The Wounded Snake

by Fay Sampson

  ‘I was scared to death by the conversation I overheard,’ Veronica leaned forward, ‘between Gavin and Theresa. I thought it meant that they had something against Dinah and that’s why they tried to arrange her death. But what if …’

  ‘It was Melissa they were angry with?’ David finished for her. ‘They may have felt sure she was at the back of that. And from what you’ve said, it sounds as though her mental balance was not all that it might have been.’

  ‘Angry enough to murder her?’ Hilary’s voice was still sceptical.

  ‘We don’t know enough about Jo, though,’ Veronica reflected. ‘There might be something that links her to Dinah Halsgrove or to Melissa.’

  ‘There was one thing,’ Hilary recollected after a pause. ‘At Dinah Halsgrove’s talk, I forgot my badge and had to go back for it before they would let me in. I didn’t know you were saving a seat for me at the front, so I ended up in the gallery. And guess who I was sitting next to? Jo. I did rather idly ask her why she was up there, and not at the front with the rest of you. Thought perhaps she’d gone to the loo or something. But I thought at the time she wasn’t telling me the truth. What if she was the one stealing Dinah’s medicine, while everyone else was in the Great Barn?’

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ David put in. ‘We’ve more or less decided that it would have to be Melissa doctoring the whisky. But what about the teenager in the hoodie you were telling me about? The one you say a witness saw near the Leechwells around the time of Melissa’s death? I met Jo Walters out running before breakfast this morning. She has that sort of lean figure that could be mistaken for a teenage boy, given the right clothing. That could be her.’

  ‘Jo murdered Melissa?’ Veronica exclaimed. ‘What possible reason could she have?’

  ‘There was something else I don’t think I’ve told you,’ Hilary reflected. ‘There was something strange between Melissa and Jo. Yesterday morning, when we met in our groups for the first time, I caught Melissa looking agitated. She was saying something to Gavin and looking at her Snake group. I couldn’t see just what it was who had upset her. But it might have been Jo, mightn’t it? Could the two of them have met before?’

  David shrugged. ‘I know no more than you do. I’m just following up your idea. There may or may not be a connecting thread between all three attacks. Not necessarily the same person, but a chain reaction. One person does something that brings down anger on them, and then so on.’

  Hilary looked at her watch. ‘Lunch! There are good smells coming from the kitchen. And come this afternoon, we should all be free to go home, whether the inspector’s solved his case or not.’

  ‘Solved his three cases,’ David pointed out. ‘Have you noticed, they don’t seem to have called in another investigating officer to take over the attempt to kill Jo? The police appear to be assuming they’re all part of the same story.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  They moved indoors to the high-raftered bar-cum-dining room. All the long tables where Hilary and Veronica usually ate were taken. The three of them found a smaller one that seated four. A young man was already there on his own. Black hair was swept back from his forehead to fall just below his shoulders. Although alone in a communal setting, he had an air of self-containment.

  ‘Do you mind if we join you?’ David asked.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  As Hilary seated herself she looked around at the setting with a feeling of regret. Part of her longed to be away from here, with all its recent tragedy, and safely home. And yet she was filled with longing for the weekend it should have been in this evocative place. She looked around her, feeling she must imprint all this on her memory. The two colossal alcoves which had held the cooking fires for the Great Barn after the Reformation. The lofty windows in their deep embrasures high above her head. She had to crane her neck to look up to the immensely high rafters which followed the pitch of the roof outside. And here she was, awaiting lunch in a space which would once have been bustling with cooks, potboys, scullery maids and serving men in Tudor times. Would she ever feel able to return here after this? It felt like a loss of a precious innocence.

  She came back to the present as a surge of whispering ran round the tables, and then a profound hush. She looked behind her. Gavin was walking across the room, followed by Theresa.

  He looked white and strained.

  Jake rose from one of the long tables to offer him a seat. Gavin shook his head, with a pale attempt at a smile.

  He paused, looking around at them all, as if not entirely sure what they were doing here. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

  ‘I’m sorry about all this. It’s not how I intended it to be.’

  There were awkward murmurs of sympathy. Nobody knew just what to say.

  Gavin turned away. He and Theresa took seats at another of the smaller tables.

  ‘He doesn’t somehow look like a killer,’ Veronica said quietly. ‘Just profoundly shocked.’

  When the conversation in the dining hall had resumed, David turned to the young man beside him. ‘Are you on the writing course too? Do you know these ladies?’ He made the introductions.

  ‘George,’ said their companion, putting out a hand. ‘Yes, I’m into crime too.’

  Hilary studied him. She had only a vague recollection of seeing him at their sessions, but then, there were nearly thirty of them, and the programme had not run as planned.

  ‘Which group were you in?’ she asked.

  ‘Snake,’ he said. The smile dropped from his face. ‘Bad business. Melissa. And now Jo.’

  ‘She and Harry were in your group, weren’t they?’ Veronica said.

  ‘Yes.’ There was something about the shortness of his answer which aroused Hilary’s curiosity.

  ‘Did she …?’ She must feel her way carefully. ‘Did Jo get on with Melissa?’ She was not sure herself just what she meant. Why had there been that abruptness in the young man’s voice?

