Getaway With Murder

by McNeir, Leo

  “Not at all. Most people want to work with someone they can trust, or at least talk to. There is another aspect, though. Architects have different specialisms. They’re not all the same.”

  “I’d need an expert in ancient buildings?”

  “Ideally, yes. What sort of project is it?”

  “That, as they say, is quite a long story.”

  “This is quite a long drink. It’s also very good. You’ve had practice.”

  “Don’t tell the Bishop.” He sat back in the chair, stretched his long legs out and crossed his ankles. “I’ll keep it brief. You know the church is basically twelfth century, though parts of it are even older. The porch was added in about 1380. Now at that time, of course, the Black Death was prevalent in the area. There were few craftsmen to be found and a lot of work was being done by unskilled labour and apprentices.” He spoke as if it was a recent epidemic. Marnie sipped her drink and listened. “The porch was never properly keyed in. Is that the right term?” Marnie nodded. “According to my building file, an architect came up from London and reported that the porch was in danger of ‘imminent disastrous collapse’.”

  “That’s pretty serious,” said Marnie. “When was that exactly?”

  “April … 1937.” Their eyes met and they smiled briefly.

  “So, you’re telling me that part of the building erected 600 years ago and virtually condemned over 50 years ago is worrying you.”

  “Exactly. It is quite amusing, I grant you. But if it fell down next Sunday morning and injured or killed some people coming out of church, I’d be for the high jump. Can you imagine the headlines? Negligent Vicar kills his Flock! But seriously, from a legal and moral point of view, I can’t tolerate the situation.”

  “Of course not,” said Marnie. “I can talk it over with a colleague in London. He’d probably know who could help.”

  “I have funds in hand,” said the vicar, “saved up over the years. That’s not the problem. The trouble is my PCC – the Parochial Church Council – they want to use the money for works to the school. They’re worried the authority will close it and that the village will decline.”

  “Very public spirited, no doubt,” said Marnie.

  The vicar shrugged. “That’s one way of looking at it. Or you could say they’re wanting somewhere for their grandchildren to go. Self-interest or genuine concern, it’s still my responsibility to care for the church and the local authority’s to look after the school.”

  “I’d need to have some details,” said Marnie. “Do you have a copy of the architect’s report from 1937 that I could borrow?” The vicar got up and went over to the desk. He picked up a thick file and passed it to her.

  “It’s all in there. Borrow the whole thing, if you like. As long as you let me have it back some time.” Marnie took it and laid the heavy bundle on her lap.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” She finished the gin and tonic and stood up, looking once more around the room. “This is more like a university library than a study. Sorry, I’m being personal again.”

  “That’s fine. Yes. They are all mine. And your comparison is valid. I’m writing a thesis for my doctorate.”

  “What’s your subject?”

  “It’s on the liturgy. I’ll not bore you with the title; it’s three lines long.” He laughed.

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  “On and off for over five years now. It should be completed by Christmas.” He walked over to the desk and picked up a computer disk. “It’s all on this. Over 370 pages so far.”

  “I wonder how many disks it would take to hold your entire library,” said Marnie.

  “That’s it. Everything is changing all around us and some people, most people I think, seem to want the church to stand still in the middle of it all. We didn’t get on by ignoring what was happening in the world. The founding fathers of the church were revolutionaries in their day. Like them, I’m not a soft touch.”

  “But you have medieval buildings and are expected to be ossified.”

  “The Church as Fossil … Jurassic Ark! My first post-doctoral thesis. What a good idea.” He laughed heartily. Marnie was struck by the way this man created and changed the atmosphere around him in an instant. She felt quite tempted to go to church herself and hear him preach. No wonder he excited strong reactions, she thought.

  *

  Driving into the yard, Marnie spotted Anne coming through the spinney. She blinked the headlamps twice and Anne waved back.

  “Hi! How’s it been? Not too lonely?”

