The Serpent Pool

by Martin Edwards

  ‘I mean,’ Louise said in a softer tone, ‘she might have been pretty, but she was never a long-term bet.’

  ‘Too much the drama queen, you once told me.’

  ‘Someone had to say it, Daniel. So – was she all maudlin and hankering after old times?’

  ‘She’s split up with Ethan and he’s dropped her from the magazine. She’s working freelance for a couple of glossies at the moment, but she sounded at a loose end. Said she might come back up here sometime for a break.’

  ‘For God’s sake. I hope you didn’t encourage her.’ Louise uttered a theatrical groan. ‘Remember, she fell in love with the Lakes for all of five minutes before the bright lights of the big city dragged her back down south. She’s so bloody unpredictable.’

  ‘When she left, we agreed to stay friends. I’m glad she’s kept in touch.’

  ‘She used you before. She’ll use you again, if you don’t watch out. And you’ll be the one left picking up the pieces. Not her ladyship.’

  Daniel perched on the arm of a leather chair. ‘That’s what people do, isn’t it? We all use each other, in one way or another. Does no harm, between consenting adults.’

  ‘And I thought I was the family cynic.’

  ‘You never told me who you met last night.’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  Her gaze settled on him, cool and probing, as if he were a criminal in the dock about to be quizzed by counsel for the prosecution. How come she’d never practised as a courtroom lawyer? Her cross-examination technique would have wowed them down at the Bailey.

  ‘Sure.’ A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, she was amusing herself at his expense. OK, he’d hazard a guess, even if it smacked of wish fulfilment. ‘It wasn’t Hannah Scarlett, by any chance?’

  ‘The one and only.’ She inspected her fingernails. A vivid turquoise. He couldn’t remember her painting them in the past. ‘Father’s fancy woman.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’ He couldn’t help snapping back. ‘There was nothing between them.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘For God’s sake. Dad was so much older. He ran off with Cheryl, don’t forget. Not Hannah.’

  ‘No, I don’t forget.’ Her eyes glinted with satisfaction. ‘Actually, Hannah seems like a nice woman.’

  ‘High praise, huh?’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound patronising. She told me Dad taught her all she knows about detective work. She admired him.’

  ‘So, did I.’

  A sigh. ‘Suppose I was too hard on him.’

  Daniel had waited half a lifetime for that admission. She’d shared her mother’s fury at Ben Kind’s desertion. He’d walked out on all three of them and moved up to the Lake District to make a new life with a young woman. For years Louise refused to refer to her by name: she was never Cheryl, only the Blonde Bitch.

  ‘So, you and Hannah had a chat?’

  ‘Until we were interrupted by a contretemps. She was looking good, actually. Very svelte.’ Louise paused before adding, ‘She asked after you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He wanted to sound casual, but knew he’d failed.

  ‘She hadn’t heard you were back in Britain. It seemed to come as a shock. Pleasant one, though.’

  Better make it clear that he remembered Hannah wasn’t available.

  ‘I must visit Marc Amos’s bookshop. See if he has any local stuff about De Quincey.’

  ‘He was there too. When I spotted him, he was ogling one of the waitresses.’

  ‘Marc is a decent guy.’

  Daniel had never broken up anyone else’s relationship, and he didn’t mean to start now. He was attracted to Hannah Scarlett, for reasons he couldn’t fully explain, even to himself. But she was out of bounds.

  ‘Stuart spends a lot of money with Amos Books. He must be one of Marc’s best customers. Especially since that man Saffell died.’

  ‘Saffell?’

  ‘The book collector, the man who died in the fire at Ullswater. I mentioned it on the way up the M6, weren’t you listening? It all sounds very mysterious, and I know how you love a mystery.’

  He scarcely remembered. After flight delays on the way back from Seattle, he’d been pretty much out of it. Happy to let her conversation wash over him.

  ‘Reading between the lines of the newspaper coverage, the fire didn’t start by accident. If an arsonist killed Saffell, his wife must be a suspect. She certainly has a temper.’

