The Serpent Pool Read online

  He heaved himself off the counter. As he turned to go, he heard her whisper, ‘Thanks, anyway.’

  A breakdown in the heating system had turned Divisional HQ into an ice house. Today the bug had claimed two more members of Hannah’s depleted band. Linz Waller had rung in sick and so had the remaining admin assistant. Les’s voice sounded raspy, and Maggie blew her nose three or four times as Hannah gave a short briefing to the walking wounded. Only Greg Wharf seemed immune, wondering whether they should ask to be renamed the Sub-Zero Case Team.

  Half an hour later, Maggie stuck her head round the door. The sparkle in her eyes told Hannah that she’d discovered something new.

  ‘Spare me a minute, ma’am?’

  ‘Anything to take my mind off the monthly stats is very welcome. Take a seat.’

  ‘No joy yet tracing Cumbes, Redfern, or Seeton, so I’ve taken a break and checked out Bethany’s career history.’ She produced a sheet of paper. ‘Want to take a look?’

  Hannah swallowed. Did a spell at Amos Books feature in the list? She couldn’t put off the awkward questions for ever.

  She shook her head. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You’ll never guess who Bethany once worked for.’ Maggie beamed, prolonging the suspense.

  She wouldn’t be so pleased with herself if she’d found a connection with Marc. ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘She had three months at George Saffell’s estate agency, eighteen months before her death.’

  ‘All right, let me see.’

  Hannah stretched out a hand for the sheet. But the name that caught her eye first wasn’t Saffell’s, but that of Stuart Wagg’s law firm. Bethany Friend had spent a fortnight there, the summer before her death in the Serpent Pool.

  When Marc was not out buying books or manning a stall at a book fair, he took his lunch in the café. Lately he’d fallen into the habit of sharing a table with Cassie, but when he emerged from his office at one o’clock, there was no sign of her. He gobbled a sandwich, and after making good his escape from Mrs Beveridge, he wandered over to the till for a word with Zoe, a student who helped out on half-days during her vacation. She was a diminutive, chatty nineteen-year-old who reminded Marc of a small, inquisitive bird.

  ‘Cassie asked me to tell you she’d gone out for a walk.’

  ‘In this weather?’

  ‘Yeah, exactly.’ Small brown eyes peered at him through the thick lenses of her spectacles. ‘Said she needed some air. If you ask me, she’s upset.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Some man, is my guess.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘Partner,’ Zoe corrected him. ‘Least, I suppose it’s him.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  He stared. ‘What do you mean?’

  Zoe enjoyed pretending to be discreet. ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘Come on, we’ve known each other a long time.’ It was true: her parents lived in Staveley and had been customers since the shop opened. When he’d first met Zoe, she’d been a tongue-tied schoolgirl. ‘You can be frank with me.’

  ‘Hey, Marc, Cassie’s sweet, OK? But I don’t know much about her life, and my guess is, we get on better that way. If you ask me, she’s…um…a complicated person. Better not to get involved.’

  He didn’t know what to say. Zoe liked Hannah; had she worked out that he was attracted to Cassie? He’d done his best to conceal it, even from himself.

  ‘Thanks for the advice.’

  The moment he was out of her sight, he pulled his coat off the hook and opened the back door.

  Cassie hadn’t gone far. A bridle path ran close to the beck, curving past spiky trees in the direction of the village. She’d found a bench half a mile from the shop and was looking out towards the whitened slopes on which half a dozen kids were tobogganing. Again she didn’t look up until he sat down next to her.

  ‘Zoe told me you’d set off for a walk.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you to chase after me.’

  ‘I’m concerned, that’s all. You’re obviously upset. You can tell me it is none of my business…’

  ‘It is none of your business,’ she retorted. He started to get up, but she laid a gloved hand on his arm. ‘Sorry, that’s rude. I do appreciate your kindness, Marc. I try not to let personal stuff get in the way of work, but it isn’t easy sometimes.’

  ‘I’d be glad to help, if I can.’

