The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

  ‘Do you trust him?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Yes. Completely.’

  ‘OK.’

  She called the number, staring at the card. The phone rang out.

  ‘Capitaine Vincent, this is Beatrice Adamson, could you call me?’

  Then she called the gendarmerie, in Beaune, and left a message for his team. They packed up the last of their things. It was muggy; everything felt damp.

  ‘It’s weird being here, knowing there’s all that money somewhere,’ he said.

  ‘It’s frightening,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Let’s just go.’

  ‘But if Alex did tell – somebody – it was here, Griff’s probably right, they would have been here by now.’

  ‘I don’t much want to take the chance.’

  ‘No. I know. I wish the police would call back.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Bea. Let’s go,’ said Dan. ‘If they call, they call. We can stay somewhere nearby.’

  She was looking down at her hands. She didn’t answer.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  She got up and walked away from him.

  ‘I want to look for this money,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I need to see it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see what’s so important to everybody.’

  He could not dissuade her. He tried, but he wanted to see it too.

  They looked in cupboards and drawers; the wardrobes, and chests of drawers in the bedrooms, and the sideboard in the dining room. The act of searching made the need to find it stronger.

  ‘We need to be thorough,’ she said. ‘I’ll start at the top, and you start at the bottom.’

  The wine cellar was not as big as the ground floor itself. It was accessed by an outside door, down small stone steps, or from the annexe by the kitchen. Outside, in the dusk, Dan pushed the door open. The handle was loose in the soft wood and the lock was broken. He went inside, stooping, and hunching his shoulders, scared of vermin. It was too damp for snakes. Part of the floor was dirt and most of the rest was stone, except for in one place, where there were boards. It looked to Dan as though there might be another cellar, deeper, underneath.

  A ladder leaned against the wall, but it didn’t look as if it had been used recently, the rungs dripped with rags of spiderweb. The ceiling was part beamed, too low to stand upright. He switched on his phone for the torch. Immediately, texts from Griff came flooding in. He didn’t read them. He shone the torch about the cellar. In the arches of the foundations there were wine racks with twists of newspaper propping up their wooden feet. One of the racks had been tipped over, and there was smashed glass, and cracked bottles lying on the ground, and small, muddy puddles in patches. Crates were stacked against the walls. He saw an enormous rat disappear between them. He went looking for the money. Griff had said Alex had hidden the money under the floorboards. The drama and stupidity sounded like him. If he’d valued it as he should have done, and valued himself, he wouldn’t have been playing games to please his father, he would have used it to make a life, not the mess he did. But then, thinking of Bea, Dan pitied him.

  With an unlit candle in one hand and the matches and saucer in the pocket of her skirt, Bea went along the corridor to the ladder on the wall and climbed up, into the roof space. She had to bang the trapdoor with the heel of her hand, like Alex had done. Wiping dust from her cheek onto her arm, she looked up through the hole into the velvet black. The rotting smell touched her, but it was fainter than it had been. She remembered clearing up the mess, and the small floppy corpse of the rat, disintegrating as Alex picked it up.

  She listened, then clambered up onto her knees, and then her feet, shaking off her skirt. She took the saucer from her pocket, and the matches, and lit the candle, squashing it into the drops as they cooled. She looked around. The flickering flame made shadows move, the angles tilted and jumped. Things seemed to be alive on the beams because of the small shadows wriggling on their bumpy surfaces. As her eyes adjusted she looked up into the apex of the roof. She felt Alex’s presence there, up in the attic, more than in his plundered room below, as if he’d left a smudge of himself. Perhaps because his memory was still new, his death still fresh. It was strange how strong the feeling was; that without a funeral, he did not rest. The instinct was medieval.

  She bent forward, feeling the heat of the candle flame. There was no movement nearby, not of snakes or anything else, just occasional shifting in the sound of the wood. Balancing, so as not to step onto plasterboard, she examined the empty sections between the joists. No bag. No case. No backpack. That store of surfeit, unnecessary money. Cash. Gold. Treasure. That kick, that drug, that habit. It was a need, hollow and hungry, and never filled up. Above, she heard the tiny steps of a bird on the roof.

  She’d reached the end of the first long side. She couldn’t see the red plastic snake traps except one, near her foot. She put the saucer down, and lifted it, testing the weight. It moved easily. There didn’t seem to be anything there. She picked it up, with both hands, and shook it. Empty. She put the trap down and bent double, legs braced, holding out the candle, looking around. She could see the white lettering and red edges of another trap in the flickering light. Between her and the trap was a rolled-up carpet, a cardboard box and a rubbish bag, with dust on its plastic folds. The shadows loomed over the little group, like a time-lapse sunrise. Leaning close, she touched the roll of carpet; spiky coir and a rubber underlay, in squares, like French notebooks. She poked her finger into the carpet tunnel, circling the gap. She felt only air. She tried to lift it, but with one hand it was too heavy, and she lost her balance, arms splaying as she teetered on the beam. The candle fell. It hit the joist and went out, rolling into the darkness with little thuds.

  ‘Shit,’ said her voice.