  Daniel frowned. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She showed up at the party. Stuart invited her as a matter of courtesy, he’s known her for years. He didn’t seriously expect her to come. Let alone cause a scene.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She and I were talking to Arlo Denstone.’

  ‘You met Arlo?’

  ‘Stuart introduced us. He’s dying to meet you, now you’re back in England.’

  ‘I just watched a recording of him on TV. Not only an evangelist for De Quincey, but quite a charmer as well.’

  ‘He’s an intense guy. Intelligent, a bit hyper. Might dabble in the odd bit of opium-eating himself, for all I know.’

  ‘Not your type?’

  ‘No, but I can see why some women might be smitten. Not that he and I had a long conversation. Wanda Saffell joined us and the look in her eyes said she wanted to speak to him on her own. I caught sight of Hannah chatting to Stuart and made my excuses. A few minutes later, Wanda chucked a glass of red wine all over Arlo’s jacket and then flounced out of the room.’

  ‘Party-pooper, huh?’

  ‘Stuart discovered her sitting cross-legged at the foot of the stairs, sobbing her heart out. He had her taken home by one of his partners. Her nerves are in tatters, he said.’

  ‘Why did she attack Arlo?’

  ‘No idea. Stuart brushed it off, said she’d had a rough time lately.’

  ‘How could Arlo have upset her, a woman recently widowed in horrific circumstances?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘He strikes me as a man who likes to provoke a reaction. Murder fascinates him. Maybe he suggested she knew something about her husband’s death?’

  Louise shook her head. ‘You still believe historians make good detectives?’

  ‘Why not? I got a book and a television series out of it.’

  ‘Before you threw everything away.’

  ‘I needed to escape.’

  ‘I don’t—’ she broke off as her brother’s attention strayed. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Daniel peered through the window. The rain was pounding harder. A dark figure in a hooded waterproof coat and hiker’s boots splashed through puddles towards the cottage from the tarn.

  ‘Someone has wandered into the garden.’

  ‘That will be Stuart. I told him about this place and he said it sounded fascinating. I dropped him off by the old mill, so he could stroll along the beck. He could do with a breath of air, he didn’t sleep last night.’

  Daniel stared at the figure outside. The face was masked by the hood, but the man must have seen that he was being watched. He raised a hand encased in a black leather gauntlet.

  If Daniel hadn’t recognised Stuart Wagg, he’d have interpreted the gesture not as a greeting, but as a threat.

  ‘Louise tells me there was a bust-up at the party last night.’

  Sprawled over the sofa, Stuart Wagg drained his tumbler of whisky. He hadn’t bothered to wipe his feet properly and he’d left a trail of muddy footprints on the carpet.

  ‘Something and nothing.’

  ‘How did Arlo provoke her?’ Daniel asked.

  Wagg gave a shrug. ‘Christ knows. I invited him over because we’re sponsors of this Festival. Wanda’s as thin-skinned as a skeleton’s silhouette. They’d both had a few drinks. Maybe Arlo tried it on when she wasn’t in the mood, who knows?’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be pretty insensitive, given that she was so recently widowed?’

  ‘Tell you what, Daniel. My mo
tto is: Ask no questions, and you won’t be told any lies. These things happen. Tomorrow it will all be forgotten. Nobody died.’

  ‘George Saffell died.’ Louise shivered. ‘Someone turned his lakeside retreat into a ball of fire.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what happened last night.’ Wagg’s jaw tightened. ‘Except that Wanda is grieving. She deserves to be cut some slack.’

  ‘You’ve known her a long time?’ Louise asked.

  ‘We were at school together. She was a few years younger than me, but even then, she stood out from the crowd. I remember taking her out to the cinema a few times when we were teenagers. All very innocent, of course.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Believe me.’ He feigned injured innocence. ‘I never got further than a quick fumble on the back seats at the Royalty in Bowness. Very well-behaved young lady was Wanda. Single-minded, too. Obsessed with her hobby, nothing else mattered to her half as much.’

  ‘Her hobby?’

  ‘Vocation, business, whatever. She loves printmaking. As a kid, I promise you, she was much more interested in that than me. Still is, to this day.’

  ‘You knew her husband?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Old George? Sure, we moved in the same business circles. And he loved books as much as I do.’