  His dark eyebrows came together. ‘Now why would you ask that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She was reprieved by the arrival of the young, slim-hipped waiter with their soup. When he had gone she found that George was still looking at her expectantly. ‘Just something in your tone of voice,’ she confessed.

  George looked down for a moment, absently crumbling a piece of bread in his fingers. Then he sighed.

  ‘I don’t know myself whether it’s relevant or not. The first session, when we met in groups after we’d come back from choosing our settings, we went round the circle introducing ourselves. When it came to Jo, Melissa said, “We’ve met before. You were on Gavin’s writing course in Salisbury, weren’t you?” But Jo came back at her like a crack of gunfire. “No!” And Melissa looked sort of flustered. “Sorry. I could have sworn it was you,” she said. “I know it was four years ago. And your hair colour was different then. But …” Then she just carried on to the next person and it passed over. Only she kept looking back at Jo. But I’ve asked myself ever since. Did Jo know Gavin and Melissa? And if so, why would she want to deny it?’

  They finished their soup in silence. Hilary could feel her companions’ minds racing, as hers was. It had seemed hard to imagine why anyone in this random group of would-be writers, meeting their leaders for the first time, should want to murder one of them. But there had certainly been that moment of alarm she had observed between Gavin and Melissa. If Jo already knew them, and had been dismayed that Gavin’s wife recognized her, then … But her sharp mind refused to take her any further.

  ‘Did you tell the inspector this?’ David asked, when the soup bowls had been removed.

  ‘Of course. I’m not an idiot.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’ll have stored it away in that canny brain of his, but he’s obviously not letting us in on what he thinks.’

  ‘But now Jo herself has been attacked. A blow to the head that could have killed her,’ Hilary reflected. ‘If she did kill Melissa – and I can’t imagine any reason why she should, even if they ha
d met before – then could what happened this morning be Gavin taking revenge?’

  ‘For what?’ David asked.

  ‘And if he suspected her of lying, why not just report what he knew to DI Foulks?’ Veronica asked.

  Hilary eyed the plate of roast beef that had been set in front of her with more enthusiasm than she had anticipated. She was feeling a little more like her normal self. It was a relief to get her brain working again, instead of that sense of helpless bewilderment.

  David was saying, ‘Unless there is something about all this that Gavin doesn’t want to tell the police?’

  ‘You mean, whatever it was that made Jo angry enough to kill Melissa?’ George asked. ‘Just supposing for the moment that she did.’

  ‘You did say that the supposed teenager in the hoodie could have been Jo,’ Veronica reminded David. ‘That at least makes some sort of sense.’

  ‘But what could that have to do with whatever happened at Salisbury – if anything did?’ Hilary finished. ‘And since none of the rest of us were there, how can we possibly know?’

  ‘We could ask Harry.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Probably at the hospital.’

  ‘But they may not have been married then. Otherwise, why didn’t Gavin and Melissa recognize her name?’

  The speculation petered out. Hilary bent her mind to savouring her Sunday roast.

  ‘You know,’ said Veronica later, as the raspberry pavlova arrived, ‘Jo was – is – very clever. What if she’d worked out who killed Melissa, and that person found out?’

  Hilary could not resist turning round. Gavin and Theresa were sitting on their own at the next table.

  A shudder went down her spine. Two people eating in silence. It was scary not knowing if the folk you were sharing lunch with were guilty of murder.

  George pushed his hair back and wiped his lips with his napkin. His chair legs scraped on the wooden floor.

  Hilary started. Her mind had been so busy running over their speculations that she had forgotten there were four of them at the table, not three. Her mind raked over what they had talked about. Had she given away anything she should not have? And did she have a right to keep knowledge to herself?

  Her heart sank as she realized that they had indeed recalled that seemingly incriminating conversation between Gavin and Theresa yesterday morning. She was fairly sure they had not said anything explicit about its content, but it would be enough to identify Veronica as a key witness.

  Or was she? What those two at the next table had said in the tiltyard had been in the hands of the police for nearly twenty-four hours. If Veronica’s testimony threatened them, the damage was already done. And even if it were not, it should have been Gavin and Theresa she was anxious about overhearing talk about it, not George.

  A sudden memory made her sag with relief. Surely, the three of them had been on the outside table, drinking beer and sherry, when they talked about that sinister conversation, not here in the dining room with George.

  George, from the Snake group. Since the waiter had brought them dessert, their fellow conspirator had lapsed into silence, a quiet, listening presence. What else had they said? It was like the discovery that you are in the presence of an adder. Not a sudden movement on its part, but a sharp realization that you have been at close quarters with a poisonous snake, unknowing.

  She looked with alarm at the youngish man with the backswept hair. He stood arrested in the act of leaving them. His dark eyes teased her now.

  ‘I seem to remember you were the one who read the riot act to Ben and Jake because they proposed a brainstorming session, wanting to toss over theories about what’s going on. And here you are, the three of you, falling over yourselves to swap possible scenarios for murder and poisoning. A little hypocritical, don’t you think?’

