Death in Little Venice

by Leo McNeir

  *

  “What’s the matter?” Marnie studied Anne as she came back to the office barn.

  “Nothing.”

  “Anne, we’ve lived and worked together for months. I know you well enough to tell when something’s not right.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You were gone a long time.”

  “I wanted to check Sally again. You know what I’m like.”

  “She’s only a forty-five foot narrowboat, not the QE2. There isn’t that much to check.”

  Anne sighed. “It’s nothing.”

  “Do you want to lie down, have a hot water bottle?”

  “No. Really. I’m all right. How was Ralph?”

  Marnie frowned, knowing that she was being deflected. “He’s okay. We’ve sorted out our plans for Christmas and New Year. I’ve phoned my parents and told them I’ll be going to see them for a week at the beginning of January. While I’m in Spain, Ralph’s going to Japan for a high-level seminar in Tokyo. He’s giving a paper on the impending crisis in the Far East tiger economies, or something like that.”

  “I didn’t know there was one.”

  “Ralph thinks it’s going to happen and he’s going to explain why.”

  “That should make him popular. Will he be away for a week, like you?”

  “A day or two longer,” said Marnie. “He wants to call in on someone in America on the way back.”

  Anne began tidying the papers on her desk, slipping them into folders. “Ralph’s such a nice person, isn’t he? It’s funny. To the people who know him as an economics professor, he’s a real VIP, but to us, he’s … well, he’s Ralph, though you always know he’s somehow special. The way he gives his opinion on things … very considered. He never says anything stupid like most people. I’ve never known anyone like that before. And he has a really exciting life, I mean, dropping in on someone in America. I bet it’s someone important. Who is it … the President?” She laughed.

  Marnie said nothing, but raised an eyebrow in reply.

  “Blimey!” said Anne.

  *

  Friday 9 December

  “Friday the ninth of December, 1994.” Anne was sitting at the table in the saloon on Sally Ann.

  “All day,” said Marnie, making her bed. “What are you doing?”

  “Starting the log for our trip. Do you realise this is my first actual journey on Sally. I’ve only ‘tootled’ before. This is the real thing and I want to do it properly.”

  It was eight o’clock and outside it was still dark. Anne had checked everything for departure half an hour ago. Ropes were in place ready for locking. The headlamp was in working order. Outdoor clothes, ski jackets, gloves and fur hats, were laid out on chairs in the saloon. Boots were standing to attention beside them. She even had the kettle filled with water in preparation for their first cup of coffee on the move. For the nth time, Anne looked out of the window and checked her watch. She yawned.

  “Did you sleep all right?” said Marnie.

  “Well, I’ve slept better. I was thinking about the things we had to do for the journey and I didn’t want to oversleep.”

  “Not much danger of that,” said Marnie. “In any case, we weren’t planning to leave too early. I don’t want to go through the lock at Cosgrove in the dark. It could be very slippery and we don’t want any accidents.”

  “No,” said Anne, standing up to look out of the window. “Actually, I think it’s getting light. It should be okay by the time we get down to Cosgrove.”

  Marnie laughed. “Are you like this at Christmas?” Anne gave her a mock-withering look.

  Minutes later, Sally Ann eased out of her docking area, reversing across the canal through the opaque water with its thin brittle crust and frozen patches at the margins. The engine chugged hesitantly at dead slow, smoke from the exhaust like clouds of breath, the faint smell of diesel in the air around Marnie at the tiller. Up front in the bows, where she had cast off the mooring ropes, Anne stood with the pole ready to fend off when Marnie put the boat into forward gear to bring the stern round. Waiting to play her part, Anne looked through the spinney and could just see the lights from cottage number one, where Jill and Alex were getting ready to go to work. Blissful, she thought. Yes. She could imagine how it must be for them, newly married, in their first home, the beautifully renovated stone cottage that they rented from Marnie. But for Anne, nothing could be as good as the life she had at Glebe Farm. She gripped the thick pole, ready for action, certain that there was nowhere else she would rather be, nothing she would prefer to be doing.

