The Shape of Snakes

by Minette Walters

  "Damn!" I said with sudden weariness, leaning my head against the seat. "I told them to make themselves scarce."

  "Mm, well, I suspect curiosity won out. You can't blame them. We've both been behaving very oddly lately. It could makes things difficult with Danny," he warned again. "And I'll have to come clean about Libby ... why I lied ... why I ignored Annie. It's only right they should hear the truth from me."

  "It's not what I wanted, Sam," I said with a sigh. "It was supposed to be just you who heard it because I didn't think you'd believe it if I told it to you cold."

  "You should have trusted me," he said lightly. "I stopped being a bastard twenty years ago."

  "I know." I felt tears prick behind my eyes. "But I could never find the right time to tell you. I'm sorry."

  "Well, I'm not," he declared with sudden boisterous good numor. "You've got more balls than an entire rugby team, my girl, and it's about time the boys found out what an amazing mother they have." He slapped his hands against the steering -heel. "I keep thinking of this Chinese proverb Jock quoted to me the other day. It's a variation on the theme of 'everything comes to him who waits'"�he turned to me with an-ocher grin�"and it's peculiarly apt in the present circumstances."

  "How does it go?"

  " 'If you sit by the river long enough the bodies of all your enemies float by.' "

  1 thought I knew the man I married before that night, but now I know I could live to be a hundred and still not understand the twists and turns of human nature. I don't know what he said to the boys but whatever it was made them treat me like a valuable antique for twenty-four hours, until I started effing and blinding out of pure frustration, and normal service was resumed. They carefully avoided any reference to the Slaters, all of them understanding that it is one thing to reveal the presence of a scar, quite another to have it split open under the pressure of constant examination.

  Nevertheless, it wasn't a subject that could be avoided forever and, after much shuffling of feet on Saturday night, Tom confessed they were supposed to be meeting Danny Slater for a drink but weren't sure whether they should. Sam and I said in unison that Danny bore no responsibility for what his father and brother had done and that it wouldn't be fair to tell him. Leave him in ignorance was our advice.

  "Has Dad told you he's thinking of letting Danny use the barn as a studio?" Tom asked me. "Assuming we buy the place, of course."

  "It's just an idea at the moment." said Sam, "but I'd like him to know that we aren't just fair-weather friends."

  ''He'd have to slum it," put in Luke, "because Dad won't let him smoke dope in the house. But he can clean out the tack room and make it reasonably habitable. There's electricity down there and the loose boxes are big enough to work in. All he'd need to do then is beg some stone off one of the quarries, and he could have a bash at being a sculptor without having to bankrupt himself in the process."

  Three eager faces turned toward me. What did I think?

  I nodded and smiled and said it was a grand idea. But I knew it wouldn't happen. Danny would never forgive me for what I was about to do to his family.

  The following Monday I visited Michael Percy in prison on Portland. It was a troubling experience because I was constantly reminded that his life was in limbo. Perhaps the extraordinary setting of the Verne, built inside an old citadel overlooking the harbor and standing alone at the end of a series of hairpin bends, added to my sense of unfulfilled promise and waste. Certainly, I felt its isolation very strongly and wondered if the same feeling was shared by the inmates.

  The weather had turned blustery again and the wind plucked at my hair and clothes as I scurried from my car to the main entrance in the wake of a huddle of similarly windblown visitors. I hung behind them, following their lead, unwilling to show my ignorance in front of older hands who, by their relaxed expressions, had queued at reception a hundred times to present their visiting orders.

  I thought of Bridget repeating this process month after month, year after year, and wondered if it was a cause for depression or happiness that at the end of it she would see her husband. For myself, I was overcome by a frightening regression to the agoraphobia of twenty years ago when I hadn't been able to leave my house for fear of being watched. Perhaps it had something to do with the officers' uniforms�or being touched during the searches�or having to sit at a table, twiddling my thumbs until Michael was brought to me�certain that everyone's gaze was upon me, even more certain that their gazes were hostile.