  “No. It’s been a good day. I’ve got quite a lot done. I bet you’re tired after all your running around.” Marnie realised that she was, a feeling no doubt aided and abetted by the gin and tonic she had just consumed.

  “Yes, slightly. I ought to think about supper, I suppose. We can’t just pop round the corner for a pizza out here in the sticks. “

  “No problem,” said Anne. “It’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes. I’ve made a salad and there’s a quiche in the oven. Why don’t you come and relax?”

  “Music to my ears,” said Marnie.

  “There’s some of that, too. I’ve got one of your favourite Bach tapes ready to roll.”

  “Wonderful. Lead me to it.”

  Sally Ann looked idyllic, nestling under the trees in her dock, with geraniums in tubs on the roof. The table was laid on the grass beside the boat, with parasol opened and a vase of flowers. Anne had opened a bottle of Rioja and there were small dishes of olives and cashews. Marnie washed and changed while Anne busied herself making vinaigrette in the galley.

  “Can I help? I feel much more civilised now.”

  “No. You have a sit down. I won’t be long. There’s a magazine to read if you like.” Her tone was casual.

  “Magazine?”

  “Yes. Residence.” She bent over the dressing to add mustard powder.

  “Okay. Thanks,” said Marnie. Her tone was casual.

  When Anne emerged to put the salad bowl on the table, Marnie was glancing at an article near the front of the magazine. She made as if to close it.

  “Oh, you can carry on reading for a bit. I’m not quite ready.”

  “Fine.”

  When Anne arrived with the quiche, Marnie put the magazine aside and smiled.

  “Anything of interest?” said Anne casually, putting the food on the table.

  “I’m only up to page fifty, or thereabouts,” said Marnie. “But it’s a good magazine. I’ll have another go at it tomorrow some time. Or the day after.”

  They began to eat and Anne told Marnie what she had been doing in the office. Then Marnie related the news from the meeting with Willards. The contract would be substantial and would give them work for some time to come. Marnie looked thoughtful and leaned forward in the chair, her expression serious.

  “Anne. Listen. There’s been a development. I’m not sure I can afford to keep you on.”

  Anne looked startled. “But I thought you said there was even more work than you anticipated.”

  “That was before you were set to become rich and famous.” Anne’s expression turned to bewilderment. Marnie added: “Anne Price, Young Designer, as featured in Residence magazine!”

  “You beast!” shouted Anne. “You saw it and you didn’t say anything. I thought you hadn’t noticed. I’ve been dying to tell someone all day. When did you realise?”

  “When I saw the title of the magazine. It’s not the kind of thing you regularly find in a village shop out in the sticks.”

  Anne laughed out loud. “I can just see Mr Stubbs rushing into the shop to get it and telling Mrs Appleton all about Colefax and Fowler’s new collection.”

  “I’m sure Albert Fletcher would go ape over Sanderson’s latest curtain fabrics,” said Marnie.

  “We could use them as tarpaulins to keep the rain out of the ruins!” said Anne. Marnie reached over and poured her some wine.

  “This is just to celebrate. Your fame and our contract w
ith Willards.” They raised their glasses.

  After supper, they had coffee on the aft deck, huddled over the magazine article. Marnie talked about Randall Hughes, his house, his interior design, his work. Anne looked over to the lid of the gas bottle container, where the thick grey file lay like a slab of granite.

  “Does the file go all the way back to the twelfth century?” she asked.

  “No. Only to 1380. Actually, joking aside, I think it does go back to the 1930’s.”

  “It certainly looks like it.” They half turned in their seats to acknowledge a passing boat, its engine note fading to a distant hum as it receded. Marnie was reading again the article about Anne, while the subject herself half listened to a Brandenburg concerto. It was the only sound apart from the odd note of bird song. The sun was still warm, slanting through the trees that lined the canal and reflecting off the surface of the water.