  In fact, there was no need for Anne to fend off the shore, and Marnie brought Sally’s nose round smoothly into mid-channel. They were underway and the sky was beginning to lighten over to their right, above the buildings of Glebe Farm and beyond that, the waking village of Knightly St John. Anne walked back along the gunwale, laying the pole in its place on the roof beside the boat-hook, to join Marnie on the aft deck. She checked her watch and stepped down into the cabin to enter the time on the log, carefully closing the doors and hatch behind her when she returned, to keep the warmth in.

  They slipped past Ralph’s boat, Thyrsis, its green paintwork turned to grey in the half light, and it vanished in the gloom behind them. As they broke clear of the spinney and passed the last willow trailing fronds in the water, the fields spread out from the canal on both sides, stretching off towards the horizon, like a monochrome lithograph. As usual on a long journey, Marnie stood in silence at the outset, listening to the beat of the engine, getting the feel of the boat under her control, the balance of the tiller. Anne stood quietly beside her, taking in the sights and sounds, feeling the cold air on the tip of her nose. She saw a heron in the light of the headlamp, fifty metres away, apparently frozen solid on the bank, and even as she pointed it out to Marnie, it hunched forward and flapped off in a great circle over the fields. Now there was enough daylight to see sheep and cattle, humps in the landscape, clustered together on the slopes.

  A few lamps were glowing inside the cabin, making a faint shadow of light that ran along the bank beside them. Anne wondered how they looked to anyone who saw them across the countryside, and almost at once she saw in the far distance a train, tiny and silent, a phosphorescent worm cutting through the dark landscape at a tremendous pace. There was no other movement to be seen. They were suspended outside the real world, and this could be any time, any place, ever. Anne felt so thrilled, she wanted to jump in the air and shout, turn cartwheels on the roof of the boat, fly with the heron over the frosty fields. Instead, she took hold of Marnie’s hand on the tiller in both of her hands, squeezed and smiled broadly into her face. Marnie smiled back and nodded, knowing. She had been through these feelings herself many times on Sally Ann during her journeys, especially when setting out on the first stage. She understood.

  *

  Forty minutes after setting off, they passed under the strange, ecclesiastical stonework of Solomon’s Bridge, bringing a formal elegance to the functional beauty of the canal, and entered the village of Cosgrove. Anne stepped down into the cabin and turned off the headlamp.

  “After the lock at the other end of the village, there are no more until we’ve gone round Milton Keynes,” said Marnie, dropping speed as they approached the first moored boats. “Watch out for ice or frost by the lock and only open one gate, on the left. Take it slowly.”

  The lock was in their favour and the gate ajar, so that Anne’s task was easy and Marnie brought Sally Ann through the narrow space and dropped a rope around a bollard to steady her against the side. Anne concentrated to keep her footing on the raised ribs as she pushed the gate shut, leaning the small of her back against the balance beam. The gate paddles turned easily and she crossed the lock without mishap, carefully holding the handrail on the top of the gates. While Sally descended in the lock chamber, Anne read the notice board for news of any sudden unannounced closures ahead. It was all clear. She put her full weight on the beam to tug the gate open a
nd close it again after Sally had exited, and she stepped onto the aft deck a few metres along the towpath.

  “Perfect,” said Marnie, accelerating to half speed past the line of boats huddling at the bank.

  “Of course,” said Anne, checking her watch. She went down and entered the time on the log. “Coffee now or in half an hour?”

  “Let’s get through Wolverton, unless you need one after your exertions?”

  “No. Wolverton will be soon enough for me. Marnie, what’s that funny rattling sound?” They cocked their heads on one side.

  “The mobile!” said Marnie. Anne fetched it from the chart table in the cabin.