  She groaned. ‘I might as well spill the beans. My boyfriend and I have had a huge row. I think it may be over between us.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She was on the brink of tears. Anxiety welled inside him as he realised he didn’t know how to play this. Zoe might be right. His life was messy enough.

  But he felt her leaning into him.

  Even in the cold winter air, he smelt a musky perfume on Cassie’s skin. He closed his eyes, remembering the text.

  Running late. Traffic. Daniel.

  In his head, he heard Mrs Beveridge’s confident advice: Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

  He turned to Cassie, but felt her body shift on the bench. As he opened his eyes, she was scrambling to her feet.

  ‘My lunch break’s over. We mustn’t leave Zoe on her own too long.’

  ‘In case there’s a rush?’

  ‘You never know.’ Her smile was unnaturally bright. ‘Race you back to the shop?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wanda Saffell’s letterpress business occupied a squat, whitewashed building in a quiet side street. She’d called it Stock Ghyll Press after the beck that ran down to the centre of Ambleside, flowing beneath that photographer’s Mecca, Bridge House, on its way to the Rothay. Once, the ghyll had powered the town’s bobbin mills, but the cotton trade they served was long gone, and the mills had either fallen down or metamorphosed into holiday lets.

  A signboard hung over a window display of half a dozen finely bound books, a couple opened to show off the woodcut engravings. In pride of place was a slim volume bearing the author’s name in intricate lettering.

  Nathan Clare.

  The door creaked open. Wanda Saffell stood in the doorway and looked Hannah up and down. A minute scrutiny, as if she were checking a page proof for typographical errors.

  ‘I saw you from upstairs, inspecting my books.’

  ‘They are beautiful.’

  OK, it was soft soap, to get the interview off on the right foot. But it was also true.

  ‘Your partner loves them. Oh yes, only this week, he agreed to take half a dozen copies of Nathan’s book. He probably mentioned it?’

  No, he bloody hadn’t. Hannah choked back a groan of irritation and Wanda Saffell raised her eyebrows. Elegantly, as she seemed to do everything. She’d even drenched Arlo Denstone with a smooth movement of the hand that held the wine-filled glass. Today she wasn’t dressed up for a party at a rich man’s mansion, but still she managed to make a sweatshirt and jeans look chic. Yet there was a jarring note, a pungent fragrance that clung to her. Sharp and almost metallic, it seemed oddly familiar, though Hannah couldn’t put a name to it.

  ‘I have heard about you from Marc.’

  ‘And I saw you at Stuart Wagg’s party, even though we weren’t introduced.’

  ‘I can’t claim it was my finest hour.’

  Hannah waited.

  ‘Needless to say, I was pissed out of my brain. Lucky for me that your chums in Traffic didn’t catch me while I was driving to Crag Gill. I’d hate to think what my breath test reading might be.’ Her smile showed pointed incisors. It didn’t touch her cool blue eyes. ‘Naturally, I would be forced to deny everything if there were witnesses to this conversation.’

  ‘You were obviously unhappy that night.’

  Wanda rested her hands on her hips. ‘My husband died rather horribly a few weeks earlier, Chief Inspector. Mightn’t that explain it? Now, this weather is too cold for me to stand here without a coat. I’m sure you don’t usually conduct your interview
s on doorsteps like a tabloid reporter. Come in, before we both catch our deaths.’

  She led Hannah into a narrow passageway. This was where she’d insisted on meeting, and at first, Hannah was disappointed. Since her early days as a DC, she’d preferred to interview people in their home environment whenever possible. After the normal working day, preferably, when they might be more relaxed, perhaps off guard. While you talked, you could learn so much about someone from scanning their shelves, weighing up their tastes in decor, the books and music they liked to surround themselves with. But then, Wanda had shared the house with the late lamented George, and it probably still said more about the deceased than his widow. There might be more clues here.

  ‘Do you know much about letterpress?’ Wanda asked over her shoulder.

  ‘Next to nothing, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Marc’s interested, as you know.’

  She didn’t, actually. Even after all these years.

