The Serpent Pool

by Martin Edwards

  ‘He was pissed out of his brain?’

  ‘Not just that.’

  ‘Break it to me gently.’

  ‘The bad news is, Nathan can’t drive.’

  Hannah halted in mid-stride. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. Nathan has never had a full licence. We’ve checked. He says he’s never had any interest in driving. He takes taxis if and when the need arises. Other than that, he has a touching faith in Cumbria’s public transport. The mark of a true eccentric.’

  ‘Not having a licence doesn’t mean you can’t drive.’

  ‘True. But if he got hold of a vehicle, and despite knocking back five pints managed the journey to Ullswater and back on a dark winter night, he doesn’t just deserve to get away with it, he deserves a bloody medal. It’s typical of this inquiry – wherever we turn, we end up facing a brick wall. So, tell me about your cold case.’

  Hannah finished running through the edited highlights of Bethany Friend’s story as they reached Busher Walk. Half eight, time for noses to the grindstone.

  ‘I’ve arranged to see Wanda this afternoon,’ Hannah said.

  ‘You never did like delegating, did you?’

  ‘There has to be some compensation for working in a backwater. Besides, half my team has succumbed to this bug going round.’

  ‘Let me know how you get on with Wanda. Interesting that she and Nathan both knew Bethany, but two unexplained deaths, six years apart? Hard to see a connection. Bethany drowned, and George was burnt to death.’

  ‘In each case, suicide was left as an alternative to murder.’

  ‘Nothing unusual in that.’

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘Go on, surprise me.’

  A vague idea loomed in Hannah’s mind, unrecognisable as a stranger approaching through the mist.

  ‘Nobody really disliked them. There was no good reason for them to be murdered.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Louise was asleep in bed when Daniel returned to Tarn Cottage, and he spent an hour tinkering with the first chapter of The Hell Within, achieving little more than replacing a few commas with semicolons and exterminating a rogue split infinitive. That night he dreamt about the bright September afternoon when Aimee died, and his heart-stopping race through the streets of Oxford after he picked up the message she’d left on his voicemail, desperate to reach her before she jumped. The nightmare was vivid enough for him to recall the slow-motion agony of failure to save Aimee. He never dreamt about Miranda, which said it all.

  When he awoke, his head felt as though someone had tightened an iron band around it. After a scalding-hot shower, he padded down to the kitchen to find Louise seated at the old pine table, cocooned in a thick white dressing gown. In front of her stood a half-full cafetière and a mug which proclaimed I’m a pleasant person after I’ve had my caffeine fix. She was munching her way through a large bowl of cornflakes as she read a moral dilemma column in The Independent.

  ‘Morning! Help yourself to some coffee.’

  He halted in his tracks. ‘You sound cheerful.’

  She stiffened, and put her spoon down with a bang. A confrontational expression, all too familiar from her teens, spread over her face like a dark red stain.

  ‘You prefer doom and gloom?’

  ‘No, it’s just—’

  ‘Forget it.’ She slumped back in her chair. ‘I’m the one who should apologise. When I opened my eyes this morning, I said to myself, today’s the day when I start making changes in my life. And the moment you walk in the room, I bite your head off.’

  ‘Old habits die hard, I guess.’

  She winced. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’

  ‘Yep.’ He pointed at the newspaper. ‘What’s the dilemma today? Should I confess that I stabbed my boyfriend?’

  ‘Hey, Daniel, I’m trying to be nice.’ She nodded at the slogan on her coffee mug. ‘And I haven’t even absorbed all the caffeine yet. Meet me halfway?’

  He dropped down onto the bench and swung an arm around her. Under the fluffiness of her dressing gown, her shoulder was hard and bony. Until that moment, he hadn’t realised that she was shaking slightly, or how much of an effort she was making to conquer the fear she’d felt the day before.

  He poured himself coffee. ‘OK, let’s start again. I had a useful conversation with Hannah last night. She seemed confident that Stuart would turn up soon, safe and sound.’

