Shape of Snakes

by Walters, Minette

  He shook his head in bewilderment. "Why didn't you say something?"

  "I couldn't see the point. We were on the other side of the world. All I'd have been doing was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted."

  Sam wasn't designed to remain humble for long. "Do you know what this feels like? It feels like I'm married to a stranger. I don't even know who you are anymore." He propped his elbows on the steering wheel and ground his knuckles into his eyes. "You always tell people what a great marriage we have ... what great kids we have ... what a great father I am. But it's all just crap ... one huge pretense at happy families when the truth is you hate my guts. How could you do that? How could you be so bloody devious?"

  I reached for the door handle. "The same way you did," I said lightly. "Closed my eyes to what a bastard you'd been and pretended none of it had ever happened."

  He agonized over my indifference while we waited for the curry, almost as if I'd thrown doubt on his manhood by refusing to take his infidelity seriously. For myself, I was wondering when he was going to realize that the bone of contention was Annie, not Libby, and how he would explain that when he did. We took seats in a corner and he muttered away in an undertone, afraid of being overheard, although my refusal to lighten his burden with sympathetic comments meant his tone became increasingly-and to my ears sweetly-strident.

  He didn't want me to get the wrong impression ... It wasn't true that he'd tried to pretend nothing had happened ... more that he'd been terrified of losing me ... Of course he'd have admitted to it if I'd asked but it seemed more sensible to let sleeping dogs lie ... He knew I probably wouldn't believe him, but he was drunk the night Libby seduced him and the whole thing did turn into a total nightmare ... It was absolutely correct to describe Libby as a predator ... She was one of those women who thought the grass was always greener on the other side ... He remembered how shocked he'd been when he realized how jealous she was of me and how determined she was to bring me down to her size...

  "When I told her I wanted to end it, she said she was going to tell you what a rat you'd married," he said grimly. "I know it's not much of an excuse but I honestly think I'd have killed her if she'd actually done it. I loathed her so much by then I couldn't be in the same room with her without wanting to strangle her."

  I believed him, not just because I wanted to but because he'd never been able to mention Libby's name without prefacing it with "that bitch Jock married." There was a brief period when I wondered if he said it out of regret because he, too, had been rejected but I soon realized that the antipathy was real and that Libby was as irrelevant to him as the women he'd slept with before we married. That's not to say I wouldn't have clawed his eyes out if I'd known about the affair at the time-objectivity needs time and distance to develop-but to come across it when the ashes were cold was a reason for private grief only, and not for a fanning of the embers.

  "You don't need to do this," I said, glancing toward a nearby customer who had one ear cocked to everything he was saying. "Not unless you insist on washing your dirty linen in public. Libby's a dead issue as far as I'm concerned." I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "I've always assumed that if you'd loved her you'd still be with her."

  He brooded for a moment in offended silence, his gaze fixing abstractedly on the eavesdropper. "Then why tell Jock about it? Why get everyone worked up if it's all so unimportant to you?"

  "Not all of it, Sam. Just Libby. I couldn't give a shit what you did to her ... but I do give a shit what you did to Annie. You left her to die in the gutter then labeled her a drunk in case anyone accused you of neglect. That's the issue. And, as usual, you're busting a gut to avoid it." I paused. "I know you saw her there-and not just because Jock confirmed it this afternoon-but because you always get so angry every time her name's mentioned."

  He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I thought she was drunk."

  "What if she was? It was freezing cold and pouring with rain and she needed help, whatever state she was in."

  "I wasn't the only one," he muttered. "Jock and that woman ignored her, too."

  It was hardly an answer but I let it go. "They never got as close as you did," I said. "I was watching them."

  "How do you know how close I got?"

  "Jock said you told him Annie was reeking of drink, but I didn't smell anything until I stooped down to rock her shoulder." I watched him curiously for a moment. "And it wasn't drink I smelled either, it was urine, and I don't understand how you could mistake that for alcohol."

  "I didn't. All I told Jock was that she reeked to high heaven. He assumed it was alcohol."

  "Did you recognize it as urine?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, my God!" I slammed my palms on to the table. "Do you know that every time I told Drury to question why her coat was reeking of piss he told me her neighbors said it was normal ... that she was filthy and disgusting and always stank."

  Abruptly he dropped his head into his hands. "I thought it was funny," he said wretchedly. "Your good cause for the year ... Mad bloody Annie ... wetting herself on your doorstep because she was too drunk to control her bladder. I went into the house and spent the next ten minutes laughing about it until I realized you were the most likely person to find her. Then I knew you'd bring her inside and clean her up and I thought, this is the day my marriage goes down the drain."

  "Why?"

  He breathed hard through his nose. "She knew about Libby-I think she must have seen us together at some point because she kept sneaking up behind me in the road and calling me 'dirty man.' " He forced out the words as if his life depended on it. '"Have you been fucking the tart today, dirty man.' 'Is that the tart I can smell on you, dirty man?' 'What do you want with trash, dirty man, when you've got a pretty lady at home?' I loathed her for it because I knew she was right and when I smelled her in the gutter"-he faltered painfully-"when I smelled her in the gutter, I kicked her and said, 'Who's dirty now?' "

  I watched a tear drip through his fingers onto the table.