  She bent down and felt around the joists and plasterboard methodically, patting back and forth. Her fingers touched the candle and she picked it up and struck a match. The sulphurous burn-off stung her nose.

  Illuminated, Bea organised herself. A dirty old rubbish bag seemed a good place to hide something valuable. She pictured Alex smiling, as he dropped the money in. Gingerly, she lifted the edge. The sides whispered on her hand. Between the damp and rigid folds of paper, groping, she touched something soft, and pulled her hand back. Firmly, she grabbed it again, and dragged the bag and pushed it open with her toe. The mouth gaped. She saw a mop head, not an animal, nothing dead. She carried on.

  Her back was aching from bending. The hand with the candle shook. She swapped it to the other hand as she reached the second red box, and pushed it with her foot. It was hollow-light, too, like the first. She saw a mousetrap with a tiny, long-dead mouse, the bar clamped across its back, like a staple. In the far part of the roof, she saw another trap. Seeing it there, tucked away, she remembered Alex had said to leave it. She’d have to go down on her knees to get into the corner. She put the candle down, and crawled. As the roof and floor met, she reached for the trap. She touched the sharp rim of the hole. She hooked her index finger inside it. It was heavy. The other traps had slid easily. If there was a snake inside it was a big one. She took her hand away. She listened. Nothing. She reached out again. It wasn’t going to move – not with one finger. She needed to lie flat. She didn’t want to lie down along the joist. Slowly, she lowered herself. The splintery wood cut into her body and between her legs, and her skirt fell into the gaps. She hoped a spider wouldn’t run up inside it, or a mouse. Straining, she put a hand on each side of the trap and pulled. Scraping and bumping, it slid towards her. She got up on one knee, and pulled it out, triumphant. She crawled backwards with it and got to her feet. It was as heavy as a small suitcase.

  Balancing the candle on top of the trap, she wobbled back to the ladder, where the electric light shone, clean and modern, from the corridor below. She put the trap down, blew out the candle, and manoeuvred herself onto the ladder. Halfway down, she reached for it, unbalanced by the sudden weig
ht. It was hard to climb down, holding the snake trap. She should find another way, or call for Dan, but he was in the cellar. The carpet of the corridor below her was tantalisingly close. She held the heavy trap with one hand, trying to hook her elbow round the back of the ladder, but there wasn’t enough of a gap for her arm to fit – hardly room for a hand. Helpless, she fell backwards, paddling. The trap fell too, crashing to the ground.

  She fell onto her side, banging her hip and head. The corridor was sideways. The trap was broken open by the fall. It was full of banknotes; blocks of them, in rows, wrapped in plastic.

  Bea sat up and dusted off her arms, looking down at the money. The plastic sleeves were wrinkled and reflecting. The money looked dreamlike. She knelt in front of it and eased a block from the top layer. Hundred-euro notes. There was another layer the same underneath. She pulled at the corner of the plastic envelope. It came off easily, and the slab of money slid out onto her palm. She sat there, holding it. It was about five centimetres thick, with a white paper band around the green banknotes. They were stacked so perfectly it was almost smooth-sided. She lifted it and smelled the metallic, inky smell, a cleaner smell than money usually had. She traced the silver strip with her fingertip and tilted it to the light, watching the rainbow colours of the hologram glint and change, like scales. She slipped the stack back into its sleeve and pressed it into place. She stared at it as her bruises came into focus, her sweat cooled, and the dirt on her skin began to itch.

  Bea wiped the snake trap so the duvet wouldn’t get dirty, and sat on the bed with the money. There were three blocks lengthways, and four across, in three layers. Thirty-six blocks of hundred-euro notes. She couldn’t count how many notes were in a stack without breaking one of the paper seals but she guessed maybe two hundred. Two or three. So, each block was about twenty thousand euros. There was around eight hundred thousand euros on her bed. It was roughly equivalent to twenty years of her salary, or, for her father, petty cash. She should go and tell Dan. He was searching for nothing.

  She put the flat of her hand on top of the money. She felt warmth and static coming off the plastic. It was as if it were alive. One banknote had value, you could buy things with it – food, clothes – but a box-full felt different. It had power. She should tell Dan. But she didn’t get up or call for him, she sat, looking at the money.

  Once, when she was a child, her nanny had left her looking at the comics in the supermarket for a moment, to go outside and chat to a friend. She remembered standing there, as people walked past, happily waiting, and looking at Sylvester the Cat. Her eyes had drifted to the shelf above, to a newspaper, and a photograph of dozens of drowned cattle, lying in a heap. The dead cows were stacked, limp and bony, like unlit bonfires. The picture next to it was worse. She saw people wading through water, with a landslide of debris behind them that had been their homes. Shocked beyond words, Bea stared at the people, waist-deep in water, and at the dead cattle, and then looked around for help, thinking everyone walking past must be stopping and staring too.

  ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Look.’

  She pointed, but nobody looked. No one was interested in the cows or the crying people but somebody asked where her mummy was, and then someone else stopped to see what was happening. Bea started to cry as well, hating it, because these people were worried about the wrong thing. Kathryn always left her on her own, and she always came back.

