by Leo McNeir
Of one thing she was certain. She would never let Anne see them. As for the rest, she needed time to think.
*
Anne tried to explore the contents of the cabinet without making a sound. It was surprisingly full, and she thought most of the things must have belonged to the boat’s real owner. Moving a bottle of herbal remedy, she dislodged some sachets of cold relief powders and they fell to the floor. She left them while she studied the labels on the bottles. The prescription remedies carried the patient’s name and a date, and several were for a Mr P. Catesby or a Mrs S. Catesby. There were some homeopathic medicines, including a bottle of echinacea on the top shelf, which might help his immune system if there was nothing stronger to be found. She reached up and took it down. There were other bottles behind it, and she studied the labels to see if there was anything she recognised.
*
Marnie desperately needed someone to consult about the photos, the one person in the world who conformed to her needs. She was on the point of hanging up when Ralph answered his mobile.
“You caught me in the shower,” he confessed.
“Are you able to talk?”
“And stand dripping on the carpet? Of course. I’m a very talented –”
“Ralph, listen.” A serious edge to her voice stopped him in full flow. “I need your advice.” She explained about the photos. “I don’t know what to do for the best.”
“You want to protect Anne,” he said.
“Yes, but part of me doesn’t want him to get away with this.”
“No. Tricky. Would you like me to talk to him?”
“What would you say?”
“First, I’d warn him about ever doing anything like that again. Then I’d find out if he had any more and demand that he hand them over for us to destroy.”
“It makes me so angry,” Marnie said. “After all we’ve done for him, especially Anne, risking her neck for him in London. God knows what might’ve happened to her.”
“Where is she now?”
“That’s just it. She’s on his boat trying to find something to help him feel better. How ironic when he’s betrayed her. You know, I could really –”
“Marnie, listen. All this revenge business can get out of hand. The best thing is simply to try to sort out the problem. He’ll be out of our lives by tomorrow. I’ll talk to him.”
“Yes. You’re right. I knew you’d be sensible about it.”
“Sensible sounds dull.”
“It sounds dependable,” said Marnie. “And that’s what I need right now. Your approach is best. Above all, I don’t want Anne to suffer any more distress.” Marnie said goodbye and disconnected.
“Marnie there’s something I –” said Anne, entering the cabin. She stopped in mid-flight. “Distress about what?
Marnie turned so sharply that she cricked her neck and dropped the folder of photographs on the table. Anne rushed forward.
“Sorry, Marnie. I didn’t mean to startle you like that. Are you okay?”
Marnie rubbed her neck, turning her head slowly from side to side, a pained expression on her face. “Apart from a broken neck, I’m wonderful.”
“What were you talking about then? And who to?”
Marnie sat down. “Ralph. Look, I need time to think about something that’s come up. It’s complicated. We can talk about it later.”
“Was it about you and Ralph ... something that would upset me?”
“No. Nothing to do with Ralph and me. Don’t worry about it.”
Anne’s eyes strayed to the folder on the table. She picked it up and glanced inside. Marnie looked up quickly and had another spasm in her neck. “Ow!”
“What’s this?” Anne said.
“You mustn’t look. They’re private.”
Anne was bewildered. “Why not? Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not like that, Anne.”
“What is it, then? I’m your very best friend. You can trust me with anything, Marnie. There’s nothing I can’t handle.”
*
Anthony rolled onto his back. The headache was getting worse. Much worse. He tried sitting up and felt dizzy. If he could take some codeine, he might just get it under control. Then he realised that something had disturbed him. There had been a sound in the distance, a long way away in his dreams, but close at hand in reality. Something had fallen. There had been movement on the boat, barely audible, but enough to stir him.
He stood up awkwardly and plodded towards the galley. Passing the shower room, he noticed some sachets of Lemsip on the floor. Someone had been on board. Someone had been in the medicine cabinet.
He staggered to the galley and found the box of codeine in a drawer, quickly taking two tablets with water. Unsteadily, he went back to the shower room and opened the cabinet door.
*
Anne sat in the galley, staring at the photos. She had spread them all out on the table to examine them clearly. Tears were running down her cheeks. Marnie took her hand.
“That’s why I didn’t want you to see them, Anne,” she said gently. “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”
Anne’s voice was surprisingly firm and calm. “I’m not hurt. I’m not upset by the photos, not just upset. These are tears of anger.”
“I’m so sorry, darling.”
“So am I. I’m sorry that we ever helped him. I’m glad we did something for Marlene and the others. And for Melissa. I’m glad your plan worked out. But I’m sorry he benefited from it.”
Marnie passed her a tissue. Anne wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Ralph’s coming over. He’s going to talk to Anthony when he gets up. The best thing is for him to go away and never come back. He must leave as soon as he’s well enough to drive the boat.”
“I don’t want to see him again, Marnie.”
“No. Nor do I.”
“What will we say to Randall and Angela and everyone else who joined in with us?”
