Marnie Read Free Page B

balding branch manager George Pringle, admitted
yesterday, “but she was a shy retiring girl and always most reliable. She came to us with a good character.” “A very quiet one,” is landlady Dyson’s view. “Never
had no friends but always polite and well spoken. Told me it was only her second job. I think she’d come down in the world.” “It’s like a nightmare to me,” confessed
twenty-eight-year-old Ronnie Oliver of PO Telephones, who has been dating Marion. “I can’t help but feel there has been some terrible mistake.”
    ‘The police are not so sure about the mistake. General description and type of job are similar to those of Peggy Nicholson who disappeared from a position as secretary to a Newcastle
business man last year with over seven hundred pounds in cash. They would like to interview both ladies and would not be at all surprised if they turned out to be one. General description. Age
twenty to twenty-six, height five feet five inches, weight about eight stone, vital statistics to fit and a “taking” way with her. Susceptible personnel managers please note.’
    It shook me coming on it like that. It shook me because I hadn’t ever seen details like that before. And living my life in sort of separate compartments the way I do, it jolted me seeing
it just then. Of course there was nothing connecting Marion Holland of Birmingham with Mollie Jeffrey of Manchester, still less with Margaret Elmer who kept a thoroughbred horse at Garrod’s
Farm near Cirencester and had a strict old mother in Torquay. But it was a coincidence. It was a hell of a jarring, nasty little coincidence.
    The only thing I liked about it was the bit about having ‘come down in the world’. It just showed what elocution lessons would do.
    For a while after reading the paper I sat on the bed wondering if I should go through with it or if this was a warning that this time I was going to be caught.
    In the end I got over that nonsense. Really, once you start thinking, you’re done. But I thought I wouldn’t try this sort of job again. It was riskier than most.
    I left on Sunday at twelve and took my suitcase with me. I took it to London Road Station and put it in the left-luggage office as usual. I had lunch in a cafeteria and was at the Roxy by ten to
four.
    The doors opened at four and the first film began at four-fifteen. I went with Mr King into his office and got twenty pounds in silver and five pounds in copper. He was in a good humour and said
we’d had the best week’s takings since 1956.
    ‘Let me carry those for you,’ he said as I picked up the bags.
    ‘No, really, thanks. I can manage.’ I smiled at him and straightened my spectacles. ‘Thank you, Mr King.’
    He followed me out. A small shabby-looking lot of people were waiting at the door of the cinema. It was two minutes to four.
    I said: ‘Er – have I time to get a glass of water? I want to take an aspirin.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Hold them a minute, Martin.’ This to the commissionaire. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope?’ he said when I got back.
    ‘No, not really, thanks very much.’ I smiled bravely. ‘Go ahead. I’m fine now.’
    By seven the cheaper seats were full, and there was a queue outside for the two and eightpennies. A trickle of people were still coming in and paying four and six so as not to
wait. In five minutes the secondary film would be over, sixty or seventy people would come out and a ten-minute break for ice-creams would give the queue outside time to get in and be settled
before Santa Clara came on for the last time.
    I never remember being nervous when it comes to the point. My hands are always steady, my pulse beats like one of those musical things they have for keeping time.
    As the last of the stragglers leaving the theatre went out and Martin moved to let in the first of the queue I called quietly to Mr King.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he said when he saw the look on my face.
    ‘I’m – frightfully sorry. I feel