  Bea had known what news was, and that there were other countries, away from Britain, where people went on holiday and foreigners lived. She’d been to some of them. In the weeks and months that followed she nurtured complicated fantasies involving Griff’s plane, and money, and packed lunches. She was astounded to learn that even Griff wasn’t rich enough to save Peru. But her fantasies persisted. Like any well-fed child, seeing poverty around them, in people on the pavements, on the way to school, she would imagine what a hundred pounds might do to help. Or a thousand. In her dreams, money transformed misery to joy. But she grew up and realised that it was embarrassing to scatter largesse, like the heroine of a Victorian book; it stank of elitism. She learned that generosity must appear detached if it wasn’t to be judged phoney or sentimental, and saw the instinct to give, that was in almost everyone, when consistently condemned, faded. She had often thought how it was expedient to those on the winning side to characterise kindness as humiliating.

  She had been embarrassed out of her childhood hopes, if not their political successors, but now, with the hard-shelled red plastic treasure chest in front of her, she backslid, helplessly, into fantasy. Hungrily, she pictured stuffing envelopes of cash through letter boxes, running rampant on a spree of altruism. And in that moment, for the first time in her life, she understood how rich she was, and how very much richer she had yet to be. The small box of money in front of her was a fraction of the wealth she had at her disposal. It wasn’t the love of money that was the root of all evil, only the love of it above other things. Like fire, it could be a good servant. If she could be disciplined, not be seduced, or let it master her. If she were strong enough not to be corrupted. If she were vigilant, and did not let it rule her. She was elated, she found she was quivering with it. She asked herself if what she was feeling was temptation and decided it was not. Why should the corrupt have a monopoly on wealth when the world needed it so badly? She looked down at the money and placed her hand on it again, and felt its promise. She had trained and worked to give something to the world, but she made so little difference. She was a good person. She knew she was good. She could help. She didn’t believe it could be wrong. She dared imagine justice.

  28

  The money sat between them on the bed. They both looked down at it.

  ‘Do you think it’s stolen?’ he said. ‘Like, maybe your father is into something serious we don’t even know about?’

  ‘No. It was just him and Alex, playing with matches. He’s like the boss of a drug cartel slipping a gram of coke into his sock at the airport. He loves risk. He’s always loved it.’

  ‘But Alex couldn’t pay the bills in cash, they couldn’t spend it, so – what? Does he launder it? Bea, that’s not like tax avoidance schemes you hear about, that’s criminal.’

  ‘Did you think he was just hard-working and lucky? Do you know the people he associates with?’

  Dan felt Griff diminishing before his eyes. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘He’s got everything.’

  They both looked down at the box again. It was like sharing a bed with live explosives. It had a character, as if they weren’t alone.

  ‘We need to put it back,’ he said. ‘Where’s the top of this thing?’

  She reached for it and handed it to him. He held it, poised, and looked at the money beneath the plastic.

  ‘Didn’t think much of me, did he?’ he said. ‘Thought I was greedy enough to clean up his mess.’ He was still staring at the money. ‘Sort of makes you want to pull it out, tear off the seals and throw it round the room, you know? Make a heap of it and, like, roll around on the bed. Light it up like a cigar.’

  ‘Best not.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He put the lid on. His fingers fumbled the catches. They snapped shut with loud, strong clicks.

  ‘What shall we do with it?’ he said.

  All at once the hotel seemed very big and empty. They realised night had almost fallen.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here with it,’ said Bea.

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘I don’t even want to be nearby. Or anywhere quiet. I want to be in Beaune for the night.’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Dan. ‘But don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Nobody knows it’s here.’

  They both looked at the money again. Then they heard a car door slam. They hadn’t even heard a car approaching. They stared at each other.

  ‘Shit. Fuck. Shit,’ said Dan.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘Bonjour?’ shouted a male voice. ‘Il y a quelqu’un?�
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  They went into the sitting room with Capitaine Vincent. There was something different about him – something missing.

  ‘I didn’t get a call from you,’ said Bea.

  ‘I called you back immediately,’ said Vincent.

  She checked her phone. She’d had it on silent.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  Bea twisted her fingers together, searching for words. ‘Dan?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘I’m going to try and explain it all to him. I can’t keep translating.’

  ‘It’s all right. I can wait. Tell me after.’

  He sat down and so did the detective, looking from Dan’s to Bea’s face expectantly.

  ‘Alex went to Switzerland the night he died – did my father tell you?’

  Vincent, poker-faced, didn’t answer. She must not expect the whole picture. She must describe her part to him, the piece that she could see.

  ‘Just after the accident Griff insisted we went to see where it happened. They were still clearing the road. He looked in the boot of Alex’s car – there was an officer from Bresse with us, but I don’t remember what he was called. Something beginning with B? Did anyone tell you?’

  He carried on looking at her coolly.

  ‘Alex would have had lots of cash, in the car with him. My father told me, this morning. He would have had thousands of euros. He brought it from Switzerland, for my father. He’s closing an account there, I think.’

  She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, so she carried on.

  ‘We think it must have been stolen from Alex. The night he was killed.’

  ‘Anything else?’