Marnie (12 page)

‘Thanks, Mr Garrod.’

I soon calmed down. I suppose I might have asked what he was like, but I thought, I expect it’s that stable-boy from Mr Hinchley again, wanting to see if I’ve changed my mind about
selling Forio. Well, I haven’t. Nor ever will.

But when I stepped out of the farm I just took the precaution of looking about carefully. It was now half dark and there was no one about. I walked down the muddy path and along the short lane
to the main road. The bus was due in five minutes.

In the main road there were the sidelights of a car parked about twenty yards away. Just to be on the safe side I turned and walked the opposite way, and as I did so I bumped into a man who had
stepped out from the hedge.

‘Miss Elmer?’

It was Mark Rutland.

I don’t know what they felt like when they dropped the first atomic bomb, but a sort of Hiroshima happened to me then. He took my arm to stop me from falling.

‘Where are you staying? I’ll drive you home.’

We got to the car. Somehow I sat myself in the passenger’s seat. He slammed the door on me, and it was like the clang of a prison cell. My heart was using something
thicker than blood and it was clogging up my brain like dying. I thought it’s not happening, you’re making this up to scare yourself; this man doesn’t know Marnie Elmer, he only
knows Mary Taylor. Let him stay there. Let him bloody stay there.

He stuck the key in the ignition and switched on and started the engine.

‘Which way?’

God help me, it was the same car as the one Mary Taylor had been to the races in. There was the same scratch on the dashboard and the same indirect yellow lighting. Supplied by Berkeley Garages
Ltd., Hendon.

‘Which way?’

I wet my lips and tried to speak but there wasn’t any sound.

‘Cirencester?’ he said.

I nodded.

He started the car and we went off just ahead of the bus which was stopping to put someone down and which should have picked me up to take me back to the Old Crown. You know, that was the point
where the two lines crossed. That was the point where I wasn’t separate any longer from the girl I’d left yesterday. It was like dreaming a knife-stab and finding it was real.

We drove on, saying nothing.

As we got to the outskirts of the town he said:

‘Where do you live?’

‘The – Old Crown.’

‘Under what name?’

‘. . . Elmer.’

‘Is that your real name?’

I tried to say something but my tongue stuck. He said: ‘It’ll save time if you tell me the truth.’

I looked at his face in the light of a street lamp. He was wearing an old mack and his hair was damped down as if it had been wet. I wondered how long he’d stood there waiting.

‘Is Elmer your real name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Cardiff.’

‘Where is the money you stole?’

‘Some of it is here – in Cirencester.’

‘The rest?’

‘It’s safe enough.’

‘Not lost on the races yet, then?’

‘I don’t bet.’

‘Ha!’

‘It’s true!’

He didn’t speak then until we came into the square by the church. ‘Which is your hotel?’

‘On the corner over there.’

He drove across and stopped at the door. ‘I’ll come in with you while you get your things.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

He got out and opened the door of the car for me. I slid out. God, my knees were weak.

Mark went to the desk. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Elmer is my secretary and she has to cut her holiday short because of illness. Could you make out her bill, please? She’ll be leaving
right away.’

‘Certainly, sir. Well, she’s only just arrived so there’s really nothing to pay.’

‘I’ll come upstairs with you, Miss Elmer,’ he said as I started to move.

The receptionist raised her eyebrows, but nobody tried to stop him. I hated him for coming into my room because this was the one place where I’d been really myself. This was at the centre
of my
own
life, not anybody else’s. I didn’t see why he had to force his way in here.

He’d gone across to the window and was staring at the thirty-foot drop.

‘Where’s the money?’

‘In there.’

He picked up the attaché case, opened it to look inside, snapped it shut. ‘I’ll take this and wait in the corridor. I’ll give you ten minutes.’

I could have done it in five but I took fifteen. I was like someone coming round after being thrown on their head. I had to take my time.

