by Leo McNeir
Smoke and Mirrors
by
Leo McNeir
© Leo McNeir 2009
Leo McNeir has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2009 by Enigma Publishing.
This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Pain
Chapter 2: Angel of Death
Chapter 3: Statement
Chapter 4: Smoke Without Fire
Chapter 5: Knightly Woods
Chapter 6: Danny
Chapter 7: Whizz-bang
Chapter 8: Faint
Chapter 9: Marcus Devere
Chapter 10: Holbeach Man
Chapter 11: Tattoo
Chapter 12: Celebrity
Chapter 13: Uschi
Chapter 14: Donovan
Chapter 15: Contract
Chapter 16: Scrapbook
Chapter 17: Paranoia
Chapter 18: Arrested
Chapter 19: Memorial
Chapter 20: Missing
Chapter 21: The Man Who Wasn’t There
Chapter 22: Offence
Chapter 23: Timeline
Chapter 24: Fame
Chapter 25: Pendant
Chapter 26: Image
Chapter 27: Getaway
Chapter 28: Leighton Buzzard
Chapter 29: Warned Off
Chapter 30: Graves
Chapter 31: Lights in the Woods
Chapter 32: Winterburn
Chapter 33: Unanswered Questions
Chapter 34: Official Secrets
Chapter 35: Oxford
Chapter 36: Henry Eustace
Chapter 37: War Grave
Chapter 38: Tattoo
Chapter 39: Donovan’s Friend
Chapter 40: Fleischer
Chapter 41: Tenure
Chapter 42: Abandoned
Chapter 43: Negatives
Chapter 44: Straight Talking
Chapter 45: Journeys
Chapter 46: Timeline Broadcast
Chapter 47: Blood on the Carpet
Chapter 48: Prognosis
Chapter 49: A Surprise Return
Chapter 50: Assignation
Chapter 51: Invitation
Chapter 52: Donovan Returns
Chapter 53: The Best-Laid Plan
Chapter 54: Sleigh Ride
Chapter 55: Dead End
Chapter 56: More Questions
Chapter 57: George
Chapter 58: Confession
Chapter 59: Eustace
Chapter 60: Celia and Hugh
Epilogue
About the author
For Mac and Joyce, Wendy, Deborah and Susan
Prologue
The small convoy of vehicles rolled appropriately along the dual carriageway like a funeral procession. At its head, a police car carried two constables and a uniformed inspector. Next, a police van, the title Incident Unit painted on the sides. Behind it, another car. At the rear, a second van, unmarked, dark blue. Anyone familiar with police activity would have identified it immediately as a mortuary van.
They converged on a village in the south of Northamptonshire, not far from the ancient borough of Stony Stratford and the Victorian railway town of Wolverton.
Seven o’clock on a bright mid-summer morning. The sun broke free of cloud cover as the cortege turned off the dual carriageway at a sign indicating Knightly St John. A minute later the leading driver caught sight of the tall square tower of the church, rising up from among the trees. Progress was slow on the narrow, twisting road. It led to a sharp left-hand bend where they passed the first cottages on entering the high street.
Glimpsing houses and cottages of pale limestone under roofs of slate or thatch, they cruised the full length of the street, passing the church on their left and the pub on their right. Just beyond the primary school they turned left and followed the road round in a sweeping curve. The church tower dominated the skyline, the clock face looking down on them like an impassive eye. It registered five past seven as the convoy steered into a modern executive housing estate, known as Martyrs Close, behind the church and came to a halt beside a grass triangle partly covered with bramble bushes, opposite the churchyard’s back door.
A man and a woman were chatting together beside the brambles. Seeing the police vehicles arrive, they stopped talking and turned to face their visitors. The man, in overalls and leaning on a shovel, was stocky with thinning cropped grey hair. The woman wore a grey dress and a dog collar. The Reverend Angela Hemingway, vicar of Knightly St John, shook hands with the inspector and introduced Henry Tutt, church groundsman and grave digger.
After examining and photographing the site, the police began unloading equipment. The inspector gave Henry Tutt the go-ahead. He cleared the bramble bushes away with a chainsaw and dragged them into a pile against the churchyard wall. An open-sided tent like a small marquee provided shade for Henry and one of the constables as they dug down into the clay soil. The young officer was amazed at the work rate of the older man who was well into his sixties but dug steadily, flinging the earth onto a pile just outside the tent.
The excavation had attracted the attention of the neighbours, who watched the sombre working party from behind their curtains. The exhumation of a grave engendered a morbid fascination, but no-one wanted to be seen standing in the street gawping at the proceedings.
The diggers had just reached a heavier layer of damp clay, and even Henry had had to slow down, when the door opened in the churchyard wall and a girl stepped through. She was thin and blonde, almost waif-like, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Nobody paid her any attention, apart from Angela Hemingway who acknowledged her with a nod. The girl held back at first but gradually advanced until she was standing beside the vicar. They exchanged murmured greetings and watched the digging in silence.
