The Serpent Pool Read online

  We think it may collapse at any time.’

  Someone coughed behind him.

  Marc swung round. He hadn’t heard the door open. He didn’t like people invading his private space or taking him by surprise. For years he’d been accustomed to a warning creak whenever someone came in, even if they didn’t knock. It had been a mistake to oil those hinges.

  In the doorway wasn’t some nosey customer in search of a Wainwright first edition, but a woman in a thick fisherman’s jersey and jeans, with shoulder-length fair hair tied into a ponytail. Steam rose from the mug of coffee in her hand. He wasn’t sure how long she had stood there. Why would she wait and watch him, without a word? His skin prickled. Her silent scrutiny was curiously exciting, as if she could see right through him.

  ‘Our fell-top assessor says he has rarely seen conditions as bad as this in the Lake District,’ shouted the woman on the radio. ‘The wind chill factor is severe. We urge people, however experienced they might be as mountaineers, not to venture out until the situation improves.’

  Marc shook his head. ‘What kind of fool would climb a mountain in this weather?’

  A dreamy look came into Cassie Weston’s eyes. Her lips parted, revealing front teeth that slightly overlapped. Somehow the imperfection made her all the more attractive.

  ‘Someone who likes living dangerously?’

  ‘Living dangerously is one thing. Killing yourself is quite another.’

  ‘I brought you a hot drink.’

  ‘You’re very good to me.’ Her expression was unreadable. ‘You were miles away.’

  He waved at the chaotic mess of paperwork on his desk. ‘You caught me out.’

  ‘It’s not as if you were doing something wicked.’

  Most people would have said something wrong. But Cassie wasn’t most people.

  ‘I should be checking the unpaid invoices. Cash flow is king, and all that.’

  She handed him the mug. ‘What were you thinking of?’

  He might have asked her much the same question. Cassie had worked for him since the autumn, but he still couldn’t make her out. One minute distant, the next, almost intimate, as if she were on the verge of confiding a secret. Whenever he tried to find out more about her, she pulled up the drawbridge, but this elusive contrariness was part of her appeal. What made her tick, what turned her on? Once upon a time, he’d wondered the same about Hannah. Cassie was a fresh challenge, a conundrum he yearned to solve.

  More than once, when the shop was shut and the staff had gone home, he’d pulled her file from the cabinet and pored over her CV like a detective in search of clues. But he found so few. She came from Carlisle, and after a year spent studying for a degree in English literature, she’d given up on university in favour of the real world. Over the years she’d drifted from job to job. Typing here, waiting on tables there. Her job application mentioned that she wrote short stories in her spare time, but the one occasion he’d asked about them, she’d shaken her head in embarrassment and changed the subject.

  ‘I’m a book man,’ he said. ‘Living dangerously isn’t for me.’

  ‘You never know till you try.’

  ‘A place like this can’t be too exciting for a young woman like you.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said softly. ‘I enjoy it here. I find it fascinating…to learn from you.’

  He’d tried to explain how much he loved it here, surrounded by thousands of second-hand books. Each had a story to tell, and not just in words written on the page. Every volume on every shelf had a past life. Sometimes all was revealed by an inscription in a flowing hand – ‘To Daisy, Merry Christmas, 25 December 1937’, ‘Given to Hubert Withers for one year of unbroken attendance at Cark Sunday School’ – sometimes the books came with no provenance and you had to play detective to find out how a rare book printed in Gibraltar when Victoria was on the throne finished up in a junk shop at Gateshead one hundred and twenty years later.

  He relished teaching her how to buy and sell rare books, couldn’t help feeling flattered by the way she hung on his words as he described the tricks of the trade. How to spot books that weren’t what they seemed, like alleged signed firsts of The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy – neither of which was published until Ian Fleming was dead and buried. Book values flipped up and down like the stock market.

  Pricing had little to do with literary merit, let alone critical acclaim, when the books were new. Winnie the Pooh wasn’t worth quite as much this year, while a set of early whodunnits by Miles Burton in pristine jackets would set the rich collectors aquiver with desire.

