The Serpent Pool Read online

  She put down the receiver and waved Maggie into the chair on the other side of the messy desk. ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, I should have waited.’

  ‘It wasn’t important.’

  Maggie tossed a sheet of paper onto the desk. It covered up the address book. ‘Of course, this probably means nothing at all. But it’s an intriguing coincidence, I wanted you to know straight away.’

  Hannah glanced at the sheet. It was a short witness statement. The witness’s name was Wanda Smith, and she had worked at a PR consultancy where Bethany temped prior to moving to a post at the university.

  A yellow Post-it note was stuck onto the paper. Maggie had written on it a telephone number and four words.

  Married name – Wanda Saffell.

  Daniel Kind stared at his laptop, thinking about murder.

  Thomas De Quincey had a lot to answer for. Daniel had just finished rereading ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, and the old essay retained its bite. De Quincey was intrigued by ‘the philosophy of cleansing the heart by means of pity and terror… Something more goes into the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed, a knife, a purse, and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature.’ The true murderer was a romantic, who played to the gallery. The crimes that appealed to De Quincey possessed a touch of the bizarre.

  Daniel thought it best not to dwell upon what his dad would have said about making murder the subject of satire. No scope for relishing the aesthetics of murder when your job was to detect it. One of Daniel’s infant memories was of staying up late one Friday night when his father was working on a case. The old man had promised to read him a story at bedtime – a rare treat, and Daniel chose a chapter about the Five Find-Outers, who were forever investigating mysteries. When at last Ben arrived home, he was haggard and weary, and he hugged his son with a strange ferocity before saying that he needed a shower before story time. Louise was already fast asleep, but as Daniel waited in his bedroom, he overheard his parents whispering.

  ‘What did he do to her?’

  ‘Strangled her with his bare hands.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘And that wasn’t the worst of it.’ Ben’s voice was choking and, for a terrible moment, Daniel thought his father was about to burst into tears. ‘A kid, that’s all she was. A kid.’

  At that point, Ben noticed his son’s door was ajar and shut it so as to prevent any more eavesdropping. But Daniel had heard enough. He’d learnt that in his father’s world, real people did things to real children, things too sickening for words. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Those words troubled him for years.

  His mother always wanted Ben to let the job drop, to shut the door on the harsh and terrifying world of crime when he came home to his family. She dreaded the thought that murder might taint all their lives. But Ben never managed to chill out for long. The urge to see justice done drove him; the irony was that sometimes he failed to do justice to the people who meant most to him.

  Daniel had wanted to talk to Hannah Scarlett about his father. The old man must have admired her passion about what she did. It wasn’t simply about ticking the boxes on the forms and building up your pension pot so you could retire after thirty years and advise businesses on security in between golf trips to the Algarve. Hannah was someone else who wanted to give to the innocent the justice they deserved.

  Since meeting Hannah, he’d encountered murder at close quarters and seen the havoc it caused. Murder changed lives for ever, tore families apart. Yet there was no point in trying to pretend that his interest was purely academic. Murder didn’t simply intrigue him, it obsessed him. As it had De Quincey, as it had when, as a small boy, he’d waited hour after hour for his father to come home and imagined that, single-handed and unarmed, he was busy slapping handcuffs on homicidal maniacs.

  Might as well face up to something else. It wasn’t only the fascination of detective work, and the chance to learn more about the father who had left home for another life, that drew him to Hannah. Even before Miranda’s decision to leave, he’d felt a strong attraction to her, and that sense of passion burning beneath the surface of cool professionalism. But Hannah was with Marc, and he would never dream of wrecking their relationship.

  The phone trilled. He snatched up the receiver, glad of the distraction. His mind was wandering into dangerous territory.

  ‘Daniel Kind.’

  ‘This is Arlo.’ Denstone was speaking on a mobile and the reception was poor. A common problem in the Lakes. ‘I’m in the neighbourhood, wondered if you’re free.’