  Wanda halted outside a door and threw it open. It gave on to a large room, with three different printing presses, and a table covered in sheets of paper with engravings. The far wall was lined with cabinets. One, left open, was crammed from top to bottom with chunks of type.

  ‘This is where most of the work is done. Take a look.’ The first thing that struck Hannah when she stepped inside was the smell. So this was Wanda’s perfume – the tang of good old-fashioned ink. And mixed in with the ink was the earthy aroma of newly cut paper, and a whiff of fresh glue.

  Wanda breathed in deeply. ‘Intoxicating, don’t you think? Since I started up here, I need a fix pretty much every day. The full-on, whole-sensory experience of a printing press in action. Even the rattle and clank of the machinery excites me. We live in a virtual world these days, but this is real.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Not your cup of tea, Chief Inspector? Ask Marc, he would understand.’

  Why did Wanda keep dragging Marc into the conversation – to make her think that someone her partner knew couldn’t possibly be a murderer?

  ‘I’m sure he would.’

  ‘At least I can’t be arrested, not for getting high on ink and bound sheets of paper.’ She gestured to a large, heavy piece of equipment in the corner. ‘An Arab treadle press. A wonderful machine, a century ago you found it everywhere. I’ve always been fascinated by letterpress, but I never had the time or money to indulge myself. But this was going for a song at an auction, because it was all in pieces. A few days later, I met George, when his firm put their PR work out to tender. I couldn’t resist mentioning that I’d just picked up a stripped-down Arab.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Within twenty-four hours, he’d taken me to his bed. Three months later, we were honeymooning in the Maldives. I packed in PR for the joys of running my own print shop. No need to disapprove, I’m scarcely a hard-wired gold-digger. My first husband was a musician, and I kept him for years.’

  She looked Hannah in the eye, as if defying her to make something of it. A combative woman, this. A bad enemy.

  ‘We’ll go into the other room,’ Wanda announced, as though it was time to bite her tongue. ‘You will have a cup of coffee.’

  A statement, not a question. She shepherded Hannah into a smaller room on the other side of the passageway. Hannah’s stomach rumbled. If Wanda offered her biscuits, or better still, buttered crumpets, she wouldn’t say no.

  Stock Ghyll Press titles filled the shelves which ran from floor to ceiling. There was a desk with a computer, and a small circular table surrounded by three chairs. Lying on a table was a copy of Nathan Clare’s book. While Wanda busied herself in the little kitchen area at the end of the corridor, Hannah leafed through it.

  Not her sort of thing.

  Wanda returned and set down two steaming mugs on the table. There wasn’t a biscuit in sight.

  ‘Nathan has a marvellous talent.’

  ‘So, he told me.’

  ‘Yes, he mentioned that you’d interviewed him. No doubt he explained to you that fate has cheated him of fame and fortune. The curl of your lip suggests his work is not to your taste, Chief Inspector. But your partner was impressed.’

  ‘Then I bow to his expertise.’

  Wanda sat back in her chair and put her hands behind her head. The body language of negligent command.

  ‘So, you have reopened the file on poor Bethany Friend, and you want to speak to Nathan and me, and presumably anyone else who had the slightest acquaintance with her?’

  ‘More than slight in Mr Clare’s case,’ Hannah said. ‘He and Bethany were in a relationship not long before her death.’

  ‘I wouldn’t read much into that, if I were you. Nathan has had countless relationships, he’s famous for it.’

  ‘And you and he…?’

  Wanda wasn’t fazed. She’d prepared for this conversation, and she didn’t mean to lose control.

  ‘…are consenting adults, Chief Inspector. Which is all that I intend to say on the subject. As for Bethany, I met her through work, as I met hundreds of other people.’

  ‘You were friends.’

  ‘She was a pleasant girl.’ Her tone was neutral. Wanda didn’t do displays of emotion, except when she was pissed or angry or both. ‘Pretty, and rather naive. Reserved in manner, but charming once she got to know you and started to thaw.’

  ‘Did you know that she had temped for your husband?’

  ‘George?’ Wanda’s eyes widened. ‘No, she never mentioned it.’