  ‘I’d hate to bore you,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t bore me at all.’ She considered him. ‘But has anyone ever dared to suggest you care more about books than people?’

  From someone else, the question would be offensive. He wondered if she was referring to Hannah. He leant against the desk and smelt the coffee. Pungent Arabic, spiced with cardamom. Still too hot to drink.

  ‘Depends on which people.’

  She pointed at the clutter of documents, paper clips and ring binders. ‘But you hate being a businessman.’

  ‘Running the shop and having to worry about cash flow and stuff is the price I pay for being my own boss.’ She was trying to find out about him, she must be interested. ‘There are plenty of other things I dread more.’

  A light shone in her eyes. ‘Such as?’

  ‘The taxman, for a start,’ he said lightly.

  She frowned, as if the answer disappointed her. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

  As she moved away, he felt a stab of disappointment.

  ‘Any time,’ he said.

  When he took the empty mug downstairs to the cafeteria, Cassie was behind the counter, talking to a customer on the phone. Some long and complicated inquiry about a search for a book whose title and author the caller couldn’t remember. A frustratingly common form of amnesia. She didn’t spare Marc a glance as he walked past.

  A coal fire burnt in an inglenook on the ground floor, in between the bookshop and the café. The wind whistled in the chimney and from cracks in the window seals, but the crackling blaze kept the winter at bay. Marc warmed his hands before helping himself to a fat slab of chocolate gateau. As a penance, he sacrificed a couple of minutes to an exchange of pleasantries with Mrs Beveridge, who had taken over the running of the café from Leigh Moffat. A slice of the legacy from Aunt Imelda had enabled Marc to take a lease on premises in Sedbergh, now designated as a book town. For the moment, the store was little more than a handful of shelves annexed to Leigh’s café. He missed her, and wondered if she missed him as much.

  Mrs Beveridge was efficient but voluble and he was already bored with her jokes about the suitability of her surname for someone who spent her working life serving tea, coffee and soft drinks. She was large and jolly and smelt of banana cake. Every now and then, she told him that he ought to make an honest woman of Hannah. Once, in frustration, he’d trotted out the old joke about what you feed a woman to put her off sex. When he said the answer was wedding cake, she’d uttered such a groan of dismay that the floorboards rattled. You couldn’t beat marriage for companionship, she maintained, although he gathered her recipe for connubial bliss involved keeping her husband well and truly under her thumb. Mr Beveridge was a retired chauffeur (‘and he still drives me to distraction!’) who spent every daylight hour on an allotment in Kendal, no doubt to keep a safe distance from his wife’s relentless chatter.

  The kitchen staff had left early to get home before the weather worsened, and there wasn’t a customer in the shop. The mill was one of half a dozen buildings grouped around a yard; the others housed an assortment of craft shops, and visitors often drifted from one store to another. But not today.

  He fled from Mrs Beveridge’s clutches to the detective fiction shelves, and blew dust off a set of squat reprints lacking dust jackets. Hack work produced by long-forgotten practitioners with names like Bellairs, Morla
nd and Straker. Titles as hard to shift as aged relatives who have long outstayed their welcome. It was increasingly difficult to sell anything that wasn’t out of the ordinary. He blamed the Internet, as most booksellers blamed the Internet for whatever went wrong with their business. An Agatha Christie reprint from the Sixties, a Ruth Rendell from the Eighties? No, thanks. You could get them online for a handful of pennies.

  Rarities. He must keep finding them, if his business was to survive. He didn’t need Hannah to remind him that he couldn’t live off the legacy for ever. He had a few scouts, people with the know-how to search out scarce books, who were ready to sell at a hefty discount in order to make a quick profit. Charity shops and car boot sales were a waste of time, but he haunted book fairs, although the good buys were to be had from fellow dealers early on the first morning, long before the doors opened to admit Joe Public. Even the punters were savvier than ten years ago. Internet comparison sites and online auctions made everyone an expert.

