Smoke and Mirrors: The next instalment of the riveting Marnie Walker series

by Leo McNeir

  “Someone?”

  “Possibly the government.”

  Fleischer stared. “Why?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “You think this is a … what is the word … a cover-up?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Ingrid could help because she is outside the country.”

  “That’s what we thought.”

  Fleischer shook her head. “It is strange, after so many years, there are still secrets.”

  “Will you help us?” Marnie asked. “Would you be willing to approach Professor Hallgarten?”

  “I must consider this. But even if I decide to contact Ingrid, I can make no promises.”

  *

  It was still light when Marnie and Ralph took their leave of the Master and Fellows and strolled round Old Quad. While they had been taking coffee a summer shower had fallen on Oxford and it had passed, leaving the college glowing and refreshed in late sunlight. Tucked away in its hidden corner of the city, unknown to most of the outside world, All Saints’ smelled of damp grass and cool air. They paused briefly beside a climbing rose. Drops of water fell from the petals of one flower onto the back of her hand as Marnie raised a bloom to her nose and breathed in deeply.

  “Wonderful,” she murmured. “You know, Ralph, there are times when I find it hard to believe you gave up all this to live on a canal boat.”

  “No contest,” he said. “Anyway, I didn’t give anything up for a boat. I gave it up for sound career reasons and to be with you.”

  Marnie gave a slight bow. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know.”

  “Actually, Marnie, you bring a balance into my life, among other things. In the academic world it’s easy to get drawn into a mindset comprising only concepts and theories.”

  Marnie looked back towards the library. “I know what you mean. Meeting someone like Professor Fleischer makes me realise how intense everything is in that world. All the time walking on eggshells, wondering if someone is going to catch you out, prove you deficient in some way.”

  Ralph smiled. “Not everyone is like Karin Fleischer. We can still enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. It is a privilege to be here.”

  Marnie grinned. “It’s so refined, perhaps I should’ve brought a nightdress?”

  Ralph took her arm and led her to the corner staircase. When they reached his door, Ralph turned to Marnie.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not formal in everything. You won’t need a nightdress.”

  “Thank you for that assurance.”

  “Anyway,” He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “I seem to recall we have unfinished business from last night …”

  Chapter 41

  Tenure

  Marnie swung the Discovery into the high street on Saturday morning. She and Ralph had had an easy drive back from Oxford, and she was astonished to find herself in a traffic jam in the village. The way ahead was blocked by the transporter moving the giant TV crane, picking its way ponderously between parked cars and vans while the Timeline helicopter circled beyond it. Marnie lifted her foot from the accelerator and they drifted slowly forward. They were rolling gently when a car nipped out from a side street into a tiny gap in front of them and braked heavily.

  “Isn’t that Celia?” Ralph said.

  “Yep. Typical. Thinks she owns the street.” Marnie reflected for a moment. “Probably does, I expect.”

  The crane lorry, the Audi convertible and the Discovery processed in convoy down the high street, past the church, pub and school and through the field gate. As soon as they entered the field, Celia yanked the wheel hard over and bounced past the truck, her tyres throwing up clouds of dust. The crane turned off the track and lumbered away down the slope.

  Driving cautiously on the hard rutted ground, Marnie glanced over and saw that the field was alive with activity. Everywhere, small groups of archaeologists were clustered about their pits and trenches. The camera crew were filming an interview in the middle of the action, with Rob Cardew in front of the camera, pointing across to a far corner of the site, a microphone on a pole dangling over his head. Ralph yawned.

  “Surely you’re not tired, Ralph.” Marnie smiled. “We did have an early night, after all.”

  “Precisely.” He sat up in his seat. “That’s Anne down there, isn’t it?”

  Marnie twisted her head to see. “Looks like she’s taking photographs, a final record, last day of the dig.”

  They turned to drive into the garage barn and found their way blocked. For the second time that morning Marnie was looking at the rear of Celia’s Audi. It was parked directly in front of the barn. Sighing, she climbed out and headed for the office.