  Whichever the case, his arrival was a relief, and I watched him walk toward me with an intense�and pleasurable�recognition. There is no accounting for taste, I thought. He was as bad�if not worse�than Alan, but, like Wendy and Bridget and every other woman he'd ever met, I imagine, he had won a place in my affections. He gave me a shy smile as he shook my hand. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

  "I said I would."

  "Yeah, but not everyone does what they say." He dropped into the chair on the other side of the table and scrutinized my face. "I wouldn't have recognized you if they hadn't said it was Mrs. Ranelagh."

  "I've changed a bit."

  "That's for sure." He tilted his head to one side to examine me, and I became very aware suddenly that the fourteen-year-old didn't exist anymore and this was a thirty-five-year-old man with a troubled background and a history of violence. "Any reason why?"

  "I didn't much like that person," I said honestly.

  "What was wrong with her?"

  "Too complacent by half." I smiled slightly. "I decided to try lean and hungry instead."

  He grinned. "I bet it made your husband sit up and take notice."

  I wondered if he'd known about Sam and Libby, or if his intelligence was even more acute now than when I'd known him in school. "It helped," I agreed, scrutinizing him in return. "You haven't changed a bit, although Mrs. Stanhope, the vicar's wife, claims not to have recognized you from the photograph in the newspaper. She's still hoping it was a different Michael Percy who robbed the post office."

  He ran the flat of a hand across his closely cropped hair. "Did you tell her?"

  "I didn't need to. I'm sure she knows."

  He sighed. "She was pretty decent to me when I was a kid. I bet she was wrecked to find out I got done for pistol-whipping a lady."

  "I doubt it. She has no illusions about you."

  "She offered to adopt me one time, you know, and I said, 'You've gotta be joking.' It'd be like going from the ridiculous to the gorblimey. On the one hand there was Mum who couldn't give a shit if I never came home ... on the other there was the vicar who kept giving me lectures about how Jesus could change my life. The only one who was halfway sensible was Mrs. S ... but she kept wanting to hug me, and I didn't much fancy that." He leaned forward to create an enclosed space for us among the intrusive hubbub of conversation around us. "I wouldn't have minded you giving me a hug," he said with an amused up-from-under look, "but you never showed much inclination."

  "I'd have been sacked on the spot."

  "You weren't sacked when you gave Alan Slater a hug."

  "When did I give Alan a hug?"

  "When he bawled his eyes out because the nurse found lice in his hair again. You put your arm 'round his shoulder and said you'd give him some shampoo to get rid of them. You never did that for me."

  I had no recollection of it�as far as I knew I'd only put my arm 'round Alan once�and I wondered if Michael was confusing me with another teacher. "Did you ever have lice? You always looked so spick and span while, most days, poor Alan smelled as if he'd emerged from a sewer."

  "He was a slob," said Michael dismissively. "I used to nick Prioderm out the chemist for him but he never bothered to use it until the nurse spotted eggs in his hair." He favored me with a crooked smile. "It bugged me that everyone thought I was a neat little kid with clean clothes and felt sorry for Alan because he came from a shit background. I started washing my own stuff myself when I was six years old, but it was only ever Mum who go
t credit for it."

  I wondered fleetingly if the hug I gave Alan, and the hug I hadn't given Michael, had resulted in one settling down and the other doing fifteen years. "Most people thought she was a better mother than Maureen," I told him, "but it wasn't much of an endorsement. On a scale of one to ten, Maureen scored nought."

  "At least she wasn't a prostitute," he said bitterly. "It does your head in to have a slag for a mother. Did you know that's what she was at the time?"

  "I didn't know anything, Michael. I was very naive and very stupid, and if I had my life over again I'd do things differently." I watched him for a moment. "You were too sexually aware," I said gently. "I never felt threatened by Alan in the way I felt threatened by you. I didn't think you'd be content with a hug."

  His smile became even more crooked. "Maybe not, but I'd have been too scared to do anything about it."