  ‘Sure, it would be good to meet. I heard you on the radio this morning.’

  ‘Really?’ Arlo sounded pleased.

  ‘You pricked my conscience. The deadline for delivering my Festival paper to the printers isn’t far away.’

  ‘End of this week. I can’t wait to see it.’

  ‘Um…I’m working on it now.’

  ‘Hope you don’t mind my inviting myself round? Please don’t think I’m checking up on your progress.’

  Through gritted teeth, Daniel made appropriately good-natured noises.

  ‘I promise not to disturb you for long, but I’ve been dying to meet up ever since you agreed to be our keynote speaker. No need to move from your desk until the doorbell rings. I can be with you in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’ll put on the coffee.’

  Daniel put down the phone and ambled barefoot into the kitchen. Any excuse to stop work was welcome when the words stopped flowing. He felt like a quarryman, hacking at an unforgiving rock face. Yet the call had shattered his concentration, a cause for resentment. At least until he reminded himself that when the phone rang, his thoughts had already drifted away from murder, to DCI Hannah Scarlett.

  Cassie Weston was due for a morning off, but a couple of part-timers had called in sick, victims of the virus sweeping the county, and she’d offered to cover for them up to half-day closing. Marc hated paying overtime, but with Cassie he was happy to make an exception. He even allowed himself to wonder if her willingness to help him out was due to something more than the fact that she was at a loose end on a damp January day.

  He joined her at the cash till after she finished serving a woman who ran one of the craft shops in the courtyard and was invariably accompanied by an aggressive little terrier called Whisky. The customer had driven a hard bargain over a first edition about traditional quilting, and Marc could have squeezed a couple of pounds more out of her, but who cared? Even in a shapeless blue sweater and jeans, Cassie looked good. He cast his mind back to the night before last, and her shadow in the window as she stripped.

  ‘Thanks again for filling in.’

  ‘No problem.’ She smiled. ‘I enjoy it here. And I’m happy to serve the customers with dogs. I don’t mind animals, but don’t I remember you told me you can’t bear them?’

  He felt his cheeks redden. Somehow it didn’t seem politically correct to admit that he’d had a lifelong dread of man’s best friend, but at least Cassie wasn’t offended. ‘It’s only dogs that I can’t bear to be near. When I was seven years old, I was bitten by a German Shepherd. The pain was appalling, I thought I was going to die. Of course, it was all right in the end, but these childhood traumas leave a mark, long after the actual scars have healed.’

  ‘You’re so right.’ Her eyes widened. ‘What a terrible experience.’

  Thank God she didn’t think him a coward. All the same, he didn’t feel comfortable admitting a weakness, and he was quick to change the subject.

  ‘So, what are you getting up to this afternoon?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He wasn’t sure how to play it. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t suggesting…’

  ‘It’s just that…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m meeting a dealer in
Carnforth this afternoon. He’s disposing of a collection of Wainwright firsts and he’s offered me first refusal. If you were interested, you could come along, get an idea of pricing stock.’

  ‘I sold that quilting book too cheap, didn’t I?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You’re being kind. I saw the look of triumph on her face. She knew she’d got it cheap. I’m so naive!’ Crestfallen yet gorgeous was nearer to it, Marc thought. ‘I bet she waited till you were out of the way before asking how much I’d take for it. I should have—’

  ‘Listen, don’t worry. But if you come to Carnforth, you’ll have a chance to see the bigger picture. There’s more to selling books than standing behind a counter.’

  ‘I’d love to…oh, shit.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She shook her head. ‘I just remembered. I have a dental appointment this afternoon.’

  He felt as though his own teeth had suddenly started to hurt. ‘Toothache?’

  ‘No, just a check-up, but I’d better not cancel. National Health dentists are as rare as signed Wordsworths, and I don’t want to be kicked off his list. Hope I don’t need any treatment, my boyfriend is supposed to be taking me out for a meal afterwards.’