  To Marnie’s surprise, the door was ajar.

  “Not like Anne to leave it like this,” she said to Ralph.

  “Let me go first.” Ralph pushed the door wide.

  Perched on Marnie’s desk with her back to the door, wearing a cheesecloth shirt over a bikini, Danny was picking up the phone.

  “Walker and Co, good morning … I’m afraid she’s not in the office at the moment. Can I take a message?” Danny turned to reach for the notepad and spotted Marnie and Ralph in the doorway. “Oh, she’s just come in. May I know who’s calling? … Hold on please.” Danny held up the phone. “Mrs Vane-Henderson of Hanford Hall.”

  Marnie took the phone while Danny picked up her bag of books and went out, smiling at Ralph. When Marnie finished the call she made a note on the pad.

  “Another recommendation. One of Dorothy’s friends wants me to visit.”

  “Celia was right. You are becoming flavour of the month, Marnie.”

  “Come on. Let’s go and see what’s happening on the dig.”

  Not surprisingly, they found a small crowd outside the HQ barn. This was normal whenever the Timeline team was around. And on that morning the visitors thought they had found a star. In their midst, radiant in a white dress comprising layers of light cotton stood Celia Devere. Marnie was convinced her shoes were Prada. Even at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning she looked as if she had stepped out of the pages of Vogue magazine, fresh from the hairdresser’s.

  Spotting Marnie and Ralph, Celia turned and glided through the throng towards them, beaming.

  “Lovely to see you both.” She air-kissed them on the cheeks, then lowered her voice. “Dick Blackwood was just telling me they’re going to have a party this evening to mark the end of the dig. I think they want me to be …” She made a self-deprecating gesture and spoke even more quietly, “guest of honour. I expect all the TV people will be there.”

  Celia glanced round to bestow a smile on her crowd of admirers, but found them turning to look in another direction. At that moment Danny skipped by in her shirt and bikini, and all eyes followed her. Celia frowned momentarily before regaining her composure.

  “Oh, I forgot to ask where the party’s being held.”

  “It’s here,” Marnie said.

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew about it? You were invited?” Celia seemed to find the idea strange.

  “Yes.”

  “When were you invited?”

  Marnie looked at Ralph. “Thursday, wasn’t it?”

  Ralph nodded. Celia’s frown returned, this time deeper.

  “And it’s going to be here?”

  Marnie pointed. “Refreshments in the barn, socialising and no doubt dancing out in the open. It should be a nice evening for it.”

  “I see.” Celia looked at the ground. “I don’t think I’ll be coming. Not really my sort of thing.”

  “Really?”

  Celia shook her head. “All those students, swigging beer from bottles, no doubt, heavy petting behind the barn. Ugh!” She shuddered. “No. I think not. Excuse me.”

  Celia turned on her heel and walked off, almost colliding with Angela Hemingway, who was surprised when her friendly greeting went unreturned.

 
“What’s up with Celia? She’s looking like a wet Wednesday.”

  “She doesn’t want to play with us any more,” Marnie said. “She’s taking her toys and going home.”

  Angela giggled. “You’re terrible, Marnie. I came to see what was going on and to give you the latest news.”

  “And it’s coffee time,” Marnie observed. “What a coincidence.”

  “Isn’t it?” Angela grinned.

  “So what’s new?”

  “The bishop says Sarah can be reburied in the churchyard as soon as the police enquiry is closed. He asked them for more information, but that’s all they’d tell him.”

  Marnie was about to comment when Rob Cardew came round the corner of the barn and went straight over to join them.

  “Well, that’s it, my moment of glory on the screen, famous for fifteen minutes, as they say.”

  Angela began telling Rob about the news from the bishop, but noticed that his attention strayed to something over her shoulder. Turning, she saw Celia advancing on them, her expression less than cheerful.

  “Is that your Land Rover, Marnie? Would you mind moving it. You’re blocking me in.”

  Ralph extended a hand to Marnie.

