Death in Little Venice

by Leo McNeir

  “I don’t know. I just don’t like to take any chances. You never know.”

  Anne looked at the stack of timber. “You see this tarpaulin, Marnie? It’s very big, big enough to cover the car.”

  Marnie grimaced. “It’s also very dirty. Filthy, in fact.”

  “So no good?”

  “Ideal, I’d say. Come on, let’s get a couple of blankets from the boat.”

  They returned with a sheet and a blanket that they used to cover the MG. Next, they pulled the tarpaulin away from the timber and draped it carefully on top of the car, covering every part of it so that it was unrecognisable.

  “What now?” Anne said.

  “What do you think? Look at the pair of us dressed up like stalwarts of the British tradition. There’s only one thing for it. We must have a cup of tea.”

  Anne laughed, and they turned towards Rumpole with a spring in their step.

  *

  Tuesday 10 January – afternoon

  Lunch had been simple fare, cheese sandwiches and coffee. Afterwards, they settled down to study the briefing papers that Philip had given them that morning. Business was obviously thriving, and Marnie was pleased at the prospect of keeping up the connection with her old firm as an outside consultant.

  When they had worked for nearly two hours, Marnie got up and checked the store cupboard. She took out a box of pasta, a jar of olives and a tin of tomatoes with garlic and herbs. Anne volunteered to buy fresh salad, bread and yoghurts. They decided to go together while it was still light, dividing their efforts once they had crossed the bridge by the pool of Little Venice. While Anne headed for the shops, Marnie went to a call box and phoned Ray Curtis.

  “Philip Everett told me to expect you,” he said in a pleasant London accent. “How can I help?”

  “Well, I’m really trying to find out as much as I can about Tim Edmonds. I don’t know if Philip mentioned it, but I was the one who found his body in the canal.”

  “Yes. He did say that. What do you want to know?”

  “To be honest, I’m not actually sure. I just want to find out about him, his friends, his contacts, associates, allies, enemies, anything.” There was a silence at the other end of the line. “I’m not sure if there’s anything you could add to what I already know. I suppose I’m clutching at straws. But I think I ought to tell you that the police have been treating me as if I were a suspect, and frankly I don’t like it.”

  “No, of course not. I’d like to help, certainly I would.”

  “But there’s nothing you can tell me. I do understand.”

  “Look, I think there is something I can do, but it’s not the sort of thing to talk about on the phone.”

  “No. I’m in a call box.”

  “I don’t mean like that. I mean, there is some way I might be able to help, but we’d have to meet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would you be free the day after tomorrow, Thursday evening some time?”

  “I could be, yes.”

  “Where can I find you?”

  “Give me a place to meet and I’ll come there.”

  “All right. Fulham Broadway tube station. Eight o’clock?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll be in a red Mondeo estate, parked in the side street facing you directly opposite the exit.”

  “I’ll find you.”

  “I’ll give you my mobile number in case you have any problems.”

  Marnie took down the number. “Thanks. We'll look forward to seeing you, then.”

  “We?”

  “Yes. My friend Anne and I. She works with me. We’re in London together for a few days.” There was no reply. Marnie filled the silence: “I call her Anne with an ‘e’. It’s a sort of nickname.”

  “Sorry, Marnie, no extras. It'll be tricky enough as it is. I can only take one. Even then I’m chancing it a bit.”

  “Tricky? How will it be tricky?”

  “I can’t say. You’ll just have to trust me, I’m afraid.”

  Trust, Marnie thought. I haven’t got much of that in the store cupboard these days. “So no Anne?”

  “Sorry. Definitely no Anne, with or without an 'e'.”

  *

  Marnie walked round towards the shops to meet Anne, keeping her expression as calm as possible.

  “Oh dear, what’s the matter?” Anne said as soon as they met. Marnie told her about the conversation on the phone. “He said you had to trust him?” Anne was incredulous. “After all you’ve been through? I shouldn’t think you could really trust anyone, apart from a handful of us.”