  ‘Some other time.’ He could scarcely contain his disappointment.

  ‘I’d really like that.’

  Her eagerness cheered him. Impossible not to feel a twinge of jealousy of her boyfriend. Though Marc still wasn’t sure if he really existed, or was just a convenient alibi to avoid close encounters when it suited her.

  ‘If once a man indulges himself in murder,’ Arlo Denstone proclaimed, ‘very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbathbreaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.’

  He paused and checked Daniel’s expression for approval. He might have been hired by the Cumbria Culture Company for his literary expertise, Daniel thought, but there was a large dollop of showmanship there too.

  ‘Once begun upon this downward path,’ Arlo continued, ‘you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.’

  Daniel mimed applause. ‘Word perfect.’

  Arlo stretched out his legs and lifted the coffee mug from the little table beside his armchair. His white T-shirt revealed long, bony arms. He was one of the skinniest men Daniel had met, borderline anorexic, a reminder perhaps that he was a cancer survivor. Dark, long-lashed eyes kept flicking around as he weighed up his surroundings. A log fire crackled and spat and gave off plenty of heat. Outside the cottage, the sky was morose and rain slammed against the hatchback of the Micra he’d parked next to Daniel’s car.

  ‘It’s my favourite De Quincey quote. Though he wrote so many wonderful lines. Remember how he bemoans the way people will not submit to having their throats cut quietly, but will run and kick and bite? “Whilst the portrait painter often has to complain of too much torpor in his subject, the artist, in our line, is generally embarrassed by too much animation”? Masterly. Is any other writer of genius so criminally underestimated?’

  ‘Except here in the Lakes?’

  ‘Especially here in the Lakes! We hear more than flesh and blood can bear about William Wordsworth, and plenty about Coleridge. Even Southey, and not forgetting dear old John Ruskin. Poor De Quincey scarcely gets a look in. I hope our Festival will change all that. I’d love people to realise there is so much more to De Quincey than eating opium and living in Dove Cottage. Who knows? The Festival may be the start of something big. Next stop, a De Quincey Trail across the county? He could be the Lakes’ new Beatrix Potter.’ The long lashes fluttered conspiratorially, encouraging Daniel to share the joke. ‘In the meantime, believe me, I can’t wait to read your lecture.’

  ‘Right now, I’ll be thrilled to finish the first draft.’

  Arlo chortled. ‘Good to hear that even Daniel Kind sometimes struggles to string a few paragraphs together. When I was an undergraduate, my ambition was to write a novel, but I never made it past the first five thousand words. Now I satisfy my creative energies through writing press releases about literary festivals. It’s not quite the same.’

  ‘Enjoying your new job?’

  ‘The chance to return to the Lakes was a dream come true. Trust me, I didn’t come for the money. But the people here have been marvellous…well, mostly.’

  He paused, like a born gossip hoping to provoke curiosity.

  ‘My sister said she met you at Stuart Wagg’s party.’

  ‘Louise, yes. Such a lovely lady. She’ll have told you about the little…contretemps?’

  ‘The woman who threw wine over you? Yeah, she did mention it.’

  ‘I bet.’ Arlo uttered a theatrical sigh, but Daniel guessed he relished his fifteen minutes of fame. ‘Not back in the Lakes five minutes and already I’m making waves. Not my own choice, I can assure you.’

  Years spent negotiating the minefield of Oxford college politics had taught Daniel the value of discretion. Adopting a sympathetic expression, he clamped his mouth shut. If Arlo wanted to natter about the incident with Wanda Safell, that was up to him.

  ‘You’ll have heard that her husband died before Christmas?’

  ‘Burnt to death, Louise told me.’

  Arlo squirmed in his chair. ‘Yes, horrible.’

  ‘His boathouse went up in flames?’

  ‘By all accounts, it wasn’t your average boathouse. A place where he kept his rare books, apparently, a bolt-hole up on Ullswater. Wanda was his second wife and I dare say he found her a handful. I met them at the first event I attended, a few days after I took up my post. She’d had a few drinks and…well, she made it clear that it wasn’t just the Festival she was interested in. Very flattering, but needless to say I made my excuses and left.’