  Hannah sensed the news had come as a surprise to Wanda, but she decided to persist. ‘Really? Did George not mention it either?’

  ‘No, why should he? Bear in mind, he and I hadn’t met at the time I knew Bethany. And we never discussed her.’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And how about Bethany’s stint working for Stuart Wagg, did that pass you by as well?’

  ‘What on earth are you driving at, Chief Inspector? Do you interrogate everyone you meet about all their previous employments? Me neither. Bethany flitted all over the place.’

  Time to change tack. ‘You said she was naive?’

  ‘Easily led.’

  ‘Who tried to lead her?’

  ‘I didn’t pry into her life, Chief Inspector. We were different ages; when we talked, it was mostly about the latest book we’d read.’

  ‘What else can you tell me about her?’

  ‘Nothing additional to the statement I gave after she died.’

  ‘You must care about what happened to her?’

  ‘Nobody ever proved that she was murdered. For all I know, she committed suicide.’

  ‘Was it in her character to kill herself?’

  ‘I was a work colleague, not her psychiatrist. We didn’t even share the same employer. My firm had the contract to promote the university’s image and Bethany and I met because she was typing for the director of communications, and sat in to take notes of our reporting sessions.’

  ‘And you hit it off together?’

  ‘We discovered we had similar tastes in literature. She wanted to write, while my creative urge is confined to printing. But a love of books is a bond.’

  ‘And she never confided in you about her personal life?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There were no rows between you?’

  ‘Why would we quarrel? We weren’t competing against each other.’

  Time to give her a shake, even if it meant the kiss of death for any hope of cooperation.

  ‘Not even over Nathan Clare?’

  Wanda frowned, but gave no sign of being rattled. Her annoyance resembled that of a long-suffering mother whose child embarrasses her in public.

  ‘That’s a ridiculous suggestion.’

  ‘Any reason there why she would want to end it all?’ Hannah persisted. ‘Or why someone else would have a reason to kill her?’

  ‘I can’t imagine anyone wishing to murder Bethany. She was a sweet girl, it’s inexplicable. Her dea
th saddened me, but it’s not my business to solve the mystery.’ Hannah felt like chewing the table. The woman was holding back on her. And there was an air of superiority about Wanda Saffell this afternoon, a suppressed self-satisfaction that irritated and puzzled her. Anyone would think she had an ace up her sleeve, but couldn’t be bothered to play it.

  ‘Did she talk about why she split up with Nathan Clare?’

  ‘She didn’t need to. There are people who dump and others who get dumped. Nathan fell into the former category, and Bethany into the latter. It was inevitable that he would tire of her, as he has tired of a long list of other women.’

  ‘Nothing personal, then?’

  ‘Sarcasm is unworthy of you, Chief Inspector. Nathan is an artist. He lives on his own terms.’

  ‘Like so many men?’

  ‘Don’t scoff, Chief Inspector, it doesn’t suit you. Believe me, I’m as much a feminist as any woman.’

  ‘You were making a feminist statement when you threw wine over Arlo Denstone at Stuart Wagg’s party?’

  ‘I was drunk and depressed, that’s all.’

  ‘What had Denstone done to deserve it?’

  ‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you like.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘We’d met before George died. He’s an attractive man, in a gaunt sort of way. He seemed interested in me, obviously I read too much into it. There’s no point in denying that I propositioned him. He said no thanks, but it was the disgust in his eyes that seemed so cruel. As if I were ugly and desperate. That’s why I was so angry with him, and at the party I wanted him to apologise. But when I sobered up on New Year’s Day, I realised I should have left it. All I did was make myself look sad.’

  ‘Your solicitor took you home from the party.’

  Wanda Saffell looked wary. ‘You know I consulted Raj Doshi for matrimonial advice?’

  Hannah nodded.

  ‘I didn’t take it any further. Not in terms of splitting up with George, that is.’

  ‘What, then?’ An idea struck Hannah. ‘Have you been seeing Doshi?’

  Wanda’s face darkened. ‘He’s married, Chief Inspector. And my private life is none of your business.’