I was in the completest hole ever. I had always thought, if I’m caught as Mary Taylor or Mollie Jeffrey, that’s not me. Even if I go to prison for it, that’s not me. With luck
I could keep them from ever knowing who I really was. I might have been able to write a note to Mother saying I was going abroad or something, keep up a sham until I came out. But there was no sham
here. By some foul swivel-eyed piece of bad luck Mark Rutland had found me out as Marnie Elmer. And while, so far as I knew, there had been no link between Mary Taylor and Marnie Elmer, there
certainly was a dead straight line linking Marnie with Plymouth and Torquay.

If he checked everything I told him, then I just had to tell him the truth – or part of it. It all depended on whether he was taking me to the police. You’d think it the obvious
thing.

He was waiting for me, smoking, at the head of the stairs. The dismal light made his face look darker and more delicate. But I knew it wasn’t now. I knew it was as tough as rock and for
almost the first time in my life I was afraid of someone.

‘Got everything?’ he said, and led the way out to the waiting car.

‘Where are you going to take me?’

He put my case in the boot. ‘Get in.’

I looked round once, thinking of even running for it because if there’s one thing I know it’s how to run, but there was a policeman on the other side of the square.

We drove off. He didn’t speak while we left the town. I saw a signpost on the road marked
Fairford
.
Oxford
.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Just tell me why you did this.’

‘Did what?’

‘Took the money.’

‘What are you going to do? Where are we going?’

‘If you don’t mind I’ll ask the questions.’

I kept my mouth shut for a long time. I had drawn away from him as far as I could. He glanced at me and then leaned across and locked the catch on the door. I wondered if there was any hope of
softening him up.

I said: ‘Mr Rutland, I’m – terribly sorry.’

‘Let’s skip the emotional content. Just tell me why you did it.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘I’m asking the questions.’

I put my hands up to my face, not needing to act the misery I really felt. ‘If you turn me over to the police I’ll tell them
nothing
; I’ll not say a
word
; they
can send me to prison and you’ll not get the rest of your money back; I don’t care!’

‘Oh, yes, you do.’

‘But if you promise you won’t, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’

‘Good God, girl, you’re not in a position to strike bargains! I could turn you over to the nearest police station and drive away and have nothing more to do with it! And will quick
enough if you try those tactics.’

‘They’re not
tactics
, Mark . . .’

I looked at him to see how he took the Christian name. His hands were fairly tight on the steering wheel. ‘All right, I’ll begin. Where do you want me to begin?’

‘What’s your real name?’

‘Margaret Elmer.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Plymouth.’

‘Oh-ho, so you were lying again.’

‘I can’t help it—’

‘No, it seems not.’

‘I don’t mean
that
. . .’

‘Well, go on.’

‘I – I was born in Devonport but lived most of my life in Plymouth itself. I went to the North Road Secondary Modern School for girls, from seven to nearly fifteen. Is – is
that what you want to know?’

‘Are your mother and father in Australia?’

‘No. My father was killed in the war. In the Navy, Mark.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She died soon after . . . I was brought up by an old friend of mother’s called Lucy Nye.’

‘And when you left school?’

‘My uncle – my mother’s brother – he’s at sea too, an engineer – he paid for me to go on to another school, St Andrew’s Technical College, where I
learned shorthand and typing and bookkeeping and accountancy.’

I looked at him again. He had dipped his lights, and the light from another car reflected off the road on to his thin angry face.

‘I suppose this really is true, is it?’

‘You can check it if you want.’

‘Don’t worry, I will. I was only reminding you to keep your imagination under control.’

I was wild at that. ‘Have you never done anything wrong, never broken any law? It’s different for you, of course, with always as much money as you needed—’

‘Get on with your story.’

I struggled for a minute trying to swallow my breathing. ‘When I left I got a job in Plymouth. But I was hardly settled before Lucy Nye was taken ill so I gave it up to – to nurse
her. I nursed her for eighteen months, until she died. When she died I found she’d left me the house we were living in and – and two hundred pounds in cash. I spent some of the cash on
– on elocution lessons and some more on accountancy, and then I got a job with Deloitte, Plender & Griffiths in Bristol. While I was there I first saw horses – horses as I know them
now, not old broken-down things pulling vans but long-legged thoroughbreds, jumpers and – and—’

‘All right, I’ve got that. You saw horses.’