  “I’ll do it. Can I have the keys?”

  Marnie handed them to him without speaking. He smiled at Celia and they set off. Marnie was still counting to ten under her breath when Celia stopped and looked back at her.

  “You will remember that I’m expecting the redecoration to be completed by the end of the coming week, won’t you, Marnie? There still seems a lot to be done.”

  Marnie nodded and began counting to herself from scratch. After Celia had gone, she took a deep breath.

  “Well, that puts me in my place, doesn’t it?”

  The others made sympathetic noises.

  “You’ll be glad when that job’s finished,” Angela observed. “Will it be completed on time?”

  “Yes.” Marnie’s tone was emphatic.

  Rob reached forward and patted her arm.

  “This one too, eh? You’ll be glad to have us out of the way and things back to normal.”

  “Normal.” Marnie looked quizzical. “Now there’s a thought …”

  *

  True to her word, Celia did not put in an appearance at the party. Had she known how it would turn out, she would have been more than a tad disappointed. Nobody was going to tell her.

  The TV people stayed on and even filmed part of the celebrations to provide atmospheric footage for broadcasting. The setting looked magical, with fairy lights – Anne’s idea – draped over the HQ barn, extending into the trees. Garden flares burned at the perimeter of the gathering and funky music provided a festive background. The students had gone back to their campsite to shower and change for the evening and had returned transformed, barely recognisable as the dust bunnies who had spent the afternoon filling in holes, restoring the site to its previous condition.

  The finds tables in the HQ barn were filled with quiches, dips, salads and nibbles, supplemented by burgers and sausages from two barbecues, and the wine, albeit from the more modest end of the supermarket shelves, flowed in abundance.

  In an ambience of gaiety that had sometimes been lacking during the dig, Marnie and Rob stood eating together watching Danny’s efforts to teach Ralph the latest dance, egged on by Anne who was spasmodically engulfed in laughter.

  “I’m sorry it hasn’t always been enjoyable for you, Marnie.” Rob’s owlish smile was tinged with melancholy. “We know we can’t tell in advance what we’ll dig up, but it’s usually less dramatic than this excavation has been.”

  “It’s been an experience, Rob, and a pleasure to get to know you all. Which reminds me, I haven’t spoken to Rosemary this evening.”

  Rob nodded towards the dancers. “There she is over there, gyrating with Dick.”

  “Ah yes. She looks happy and relaxed.”

  “Yes.”

  Something in Rob’s voice made Marnie study him.

  “She is happy, I take it, Rob.”

  “Very.”

  “For any particular reason?” Marnie recalled Rosemary saying something once, at a time that now seemed long ago, about hoping to start a family. “Do you have some exciting news? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  To Marnie’s surprise, Rob looked uncomfortable.

  “Rob, I didn’t mean to pry. I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn.”

  “No, no, Marnie. It was an innocent question. It’s just, well, actually we do have some news, perhaps not what you seemed to be thinking.”

  “Then forget I asked and get me some more wine.”

  Rob turned to face Marnie.

  “Rosemary has just learnt that she’s getting a new project, funded by the government with quite a generous budget.”

  “That’s great news.” Marnie wondered why Rob seemed embarrassed. “I must congratulate her.”

  “That’s not all, Marnie. They’ve told her she’s likely to be given tenure, you know, her post made permanent.”

  “Better still!”

  “Yes. It’s all just suddenly happened, out of the blue.” He drained his glass. “I’ll get you that wine. It’s the Spanish red, isn’t it?”

  Marnie watched him go, then turned her attention to the dancers, where Rosemary was whirling round Dick Blackwood in gay abandon.

  “I don’t see why I should be the only victim.” Ralph had appeared unnoticed at Marnie’s elbow, breathing heavily, his cheeks glowing. “Isn’t it time you tripped the light fantastic?”

  Marnie smiled and Ralph’s expression changed.

  “What is it, Marnie? Something wrong? Was my dancing that bad?”

  “Highly original.”