  "And I've been in hell ever since because I so much wanted to take it back, and I've never been able to."

  I watched a waiter come out of the kitchen and hold up a shopping bag to signal that our curry was ready, and I remember thinking that fate was all about timing. If I hadn't been at a parents' evening that night ... if Jock had abandoned the pub at 8:30 when Sharon didn't show ... if food didn't arrive at inopportune moments...

  "Let's go home," I said.

  Two days later, Maureen Slater phoned. She was angry and suspicious because Alan had told her I'd taken photographs of his house, and she demanded to know what my side of the trade was going to be. I repeated what I'd told her on Monday, that if she wasn't prepared to tell me what she knew, I would pass the Chiswick jeweler's affidavit to Richmond Police ... and, for good measure, the shots of the Mexican artifacts in Alan's sitting room. "No one would doubt they were thieves," I said. The only question would be, were they murderers, too? She told me some of what I wanted to know, but rather more interesting was what she chose to leave out.

  Letter to Sergeant James Drury-dated 1999

  LEAVENHAM FARM, LEAVENHAM, NR

  DORCHESTER, DORSET DT2 XXY

  4:30 a.m.-Friday, August 13, 1999

  Dear Mr. Drury,

  One of the downsides of finding Annie dying was that my sleep patterns were shot to pieces, and I count myself lucky now if I manage a four-hour stretch without waking. I've always hoped that an uneasy conscience has kept you similarly awake over the years, but I suspect it's misplaced optimism. To have a conscience at all means a man must question himself occasionally, and even in my wildest dreams I've never been able to picture you doing that.

  I already know you will be absent when I leave this letter and enclosures at the Sailor's Rest, but it seems only fair you should have time to consider your response to the outstanding issue between us. I have, after all, had twenty years to consider mine.

  Yours sincerely,

  M. Ra
nelagh

  *20*

  Drury was watching for me when I came through the door of the Sailor's Rest at half past ten that evening. Being a Friday night in summer, the pub was crowded with holidaymakers and yachtsmen from the boats in the marina, and I felt a small satisfaction when I saw the flicker of apprehension in his eyes as I approached.

  He came out from behind the bar before I could reach it. "We'll go through to the back," he said curtly, jerking his head toward a door in the corner. "I'm damned if I'll have this conversation in public."

  "Why not?" I asked. "Are you afraid of witnesses?"

  He made an angry movement as if to grab my arm and manhandle me in the direction he wanted me to go, but the curious glances of his other customers persuaded him to change his mind. "I don't want a scene," he muttered, "not in here and not on a Friday night. You said you wanted to be fair ... so be fair. This is my livelihood, remember."

  I smiled slightly. "You could have me arrested for making a nuisance of myself, then tell your customers I'm mad," I suggested. "That's what you did last time."

  He resolved the problem by heading toward the door and leaving me to follow or not as I chose. I followed. The "back" was a scruffy office full of dusty filing cabinets and a gray metal desk, covered in used polystyrene coffee cups and piles of paper. It was a smaller, dirtier version of Jock's office and, as Drury motioned me toward the typist's chair in front of the desk and perched himself on a stack of boxes in the corner, I wondered why men always seemed more comfortable when surrounded by the trappings of "work."

  He watched me closely, waiting for me to speak. "What do you want?" he demanded abruptly. "An apology?"

  I dropped my rucksack to the floor and used the tip of my finger to push a half-filled cup of congealed coffee away from me. "What for?"

  "Whatever you like," he said curtly, "just as long as it gets you off my back."

  "There'd be no point. I wouldn't accept it."

  "What then?"

  "Justice," I said. "That's all I've ever been interested in."

  "You won't get it ... not this long afterward."

  "For Annie or for myself?" I asked curiously.

  He placed the flat of his hand on the opened brown envelope, which was sitting to one side of the desk. "Neither," he said confidently.

  I wondered if he was aware of what he was saying because his words suggested he knew there was justice to be had. For Annie and me. "That envelope contains twenty-one years of patient research, showing Annie was murdered," I said lightly.

  "And it's a bunch of crap." He leaned forward aggressively. "For every pathologist you produce, saying the bruises were inflicted hours before Annie's death, the Crown Prosecution Service will produce five who agree with the original postmortem finding. It's a budgeting exercise-always has been. Prosecutions are expensive and taxpayers get stroppy about funding failures. You're going to need a damn sight more than that to get the case reopened."

  He was uncomfortably close and I sat back to get away from him, repelled by the energy that flowed out of him in waves. It was a far cry from twenty years ago when the same energy-authoritative, capable, comforting-had given me the confidence to talk more freely than I might otherwise have done. It's one of the great truisms that we only learn from our mistakes and, like Annie, I had since developed an abiding distrust of men in uniform.

  "The climate's changed since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry," I said mildly. "I think you'll find the murder of a black woman will be at the top of the CPS's agenda, however long ago it happened ... particularly when it's supported by evidence that the sergeant in charge of the case was a racist."