  Anne was thinking about her new life. The room described in the article seemed a long way off in time and space, as if it was no longer part of her, only a pleasant memory. Her home now was a hayloft, with no windows, the probability of leaks when it rained and strange scratching sounds in the night. For all that, she could not have wished for more. Marnie looked up from the article and smiled.

  “She’s done a good piece.”

  “Yes. I’ve written to thank her.”

  “You’re looking rather thoughtful. Everything all right?”

  “Oh yes. More than all right. I love our life, Marnie. It’s absolutely brilliant.”

  “Yes, if you can keep up with it all. I sometimes wonder if I’ve got the energy for living in the country. London was quite peaceful in comparison.”

  15

  Tuesday 20 June

  “Hi! How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” said Marnie. “Busy. How about you?”

  “We decided to go away for the weekend. Paul said he needed a break before the next batch of exam scripts came in, so we rented a cottage in the Cotswolds.”

  “That’s something different.”

  “Yes,” said Beth. “We used to have a boat for that sort of thing, of course.”

  “Ah yes, the boat. I remember it.”

  “I was going to ring you last night, but we didn’t get in until nearly eleven and I knew you’d have gone to bed long before then. You rural types retire soon after the seven o’clock news, I believe. Something to do with being up early to feed the chickens, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, we were out at the village casino until the early hours, so you would have missed us anyway. By the way, the chickens are still there even if you do get up late, and they don’t often riot in the hen coop, you know.”

  “Do I take it you were out somewhere with Ralph?” Marnie suspected this was Beth’s main reason for phoning.

  “No. He left a few days ago. Got to get his alternator reconditioned.”

  “Poor chap. Sounds painful. So what’s this Thyrsis, then?”

  “The Scholar Gipsy. Matthew Arnold.” There was no immediate reaction from the other end. Marnie spelled it out slowly and carefully for her sister. “Ralph’s writing a new book, comes from an Oxford college, travelling the waterways. It’s obvious.”

  “Right,” said Beth. “I’ll know next time. How’s Anne getting on?”

  “Anne’s doing great things.” Hearing her name across the office, Anne briefly looked up from the computer. Vaguely aware that in the background Marnie was chatting about their way of life, she wrote ‘headed notepaper’ on her list and added ‘company name’ as an afterthought. On the table under the notice board stood a large thermos jug from which she poured two cups of coffee. Marnie was putting the phone down as Anne came over.

  “Mm, that smells good.” She spread out some materials on the drawing board. “What do you think of that for a colour scheme?” Anne studied the wallpaper and curtain designs and looked at Marnie’s sketches. For some minutes they talked about using colour to create atmosphere. Anne reminded Marnie that she had not yet ordered notepaper and she needed to decide on a name for the company, perhaps a logo and a colour for the printing. They agreed to talk about it later.

  They made good progress with their work for the rest of the morning and over a sandwich lunch eaten al fresco beside the water, Marnie described her ideas about the company.

  “I don’t like a lot of fuss. These days too many things are over-designed. Too many different type faces. Too many patterns competing with each other. Too many effects created just for the sake of having them.”

  “I think computers are partly to blame,” said Anne. “They give you so much to choose from, it seems a pity to waste all the options and not use them.”

  “Could be. But ultimately it’s the designer who makes the choices. My view is let’s keep it simple, without fuss or gimmicks. For a company name I want to use ‘Walker and Co.’ What do you think?”

  “Fine. ‘The Price-Walker Design Partnership’ would have had more pizzazz , but …”

  “Of course. That’s for next year. As for a colour scheme, I thought we needed something clear, stylish and authoritative.”

  “A strong colour?” suggested Anne.

  “But not too bright. Not too pastel, either. People can draw the wrong conclusions about light colours, especially associated with women.”

  “So what have you chosen?”

  Marnie pointed at Sally Ann. “Cream paper, a light cream, not too yellow or thick. Printing in deep blue. One of the classic type faces.”