  The doorbell jangled, and he looked over his shoulder in surprise.

  A woman wearing a hooded raincoat stepped into the shop. She dropped a zipped shopping bag onto the floor, pushed back the sleet-spattered hood, and gave him an Arctic smile.

  ‘If you buy me a coffee, I promise not to throw it all over you.’

  Marc exhaled.

  ‘Afternoon, Wanda.’

  * * *

  When Mrs Beveridge brought their drinks and a plate of scones, she hung around, trying to engage Wanda Saffell in conversation. But Wanda didn’t do small talk, and eventually, the cafeteria manager admitted defeat and retired to the kitchen.

  Wanda watched her retreating back. ‘You must miss Leigh.’

  Marc frowned, but said nothing. Wanda was so bloody provocative. His fling with Leigh was long in the past, long before they’d worked together. He didn’t like people getting the wrong idea about their relationship. It was purely professional.

  ‘Thought you might like to see my latest production.’ She unzipped the bag and produced a thin red slip case. ‘Of course, I’m hoping that you would be prepared to stock it.’

  She slid a little book out of the slip case. It was bound in papyrus and stitched with raffia.

  ‘Voilà!’

  Marc had seldom seen Wanda Saffell show pleasure – her natural expression was chilly disapproval. She must be proud of what she had done. Picking up the book between forefinger and thumb, he considered the title page.

  ‘Pulses of Light?’

  ‘You don’t recognise the quotation?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Thomas De Quincey, talking about Dorothy Wordsworth. He was talking about her energy, the way she illuminated the scene. He had the hots for her, all right. Poor woman, not pretty, but full of pent-up passion. After William married, she lost her mind. Anyway, in these verses, the poet imagines himself as De Quincey, setting about the seduction of Dorothy.’

  ‘And does he succeed?’

  She smiled. ‘You bet. It’s a pure lust thing. No hearts and flowers. Not a daffodil in sight. Read the poems, and you’ll find an explanation for Dorothy’s mental breakdown that has nothing to do with her brother. It’s very dark and disturbing. No prizes for guessing why he couldn’t find a London publisher. But I adore his work.’

  Marc stared at the author’s name.

  ‘Nathan Clare?’

  ‘I wondered if you’d put a few copies on the counter.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Sale or return, of course, I expect nothing else. Trade terms. I have a poster, too, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  Marc flicked through the pages. The poems were interspersed with woodcuts. The images fell just short of pornographic. Splayed limbs, convoluted couplings. He read a stanza of ‘Taking You Beyond’.

  ‘Strong stuff.’

  ‘Like I said. But Nathan has a fierce talent.’

  He touched the binding. ‘Never mind what’s inside the book. You’ve created something beautiful.’

  ‘Would you judge a book by its cover?’

  ‘A lot of people do precisely that.’

  ‘I wanted to create a binding that was…counterintuitive.’

  Marc opened the book again and stared at a picture of a reinvented Dorothy, pleasuring her devilish lover with ferocious energy.

  ‘I’ll take half a dozen.’

  ‘You’re a star.’ Wanda hesitated. ‘As a matter of fact, I owe you an apology. I almost crashed into your car on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘High risk,’ he murmured. ‘Hannah was driving.’

  ‘The detective chief inspector.’ Wanda sipped her drink. ‘I should have been more careful, but I wasn’t in the best frame of mind.’

  ‘So, I gathered.’

  ‘God knows why I showed up. Stuart Wagg said he didn’t like to think of my being alone at the turn of the year. Told me I couldn’t hide away for ever. I should never have listened. He only wanted me there as a prize exhibit. The widow of his dead rival.’

  ‘Rival?’

  ‘In book collecting.’ She considered him. ‘What did you think I meant?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He and George competed for years, you must have made a pretty penny out of them both.’

  ‘George was a wonderful customer. I miss him.’

  ‘I bet you do.’ She didn’t say she missed her husband too. ‘At least I got something out of that fucking party. I enjoyed drenching Arlo Denstone.’