  Louise arched her eyebrows. ‘Do you really love books, darling?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Wagg sounded like a bishop accused of blasphemy.

  ‘I wondered…if what you really love is the thrill of the chase. Tracking down a rare first edition, then squirrelling it away, so nobody else can have the pleasure of owning it.’

  For a moment, there was silence.

  He shook his head. ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘How many of your precious tomes have you actually read?’ She turned to Daniel. ‘You should see his library. It’s a miniature Bodleian. But I doubt if he’s read a tenth of his collection.’

  ‘One of these days,’ Wagg muttered. ‘When I have more time.’

  ‘Meanwhile, you still have to keep Marc Amos in business, I suppose?’

  ‘You know Marc’s partner.’ Daniel wanted to change the subject, stop Louise from needling Wagg. It was her habit to be provocative, but he sensed the man had a temper to match Wanda Saffell’s. ‘DCI Scarlett.’

  ‘The lovely Hannah?’ Wagg grinned. ‘Your sister tells me that you managed to get yourself involved in one of Hannah’s cases.’

  More than one, actually, but Daniel kept his mouth shut. He wished Louise hadn’t talked about him with Stuart Wagg. Even more, he wished she hadn’t fallen for the man. He didn’t like the way the whisky had loosened Wagg’s tongue.

  ‘Her career ran into the buffers, did you know? After she messed up over a major trial, they sidelined her. It was all presented in a positive light, needless to say. Young woman detective on the fast track? They could hardly throw her overboard. Not with all those politically correct diversity targets to meet.’

  ‘She’s in charge of the cold case team,’ Daniel said. ‘A high-profile job.’

  ‘Not exactly at the cutting edge, though. Zero pressure. No need to race against the clock when a victim’s spent years mouldering in the grave.’ Wagg gave a theatrical sigh. ‘But Hannah will be fine. If she keeps her nose clean until she’s got her years in, she’ll have a nice fat pension. No need to rely on the money Marc makes from sad bibliomaniacs like me.’

  Daniel felt his cheeks reddening as he counted to ten. Hannah didn’t need him to defend her, but he couldn’t help it.

  ‘She doesn’t strike me as a time-server.’

  Wagg yawned and stretched his arms. ‘Well, who cares? I’d better be getting home. Thanks for the booze.’

  As Louise stood up, he turned to her and said, ‘Are you staying over, or coming back here after you’ve dropped me off, darling?’

  ‘Staying over, of course. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘You’ve taken the week off work.’

  ‘Yeah, I was thinking of getting up among the fells.’

  ‘Term doesn’t start for another week, we can explore the fells together.’

  ‘It’s not what I had in mind. For me, fell-walking is a solitary vice.’ Wagg got to his feet. ‘I assumed, now your brother’s back in England, you’d want to spend some time with him.’

  ‘Daniel and I can see each other any time.’

  She sounded as though Wagg had smacked her face. Daniel clenched his fists behind his back.

  ‘Fine, fine. Let’s go, then.’

  Daniel saw them to the door, and watched them climb into Louise’s sports car without a word. Her face was as bleak as Scafell. She crashed the gears, the ugly noise breaching the peace of the wooded valley.

  The car sped off, Louise driving too fast for the little lane through the wood. Daniel stared after them.

  He found himself loathing Stuart Wagg.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Bethany Friend’s body was found by a group of half a dozen fell-walkers,’ Hannah said. ‘A damp winter morning almost six years ago. February 15th, to be precise. She’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours.’

  Greg Wharf swung back and forth on the plastic chair. Not quite insubordination, not far from it. Her new detective sergeant was testing her patience, but Hannah was determined not to let him win the game. They were alone in the briefing room. It was newly refurbished, with lots of greenery in posh stone pots, and a couple of abstract daubs on the wall. The money came from a budget surplus at the end of the last financial year, though the Police Federation would have preferred cash in their members’ pay packets.