  “Walker and Co, good morning … Hallo, Ralph … Yes, we are … Let me transfer you to the skipper on the bridge. See you soon!” She handed the phone to Marnie, who gave the tiller to Anne while she chatted. They picked up speed as they left the moored boats behind and floated over the river Great Ouse on the Iron Trunk aqueduct, looking down on the reeds swaying in the shallow water forty feet below them. Marnie pressed the ‘stop’ button on the mobile and slipped it into her pocket.

  “It’s good to feel safe up here,” said Anne, looking back at the aqueduct.

  “I’m glad you think that,” said Marnie cheerfully.

  “Why are you glad?” A hint of suspicion.

  “I seem to remember reading that the first aqueduct collapsed,” said Marnie.

  “Very comforting,” said Anne. “I think I’ll go below and put the kettle on.”

  “Don’t look so worried. That was a long time ago. It’s fine now. Anne? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m not really worried.” She shrugged. “Anyway, we’re over it now, but I think I will go and put the kettle on.” She turned to open the doors.

  “Fine,” said Marnie. But she wondered if it was fine. Anne had looked vague and off-colour and it surely had nothing to do with the aqueduct that they had crossed many times before.

  *

  “That smells good,” said Marnie, taking the mug of coffee from the tray. “Biscuits, too! Is that allowed?”

  “To keep our strength up,” said Anne. “We use up much more energy in cold weather just to stay warm. I did it in a human biology project at school.”

  “Of course.” Marnie sipped the coffee and took a biscuit. It was broad daylight now, overcast but bright, with scarcely any breeze. “You’d never think this was Milton Keynes, would you?” The countryside around them was heavily wooded, steep banks rising up from the canal on both sides.

  “What did Ralph have to say?” said Anne. “Or was it private?”

  “Just a few details about the Christmas arrangements.” She was not going to say that he had wanted to talk about presents for Anne. “Oh, yes, he also invited me to a carol service. He’s been able to get two tickets.”

  “Tickets for a carol service?” said Anne. “I thought the churches were so keen to get people in they’d stack them in heaps to get a good congregation.”

  “It’s the parliamentary service at St Margaret’s Westminster. Usually just for MPs and their families.” She lined Sally up for a narrow bridge, after which they found themselves cruising behind neat gardens sloping down to the water’s edge.

  “When’s the service?”

  “On the Monday before Christmas, just before the recess.”

  “We should be there in good time.”

  “He said he was sorry he could only get two tickets. They’re always hard to come by.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” said Anne. “I’ll have plenty to do to keep me occupied.” She clutched the steaming mug of coffee to her chest with both hands and looked at the trees and the gardens. In one of the houses someone had already put up electric candle lights at a window. “You know, Marnie, I think this is going to be a really memorable Christmas.”

  4

  Saturday 10 – Sunday 11 December

  As winter journeys go, it was a good one. They met few other craft and chugged without hindrance through the sleeping countryside. They may not have had many glimpses of the sun, but neither did they have to suffer rain or wind. There were no queues at the locks and, even though they had no fellow travellers to engage in conversation or share the operation of gates and paddles, they had plenty to talk about between themselves, and progressed in easy companionship. In the months that they had lived together, they had become as close as sisters.

  From sunrise to sunset they journeyed on without stopping, taking turns at the tiller and at preparing refreshment. They had meals on the go, lunch usually a mug of soup and a sandwich, hands clasped round the mug to warm them up. The temperature stayed a few degrees above zero in the daylight hours and they ran the heating system on the lowest setting to maintain the level in the cabin. With two full gas bottles at the start, they had no worries about running out of fuel. Sally Ann was as well prepared for her winter journey as any boat could be, and Marnie felt glad to have Anne as her companion, knowing that she could depend on her in any situation.

  They had planned the itinerary with their habitual thoroughness and Anne had drawn up a list of stop-overs where they could moor for the night, each one corresponding with a waterside pub where they would have an evening meal while the cabin warmed up. At two of the pubs, owned by Willards, Marnie had designed the interior decor and they were greeted like old friends, spending the evening chatting with the manager and locals beside a log fire. Anne would leave two small lights glowing on Sally Ann, so that the boat was welcoming when they made the short trip back to the mooring through the crisp night air.

