns me, but only one that I can put into words, and that’s the strangest of all.”
“Very mysterious.”
Marnie knew Ralph was not laughing at her. “I had a lot on my mind so at the time I didn’t pick up on the things that seemed wrong, or at least unexpected. Then afterwards it was too late. All I had left was impressions of things not being right … very frustrating.”
“What was the thing that you do remember, the strangest thing?”
“It was Charles, when he was asking questions about the gas system, and he was talking about Neil Gerard. He made me wonder if he thought Gerard might not have done it.”
“Really? What did he say about him?”
“It’s not what he said, more the implied reasoning that lay behind his questions.”
“This is all very deep, Marnie.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to come to bed fretting about it.”
“That’s okay. We could’ve talked it over.”
“I know.” She took his hand and began leading the way back to the sleeping cabin. “I didn’t want to do that. I had other ideas …”
13
It had not worked out as she expected. The journey from Little Venice to the Bull’s Bridge boatyard was meant to be cathartic, drawing a line under the tragedy of Barbara’s death. Marnie realised that her contact with Charles would continue, though she suspected it would be of relatively short duration, until all the renovations of the vicarage were completed. Then, no doubt, the house would be sold, Charles would move away – if in fact he ever moved in – and life in Knightly St John would return to normality. In time folk memory would exist only as a vague recollection that a person who had lived briefly in the old vicarage was connected with some murder case down in London. And that would be that.
Marnie had hoped that moving Perfidia would be the first step in distancing herself from the whole sad episode. She would collect the boat from
Jock Mackenzie, carry out the redec, transport it to Braunston and get it sold. There would be no more journeys on Perfidia, just perhaps the occasional sighting as it cruised past on the canal, the new owners raising a hand, a cup, a glass in her direction as they travelled on their way, probably oblivious of the boat’s history and of Marnie’s involvement in it.
Instead, the day after their return from London, Marnie felt jaded. These were no Monday blues. Spring was slowly settling in. It should be a season of optimism, looking forward to longer, warmer days ahead, outings on the canal, picnics and barbecues, new crops, new lambs in the fields, new challenges, the reaffirmation of life. But no. Marnie struck the desk gently with her fist.
“Is that the new signal that it’s time for me to make coffee, O Master?”
Anne stood in the doorway, grinning. She had been studying on Sally Ann and now joined Marnie for their morning break.
“Heavens, is it that time already?” Marnie shook her head. “I can’t seem to settle this morning.”
“What’s up? Withdrawal symptoms from the boat trip? I wish we could’ve carried on for a week.”
Marnie slumped forward, elbows on the desk, chin resting on her hands. “I’d tell Charles to get someone else to deal with Perfidia – and the house come to that – if it wouldn’t feel like I was abandoning him.”
“Are you serious? I know it’s been a horrible time, but I thought we were coming to the end of it now.”
“I’m serious about how I feel, but I can’t let Charles down.”
“I’ll make coffee. That’ll cheer you up.” Anne headed for the kitchen area at the back of the office barn. She called over her shoulder. “And don’t forget, there’s a big moment coming this week. The JCB is finally leaving the site. I’m planning to put up bunting and I’ve booked the band of the Coldstream Guards for the grand parade up the field track.”