  Hannah hardly knew Greg Wharf. He was a Geordie with bleached hair and an incipient beer gut. Dark rings under his eyes testified to intensive New Year partying. He’d spent most of his career in Newcastle, where he’d married a highflying colleague. Once his wife discovered him in flagrante with a community support officer, a messy divorce followed, and he transferred to Cumbria’s Northern Division. Most of Hannah’s female colleagues fancied him, and one had even dubbed him Gorgeous Greg. No accounting for tastes. Some poor soul was probably responsible for ironing that white shirt to crisp perfection. He was the sort of bloke who regarded doing the laundry as women’s work.

  Hannah had called him in early for a briefing on the Friend case before the rest of the team arrived. Ten minutes in, she suspected the less she got to know about Detective Sergeant Gregory Wharf, the better. That mocking light in the blue eyes made him look like a beach bum humouring a parish priest.

  He wasn’t overjoyed to be here. Lauren Self, the assistant chief constable, had moved him from Vice after he procured a confession to the rape of a prostitute from a recidivist sex offender. It seemed like a neat piece of detective work, until the man hanged himself and it turned out that the woman had made up the complaint to take revenge on an ex-boyfriend. Greg wriggled out of it without a disciplinary hearing, but he’d taken one chance too many. Exile to Cold Cases was the price he had to pay.

  ‘So, Bethany died on 14th February.’ A laddish snigger. ‘Valentine’s Day.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Is the date supposed to be significant?’

  ‘That’s for us to find out, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure.’ His eyes narrowed, like a chess player figuring out the next move. Trouble was, she’d never had the patience for chess, and he wouldn’t bother to follow the rules of the game anyway. ‘Do we have any theories? Any leads?’

  ‘Nothing to suggest that her death was linked to a romantic entanglement. Of course, she may have killed herself because her love life went wrong.’

  ‘Flaky, was she?’

  His grimace implied that, with women, flakiness was an occupational hazard.

  ‘Bethany was quiet, bookish. A very private person, everyone agreed on that.’

  ‘We could spend months reinterviewing reluctant witnesses and finish up back where we started.’

  ‘Suicide is possible, but it seem
s unlikely.’

  He nodded at a close-up shot of the corpse pinned on the whiteboard. ‘Because she was gagged?’

  The face of the woman in the photo was bruised and swollen. Eyes shut, mouth open, as if she were biting the woollen scarf. Hannah looked away. Nobody should finish up like that. Not only dead, but degraded.

  ‘The gag was the tightest knot, but physically, she could have done it herself. Same with the tying-up.’

  ‘Mmmm. Sounds kinky.’

  ‘Her hands were bound behind her back.’ Hannah wouldn’t rise to the bait. ‘Spark plug cables wrapped around her wrists. They were quite loose.’

  ‘Not easy to truss someone up efficiently with jump leads.’ He grinned, as if to hint that he’d tried it himself.

  ‘Her ankles were tied together with a tow rope. It was never established whether the rope and the cables belonged to her or someone else brought them. There was bruising on the neck, from some sort of ligature. Probably the scarf. Perhaps she tied it around her throat, then thought better of it.’

  ‘So, she could have done all that and then chucked herself into the water?’

  ‘All eighteen inches of it, yes. Or so the investigating team was told by one of the country’s leading experts on knotting techniques.’

  Greg Wharf’s face made clear what he thought of anyone who devoted a career to studying the methodology of tying knots.

  ‘No sign of rape?’

  ‘No evidence whatsoever that she’d had sex lately. She was dressed, but not fully equipped for a long hike over the fells. Blue jeans, shirt and body warmer. Marks & Spencer bra and pants. Boots. No injuries or signs of a struggle – if you don’t count the neck bruises.’

  ‘Bondage game gone wrong?’

  ‘Out in the open air?’

  ‘All the more fun.’

  ‘The weather was lousy. A rainstorm would dampen anyone’s ardour.’

  ‘Takes all sorts.’

  He made a performance of stifling a yawn. She decided to allow him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was recovering from the festivities. Better not kill their relationship on the very first morning. Though right now she didn’t give it more than forty-eight hours before she’d have to slap him down hard, and no doubt earn his enmity for good. Bloody Lauren. This was a decent team, why did the ACC have to sabotage it by parachuting in a misogynistic egoist?