  “I doubt I could even spell the word.”

  19

  Wednesday 11 January – morning

  An early night had done her good. Marnie woke feeling refreshed after eight hours of sleep. Even the rumble of London traffic on the other side of the high wall had failed to disturb her in the night. She sat up in bed and parted the curtain with a finger. It was still dark but in the background light from the overhead motorway she could make out oily patterns on the surface of the canal. As always, she began thinking about the day ahead. She would spend some more time that morning going over the schemes for Philip and talking them through with Anne. They would both enjoy that. Later there would be tea at the Ritz with famous friends. They would certainly enjoy that. And later … She tried to put out of her head the events planned for later in the week. That was the part she was less likely to enjoy, at least in anticipation. She felt a tingle of anxiety and wondered about calling off Thursday’s meeting with Ray Curtis.

  “Marnie?” Anne was calling from her cabin.

  Marnie thought: She can probably hear my brain working. She’s got radar, that girl. She called out, “Yes. I’m awake.”

  Anne came through in her dressing gown. “Are we going to be very busy this morning?”

  *

  While Rumpole’s engine warmed up, Marnie walked along to check the MG under its camouflage. All was well. On the way back to the boat she looked up at the sky, now turning a lighter shade of grey. Anne had specially wanted to see dawn come up as they travelled along the canal through Little Venice. She had tactfully suggested taking the arm towards Paddington, but Marnie had opted for a run in the opposite direction through Regent’s Park. It was a prettier route, she had said, with gardens running down to the edge on one side and then the zoo to left and right of them all the way to the turn for Camden Locks by the Chinese pagoda restaurant. She had not mentioned the Cumberland Road Bridge, the famous, now infamous, ‘blow-up bridge’ where she had found the body.

  Marnie untied the mooring ropes and pushed the boat away from the side, letting Anne take the tiller. Rumpole pulled smoothly through the murky water under the last bridge and into the pool of Little Venice. On their left the waterbuses were at rest, lining the bank in their maroon and cream livery. Ahead of them was Browning Island, with the main line of the canal crossing from left to right behind it.

  “Are you sure about Regent’s Park, Marnie? It’s not too late to change your mind.” There were clouds of condensation from her breath as she spoke.

  Marnie tried to sound more chirpy than she felt. “Come right full rudder, number one. Half speed ahead. Go easy by the bend under the bridge.”

  “Aye aye, skipper,” Anne said, playing along. Marnie set off on the gunwale to the bows to check that all was clear up ahead as they approached the blind corner. She gave Anne a thumbs-up, and they accelerated round into the arm leading down to the Maida Hill tunnel and on towards the park.

  Both sides of the canal were lined with brightly painted narrowboats, attractive in the dappled street lighting that flickered between the trees on either bank. This was where Marnie had first kept Sally Ann and where she still had friends. They cruised by Mrs Jolly’s house before entering the tunnel entrance below the café where she had eaten with Malcolm, and soon found themselves gliding under road and train bridges to enter Regent’s Park, with the sky now perceptibly brightening by the minute.
/>   “This is beautiful,” Anne said. “How far shall we go?”

  “How about down to the pagoda and back? That should make a nice run. About half an hour.”

  “Okay. And breakfast? Could we tie up somewhere in the park?”

  “I think, strictly speaking, that isn’t allowed, but I don’t see anyone around to stop us.”

  “Great.” Anne steered a straight course down the middle of the canal through the zoo, where the kudus looked down on them from their compound and unfamiliar foreign birds preened themselves on high branches in the aviary. “This makes a change from the sheep and herons back home,” Anne laughed. “It’s all so exotic for a narrowboat on the canal. Everything’s usually so ordinary and English.” Marnie let Anne stay at the tiller for the turning manoeuvre by the pagoda, waving her friend on from the bows, glad to see her enjoying herself so much. Privately, she was thinking – but not always so ordinary.