“I’m not sure. My mind’s still confused.”
“The truth is best,” said Anne. “Even when it hurts.”
Marnie got up, filled with emotion for her friend. “There’s only one thing for it.”
Anne nodded and smiled grimly. “Yes. I’ll have a spoon of sugar in mine, to help with the shock.”
Marnie put the kettle on the stove and lit the gas. When she put the teacups and saucers on the table, Anne left the photographs where they were. They had barely taken a sip of the hot tea when they heard a footfall on the stern deck and knew that Ralph had arrived.
“Hallo.” The voice, though weary and subdued, made them both start, wide-eyed. It was Anthony. “Anybody home?”
He came into the galley looking far from well. His face was pale and drawn, his skin greying and damp. He looked at them sitting at the table and attempted a smile, seeming not to notice their reaction.
“This looks cosy,” he said faintly. “Kept the British Empire going, tea did. Made us what we are.”
He took two steps forward and for a long moment stared down as if his eyes were not focusing. Then, realisation struck him in the face. He saw the pictures, saw Anne’s innocent bath time turned into a sordid peepshow. He swayed where he stood and steadied himself against the empty chair.
“I know this must look bad ...”
Anne drew breath audibly but said nothing. Marnie was struggling to keep control of herself. She wanted to strangle him. Slowly. Anthony pulled the chair out and sat down.
“I’m sorry. It was a moment of weakness. I shouldn’t have done it, I know. But she looked so ... I mean, in those wet clothes. Women don’t realise ...”
“Anthony, she was shivering with cold and discomfort trying to help you.” Marnie’s voice was even colder. “And you abused her. She wasn’t taking part in some wet T-shirt competition to titivate boys at the seaside. She was soaked to the skin on account of protecting you.”
“There was no real harm done, Marnie
,” he pleaded.
“You don’t think Anne feels cheapened by this?”
“She was never meant to see them. Nor were you. Nobody was. If you hadn’t gone through my things –”
“I was going to do your washing for you. That’s all it was.”
He lowered his face, even paler than when he had come in. “What are you going to do?”
“I feel like telling the whole world about you,” Marnie said very quietly, not trusting herself to use her normal voice. “What kind of person you really are. I feel like phoning the police. I’m sure this is illegal.”
“But you won’t do that, will you? That would only hurt Anne.”
Most women don’t have the guts ... Marnie heard the words, his words, at the back of her mind. Yesterday she had let it pass, but now she realised that men like him counted on it. And most often, they were right.
Most women don’t have the guts ... Anne heard Anthony’s words echoing in her brain.
“Tell me something,” Marnie said. “How did you get these photos? Where did you take them?”
Anthony spoke without looking up. “In the airing cupboard, a sort of hiding place.”
“Is there a hole in the wall or something?”
“Nothing so complicated. There’s a built-in wall mirror, Victorian. Some of the silver backing has worn away from the glass. With the door closed and the cupboard in darkness, no-one in the bathroom would ever know it’s there. I found it by chance one day. I didn’t make it on purpose.”
“What did you use it for?”
Anthony shrugged. “Haven’t you heard of sex games?”
Marnie looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. You took clandestine pictures of your wife in the bathroom?”
There was no reply.
“Au pairs,” Anne said quietly. “It was in the papers.”
“Au pairs,” Marnie repeated. “You used your hiding place to take nude photos of young women, guests in your house. Did your wife find out? Is that why she killed herself? Was it just one step too far – getting up to your sordid little games and then leaving her to face the music, so she took her own life?”
“No!” he protested. “It wasn’t like that. Not at all. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Oh no, I haven’t,” Marnie was raising her voice.
“Yes you have, Marnie,” said Anne in a whisper. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
Marnie stared at her. “What do you mean? Are you defending him? I ... I don’t understand.”
“I’m not defending him, Marnie. But I am agreeing with him.”
Anthony looked up. He was gaunt and hollow-cheeked. “You understand?” he murmured. “It isn’t easy. It’s like a sickness.”
Marnie said, ”I’m totally bewildered here. What are you saying, Anne? That Anthony has some kind of psychological illness that makes him take nude photos of girls?”
“I don’t know about that,” Anne said. “You asked if that was why Melissa killed herself. I’m saying that she didn’t take her own life.”
“What?”
“She was murdered.”
“Murdered? I don’t think I heard you right.”
“Ask Anthony if he denies it.”
Anthony looked bemused and wary at this new direction, as if he had little idea what was happening around him.
Marnie said, “Anthony, what’s going on?”
He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “You tell me. It’s Anne who’s making the wild accusations. I think she must be in a state of shock.”
“She’s not alone,” said Marnie. “But she’s also not a fool.”
“Maybe not, but she has no proof to back up what she says. She can’t have. There is none.”
Marnie said, “When people say that, it makes me think they’ve lost the argument. What do you know, Anne?”
“He’s got to tell you himself. I’m sick of playing games.”