‘And I fell in love with them. Does that mean anything to you? . . . After a bit the house in Devonport sold for a thousand pounds. It was all mine. I reckoned I could live for two years
or more, live like a lady, on what I’d got and what I’d saved, buy a horse, ride it. I bought Forio and—’

‘Forio?’

‘My horse at the Garrods. So I gave up my job and lived like that. I lived like a lady as cheap as I could, but all day free. I wonder if freedom like that means anything to you. I used to
ride nearly every day – then sometimes I’d get a temporary job round Christmas time to get a bit of extra money. But I just spent my capital most of the time. Then last year, about
November, it was all gone . . . So I came to London and looked for work. I got a job at Kendalls but looked out for something better.’

‘And you found Rutland’s.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘That was quite a bit better, wasn’t it, with a clear profit apart from wages of some twelve hundred pounds.’

I burst into tears. ‘I’m s-sorry, Mark, it was a sudden temptation. I hated to do it but it was a sudden thought of being able to afford perhaps two more years like those I had had
before I came t-to London. I shouldn’t ever have taken a cashier’s job, I-I suppose. It was handling so much money at – at one time. Oh, Mark, I’m so very sorry . .
.’

The tears were turned on, of course. But if it had been possible for me to cry naturally I really could have cried – for disappointment, and for being found out, and because I was so
scared of what was going to happen.

We were through Faringdon by now and on the main Swindon–Oxford road. I dabbed at my eyes with a handkerchief that was too small. But he didn’t offer me his.

After a time he said: ‘And Mr Taylor? Where does he come in?’

‘Mr Taylor?’

‘Is he a little more of your imagination or does he exist?’

‘Oh, no. There . . . was nobody. She had never – I’ve never been married.’

‘You’ve been somebody’s mistress?’

‘
No
. . . Good Heavens no! Why should you think I had?’

‘I don’t think anything. I’m asking. Why did you call yourself Mrs Taylor?’

I paused to blow my nose. Why the hell did I call myself Mrs Taylor? But I hadn’t really. I had just made Mary Taylor a married woman three years ago when I thought her up.

‘Mr Taylor was an old friend of my father’s. He’s been dead for years but the name came to my mind.’

‘Why did it have to come to your mind at all? Why did you open an account in Cardiff in that name three years ago?’

I had been expecting that one. ‘Mrs Nye has – has a nephew. He’s abroad most of the time but he’s not much good. I was afraid of – if he knew Lucy Nye had left me
all that money he’d want a share.’

‘Are you sure he isn’t working with you in this?’

‘Nobody’s working with me! You speak as if it was all cut and dried, planned weeks ago, in cold blood!’

‘And wasn’t it?’

‘No!’

‘It was all so impulsive and child-like that you changed your name to Taylor when you came to London nine months ago? That is if you haven’t been Mrs Taylor for three
years.’

‘I didn’t change it for that. I changed it because I thought it would be like a
fresh start
! I didn’t want Mrs Nye’s nephew looking me up while I was in London! I
– I thought I’d stick to the new name, make it something better than the old!’

‘Well, you’re not really trying to tell me that this theft just happened on the spur of the moment are you? Susan Clabon away on her holidays; a cheque made out deliberately for two
hundred and twenty pounds more than we needed to draw; a supply of our own paper cut correctly to size and brought into the office that morning. What do you call cold blood?’

‘No, but it was only the last few days that I really thought of it! Then when the chance came I just hadn’t the strength of will to resist. I hadn’t Mark, really. I know
I’m weak. I should never have done it but . . . You see, it was the week before, when Susan was away, that I realized it would be possible, but even then I never seriously thought . . . It
wasn’t really till Wednesday. And then I couldn’t rest, couldn’t sleep because of it.’

Another shower came and he put on the screen-wipers. Through the Japanese fans they made on the screen you could see the suburbs of Oxford squeezing up round the car.

‘Have you stolen before?’

I hesitated. ‘Twice in Plymouth when I was ten – and got beaten for it.’