  After making the turn, Anne asked if Marnie was ready for breakfast and where they should stop. By now the sky was bright and it was almost full daylight. Marnie suggested tying up in the zoo for the novelty of the occasion, and Anne offered her the tiller while she went below to make a start on breakfast. Alone at the helm, Marnie could not help but think back to the last time she had travelled that way. Some distance ahead she could see the bridge where it had all happened and she knew she should pull in to the side and moor, but something compelled her to keep going. She wondered if it was a kind of exorcism, to return and find it as it had always been, just a bridge standing high up over the water. Twice now it had been a scene of tragedy. Once when the explosion had occurred in 1874 that gave the bridge its nickname, and now the death of Tim Edmonds. Marnie was surprised to find herself slowing down as she neared it.

  Anne emerged from below. “The kettle won’t be long. I’ve put the croissants in the oven.” She noticed where they were. “Oh, isn’t this where …?” she began slowly.

  “Just down there,” Marnie said simply.

  “Are we moving on a bit further, then?”

  “I suppose so. I wanted to … I don’t know, actually, what I wanted. It just seemed a pity that every time I came this way, I’d have that hanging over me. I hoped I might be able to get it laid to rest. Can you understand that, Anne?”

  “Absolutely, I can. When we came by on the way out, I just tried not to think about it.”

  “Me too. But it was somehow different going that way. Coming back I saw the bridge from the direction I was going on that journey. It brought it all back. It’s such a pretty place. I found myself resenting Tim Edmonds for spoiling it. As if it was his fault. Mind you, it has painful associations of its own, of course. That’s why it’s called the ‘blow-up bridge’.”

  “It was an accident, wasn’t it?” Anne said. “I read about it in the cruising guide. Wasn’t it a munitions boat exploded and killed the crew and a boy who was walking on the towpath?”

  “Yes. Over a hundred years ago. They re-erected the bridge and turned the columns round to even out the wear. You see the grooves on the water side? They were from when the columns were the other way round.”

  “So this place has its own ghosts from way back,” Anne said quietly. “Was the zoo here then, or did it come later?”

  “It was here. In fact, I seem to remember reading that some of the animals had nervous breakdowns because of the noise of the blast. The elephants, I think it was.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I don’t feel very jokey in this place, Anne.”

  “Why don’t we go on a bit further, then?”

  “Sorry. Am I being spooky? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I was thinking it would be nicer for you. For me it’s just a pretty place.”

  “Then let’s stay here for breakfast and lay my ghost to rest once and for all. Is that all right by you?”

  “Sure. Let’s be practical. Shall I make mugs of coffee or a whole pot?”

  Marnie smiled. “You’re indomitable. Let’s have a pot to warm us up.”

  “You’re on.” Anne went down to the galley leaving Marnie to make the boat secure against the bank.

  On the towpath, Marnie went over the events of that evening. She found she was calmer now than she had expected. The sighting of the body, the desperate ringing of ‘999’, the bitter cold of the water and the sheer weight of the man that she could not lift out, all these came back to her. She could see him clearly again in her mind. Walking along the towpath, she tried to recall the state of the bank. Had it been slippery with ice or frost? It had been close to freezing as night came down. She wanted to believe that it had been an accident, that the MP, perhaps a little befuddled by one or two Christmas drinks too many, had just slipped at the edge in the semi-darkness and caught his head on the column, knocking himself out so that he had drowned while still unconscious. He was a fit man, and no trace had been found of any other cause of death. She suddenly saw Malcolm Grant sobbing silently alone in the back pew of St Margaret’s church at that carol service, while the Great and the Good filed out, basking in recognition and looking forward to the recess. Those were sincere tears. Of that she had no doubt. And she knew she herself was innocent of any suspicion.