  Louise’s eyes widened in horror. ‘You didn’t tell her everything?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Holy shit. She’ll think I’m a neurotic sociopath.’

  ‘She’s a detective chief inspector, she should be unshockable. You don’t spend years in the police without coming face to face with plenty of bad stuff.’

  Louise crunched on her cornflakes. ‘I suppose Dad came across a lot of it, too. How can anyone want to do that job? I couldn’t bear it. Especially not in the CID, dealing with death and disaster. Imagine having to break the news to someone that their child has been murdered. The work would crucify me.’

  ‘When I was a boy, he told me it was like an addiction. Once the drug got into his system, he could never imagine doing anything else.’

  ‘You understood how his mind worked.’ She turned her face to him. Without make-up, her flesh seemed raw. The breezy mood had evaporated. ‘I never did.’

  On another day, he might have resorted to a teenager’s jibe. You never tried. Like a lot of siblings, they often brought out the worst in each other. Instead, he said, ‘Hannah said she’d keep in touch, and let me know the news about Stuart.’

  ‘She’s interested in you.’

  He withdrew his hand from her shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Touched a nerve, did I? It’s obvious, there’s chemistry between the two of you.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, she’s in a long-term relationship.’

  ‘Tell you something.’ She leant towards him. ‘Marc Amos didn’t pay her much attention at the party.’

  ‘Nothing odd in that. Plenty of couples make a deliberate effort to socialise with other—’

  ‘You’re making excuses for them.’ A touch of Louise’s habitual asperity; she couldn’t help herself. ‘Familiarity breeds contempt. Or at least boredom.’

  ‘Slow down, Louise. I enjoy talking to Hannah about Dad. Filling in gaps, you know? But that’s as far as it goes. I don’t even want another relationship. Certainly nothing as heavy as I had with Miranda. I’m ready for a break.’

  The look in her eyes said: You’re protesting too much.

  ‘You’ve had a break. That’s why you pissed off to America. To lick your wounds before you came back to start again…’

  He groaned. ‘You sound like an agony aunt.’

  ‘You ought to study the problem pages.’ A mischievous grin. ‘All human life is there.’

  ‘No matter how many I read, I’ll never figure out how women think.’

  ‘Like I never understood Dad?’ she asked softly. ‘I never worked out why he left us for that woman. As for Stuart, why did he treat me the way he did? Men and women, trying to read each others’ minds? It’s like trying to crack an unbreakable code.’

  Marc didn’t haul himself out of bed until Hannah sang goodbye up the stairs. A sign of good humour; often she left without a word, her mind already focused on the day ahead at work. The sex had been good last night, and he wished he could be sure that was the reason for her cheeriness. But his confidence was in bits.

  It was too easy to blame her job for what had gone wrong. In their early years together, it suited him that she was a police officer. He was happy to have time and space for himself, the chance to get lost in books and dreams. Hannah’s anecdotes about her cases fascinated him; she was a good storyteller and, long ago, he’d encouraged her to embellish the tales and put them into a book – It Shouldn’t Happen to a Policewoman or something – but the suggestion made her laugh in appalled amazement. She preferred action to words.
>
  In her haste to be away, she’d forgotten to put her breakfast things in the dishwasher. He lined up the dirty cups and plates in neat rows – in their early days together, he’d found her lack of domesticity endearing; now it provoked irritation. A DCI should never be slapdash, surely? Order and method pleased him; the real world was messy and unsatisfactory – this was why, at every opportunity, he escaped into a Victorian triple-decker.