  "That's not how I saw you," I said with a small laugh. "You had a knack of singling out women who were vulnerable ... like Wendy Stanhope. She becomes very wistful when she talks about you, so I doubt her feelings were entirely maternal."

  "What about yours?"

  "I don't know. I never tested them."

  "But you did like me?"

  I wondered why that was important. "Oh yes."

  "What about Alan? Did you like him?"

  "No," I said flatly, wondering how much he knew.

  "He had a crush on you," he said. "Used to talk about how you couldn't keep your hands off him and how the only reason you refused to get the police involved when you caught him nicking from your handbag was because you were afraid he'd spill the beans about the sex he'd had with you." He examined my face closely and seemed to find the reassurance he wanted. "I knew it was a load of crap but it used to bug me the way you put yourself out to be nice to him."

  I didn't say anything.

  "And you're wrong about him not being sexually aware," he went on. "He was so damn big he had tackle the size of an elephant's by the time he was ten. Sex was the only thing he thought about. He used to nick porno mags and wank himself stupid over the pictures. It was pretty funny till he started doing it for real. He got hold of Rosie, Bridget's sister, and said he wanted to do it with her, and when she told him to fuck off he pushed her to the ground and said he was going to do it anyway. Poor little kid, she was only twelve and she didn't stop bleeding for weeks." His mouth thinned angrily at the memory. "But she was too frightened to tell anyone except me. Her Mum was ill and her dad was never around. So it was down to me to do the business. I beat the shit out of Alan and said if he ever did something like that again, I'd rip his head off."

  "How old were you?"

  "Fifteen. It wasn't long after you left."

  "Did he do it again?"

  Michael shrugged. "If he did, I never got to hear about it. He turned on his dad with a baseball bat a week or so later ... almost as if his brain caught up with his size and a bubble came out of his head saying, 'I'm big enough to take on guys.' After that, he didn't seem so interested in sex."

  I tried to get a grip of the timing. "His wife told me you and he came to blows over Bridget."

  He shook his head. "We only fought the once, and that was over Rosie."

  "She told me Alan was besotted with Bridget until he found her in bed with you ... then he beat you half to death and spent time in juvenile prison for it."

  "In his dreams maybe." He pulled a puzzled frown. "Bridget never gave him a second look after what he did to her sister, so why pretend otherwise? Who's he trying to con?"

  "Beth?" I suggested. "His wife."

  "Why?"

  It was my turn to shrug.

  "Stupid bugger. It's always better to be honest"�he smiled as he listened to himself�"after you've been caught anyway. Nothing remains secret very long in this kind of environment."

  I looked around the room, which was packed with prisoners and their families�all talking, all listening, all under observation from prison officers�and I thought I could easily believe it. There was no privacy in a goldfish bowl. And I wondered what sort of control Maureen Slater exercised over her family that no hint of Alan's viciousness had ever leaked out.

  Letter from John Howlett�RSPCA inspector who entered

  Ann Butts's house on the morning after her death�

  now resident in Lancashire�dated 1999

  WHITE COTTAGE, LITTLEHAMPTON, NR

  PRESTON, LANCASHIRE

  Ms. M. Ranelagh

  Leavenham Farm

  Leavenham Nr

  Dorchester

  Dorset DT2 XXY

  August 11, 1999

  Dear Ms. Ranelagh,

  May I say first how heartened I am by what you wrote. I have always been troubled by what we found in Miss Butts's house, and I feel so much happier to be asked to view it from a different perspective. As you so rightly suggest, I never had any reason to believe Annie was cruel until after she was dead.

  Dr. Arnold was of the opinion that Annie had been robbed in the days before her death and suggested this was the cause of the rapid decline in her circumstances which we found on 15.11.78. While I had some sympathy with that view, I never felt it adequately explained the number and/or condition of the cats. The police "take" on the matter was that Annie was a difficult and disturbed woman who was clearly unable to look after herself and whose behavior had given rise to numerous complaints. What we found in her house, therefore, merely confirmed this belief. It's worth mentioning here that PS Drury told me an hour in advance of entering the house that there were in excess of twenty cats on the premises in order to ensure I brought enough cages to accommodate them. When I questioned this figure, saying that in my experience there had never been more than seven, he said it was based on information received from neighbors.