  Hilary felt her cheeks warm. ‘It’s only natural. We’ve been rather more closely involved than the rest of you. It’s not the same as sitting down cold-bloodedly to construct possible plots, as if this were just another crime novel.’

  ‘Isn’t it? You’d have to plan a real crime that way, wouldn’t you?’

  Veronica leaped in to rescue Hilary. She gave George a disarming smile, part motherly, and just a little flirtatious. ‘Were you there this morning in Lady Jane’s Chamber? How did it go? I heard you were short of numbers.’

  ‘Less than a dozen of us. And not Jo. It’s a scary feeling. She might already have been …’

  ‘I know. Poor Harry was at church with us. Really upset.’

  ‘How do you mean, upset? Wouldn’t that have been before Lin found Jo with her skull stove in?’

  ‘In tears, poor man. And no, it couldn’t have been about Jo. He was crying because of Melissa.’

  ‘So, did you discount the idea that it was Rob? You knew by then that he was at the police station. Have you come up with any astounding theories that the finest minds of CID haven’t thought of?’ Hilary asked crisply, wanting to restore something of her dignity.

  ‘Not really.’ A rueful grin. ‘All sorts of ideas. Gavin’s jealous of Dinah Halsgrove’s success, since he can’t seem to write more than one good book. Sends her into a near-death coma. Theresa’s got a thing about Gavin, so she bumps off Melissa. No, nothing that’s halfway plausible. We gave up after less than an hour. Lin said she was going for a walk by the river to clear her head. She said she thinks better on her feet. She’d remembered Jo asking Ben about the riverside path. Apparently he and Jake were down there yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘So your brainstorming group already knew that Jo might be going there?’

  ‘I … suppose … so.’ George stopped, as though the idea had only just occurred to him.

  ‘Including Rob.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the sort of place where anyone who wanted to do her in was likely to come upon her by accident,’ Hilary pointed out.

  ‘I guess not. At least … well, Lin obviously did. She’s that straight-backed little lady over there. Must be in her seventies.’

  ‘We know her. She’s in our Toad group. So, she asks about the path where she knows Jo might be running and takes a walk there.’

  ‘You surely can’t be suggesting …’

  The three of them followed his eyes to the long table where Lin sat at the end, finishing her dessert. A small, self-contained figure, who said little to the people around her.

  ‘Doesn’t seem likely, does it?’ said George. ‘A woman her age, getting the better of an athletic type like Jo.’

  ‘Unless she had the advantage of surprise,’ David put in. ‘From what I could see, there are plenty of trees along that path. Easy enough to lie in wait behind one, and deal her a blow with a hefty branch as she runs past.’

  ‘But why?’

  The question silenced all of them.

  ‘And didn’t you say Jo must already have been attacked, since she didn’t make it to your meeting?’ Hilary put in.

  ‘So you think Lin only pretended to find her by accident?’ Veronica asked.

  ‘Did she think it would make her look more innocent?’

  Hilary thought back to the artist’s impression of the unidentified figure in a tracksuit. It had come to her with a sudden revelation this morning that Lin, as well as Jo, had the slender build and modest height that could have passed for a teenage boy in a hooded top.

  But common sense took over. Why would a woman of Lin Bell’s age be bringing a tracksuit to a crime-writing weekend? Unless she had reason to know that Jo would be there, and had planned it all beforehand. She shook her head. It was too like a closely plotted crime novel, as George had said.

  ‘We ought to keep our voices down,’ Veronica said, suitably low. ‘Gavin and Theresa are watching us.’

  The two leaders, sitting at the table only a little distance away, had indeed turned, as if to wonder what George could suddenly have to discuss that was of such importance that it detained him in the act of
leaving the room.

  As she watched, a waiter passed between their tables. It was the much younger one, in tight-fitting black shirt and trousers, with a long grey apron wrapped round his narrow hips.

  She remembered again seeing him on other occasions, carrying trays from the kitchen. Had she dismissed too easily that passing idea that he would have had the opportunity to doctor Dinah Halsgrove’s supper with ground-up tablets? She pictured him now, carrying that tray around the paths skirting the lawn from the Chapter House kitchen to the East Cloister.

  She studied his back view with renewed interest. That same slender build again. Could he …?

  But the question came back, like that about Lin. Why would he? And were the next two crimes connected to the first?

  Was it possible this had something to do with Morland Abbey, not the writers’ course? Could he have been in league with Fiona? Fiona, who had been on duty on the night of Halsgrove’s collapse. Fiona, who had the key to the chapel?

  Hilary shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. ‘Nothing about this makes sense. You think you’re on to something, then another thing happens and all your theories are out of the window. Coffee?’ She turned to David.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour before the detective inspector wants to meet you for the final time. Meet us, I suppose I should say. I’d better be there. He has a rather suspicious view of my activities around the chapel last night.’

  ‘What activities?’ George was suddenly alert, all thoughts of leaving gone.

  ‘Long story.’ David got to his feet unhelpfully. ‘How about if we leave these upright chairs and make for the sofas in the Gatehouse for our coffee? I need to go to the loo first. I’ll see you there.’