  At that moment she knew with complete certainty that it really had been an accident. That was why the police had not been able to arrest anyone. That was why the coroner had recorded an open verdict. There was no evidence of ‘foul play’ on which to make a case. Foul play. How the British see the world! A set of rules laid down by men in striped blazers. The Establishment. Men like Tim Edmonds and Malcolm Grant, soon to be Lord Grant of Somewhere. He would probably take a title from his part of the country, the Lake District. Lord Grant of … Cumberland … Cumberland Road Bridge. Marnie realised she was rambling and refocused her thoughts. An accident, yes. That’s what it was. A wave of relief swept over her, and she was glad she had come back to this place, glad she was here with Anne. For all its bad memories, it would always now be just the scene of a sad accident, the place where a promising career had been cut short as it was about to take off again.

  Marnie stepped back onto the counter, the small platform for the steerer on Rumpole, and called down to Anne. “How’s it going?”

  “Won’t be a minute,” came the reply.

  Marnie felt a reluctance to go below, enjoying the sharp wintry air. It promised to be a bright day, and she had the feeling that it would be a new start, another small new start in a life that had become a series of new beginnings. She was happy that she had left the firm and branched out, happy that she had found Anne, happy that she had Ralph. These positive thoughts helped her cope with the less pleasing sides of her life, the death of Toni Petrie last summer, her own near fatal brush with murder, the finding of the body here, the blowing up of her car. The blowing up of her car! Where did that fit into her surmising?

  Anne’s face appeared in the hatch. “Are you ready? I’ve laid the table. It’s looking nice. Marnie, what’s happened? You look somehow different. Have you laid your ghost to rest?”

  “I think maybe I have.”

  “That’s wonderful. And isn’t it a lovely day? We’ve got a real treat this afternoon, too.” Her smile was wide and joyous.

  “You know, Anne, you make things pretty wonderful yourself. You’re a tower of strength to me.”

  “Blimey! What brought that on? I’ve only made a pot of coffee and warmed up some croissants!”

  “And I suspect you’ve made a list of everything we have to do today.”

  “You bet! It’s almost too good to go inside this morning, isn’t it? Shall I bring the coffee and things up here?”

  “Why not? We can go in if it gets too cold. Good idea, number one.”

  “Aye aye.” She vanished from sight.

  Marnie had noticed that in the time they had been tied up no-one had come by, but now one or two joggers were trotting past, headsets on as they listened to music or the morning news. Glan
cing towards the opposite bank, a movement caught her eye. In the dark under the bridge was a clutter of pallets with covers like tarpaulins. More careful inspection revealed them to be blankets, and from one of them someone was standing up. From instinct, perhaps the traditional greeting of the boater, Marnie raised her hand. The man, for man it was, stopped and stared across the water at her. He made no other move, but simply looked over towards her.

  Just then, Anne came up holding the coffee pot in one hand and two mugs in the other. She followed Marnie’s stare and saw the man. She spoke softly to Marnie. “Is that one of the famous tramps we heard about?”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Do you think he was here when, you know?”

  “When Tim Edmonds had his accident?” Marnie said. “Who knows?”

  Without warning, Anne called out: “Hallo!” Marnie jumped in surprise. She was even more surprised when the tramp nodded back.

  “Good morning,” she said. The man mumbled something indistinct, but not unfriendly. “Anne, can you untie us? We’re going on a visit.”

  *

  Afterwards, Marnie could never quite work out what had prompted her to take the boat to the other side of the canal to talk to the tramp. She guessed it was probably part of her need to bring the episode of Tim Edmonds to a close. The tramp might have been able to help, she had thought. As things turned out, he had been a greater help than she could have imagined. At closer range, the man looked as if he could be any age from forty to sixty. Not surprisingly, it had been Anne who had broken the metaphorical ice once they had crossed to the other side of the cut. She had walked along the gunwale and spoken to him.

  “Hallo. I’m Anne. My friend’s called Marnie.” The man squinted at her and eyed the coffee pot on the hatch.

  “Would you like some breakfast?” Marnie said.

  “Breakfast? I don’t know when I last ’ad breakfast, not proper breakfast.”

  “How about coffee, a croissant, toast with butter and marmalade?” Anne went below.

  “Anythin’ in the coffee?” the tramp said.