  I blame myself now for not asking how her neighbors could be so exact about numbers, but it's easy to be wise with hindsight. At the time, my colleague and I were so shocked by what was there that all our efforts went into assessing and rescuing the animals. It would have been different had Annie still been alive because we would certainly have sought to prosecute on the grounds of cruelty, but her death meant that we effectively handed the responsibility for asking questions to Sergeant Drury. I know that Dr. Arnold had severe reservations about his handling of the case�and it would seem from your letter that you do, too�but in fairness I should stress that he was as shocked as we were by the conditions in the house and said several times, "I should have believed them." By this I assume he was referring to her neighbors, whom he described constantly as "low-life." I say this only to remind you that he, and we, were dealing with a situation that, even if it was unexpected, did in fact bear out everything that had been said about Annie for the last twelve months.

  With respect to your specific questions: Annie said her "marmalade" cat had died of "heart failure." She was extremely distraught about it and asked me several times if I thought cats felt pain in the same way we did. I said I didn't know.

  Most of the live cats were malnourished�except the six I was able to identify as hers. Several of the strays had bald patches 'round their muzzles, but in almost every instance the fur was beginning to grow back. I'm afraid there was no evidence that "efforts had been made to help them." Rather the reverse, sadly, as the only sensible help would have been a visit to the vet. However, if your premise that the cats' mouths were taped by someone other than Annie, then clearly the removal of the tape and the purchase of chicken and milk, etc., were an indication of "efforts to help." Her own cats were in noticeably better health than the rest.

  I'm afraid it's impossible to say how much time had elapsed since the tomcats' mouths were taped, simply because their condition when we found them was so appalling. However, I take on board your suggestion that Annie was unlikely to render them helpless only to release them again.

  If I accept your premise that it wasn't Annie who brutalized the animals, then I can also accept your premise that the reason we found sic
k cats shut into the back bedroom was because she wanted to protect the vulnerable cats from the rest. However, and sadly, I can recall no evidence from the postmortems to prove this, as we had no way of telling if the cats were confined after being bitten and scratched, or before.

  Assuming the above premises to be true, then it is certainly possible that the healthy cats killed the sick ones and that the ones with broken necks were the result of "mercy killings." However, if Annie confined the sick toms to protect them from the others, they may well have turned on each other within the confines of the room. I agree that Annie may have chosen to confine the cats inside the house�despite their fouling the floors�in order to protect them from a greater danger outside.

  In conclusion, I am a great deal happier with the suggestion that Annie was a savior of cats rather than a tormentor of them, though I fear you will have difficulty proving it.

  With best wishes for a successful campaign,

  John Hewlett

  *24*

  I asked Michael when he last saw Alan. "We stopped hanging around together after he hurt Rosie," he said, stroking his jaw in thoughtful reminiscence. "If I remember right, I didn't see hide nor hair of him from about '80 on ... but I was in and out of the nick myself on a pretty constant basis which probably accounts for it." He shook his head. "It's pretty bad when you think about it."

  "What?"

  "That there were only two families in that whole road that couldn't keep out of trouble. The Percys and the Slaters. We had the same chances as everyone else, but never used them. Do you realize we must have done over twenty years in prison between us�what with Derek and me, and whatever it was Alan did?"

  "Habits are hard to break," I said.

  "Yeah, like Rosie's."

  "What happened to her?"

  "OD'd on smack in a squat in Manchester about five years ago," he said bitterly. "Some idiot dealer was selling it uncut around that time so it was probably accidental and not deliberate. Bailiffs found her body under a mattress the day after her mates vacated the place. The police reckoned she'd been dead three days, but no one did a thing about it ... just left her there while they packed their bags and scarpered."