Then it happened. Henry thrust his spade into the earth and met resistance. The police officers stared into the hole. Someone remarked that it was not as deep as they had expected. Henry grunted agreement and, alone in the grave, began shovelling more carefully. He took a gardener’s trowel from his back pocket and scraped the wet clay into a bucket. To the accompaniment of mutterings from Henry, the grave’s contents were gradually revealed. Henry scratched his head and looked over at the vicar, bewildered. Some of the officers dropped to their knees for a closer inspection.
A gesture from Henry summoned Angela closer, and both she and the thin girl advanced to the graveside. Angela gasped and put a hand to her mouth. The girl stared wide-eyed at what lay in the dark damp ground by Henry’s muddy boots.
Chapter 1
Pain
The old pain was still there, even after two years. Marnie pulled out the battered blue folder which she kept in her desk in the office barn. It lay concealed at the back of the bottom drawer and had not been brought out into the light of day since she first put it there the summer before last.
It was a quiet morning, the sun rising through a clear sky, as Marnie carried the folder through the spinney towards the canal. She emerged in sunlight close to the docking area where her narrowboat, Sally Ann, was moored. In the galley she prepared coffee and settled in a safari chair at the table in the saloon. Being on Sally Ann was somehow comforting.
Even now, she could still only just bear to read the notes and cuttings from that time. Toni Petrie, the Reverend Toni Petrie, had been killed in her own church. Her ministry had la
sted barely a month, and even though they outwardly had little in common – Marnie was an agnostic and no church-goer – in that time they had become friends. Marnie had envisaged a friendship that would endure, but it had been cut down, just as Toni had been cut down by the same hand that had almost put an end to Marnie herself.
Toni had been the victim of the same hatred that had caused the death, the murder, of the vicar of the parish church of Knightly St John some three and a half centuries earlier in the time of the English Civil Wars. That summer, the brief summer of Toni Petrie, had stirred up ancient conflicts and tensions. And now Marnie feared they were about to be aroused again.
Chapter 2
Angel of Death
“No! I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Tell me it isn’t true.”
Marnie paused before replying. “It is true, Beth. I’d hardly ring to tell you something wasn’t true, would I? Think about it.”
“But they can’t be serious, not after all the trouble there was two years ago.”
Marnie looked over to the window of her office, a small converted barn, its heavy timber doors drawn back in the daytime, revealing tinted glass like a shop front. Across the cobbled yard she could see roses climbing up the walls of three renovated cottages. The old stone farm buildings were bathed in pale summer sunshine, an idyllic peaceful English scene like a Country Living calendar.
“Well, they are serious, in fact they’ve already made a start.”
“Already?”
“This morning. Anne’s gone up to have a look. She was half frightened, half bursting with curiosity. In the end the curious side won.”
Beth groaned. “Oh God. At eighteen, kids aren’t nervous about things like that. But Anne really ought to know better. Think how much she was involved in that business with the murder of the vicar, vicars I ought to say. I wish they weren’t digging all that up again.”
“They’ve decided to go ahead as a kind of tribute to Toni’s memory. You know it was her wish to move Sarah into the churchyard.”
Marnie’s eyes strayed to the blue folder that was now lying on her desk. She had read it through that morning. The memory of that other morning when she had chanced upon the grave had come back vividly. Attracted by a doorway in the churchyard wall, half hidden by ivy, she had walked through to discover part of a headstone concealed in a tangle of brambles. It marked the grave of a young woman who had died in 1645.
Why had she been buried outside the churchyard? The question had sparked the interest of both Toni Petrie and her predecessor, Randall Hughes. He had just left the parish in an atmosphere of open hostility to become rural dean. Research had revealed that the young woman, Sarah Anne Day, committed suicide out of shame at the part her family had played in the death of the vicar. The Reverend Jonathan Goldsworthy was a royalist sympathiser in the first civil war; the village predominantly supported Parliament.
“I still don’t like it, Marnie. You should stop them. You don’t know where this will lead.”
“I should stop them? Beth, I don’t think there was a letter in the post telling me I was now Head of the Church of England, and no messages from anyone in Canterbury as far as I know.”
“Marnie, the Archbishop of Canterbury is based in Lambeth Palace in London.”
“Of course. Perhaps I should just check the answerphone again.”
“You know what I mean.” Beth had a logic all her own. “I only hope it will all pass over smoothly without unpleasantness, so everyone can get back to a normal life.”
“Normal life in these parts takes some unusual turns.” Marnie spoke from the heart. She had run into one bizarre event after another since leaving London two years earlier to start a new life and a new business. “Everywhere I go there seem to be bodies lying around.”
Beth agreed. “True. Let’s hope this time things will be different.”
Marnie sighed. “Well hardly, Beth. They’re exhuming a grave. I think that might involve a body. That’s the whole point. They’re going to re-inter that poor girl.”
“What’s her name again?”
“Sarah Anne Day.”
