The Serpent Pool Read online

  ‘I suppose your partner works long hours.’

  A reminder that he was spoken for. Cassie knew about Hannah, and that she was a cop. It was no secret.

  ‘Too right.’ They rounded another bend and he could see the pub ahead. ‘But if you’re in a hurry…’

  ‘No hurry at all.’

  He swung off the road and into the deserted car park. There was a For Lease board on the outside wall of the pub, the upstairs windows were shuttered. The sleet had stopped, but this was an evening to stay indoors.

  ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Whisky, please.’ She gave a theatrical shiver. ‘I need warming up.’

  The landlord was a walking cadaver in a frayed cardigan; his false teeth clicked as he pulled on the pump. Scores of hostelries in the Lakes had reinvented themselves as gourmet restaurants, but all The Old Soldier had to offer was a dusty glass cabinet containing a couple of grey sausage rolls and a Cornish pasty. Marc supposed that any customers who hadn’t been driven away by the smoking ban and the smell of disinfectant from behind the bar counter would have been discouraged by the man’s monosyllabic dead-batting of conversation as he poured the drinks. A handwritten sign on the wall proclaimed this as a happy hour. The landlord might not be hot on customer focus, but he had a flair for irony. Beer and cheese-and-onion crisps were on sale at half price, yet there wasn’t another soul to be seen.

  ‘Slow night?’

  The landlord shrugged. ‘About the usual. I’m getting out at the end of the month. The brewery’s selling up.’

  Once upon a time, this would have been a sweaty, smoky drinking den, one of thousands across the land, a place where locals met up after a long day at work for a game of dominoes or darts. The younger generation would hate the lack of karaoke machines and football on satellite television. Kids today bought their booze from supermarkets and went bingeing on cheap Stella Artois before throwing up and fighting each other in the nearest village square or shopping parade.

  At least he and Cassie had the lounge bar to themselves, and thirty minutes sped by. Marc spent most of them talking and Cassie’s eyes gleamed in the murky light; maybe it was his sparkling conversation, maybe the tumbler of neat Glenfiddich had something to do with it.

  She interrogated him about the new house in Ambleside, and he made her laugh with an account of his incompetent efforts at do-it-yourself. He hadn’t even attempted to make the bookshelves himself: that was a job for a skilled tradesman, given the number and weight of books to be borne. He’d even had to check out whether there was a need to reinforce the first floor. But it would be worth it. The house was so close to the fells. You could walk up to the Serpent Tower without breaking sweat.

  ‘That’s an old folly, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Only read about it. I can’t claim to be much of a walker.’

  ‘It’s an easy climb, you’ll have to let me show it to you, one of these days.’ He hesitated, not wanting to make it sound like a chat-up line. ‘Come round for lunch one Saturday, perhaps, and then we could head up the fell.’

  ‘That would be nice.’ She smiled. ‘You never appreciate what’s on your own doorstep.’

  ‘Hannah and I made it as far as the Serpent Pool on New Year’s Eve, but we had to beat a retreat before the mist came down.’

  ‘The Serpent Pool.’ She frowned and emptied the tumbler in a single gulp. ‘The name rings a bell.’

  ‘It’s a narrow stretch of water, some people say it’s shaped like a snake.’ He grimaced. ‘The folly is further up the fell, a much better vantage point. The pool isn’t even big enough to count as a tarn.’

  She didn’t say anything, seemed to want him to go on.

  ‘A woman drowned there, years ago.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know the story.’ Not true, but he didn’t want to talk about Bethany Friend. ‘You’d best ask Hannah.’

  ‘We hardly ever see her in the shop.’

  ‘She calls in occasionally. Of course, she’s working most of the time.’

  ‘The hours must be tough if you’re a senior police officer.’

  ‘Yeah, it…can be difficult.’

  Their eyes met for a moment, then Cassie checked her watch.

  ‘Time to go, I think.’