Anthony put his head in his hands. “All right. I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll tell you everything.” He pointed at the photos. “Do we have to have these here?”
Anne gathered them together and put them back in the folder.
Anthony began. “It was after she was on the radio. I had to speak to her.”
“And Ralph lent you his mobile,” Marnie said.
“Yes. I used it to fix a time to go down.”
“Go down? How did you go down? We thought you were here all the time.”
“We didn’t see him every day, Marnie.”
“Marnie, Anne ... can I just tell the story without interruptions and questions the whole time? It’s bad enough talking about –”
“Okay, okay. Go ahead. No interruptions.”
“I got the early bus into town and caught the train to London. I wore a baseball cap that I found on the boat and dark glasses. No-one recognised me. When I got home, Melissa was very strange. I put it down to the stress of it all and the effect of taking sleeping pills. She often did. Suddenly, when I went to put my arms round her, she pushed me away and started screaming. I told her I’d had a kind of breakdown and I was sorry I’d run away. But this was something different.”
Anthony touched the teapot. “Is there any chance of ...” Marnie poured him a cup, and he began again as he stirred the tea.
“Melissa ran upstairs, still yelling at me, calling me all sorts of names. I followed her up and saw the airing cupboard door standing open. It’s a walk-in cupboard like a small room. Melissa said she’d gone in one evening to fetch a clean towel when the light was on in the bathroom. She’d discovered the place where you could see through. She’d found the camera and a box of photos hidden behind towels and sheets. She went ballistic.”
He sipped the tea, reliving the scene in his mind.
“She said she would’ve stood by me over Marlene. She was convinced that was entrapment, and there was nothing in it. But after seeing the other photos, she could never forgive me for leaving her to face everything alone. I asked her what she was going to do, begged her to stick by me until the story had blown over. Then we could make a fresh start, put it all behind us.” He shook his head. “She laughed at me, except it wasn’t real laughter. It was hysterics. She wouldn’t stop. She screamed that she was going to tell everyone the truth, go to the press, make statements to the media, get a divorce. I told her it would ruin me, my whole career. She said she was glad. I deserved it.”
He closed his eyes and sat quietly. Marnie glanced at Anne who was looking down at her cup. Eventually, Anthony took a sip of tea.
“I simply wanted to quieten her for her own good. If she could just calm down, she’d feel better and get things in proportion again. I wanted her to see that there was no sense in throwing everything away for the sake of a few pictures. It was crazy. After a time she seemed to have exhausted herself, and I got her to sit down. She was in quite a state, rambling and muttering to herself. I urged her to take one of her pills. I found one left in the bottle in the bathroom cabinet. And I got her a drink, just a small whisky. I made her promise to think it over before doing anything else, told her we’d talk about it again when she felt calmer. She said she would. That was my one comfort, the thought that we could have sorted things out together, as we always had in the past.”
He put his head in his hands and sobbed quietly. Marnie wished Anne could have been spared all this, but was surprised to see that Anne seemed lost in her own private thoughts. And where was Ralph?
Anne broke the silence. “Just one pill? That wouldn’t do any harm.”
Anthony rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “After I left, Melissa must’ve found another bottle of pills. I didn’t know she had any more. I thought things were going to be all right. That’s why it was such a shock.”
“What happened to the photos that Melissa had found?” Marnie said.
“I destroyed them. If the police had ever got hold of them, they’d have become public. I’d have been ruined.”
“And after she died, you didn’t
think of telling the police what had happened ... the truth?”
Anthony sighed. “No. It was all too much. What could I have said? It seemed easier just to end it all and have done with it. A bottle of whisky and a bottle of sleeping pills seemed to be the best way out. If you hadn’t stepped in when you did, Marnie, you and Simon.”
Marnie frowned. Something was going round in her mind. Doctor Siddiqui in the ITU ... what had she said? The tablets. They were for depression, not sleeping pills. He may not have drunk enough alcohol and may not have taken enough tablets to kill himself. It could have been a cry for help, or an accident, or made to look like suicide.
“They weren’t sleeping pills,” Marnie said. “They were treatment for depression.”
“I was there, Marnie. They were my pills. I know what I took.”
“No. The doctor told us they were anti-depressants. And she said you didn’t drink enough to do real damage to yourself. It only looked like a suicide attempt.”
“Look,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. When you’re in the state I was in, you don’t care about minor details. You grab what you think will do the job. Believe me, Marnie, one bottle of pills is very like another.”
Suddenly, Anne stood up and leaned against the workbench. “No they’re not.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Anthony said. “I took what I thought would do it. I was in shock. I tried to kill myself. You all saw me. There was no faking involved.”
“I didn’t mean those pills,” Anne said. ”I don’t know anything about that. I meant the ones Melissa took.”
Marnie touched her arm. “How could you know about those, Anne?”
“I do.”
“Why do you think that?” said Marnie. “Did you see something in London, in the bathroom, perhaps?”