  He forced on a pair of new trainers. They were tight, and the only other time he’d worn them, they’d made his heels bleed, but today he’d wear them as a penance. An antique mirror hung in the hallway; he’d picked it up at a craft fair at the Brewery in Kendal the day after they’d moved in here, an overpriced impulse buy. His reflection glowered at him, scornful of his extravagance. After the lawyers shelled out his aunt’s legacy, he’d allowed himself to become carried away. He’d bought in too much stock that he couldn’t shift, while repairs and renovations to the house and the new shop in Sedbergh swallowed far more than he’d budgeted for. The new roof alone cost double the estimate. At the end of December, the quarter day’s rental payments on the two shops came close to cleaning him out. Thinking about it brought him out in a cold sweat. Hannah wasn’t aware: he kept meaning to break the news, but the time never seemed right.

  He stood in the cloakroom, zipping his windcheater. The washbasin taps dripped permanently and the wooden window frame was too rotten to survive another Lake District winter. So much work still needed to be done, and he wasn’t sure Hannah’s heart was in their new home. Had she agreed to move to Undercrag just because it was close to the Serpent Pool?

  He couldn’t bear to live here alone. To be comfortable with his own company was one thing, the echoing emptiness of solitary existence very different. Until early this morning, he’d presumed he and Hannah would spend the rest of their lives together. When they’d made love, there was no hint of anything amiss. But he’d woken and couldn’t get back to sleep. He got up around four to make himself some hot chocolate, and noticed her mobile, lying on the chest of drawers. Something prompted him to pick it up and check her messages. Unforgivable, but he couldn’t help being nosey, and she’d been annoyingly vague about the police business that had kept her out that evening. He expected it was something she could easily have ignored, if she hadn’t been a workaholic.

  She hadn’t deleted her latest text. Carelessness, again. Reading the four words dried his throat, and made his heart hammer against the walls of his chest.

  Running late. Traffic. Daniel.

  * * *

  Traffic, bloody traffic. As he queued at a red light on the A591, Marc told himself that Daniel Kind must have sent the text. Newly returned to England, a free agent after splitting with his girlfriend. Marc had always wondered about Hannah’s devotion to Ben Kind. Was she making up for missed opportunities by starting an affair with Ben’s son? She was getting itchy feet, and so she had lied to him. It felt like being battered about the head with a brick. If she had nothing to hide, she’d have been upfront and said she was seeing Daniel. He might have suggested coming along himself. Hence why she’d pretended she was up to her eyes in work. Sometimes three was a crowd.

  An impatient horn blast ripped through his reverie. The light had turned to green, and he was dawdling. He raised a hand in apology to the guy in the car behind and put his foot down, rounding the next bend so fast that he veered onto the other side of the road. Luckily there was a gap in the line of vehicles heading towards Ambleside.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered. Too close for comfort.

  The low sun half-blinded him. Squinting through the windscreen, he spotted a police car lurking in a lay-by four hundred yards ahead. A burly PC stood on the verge, lifting a speed gun with the dead-eyed menace of a latter-day Sundance Kid. Marc slammed on the brakes and the speedo pointer plummeted. As he crawled past, the sharpshooter scowled at him. Marc fixed his gaze on the road. Today of all days, he was in no mood to be caught out by the Cumbria Constabulary.

  He reached the courtyard in one piece, and as he unlocked the shop, he heard the clatter of footsteps on the gravel. Turning, he saw someone in a hooded duffel coat and black boots walking towards him. A gloved hand pulled down the hood. It was Cassie Weston, her expression stony. Surprised to see her here so soon, he fixed on a smile and gave her a wave. She gave a curt nod, said nothing.

  ‘Bright and early, Cassie!’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, shrugging off the duffel coat.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah, why shouldn’t it be?’

  ‘You look knackered, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Her eagerness of yesterday had vanished. Even her clothes looked drab. She’d put on a shapeless sweater and a grubby old pair of trousers and hadn’t bothered with the dark eyeliner, either.

  He lit the fire in the inglenook. The prospect of a cosy refuge from the bitter cold might tempt some passing trade. You had to stay optimistic if you earned a living from selling old books. No blazing logs in his office; he had to make do with a noisy fan heater. He booted up his PC for the customary morning trawl through emails from customers in different time zones. An American fan of the Lake Poets was planning for retirement and wanted to know if Marc would like first refusal on his collection. In the current market, it might take years to get a decent return on the investment. There was more money to be made from breaking up the set and selling the individual titles, since the likeliest buyers would have collections of their own and wouldn’t be keen to spend on duplicates. But that game required patience, and deep pockets.