  They didn’t talk much on the rest of the journey. Cassie’s flat was in a quiet backstreet, above a boarded-up sub-post office that had fallen victim to government cutbacks. It was happening all over Cumbria, this whittling away of the bonds that had tied communities together. Pubs, libraries, post offices, primary schools, all closing down. Traditional village life was fading like the worn inscriptions on the stones in country graveyards. In darker moments, he wondered if the day might come when people only talked to each other on social networking sites and Internet chat rooms.

  He pulled up outside the building. It was behind Kirkland, a three-storey house, divided into bedsits. Would she invite him in for a coffee? If she did, would he accept?

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It would have been so miserable waiting for the bus and then bumping along all the way into town.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘Careful. You wouldn’t want me to take advantage of your good nature.’

  He returned her smile. ‘I’m sure you’d never do that.’

  ‘You don’t know that much about me.’

  When he’d tried to find out more about her personal life, she’d parried his oblique questions. He knew nothing about her boyfriend, except that he lived in Grasmere. Maybe he was imaginary, a convenient excuse to avoid unwanted entanglements, like Stuart Wagg’s party, or the attentions of a boss who was stuck in a long-term relationship.

  ‘It’s early days.’

  She gripped the door handle. He wondered if she might be about to kiss him on the cheek, but if that was in her mind, she had second thoughts. She opened the door and jumped out onto the pavement, before thrusting her head back into the car.

  ‘Goodnight, Marc.’

  He nodded towards the building. ‘Convenient. Close to the town centre.’

  ‘It’s all right. A bit cramped, but space enough for one.’ She pointed to a window on the first floor. ‘That’s my room.’

  The door to her flat was down an alleyway at the side of the building. As she fumbled in her bag for her key, she turned to give him a quick wave. He waved back as she disappeared inside.

  He didn’t start up the car at once, but sat there in darkness and asked himself again whether he would have followed her in, if she’d invited him.

  A light went on in the window above the shuttered post office. He saw her shadow, stretching out long slender arms. Impossible to tell whether she was yawning – or exulting.

  He was sure she was taking off her clothes. Sure she knew that he was watching from his car. Why else point out her room?

  He pictured her stripping naked. Pictured her beckoning to him, to come upstairs and join her in bed.

  But her face did not appear at the window.

  He wasn’t sure why he waited there. Ridiculous, really. Perhaps, somewhere deep in his subconscious, he hoped she would change her mind and call him in. Stupid, stupid fantasy. It must be the intoxicating combination of drink and her company.

  The shadow disappeared, but he didn’t switch on the ignition for another ten minutes. He couldn’t squeeze her lovely face out of his mind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Bethany Friend is dead.’ Nathan Clare’s deep, almost musical voice made the harsh words seem all the more cruel. ‘They burnt her body, one wet morning at the crematorium. Why rake over old ashes?’

  The house was a mid-terrace in the heart of Ambleside. You stepped in through the front door, straight off the pavement. There was a pub opposite and an off-licence round the corner. During the ten years he’d lived here, he’d probably kept them both busy. In a bedroom upstairs, he’d slept with Bethany, but there was no trace of her in
this living room. No fading photograph on the mantelpiece. No photographs at all, come to that. Hannah supposed he wasn’t into remembering other people. She guessed that Nathan Clare had fallen in love with himself at an early age and remained ever faithful. On a small table, books were piled high. Fanned out next to a flyer advertising the De Quincey Festival were half a dozen red warning letters about unpaid phone, gas, and electric bills.

  Hannah shifted on the sofa. It was absurdly low, and as lumpy as a bad milk pudding. He’d waved her to take a seat, but wasn’t foolish enough to join her. Instead he roamed up and down the narrow living room, pausing every now and then to warm his backside against a log fire. Each time he made a point, he waved his beefy arms. Every syllable of his body language said: I am in control.

  ‘We never closed the file.’

  Bad choice of words. She sounded like a pen-pusher, ticking off a checklist.

