Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

‘You remember my father?’

‘We never met, but I’ve not been in this neck of the woods for long, and even I have heard about Ben Kind. You worked for him, didn’t you, ma’am?’

Hannah nodded, not wanting to guess what Greg had heard about her and Ben. She stole a glance at Daniel. His face gave nothing away.

‘You’ve heard about the lawyer who was found dead this afternoon, Sergeant?’

‘Stuart Wagg? It’s-’

‘My sister and I found his body,’ Daniel interrupted swiftly. ‘DCI Scarlett wanted to ask me a few questions, and naturally, I’m glad to help. She seems to believe there may be some tie-up with a cold case she’s investigating.’

Hannah found her voice. ‘We’re almost done, thanks, Greg; we have a joint briefing tomorrow with DCI Larter’s team. Nine o’clock.’

Wharf scrambled to his feet. She saw he was itching to ask why their inquiry was to be joined with Fern’s. But in front of Daniel, he could not talk shop.

‘Good to meet you, Mr Kind.’ His eyebrows lifted; he just couldn’t help himself, Hannah thought. ‘See you in the morning, ma’am.’

Turning on his heel, he blew a kiss towards a skinny girl with a sunbed tan and a skirt slit to her thighs. Her name was Millie, and she was a clerk from Payroll at Divisional HQ. Say what you liked about bloody Greg Wharf, he was a fast worker.

Daniel leant back in his seat and expelled a breath.

‘Don’t worry about him.’

‘Who says I’m worried?’ she said tightly. ‘Greg’s a stirrer, but you handled him perfectly. All those hours in front of lecture audiences and television cameras were well spent. Of course, a decent DCI shouldn’t be fazed by a subordinate turning up out of the blue.’

‘You have nothing to be fazed about.’ Something made her say, ‘I’ll let you in on a secret.’

He leant towards her, his expression unreadable.

‘Go on, then.’

‘When I worked with your dad, there was a bit of banter about the pair of us.’

‘Banter?’

‘Young woman, older man, you can fill in the blanks. The canteen culture thrives on gossip, preferably salacious. Of course, it was all made up. There was never anything personal between Ben and me. No relationship, I mean.’

‘He rated you as a detective. And he liked you.’

‘The feeling was mutual. But he never laid a finger on me.’

He checked his watch. Reluctantly, she hoped. But the conversation was straying into dangerous territory.

‘Marc will wonder what is keeping you.’

‘He won’t wait up.’

‘No?’ He frowned, but if he meant to say More fool him, he changed his mind. ‘I’d better let you go, all the same. Writing a book is a perfect excuse for not working office hours, but I suppose you’ll be up at the crack of dawn. Let me see you to your car.’

Outside, flecks of snow had begun to stick on the ground. The roads would be icy in the morning. When they reached the cars, he stopped in his tracks. The bright light of a security lamp illuminated his face, but she couldn’t see what was in his mind. She murmured goodnight and grasped the door handle. For a moment, he was motionless. Then a strange look came into his eyes and, in a smooth, swift movement, he bent forward and kissed her hard, full on the lips.

‘Goodnight, Hannah.’

He strode away and was starting up his car before she’d drawn breath. She sat in the driver’s seat, not switching on the engine, watching his tail lights disappear down the lane.

It took her five minutes to move off. How to deal with Marc? By the time she was back at Undercrag, it would be past eleven o’clock. The best guess was that he’d be up in bed in the spare room, like a teenager in a strop, punishing her for having the temerity to challenge him. One of these days, maybe he’d grow up.

As for Daniel, she’d made her first resolution of the New Year. She was determined not to feel guilty about him. Nor about the look in his eyes, something so rare and unexpected that it had taken a moment to recognise it as the gaze of a man who yearned for her, body and soul.

No lights shone from Undercrag as she pulled up outside. A fox scurried away as she jumped out of the Lexus. An owl hooted as she heaved open the garage door.

Marc’s car was nowhere to be seen.

She walked a hundred yards up and down the lane, to check that he had not, for some bizarre reason, parked outside the holiday cottages or under the trees. Of course, he hadn’t. The front door of the house was locked, a sure sign that he wasn’t inside. She checked the downstairs rooms to see if he’d left a message for her. He might have ventured out for a night drive, to clear his thoughts.

The house was as cold as a cemetery. Bare floorboards creaked, and the wind whistled through the windows yet to be replaced by double glazing. Only two of the bedrooms were habitable, and there wasn’t even a railing at the top of the stairs — the first floor was work in progress and the builders hadn’t started work again after their New Year break. Marc said there was an argument about an overdue payment. He said he didn’t owe a penny, and their accounts people had made a mistake.

Better check the first floor, just in case. But the instant she pressed the light switch by the staircase, the house plunged into darkness.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’

All of a sudden, this didn’t seem like home. Why had they come to Ambleside? Since moving in, they’d seen everything turn sour.

Picking her way down the steps to the cellar, she found the fuse box and the lights flicked back on. She ran back up and searched the bedrooms. Not a trace of him, but their best suitcase had vanished, along with some of his clothes. At least he’d left of his own accord, and wasn’t trussed up somewhere, the latest victim of whoever killed Stuart Wagg. But this wasn’t the comfort it should have been. She conducted a quick inventory and concluded that he’d taken enough to get by for several days. Maybe a week.

Bastard. He must be determined to make her sweat. They’d had rows before, plenty of them, but he’d never walked out on her. It was in his nature to fret about her friendships with other men — Ben Kind and Nick Lowther sprang to mind — but she hadn’t expected him to go overboard about Daniel. It wasn’t even as if anything had happened between them. Not counting the kiss.

Back in the kitchen, she filled a mug with coffee. Strong, black and scalding hot. Pinned up on the cork noticeboard by the filter machine was a photo of the two of them. He’d asked a fellow diner to snap them, in a restaurant outside Keswick where he’d taken her to celebrate her last birthday but one. They were laughing for the camera. His hand snaked around her waist. She had a bad habit of frowning when her picture was taken, but in this snap, neither of them looked as if they had a care in the world. She’d wondered if he kept it to remind himself that sometimes they could make believe they were a typical happy couple. Tonight they needed more than a photograph to bind them together.

Where could he be? Her best guess was that he’d run off to his mother’s in Grange-over-Sands. Mrs Amos would welcome him back with open arms. He was her pride and joy, and no woman was ever really good enough for him. The old lady had never been a member of Hannah’s fan club; as recently as their shopping expedition over Christmas, she’d mused aloud that there was something unfeminine about police work.

A phrase of Daniel’s sneaked back into her head. For once she shivered at the sound of his voice, as it echoed in her brain.

‘The man you’re looking for might be mad about books.’

Not Marc, surely.

It couldn’t be Marc.