  “Oh God.”

  “No, Ralph, it wasn’t your dancing.”

  “Tell me what’s happened.”

  “Rob’s just given me the news, Rosemary’s getting tenure plus a big new project, government funded.”

  Ralph pondered this for some seconds.

  “In exchange for …?”

  Marnie shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t like to speculate, but something tells me she won’t be pressing for information about a certain set of remains. In fact, I doubt if she’ll be asking any awkward questions at all.”

  Chapter 42

  Abandoned

  Marnie slipped out from under the duvet without disturbing Ralph, pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans and went ashore. Sunday morning. Not just any Sunday morning. It was six-thirty and she had the place to herself, or so she thought. There was a stillness about the sloping field and a coolness in the air, as if the archaeologists had taken some of the heatwave with them, wrapped up in their groundsheets.

  The first surprise came when she walked past the HQ barn. The lights were still hanging in place from the night before, but of the dig, the diggers and their final celebration there was no evidence in sight. Just as on all the days of their excavations, they had removed every trace of their presence.

  Rounding the corner, Marnie stared up the field. Here too she could discern no indication that they had ever disturbed the land. Only when she walked up for a closer inspection could she see where the turfs had been re-laid. The diggers had stamped them back in place and given them a light watering. In a few weeks, Marnie thought, you would scarcely be able to tell that the dig had ever taken place.

  They had even taken the trouble to fill in the witches’ graves so that they too were receding into the soil. Only the shallow graves showed signs of disturbance, if you knew where to look among the bushes.

  There was a strange emptiness about the silent slope, a sense of abandonment. Suddenly it occurred to Marnie that although she had spoken with Rob, Dick and the others many times, she had gained little impression of what they had actually discovered. She knew they had found traces of buildings up the field, plus one or two artefacts like the pretty pendant so coveted by Celia Devere, but what it all showed or proved she had no idea. No doubt she would have to
watch the programmes to find out what they had learnt.

  The more she thought about it, the more curious it seemed that Rob had not offered to debrief the residents of Glebe Farm on the outcome of their weeks on site. In fact, in those last days she now had the distinct impression that he had been avoiding all but the most fleeting contact with her, ostensibly on the grounds that he did not want to disturb her work any more than necessary.

  But was that the reason? Marnie thought back to the previous evening and her chat with Rob. If she had not referred to Rosemary, would he have told her about the new project, the government funding and the granting of tenure?

  Back near the HQ barn, Marnie stood looking up the field, imagining the ghosts of the diggers who would now be in her memory every time she saw the place. She thought of those other ghosts whose remains had lain in the ground unknown to her for years, some of them for centuries before she ever came to live there.

  Marnie turned to retrace her steps back to Thyrsis and almost fell over Dolly who had followed her out. She bent down and picked up the cat, who warbled a greeting in her arms.

  “You teddy bear, Dolly.” Marnie buried her face in thick-pile fur. “You great teddy bear.”

  The cat’s front paws clenched and unclenched rhythmically against Marnie’s arm and she snuggled her head under Marnie’s chin, amber eyes blinking slowly in contentment. Marnie felt the warmth of the sturdy black cat against her body. It was a comfortable uncomplicated relationship, stability in an uncertain world.

  For some time Marnie stood there with Dolly, unwilling to break off. The cat began a deep slow purring and seemed to be drifting into sleep. Marnie smiled. The amber eyes opened wide. Infallible radar; breakfast time was approaching. With one last glance up Glebe field, Marnie turned away.

  One thing was certain: the place would never be quite the same again. How often had she had that thought since moving to Glebe Farm?

  Chapter 43

  Negatives

  In the week that followed the departure of the diggers, life at Glebe Farm returned to normal.

  For Marnie, that meant steady progress on her projects, site meetings with Willards managers and her new contact from Dorothy Vane-Henderson. For Ralph, it meant uninterrupted concentration on the beginning of a new book on warning signs for the world economy that would probably bring him renewed notoriety.