  Arlo did his best to look embarrassed, but Daniel wasn’t convinced. Maybe he wasn’t gay, and the faintly camp manner was just a pose. Or a defence mechanism.

  ‘Tricky.’

  ‘Next thing I knew, she was on the phone every other day. She runs a small printing press and produces the occasional limited edition. Including a new book of poetry by a friend of hers that focuses on De Quincey, which she was keen to promote. I was happy to help, but she misread the signals.’

  ‘And then her husband died?’

  ‘Such a shocking tragedy. I thought Wanda would cool down, but on Christmas Eve she called me again. I suppose I was abrupt with her. I didn’t mean to be rude, but she caught me at a bad moment. When I saw her at the party, I wanted to apologise, but she wasn’t in the mood for a rapprochement. She’d obviously got stuck into the booze at home before she set off for the party. Understandable, I suppose. Perhaps she felt guilty about her husband.’

  Daniel stared. ‘You’re not suggesting she had anything to do with his death?’

  Arlo paused before saying, ‘Heavens, no. I mean, guilty about having flirted with another man when her husband didn’t have long to live.’

  ‘Was the fire an accident?’

  ‘Rumours are flying around that it was started deliberately.’

  ‘By Saffell himself? An insurance scam that got out of hand?’

  ‘He didn’t need the money. Wanda told me he sold his business at the top of the market. Maybe someone wanted him dead. When I met him, he seemed a decent sort, but he was an estate agent, after all, and they aren’t universally popular.’

  ‘You don’t kill someone because they messed up your house move.’

  Arlo gave a mischievous grin, and Daniel guessed that when it came to murder cases, he was as much of a voyeur as Thomas De Quincey. ‘Who knows what people may do when driven to extremes? Anyway, I’m sorry Wanda interrupted my conversation with Louise. Such a glamorous lady.’

  Daniel never thought of Louise as glamorous. She was his sister and he always pigeonholed her as a starchy lawyer.

  ‘She mentioned that she’d met yo
u.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised that she and Stuart Wagg…’

  ‘They got to know each other at a legal seminar. She teaches corporate law.’

  ‘Whirlwind romance, by the sound of it. Stuart’s a very successful lawyer, the sort of man you want on your side.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Arlo lowered his voice, as if afraid of eavesdroppers. ‘He has a reputation for ruthlessness. A good friend, and a bad enemy, or so people say. Personally, I find him very civilised. It’s wonderful that his firm is sponsoring the Festival. They’ve even printed a brochure, Lawyers for Literature. Of course, Stuart’s crazy about books, he collects them with a passion.’

  ‘Like George Saffell.’

  ‘Funny, in other respects you couldn’t find two more different characters. George was reserved, nothing like as charismatic as Stuart. Of course, Stuart is younger.’

  The phone rang and Daniel reached for the receiver.

  ‘Is that you, Daniel?’

  ‘Louise?’

  Her voice was barely recognisable. It wasn’t just that she was out of breath. She sounded frightened. He squeezed the receiver tight in hand, as Arlo Denstone leant forward in his chair, alerted by Daniel’s anxious question to the fact that something was amiss.

  ‘I’m in a lay-by near Windermere. Thank God you’re at home. Can I come to the cottage right now?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Stuart.’

  ‘What about him?’

  Daniel shot Arlo a glance. He was trying to conceal his inquisitiveness, but his ears were flapping, no mistake.

  ‘We’ve had a terrible row. It’s like nothing I’ve—’

  ‘What sort of row?’

  ‘Daniel.’ He could hear her starting to cry. ‘He’s—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s over.’ She stifled a sob. ‘Dead.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘You’d better get over here right away,’ Daniel said.

  Louise was gasping at the other end of the phone. She’d run out of words.