  ‘So, this is an exercise in bureaucracy? Presumably you have targets to meet? Bonuses to be earned?’

  ‘This isn’t about meeting targets, Mr Clare. Bethany’s mother is ill, she doesn’t have long to live. She’s never understood why her only child died. She needs closure.’

  ‘Closure.’ Nathan Clare lifted dark, brooding eyebrows. ‘A fashionable nostrum, DCI Scarlett. Of course, it’s an illusion. Life isn’t neat and tidy. There are no elegant solutions to its mysteries.’

  She groaned inwardly. Spare me the philosophy.

  ‘Even so, I’d be grateful for your help.’

  ‘I went through this six years ago. I can’t tell you any more.’

  ‘You and she were lovers.’

  A shift of his shoulders implied: So what? Even in T-shirt, chinos and moccasins, he struck her as formidable. His features were simian, with prominent cheekbones and flared nostrils. As he stalked around in front of her, he reminded her of a caged animal. Untamed even after a lifetime of captivity, forever on the prowl. Strong, feral, dangerous.

  ‘The details are hazy now.’

  ‘Six years isn’t so long. The two of you were close, and her death was very sudden.’

  ‘I needed to move on.’ A grand sweep of a huge paw. ‘I made a conscious effort to scrub Bethany out of my mind.’

  Hannah knew the trick he was pulling. He wanted to cover his back in case he made some mistake and contradicted his original statement. She’d fixed the appointment by phone and, caught by surprise, he’d agreed before he had the chance to fob her off. She’d half-expected when she rang the doorbell five minutes ago that he wouldn’t answer. But he’d decided to indulge in a little unsubtle psychological warfare. On the wall facing her hung a sub-Modigliani daub of an angular, naked girl with legs splayed open. He wanted her to feel uncomfortable. The lumpy sofa, at least, was doing the job.

  She scrambled to her feet and stood close to him. He smelt of stale beer.

  ‘When did you meet Bethany?’

  ‘As you well know, I held a series of evening classes at the university, and she came along. She worked in the offices as a secretary at the time. Temping, to pay the rent. But literature was her passion.’

  ‘What was the subject of your classes?’

  ‘Ostensibly, the Lakes poets other than Wordsworth. Coleridge, Southey, you know?’ His tone implied that a detective wouldn’t have heard of any poet other than Wordsworth. ‘I like the discussion to range far and wide. I could never become a full-time academic. Examinations and grades only matter to second-rate minds. One night, Bethany and I talked. We went to the pub for a drink and took it from there.’

  ‘You began a relationship?’

  ‘It wasn’t against the rules, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘She was on the university’s payroll.’

  ‘But she wasn’t a student. The evening classes were just a way of filling the time when she ran out of ideas for her writing. She’d had a series of dead-end jobs. Serving in restaurants, typing in offices, earning a pittance behind the counter of a bookshop. One summer, she cleaned bedrooms at a hotel at Bowness. Her ambition was to write the Great English Novel. Not that it was ever going to happen.’

  ‘Did you and Bethany discuss her moving in here?’

  ‘She knew I wanted to keep my independence.’

  ‘You didn’t view it as a long-term relationship?’

  He laughed. ‘Nowadays people spend a fortune on weddings and five minutes later they’re consulting their lawyers about divorce. I’m not sure relationships actually work long-term, Chief Inspector. A few last because the parties are too lazy or frightened to make a break.’

  ‘Did Bethany feel the same?’

  ‘She’d had bad experiences in the past.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He frowned, as if he’d been lured into saying too much. ‘She was an innocent. Prey to wild infatuations, followed by deep despair.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Hannah was curious. ‘I heard she was a very private woman.’

  ‘Are private people forbidden to fall in love?’

  ‘Was she infatuated with you?’

  He grinned, showing teeth as large as any she had ever seen.

  ‘Do you find that so difficult to understand, Hannah?’

