Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

At the sound of the horn, the couple sprang apart. Perhaps they thought the salvo was aimed at them. In a moment, they vanished into a shadowy passage that ran behind the terrace. For a split second, their faces shone in the glare of light from the street lamp. Hannah’s instinct was spot on.

Nathan Clare and Wanda Saffell were back together again.

She put her foot down the moment she escaped the thirty-mile limit, but arrived at The Tickled Trout ten minutes later than promised. The car park was crowded, but she saw Daniel’s Audi and squeezed into the marked space next to it. As she raced across the asphalt to the pub’s front entrance, raucous cheering broke out from the locals’ end of the lounge bar. Nothing personal: this was quiz night, and the home team had taken the lead with two rounds to go.

Daniel leant against the counter, scanning the crowd. Her heart lurched as their eyes met. Absurd: the last thing she needed was to start behaving like a seventeen-year-old on a date. She pushed through the mass of drinkers, envying Daniel’s cool. Nobody had the right to look so laid-back, hours after discovering a tortured corpse. Like his father, he took disasters in his stride. He’d lined up two glasses of Chablis for them. His knack of reading her mind meant she must take care; she’d die of embarrassment if he could read her most private thoughts.

‘Hannah, thanks for sparing the time.’

They shook hands, his grip firm. As he led her to the corner booth they’d occupied the previous evening, a bell rang and a tubby quizmaster, who looked as though his specialist subject was chip suppers, bellowed the next question.

‘Who was murdered by his wife at Battlecrease House in Liverpool?’

‘James Maybrick,’ Daniel murmured. ‘Although some people doubt whether his death was murder.’

‘Is that so?’

‘James developed a taste for arsenic as a medicine, and it boosted his virility into the bargain. His wife served fifteen years in jail, but she may have been innocent. Unlike James. According to one school of thought, he was Jack the Ripper.’

She settled into her seat. ‘You know a lot about crime.’

‘Necessary research. Don’t forget I’m writing a history of murder.’

‘So, how is The Hell Within ?’

‘Hell to write, frankly. I’ve not even finished my lecture for Arlo Denstone’s festival. Real life keeps interrupting.’

‘And now you’ve stumbled on a real-life murder.’

‘Finding Stuart’s body reminded me why I chose academic life.’ He gazed up at the black wooden beams, as if trying to decipher a pattern in the knots of the timber. ‘That’s the difference between me and my father, I’d rather watch the world from a safe distance. Thomas De Quincey went into rhapsodies about murder as a fine art, but it looks pretty coarse when you come face to face with it. No way could I ever do your job.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret. At times, I’m not sure I can do it, either.’

He shot her a sharp glance. ‘Are you all right?’

Irrationally, her hackles rose. ‘Any reason I shouldn’t be?’

‘You look unhappy, that’s all.’

She gritted her teeth. ‘That obvious?’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to bite your head off.’

‘Wretched day?’

‘Not as grim as yours.’

‘It was much harder for Louise. The first corpse she’s ever seen, and it belongs to the man she spent Christmas with. Not a pretty sight. But she’ll get through. This evening she said she’d already fallen out of love with Stuart Wagg before he sent her packing.’

‘He was a bastard.’

‘But a charming bastard, by all accounts.’

‘Charm alone is not enough,’ Hannah said fiercely.

‘Louise reckons he used to get away with murder. Now someone has murdered him. The well wasn’t covered up by accident. The sheet lying on top of it was heavy. You’d never shift it from underneath, even if you could climb up that far.’

‘His legs were broken, and his kneecaps shattered.’ Why shouldn’t Daniel know, where was the harm? He’d already seen the body, and the precise nature of the injuries didn’t need to be a state secret. ‘There was a monkey wrench down underneath the body. Someone tossed it into the well after using it to cripple Stuart before they dropped him down.’

His eyes widened with horror. ‘He was deliberately maimed?’

‘Presumably to prevent him hauling himself up to safety. Whoever put him down there was determined he would never escape.’

Daniel winced. ‘Don’t tell me he was alive when he went down there?’

‘Still conscious, yes.’

‘Fuck,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Whatever his faults, he didn’t deserve to die like that.’

‘What was the cause of death?’

‘The post-mortem results weren’t ready when I left work this evening. Hypothermia, possibly heart failure, I’d guess. His head was gashed, you must have seen, that may have been the blow that incapacitated him before his legs and knees were smashed. His injuries didn’t kill him, but he wasn’t kitted out for a night underground in these temperatures.’

Daniel swallowed hard. ‘Imagine his last hours. Trapped in the dark, suffering terrible pain. Nightmarish for anyone, but for a claustrophobe…’

‘Your father thought I relied too much on imagination.’ The wine tasted flinty on Hannah’s tongue. She should have grabbed something to eat, so there’d be no risk of the alcohol going to her head. ‘He worried that I’d let it get in the way of the business of detection.’

‘Dad wasn’t always right.’

‘It helps to try to think myself into the head of the victim. And the criminal.’

‘Not easy to inhabit the mind of someone capable of torturing a man before killing him.’ Daniel swallowed more wine. ‘Someone must have hated Stuart very badly to do that to him.’

‘Has Louise any clue about who might fit the bill? Did Stuart admit to having enemies?’

‘This isn’t a rational crime. Surely it’s the work of a sociopath.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t believe it was a random crime, either. Stuart Wagg wasn’t a fool. How did he allow someone to do that to him?’

‘If the killer incapacitated him with a blow to the head, maybe he was dragged to the well at gunpoint or knifepoint.’

‘How did the murderer get so close? Crag Gill was fitted out with state-of-the-art security.’

‘The storm-’

‘Had nothing to do with the fact that the power supply to the house wasn’t working. I gather the lines were cut. Deliberate sabotage.’

‘So, the murder was premeditated?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Stuart didn’t have to let anyone into his home if he was suspicious or afraid.’

‘The best guess is that he knew his visitor. He or she was a friend or acquaintance.’

‘Not Louise,’ he said quickly.

‘Of course not.’ So he wasn’t quite as laid-back as he looked, at least where his sister was concerned. ‘There will be more questions for her, I’m afraid, but she’ll be OK. I’m sure she couldn’t have hurt Wagg like that. Lashing out with scissors in a moment of despair is very different. The sheer brutality of this murder isn’t in her nature.’

‘Let’s hope your colleagues are equally open-minded,’ he muttered.

‘They are only doing their job, Daniel.’ Why did she sound so defensive? ‘Everyone who knew Stuart Wagg will come under the microscope.’

‘Are we talking about a hired killer?’

‘Who knows? Nine times out of ten, hit men shoot their victims. Why dump him down the well without even making certain he was dead first? That’s gratuitously vicious.’

‘Maybe not so gratuitous,’ he suggested. ‘A sign of intense personal hatred.’