  He’d left the office door ajar, and he heard Mrs Beveridge greet Cassie with a jovial complaint about the weather. The reply sounded grumpy. Why was she in such a funny mood? Stupid to become intrigued by someone who worked for you. Never mix business with pleasure.

  His thoughts strayed to Bethany Friend. How long before Hannah discovered that he’d known the girl? On New Year’s Eve at the Serpent Pool, she’d looked at him sceptically when they spoke about Bethany.

  He remembered his last conversation with Bethany. Her face, tarnished with dismay. What she said…

  No, don’t even go there.

  Daniel suspected that, if and when he finished The Hell Within, his royalties would be swallowed by the cost of heating Tarn Cottage. Winter’s bite was sharp this morning, and Radio Cumbria reported that teenagers were cavorting on the frozen surface of Derwent Water. They interviewed an elderly woman who reminisced about skating on Windermere in the Sixties. A safety expert warned against venturing onto thin ice. But people did it all the time.

  He left it until mid-morning before phoning Stuart Wagg. The man was supposed to be on holiday. If he had spent the previous day traipsing over the fells, he might be having a lie-in. There was no answer on the landline and the call to his mobile again went straight to voicemail. Daniel left a brief message, and tried Wagg’s office. The receptionist said he wasn’t expected in this week. Perhaps Wagg had instructed them to dead-bat all inquiries. Did he have reasons of his own for blipping off the radar?

  ‘Where is he?’ Louise demanded.

  ‘Nobody admits to having a clue.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘God, I’d persuaded myself you were right, and I was worrying myself sick over nothing. But—’

  ‘Hannah Scarlett will let us know as soon as there is any news.’

  Louise’s cheeks were as white as the frozen earth outside.

  ‘We can’t just sit around. We have to do something!’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘Let’s ring the cleaners. Stuart hired a firm in Newby Bridge to look after the housework in Crag Gill.’

  Louise found the number, and he phoned the woman who owned the business. No joy. The bug had laid low most of her staff and she said she’d left messages on the answering machine at Crag Gill, apologising for their nonarrival this week. Normal service would be resumed as soon as possible. She hadn’t spoken to Stuart Wagg
in person, or received any response to her calls.

  ‘The gardener!’ Louise said once she’d digested this. ‘He has a key to the outbuildings.’

  ‘I’ll call him.’

  When Marc wandered into the café at eleven, Mrs Beveridge made him a latte and presented him with a slice of chocolate gateau. To keep the cold out, she said. Half a dozen people were taking refuge and warming themselves up with tea or coffee, but the shop was almost deserted. Without his online business, bailiffs would be hammering at the door. He’d spent the morning preparing a new catalogue to be emailed to regular customers before he uploaded it onto the website. It was a job he enjoyed. The wonders of digital photography meant he had less need to worry about grumpy buyers complaining their books didn’t live up to the catalogue description. Usually Cassie popped in at regular intervals to ask a question or pass the time of day, but so far she’d kept her distance.

  He finished his elevenses and strolled to the counter. Cassie’s eyes were locked on the computer screen as she checked the market to help her price the books piled in front of her. Her expression didn’t flicker as he approached, though she must have heard the floorboards creak.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He perched on the desk and at last she dragged her gaze from the screen. Her eyes had red rims. She fished a tissue out of her bag and blew her nose loudly.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You haven’t picked up this bug that’s doing the rounds?’

  ‘I said I’m all right.’

  ‘Listen, if you need to take the day off—’

  ‘Trust me, I’m better in work.’

  ‘You want to talk about whatever is bothering you?’

  To his surprise, she hesitated. Weighing something up.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then.’