  ‘The last time you saw her was a couple of days before she died. You admitted that you argued.’

  ‘I told her I’d met someone else.’

  ‘Who was that someone else?’

  ‘I said it was a girl who’d come to one of my poetry readings, but that wasn’t the truth.’

  ‘You invented a new girlfriend because you’d tired of Bethany?’

  ‘That wasn’t…’ He paused. ‘Please don’t sound shocked, it’s unbecoming in a senior police officer.’

  ‘I’m not shocked, Mr Clare. It just seems rather heartless.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I was doing the poor girl a kindness.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It would have been cruel simply to say that I found her wearisome. Her physical demands, I had no trouble accommodating, I can assure you. But she stuck to me like cling film. She was terrified of rejection. Utterly terrified.’

  ‘Why was that, do you think?’

  ‘I’m not a psychiatrist.’

  Hannah waited.

  ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s a clingy woman. Freedom is very precious to me.’

  Through a door opening into the kitchen, Hannah saw dirty plates and mugs piled high on the draining board. The floor hadn’t seen a mop for weeks, and she caught a whiff of sour milk.

  ‘You never married.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not for the want of opportunities, I promise you.’

  Slimeball though he was, Hannah feared he was telling the truth. There were probably a good many women who thought they could change him. Depressing thought.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, my dear Hannah. In case you’re wondering, I’m not interested in my own sex. Bethany could never persuade me there was any sense in that sort of thing. But I like to do as I please, and marriage makes that difficult. Paying off the mortgage is commitment enough for anyone.’

  The urge to slap his face was almost impossible to resist. No doubt, over the years, plenty of women had succumbed to the temptation. But Hannah wanted information.

  ‘How did the argument between you end?’

  ‘I promised to call her in a few days, once I’d given her time to calm down. There was no reason why we couldn’t continue to be friends.’

  ‘If she was terrified of rejection, she must have been upset with you. Angry?’

  ‘These things are never pleasant. I’m no monster, Hannah, whatever feminist prejudices you may harbour. But our relationship had run its course. She was bound to get over me, sooner or later. Probably the moment she met someone else.’

  ‘Did she seem irrational, did she make threats?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Hannah gave him a do-me-a-favour look.
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br />   ‘She was distressed, naturally. I had arranged to take her out for a meal, at a decent little trattoria. It closed down last year, a real loss. Bethany thought we were about to discuss a romantic holiday in Umbria when I broke the news. She wasn’t irrational. Just…unhappy.’

  The original investigating team had spoken to the staff on duty at the trattoria that night. Voices had been raised, and Bethany was in floods of tears. Wailing like a child, according to one of the waiters. But there was no evidence that she’d threatened any form of revenge, far less that her behaviour had driven Nathan Clare to murder.

  ‘You told my colleagues that she must have committed suicide.’

  ‘I thought she would get over the break-up, but—’

  ‘You think she was so depressed that she saw no reason to keep on living?’

  ‘What other explanation could there be for her death? Whatever her shortcomings, Bethany was an utterly inoffensive woman. How could any sane person wish to do her harm?’

  Ben Kind had asked himself the same question. Perhaps, against all odds, it was a case of accidental death. One of his working theories was that Clare had invited Bethany to the Serpent Pool to indulge in some kind of sex game as a means of reviving his flagging interest. On a lousy February day, he might have been confident they would not be disturbed. Had the experiment gone terribly wrong?

  ‘So, she killed herself because she was heartbroken that you ended the affair?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘She was too intense for happiness. This wasn’t the first time that a relationship had come to an end against her wishes.’

  ‘Tell me about her previous relationships.’

  ‘We never discussed them. Why would I be interested?’

  He’d said the same during the original investigation. At least he was consistent. Or simply careful.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. I believe in living for the moment. All that matters is the here and now, that’s what I said to her. And I meant it.’

  Something he’d said earlier stirred in her memory. At once, anxiety chilled her.