  He pummeled and squeezed one fist inside the other, exploding the joints like tiny firecrackers. "A letter from a WPC claiming sexual and racial harassment, which wasn't upheld at the time?" he sneered. "That won't stand. And neither will Andy Quentin's log. The guy's dead, for Christ's sake, and he had an ax to grind because he blamed me for his career going nowhere."

  "With reason," I said. "You never had a good word for him."

  "He was a creep."

  "Yes, well, he didn't have much time for you either." I opened the envelope and removed Andy's log of Drury's stop-and-search arrests of Afro-Caribbeans and Asians between 1987 and 1989, giving details of the derogatory language Drury had habitually used. "What difference does it make if he did have an ax to grind?" I asked curiously. "It's a straightforward account, which you're perfectly entitled to challenge if it contains errors."

  "He hasn't logged the names of the whites I stopped and searched."

  "He's given comparative figures. Your ratio of black to white was way higher than anyone else's in Richmond at the time." I shrugged. "But it's all on record so it's easily proved. If Andy's figures are wrong then you'll be vindicated. If they aren't, his conclusion that you used your stop-and-search powers as a form of racist sport will carry weight."

  "Not true," he snapped. "I was doing my job like everyone else. You can twist figures to fit any conclusion you like. I can just as easily demonstrate that his motive in producing that list was vindictive. There was a known history between us."

  "What about the seventeen-year-old Asian boy whose cheek you fractured?"

  His jaw worked angrily. "It was an accident."

  "The police paid undisclosed damages."

  "Standard procedure."

  "So standard," I murmured sarcastically, "that you were put on sick leave for the duration of the internal inquiry, then took early retirement immediately afterward." I unzipped the front pocket of my rucksack and removed a folded piece of paper. "I left this out of the envelope. It was the last thing Andy sent me. It's the confidential assessment made of you by your superior officer. Among other things, he describes you as 'a violent individual with extreme racist views who has no place in the Metropolitan Police Force.' "

  He snatched the paper from my grasp and shredded it to pieces, the muscles of his face working furiously. He was the opposite temperament to Sam. A man who brooded over long-held grudges. A man who saw loss of face as weakness.

  I stirred the pieces with my toe, thinking I'd be safer poking a viper's nest. "Is that how you always deal with evidence you don't like? Tear it up?"

  "It's inadmissible. The slate was wiped clean as part of my retirement package. You'd be prosecuted just for having it in your possession. Quentin, too, if he were still alive."

  "Well, maybe I think a prosecution's worth it," I murmured, "just to get it into the public domain. I can fire off a thousand copies tomorrow and throw so much mud at you that there'll be no one left who won't question your motive for wanting Annie's death ruled accidental."

  "You'll be seen for what you are," he warned, "a bitter woman with a personal vendetta against the police."

  "One policeman, possibly," I agreed, "but not the police in general. I was given too much help by Andy for anyone to think I tar you all with the same brush. In any case, who's going to tell them it's a personal vendetta? You?" I smiled at his expression. "How do you plan to explain why I'd want to pursue one?"

  He screwed his forefinger into his temple. "It's all in your statements," he said. "You were a head case ... persecution complex ... mother complex ... anorexia ... agoraphobia ... sexual fantasy ... What was I supposed to do? Sit beside your bed and hold your hand while you bawled your eyes out?"

  "You might have questioned your own judgment," I suggested.

  "You've only yourself to blame for that," he retorted sharply. "Maybe if you'd backed off once in a while, I'd have taken you more seriously. I don't like people in my face all the time." As if to prove the point, he slammed his back against the wall and stared at me through half-closed eyes.

  I looked away. "Then why didn't you let someone else take over? Why wasn't I allowed to talk to Andy? Why did you get him pushed off the case?"

  "He was more trouble than he was worth. He believed everything you told him."

  We both knew that wasn't the real reason, but I let i
t go. "Because everything I said was true."

  "You mean like this." He jerked his chin at the brown envelope. "There's no evidence of murder in there. Just different opinions."

  "That's only a fraction of what I've got," I said. "You didn't think I'd show my whole hand, did you?" I took the photographs of Beth and Alan Slater's house from my rucksack. "There's plenty of evidence that Annie was robbed." I passed the pictures across to him. "Maureen Slater admits most of this stuff was sitting in her house for months after Annie died ... claims you saw it and even went back on one occasion, offering to buy the Quetzalcoatl mosaic. Which means you should have treated Annie's house as a scene of crime, if only because it must have been obvious to you that the Slaters had robbed her."

  He gave the pictures a perfunctory glance. "Maureen said she bought it in a junk shop," he said dismissively. "I had no reason to think otherwise."

  "She couldn't afford to go to the laundrette. How could she afford to buy paintings?"

  "Not my problem. None of the stuff had been reported stolen."

  "You must have recalled the Quetzalcoatl when Dr. Arnold started asking questions about Annie's possessions."

  "No," he said bluntly. "It was four years later. How many houses do you think I'd entered in that time? I couldn't describe a picture I'd seen a week before, let alone one from way back."

  "You offered Maureen twenty quid for it," I reminded him, "so it obviously made an impression on you."