“Yes, well you should keep out of it. You don’t want to be getting the reputation as an Angel of Death. It might ruin your business. I can’t see anyone renting a cottage or barn conversion from you if they think something unpleasant is going to fall out of the closet.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere near the church until the whole matter is finished.”
Out of the corner of her eye Marnie noticed rapid movement in the courtyard. Seconds later Anne appeared breathless in the doorway. She was about to speak when she realised Marnie was on the phone. Panting, she crossed the office and flopped down onto the chair by her desk. “Look, Beth, I’m going to have to go now. There’s a lot to do. I’ll call you later.”
After disconnecting, Marnie waited while Anne got her breath back. “That was a dramatic entrance. What’s up?”
Anne’s slight chest was heaving. “You’ll never guess what it is.”
“You’re right.”
Anne bit her lip. “They’ve found a body in the grave.”
“In that case, you’re wrong. That’s just what I was expecting.”
“Really?”
“It’s hardly surprising. A grave’s a dead cert for a body, if you see what I mean.”
She had no idea why she was treating everything so lightly. Correction. She knew perfectly well. Anne had already been through enough drama in her young life and, although Marnie was aware of her friend’s depth of character, she had no wish to add to her experience in that direction. Angel of Death, indeed!
Anne collected herself. “Sorry. I’m not making much sense, am I? I’ll start again. They’ve dug down into Sarah’s grave and found two bodies.”
“Two?” Marnie frowned. “How can there be two?”
Anne sat upright in the chair. “The body on top of the coffin didn’t date back to the sixteen hundreds. I heard one of the men say he thought it could be modern. It just looked like muddy bones to me … horrible.” She grimaced.
Marnie mulled this over. On one point she was absolutely clear.
“Anne with an ‘e’, we’re not going to get involved in this. It’s none of our business and we’re going to keep well out of it.”
Anne pulled a face. “Er, that might be difficult.”
Suspicion. “How might it be difficult?”
“Angela sent me to ask you to come up straight away. She said they’ll need a statement from you as you were the person who originally found the grave.”
Marnie was puzzled. “Why should the church want a statement from me?”
“Not the church, Marnie. The police.”
“The police?”
Anne nodded. “Angela rang Randall, as he’s the rural dean. He’s coming over too from Brackley. And a detective is on his way. They want you and me to be available … to give evidence.”
Marnie sighed. “Oh gawd. Here we go again.”
*
Marnie drove them to the grave site in deference to Anne’s earlier exertions. On the way up the field track that led to the village, she had the foreboding that the finding of the extra body in Sarah’s grave was going to unlock further tragedy.
She parked the Land Rover Discovery outside one of the Martyrs Close executive houses and they walked a short distance towards the churchyard wall. The grave’s location was easy to spot under the white tent on the grass.
Uniformed police officers were busy beside the tent, cordoning it off with yellow tape. As Marnie and Anne approached, one of the men looked in their direction. He knew them both from previous encounters. Marnie had the reputation of not always being as co-operative as they would have wished, but he had to admit he liked the way she looked. She was thirty or so, fairly tall, slim, with dark shoulder-length wavy hair, clean regular features and an intelligent face. That day her expression was serious.
Beside her, Anne looked young for her age. She cou
ld easily have passed for fifteen or sixteen, though he knew she was older. She drove around in a bright red Mini, which he rightly guessed had been a present for her eighteenth birthday. Marnie and Ralph had presented her with it, and the car had become the proverbial pride and joy. Anne was almost as tall as Marnie, with pale skin and a thin boyish figure. Her eyes were bright with curiosity.
The constable stepped forward. Before he could speak, a voice called out from behind him.
“It’s all right, officer. Marnie’s been asked to come.”
The policeman turned. It was another woman who had spoken. Women seemed to be taking over the world. This one was a vicar, about Marnie’s height with a long face that was horsy but not unpleasant.
“I knew that, miss. I was only going to inform Mrs Walker that my colleagues had had to leave the site.”
“Oh.” Marnie stopped in front of the constable. “Does that mean you want me to go back or wait here?”
“It means we don’t need to interview you here and now. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
Marnie saw that Angela had been in conversation with another woman, whom she did not recognise. The latter was dressed in a smartly-tailored jacket and slacks, the English rose type, blonde hair in the style of Princess Diana, like so many women at that time. The two of them came closer, while the constable resumed his taping.
Marnie turned to Anne. “We seem to have had a wasted journey.”
Angela stepped forward. “Sorry, Marnie. We wanted to stop you before you set off, but I didn’t have your number with me.” She indicated her companion. “I’m not sure if you know Celia, Celia Devere?”
Marnie offered a hand. “Hallo. Marnie Walker. This is my friend and colleague, Anne Price. Are you involved in the reburial?”
The newcomer seemed uncertain how to answer the question. “Well, er, not actually. Though I suppose … You see, we … we own the land.”
Marnie looked at the triangle, which was no bigger than a small lawn. “This piece of ground here?”