  During the afternoon Marnie continued with the design scheme for the restaurants, while Anne talked to printers on the phone. She barely remembered that just weeks ago she had been sitting in the classroom with her friends and now she was at the start of her career, given real responsibility and featured in an article in a national magazine.

  Their usual routine was a short break for coffee and a chat about progress when Anne got back from the post-box and a final stint of work from five-thirty to seven. A few minutes before they finished there was a knock on the door.

  “Do you always work this late? I thought you office types worked nine to five.” It was Ralph, more tanned than before, in jeans and a navy sweatshirt.

  “In this firm, working a half-day means only twelve hours,” said Marnie, kissing him on both cheeks. He went over and gently squeezed Anne’s shoulder.

  “If you’re in the middle of things I’ll not interrupt. I just wanted to bring back the generator. Thyrsis is mended and all is running well.”

  “I daresay we could take in a passing boatman and provide him with a meal.”

  “I’m sure you could, but this passing boatman may have other ideas. When you’re ready why not join me on Thyrsis and I’ll press a gin and tonic into your hand while the casserole is completing its course in the oven.”

  Less than a quarter of an hour later, Marnie was raising the glass to her lips in the study on Thyrsis, with a delicious aroma wafting through from the galley. Anne’s drink was sparkling mineral water with ice cubes and a chunk of lemon. Ralph returned and took his seat by the bookcase.

  “You know, I could get accustomed to this treatment,” said Marnie. “It must be the air round here or something. Everyone seems to want to ply me with gin and tonic and provide meals for me.”

  “Do you suspect their motives?” said Ralph. “Who else plies you with gin and tonic?”

  “The vicar.”

  “No wonder the church is the focus of media attention. Gin has replaced the communion wine. And I thought it had something to do with the tension in the village.”

  “Am I missing something?” said Marnie. She raised an eyebrow in the direction of Anne, who merely shrugged in reply.

  “Have you not been keeping up with local news?” said Ralph. “I heard it on the radio. Apparently there’s been an article in the press on the dispute between the village and the vicar about all sorts of issues.”

  Anne offered to fetch the paper from the office. At the bottom of the f
ront page was an account of the ‘unrest’ in Knightly St John caused by the intransigence of the vicar, refusing to ‘bow to the wishes of his flock’. It told the story in outline of the changes introduced in the past few years with no consultation and referred darkly to the long tradition of animosity between the clergy and the villagers at important moments in history. There had been a pacifist incumbent during the Great War and at the time of the Reformation a vicar who had preached opposition to King Henry VIII until silenced by the threat of the stake. There had even been rumours that the gunpowder plotters meeting at Ashby St Ledgers in the north of the county had heard prayers said at their gatherings by the vicar of Knightly, though those rumours had never been authenticated. Worst of all, was the unsolved mystery of the murder of the vicar ‘by person or persons unknown’ at the time of the Civil War.

  Inside the paper, page three was entirely given over to a feature on the village, with photos of the church, the vicar, members of the PCC and the village green. There were quotes from all the parties concerned that had been chosen to make the dispute seem more bitter than Marnie had imagined it to be.

  “To judge by this, you’d almost think it was unsafe to walk down the street for fear of getting caught up in a gunfight,” she said.

  “Newspapers are often out of focus,” said Ralph. “But they usually have an element of truth, even if it’s not the whole picture. You know the people. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve hardly met them, but I thought the vicar seemed quite reasonable. The rest of the village, or some of them, think he’s more of a fundamentalist. That’s not how he comes over to me.”

  “You think the villagers are seeing him through rosary-tinted spectacles?” said Ralph.

  16

  “Sarah, wake up!” It was an urgent whisper. Sarah stirred as her arm was shaken by her sister.

  “What is it?” Sarah, her voice hoarse from sleep, blinked in the darkness. A pale grey light fell across the room, a glimpse of moonlight through the window.

  “Listen! There are voices.” Sarah pulled herself up onto an elbow, yawning.