  ‘What was all that about?’

  She waved the question away. ‘Never mind, it’s history.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I’m not sure it was worth the buzz it gave me. Denstone offered to let Nathan give a poetry reading during the De Quincey Festival. Maybe he’ll change his mind now, though I hope he won’t bear a grudge. It would help to sell a few more copies.’ Her expression was rueful. ‘Thanks for taking the books.’

  ‘I’ll put them in my next catalogue.’ Marc savoured the raspberry jam he’d smeared on the scone. ‘My turn to apologise. I meant to attend George’s funeral, but at the last minute, something cropped up.’

  This wasn’t true. He hated funerals. Any form of unhappiness depressed him, and the thought of standing by a graveside on a dank and dismal day had been too much to bear. So he’d decided not to go and salved his conscience by sending a handsome cheque in favour of the charity Wanda had chosen for donations in George’s memory. From her raised eyebrows, he could tell that she’d seen through his lie, but it didn’t matter a jot. She had other things on her mind.

  ‘I’m no good at playing the grieving widow. It’s no secret that George and I had…drifted apart. So of course, the tongues are wagging.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘People wonder if I started that fire. Or hired someone to do it for me.’

  ‘Nobody could imagine—’

  ‘Of course they can. Sometimes I feel as though I’m the talk of the Lakes. And making a fool of myself at the party didn’t help.’

  ‘Perhaps the fire was an accident.’

  ‘It was no accident, and suicide doesn’t make sense. George would never kill himself, trust me. Let alone in that horrible way. He was a baby, like most men. Terrified of pain, he must have suffered agony. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Besides, he’d never destroy his precious collection. He loved books more than anything. Including me.’

  Mrs Beveridge emerged from the kitchen. ‘All right if I close up in five minutes?’

  It felt like a reprieve. Marc sprang up. ‘We’ll get out of your way.’

  Wanda Saffell rose to her feet. ‘I’d better go. Thank you for listening.’

  Good manners almost prompted him to murmur, Any time. But Mrs Beveridge started putting chairs upside down on top of the tables around them, and before he could say a word, Wanda strode out of the shop and into the shower of sleet.

  Back in his office, he fiddled with entries for his next catalogue, checking prices on the net, tinkering with image
s of dust jackets on his computer screen to make sure all the detail was visible. Digital photography made it easier to describe books accurately to prospective purchasers, and keep complaints down to a minimum. Not that he ever had many complaints. He loved books too much to want to lie about them.

  The door opened. Cassie had got out of the habit of knocking.

  ‘Shall I leave it to you to lock up?’

  He logged off and said, ‘I’ll be ready in five minutes. We can leave together.’

  ‘Would you mind dropping me off at the bus stop? My poor little car is in for repair. It started making unhappy noises over the holiday, so I took it in this morning and it won’t be ready until tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home, if you like.’

  ‘I don’t want to take you out of your way.’

  He was sure she’d hoped he would make the offer. Though unsure whether that was because she liked his company, or because she didn’t want to hang around in the dark, waiting for a bus. If one ever came – services had been slashed up and down the county. No wonder the roads choked with cars and lorries.

  ‘No problem. Kendal isn’t much of a detour.’

  ‘OK, thanks. Five minutes?’

  As the door closed behind him, his spine tingled. Not that he meant to misbehave, of course. Nothing was further from his mind.

  ‘Fancy a quick drink?’ Marc asked.

  He felt Cassie’s gaze, warm on his cheeks, but kept his eyes locked on the dark road ahead. A small, stone-built pub stood a couple of hundred yards further on. An isolated place, in the middle of fields and woodland, catering for the local farm workers. Litter always seemed to blow across the tiny car park, and he’d never been tempted to stop there for a drink. It was long odds against his bumping into anyone he knew. Besides, neither he nor Cassie had anything to hide; it wasn’t as if they were up to no good.

  ‘Don’t you have to be getting home?’

  ‘Half an hour won’t hurt.’