  A few days into their journey, the temperature took a sudden dive and hoar frost clung to the boughs of trees while the reeds and rushes froze at the margins. The sun came out for a few hours and bleached the landscape, reflecting off the chilled branches, breathing a misty haze all around. The canal, the land and the sky merged into one opaque non-colour and Marnie and Anne stamped their feet on the deck in a vain attempt to keep out the icy cold. By late afternoon as the daylight ebbed away in the west and the sky turned pink, they decided to warm up the cabin with the fan heater. Anne lugged the generator onto the deck and connected it to the mains socket in the bulkhead. It came to life after two or three tugs on the starter cord and settled to its running speed, noticeably smoother than Sally Ann’s old twin cylinder diesel engine. Anne went down into the cabin to switch on the heater and was gone some time. Marnie expected that she would re-appear on deck clutching mugs of something steaming. After several minutes had passed, she pulled open one of the cabin doors and looked in. Anne was sitting in the saloon, head in hands, elbows on the table.

  They were motoring in a long pound of about six miles between locks. Up ahead, they would make it through one last lock before a short stretch of two miles or so until they reached the pub where they would tie up for the night. A narrow bridge on an awkward bend took all Marnie’s attention and she reached into the cabin to switch on the headlamp as a warning to any oncoming craft. As chance would have it, this time there was another boat, a broad-beamed Dutch barge already lined up for the bridge hole with no scope for manoeuvre. Marnie quickly raised a hand to re-assure the steerer on the barge and fell on the gear lever and throttle to halt Sally Ann and reverse her away from the bridge. In the commotion, Anne came quietly back on deck and stood at the side ready with the pole to fend off from the bank if they got caught on mud in shallow water.

  The barge slid through the bridge hole with only centimetres to spare on either side and passed with engine growling and a wave of thanks from the steerer’s cab. Marnie checked the approach and made a second run at the bridge, this time without hindrance, and Anne laid the pole back in place on the cabin roof.

  “Just what we didn’t need,” said Marnie, straightening up and gathering speed. She looked at her watch and up at the sky. “A quarter of an hour of light if we’re lucky. How far to our last lock?”

  Anne checked the number of the bridge in the cruising guide and ran her finge
r down the map. “Should be less than half a mile, I reckon.”

  “It’ll be dark for locking through,” said Marnie.

  “But if there’s been no other traffic, the lock’ll be set in our favour after the barge,” said Anne.

  “True. We can decide what to do when we reach it.”

  Five minutes later they saw the black and white balance beams of the lock gates ahead of them and the gates had swung partly open in the still water after the barge had gone through. The lock seemed to be inviting them in. Marnie picked up the windlass from the corner of the deck and offered the tiller to Anne.

  “D’you mind if I do the locking? I’ve got stiff with standing on deck and the exercise will warm me up.” She leapt ashore and jogged fifty metres along the towpath, leaving frosty footprints in the grass, before putting her weight against the nearest beam to pull one gate fully open. She waved Anne forward and the girl brought Sally Ann gently through the water and into the lock chamber, passing up a rope for Marnie to slip round a bollard. It felt good to be moving her limbs, and Marnie relished pulling the gates shut and turning the lock paddles with the windlass. She perched on the edge of a balance beam while the water rushed in and brought the boat up to the next level, and while she waited, she thought about Anne who stood on the deck with one hand resting on the tiller, the other holding the rope to steady the boat in the swirling water.

  It was dark when they drew up at the pub’s mooring and there were no other boats in sight. They tied up and switched off the diesel, leaving only the gentle hum from the generator still running at the back of the deck. As usual, they sat in the cabin, now pleasantly warmed by the fan heater, and drank coffee while they planned the next day’s journey. They sat in the saloon in sweaters and boots, poring over the cruising guide and map like submariners on a mission.