Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

‘Hello, Hannah.’

He squeezed the phone so tight it hurt. To prove he wasn’t dreaming? His brain was sluggish, he needed a cold shower and a hot coffee. But she wouldn’t call at this hour unless it was urgent.

‘You said something about Stuart Wagg last night. I was knackered, otherwise I’d have picked up on it at the time.’

‘Sorry, I don’t-’

‘It hit me at half four this morning. Woke me up.’

He blinked hard. ‘What’s bugging you, Hannah?’

‘You mentioned he suffered from claustrophobia.’

‘Louise told me. It was no secret. Apparently, he never even used the lift at the office, he always took the stairs up to his room on the top floor.’

‘So, that’s why his architect designed Crag Gill with such vast rooms, and archways instead of doors?’

‘Yes, even though he made a joke of it, the fear was real. Louise said that when he was at school, another kid locked him in a cupboard as a prank, and Stuart was scared witless. He never quite got over the trauma. Hard to imagine a more agonising death for him. To be trapped underground, with no hope of escape.’

While Hannah absorbed this in silence, he moved to the window and nudged the curtains apart. Fog shrouded the cipher garden. Trees and bushes were dark, shapeless forms. The tarn was invisible. He might have been anywhere.

‘Perfect,’ she said at last. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘What is this about?’

‘The link between Stuart’s murder and the other two deaths.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Me neither. But believe me, I will.’

Her voice hardened. Raw anger, he thought, on the behalf of the victims. He’d heard the same edge of furious determination before, in the days when his father lived at home.

‘What do you think it means?’ When she hesitated, he said. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t ask.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘If you really want to know.’

A moment of intimacy, like the night before. He had to give her the chance to change her mind, and back away.

‘I don’t want you to breach confidentiality.’

‘It’s not against the rules to think aloud,’ she said. ‘OK, here goes. Bethany Friend was afraid of water, George Saffell was terrified of pain and dreaded losing his book collection, and Stuart Wagg was claustrophobic. Their lives all ended in circumstances that they would have found truly appalling.’

Hannah’s heart beat faster as she dropped the phone into its cradle. Mustn’t let thoughts of Daniel distract her; she had enough on her plate. It had seemed strange, to wake up alone, even though Marc often stayed away from home, when exhibiting at book fairs, or visiting collectors with books to sell. But this morning was different. The draughty, echoing house felt too big for her. She didn’t know when he’d be back. Or if.

She checked her mobile to see if he’d sent a text. Nothing. The mean sod. If he was staying with his mother, he’d soon tire of the tug of her apron strings. OK, let him sweat. No way was she going to make the first move. Not today, at any rate.

Number one priority was to report that Bethany Friend had worked for Amos Books before moving to the university. Whatever she said to Daniel in rare moments of bravado, if she screwed this case up, her career would be flushed down the pan. Lauren would have to be told that Marc knew Bethany, but first she wanted to break the news to Fern Larter. She texted Fern, asking to see her before the joint team briefing. The reply was instant. Fern was in a buoyant mood, pleased with her crack-of-dawn radio interview and that the investigation into George Saffell’s death, stalled for so long, was at last on the move.

The grass outside Undercrag did not look frozen, but when she stood on it to de-ice the windscreen of the Lexus, it felt as hard and crunchy as icing on a cake. The frost had preserved countless deer slots and Hannah wondered if, while she slept, a large number of the animals had roamed outside her home in the moonlight. Or maybe a handful of them had danced round and round in ever-decreasing circles. She knew exactly what that felt like.

The fog clutched at her throat as she locked the front door, and turned the journey to Kendal into a nerve-wracking crawl. Hannah hated fog, and the way it stagnated in the valleys, transforming the Lakes into a cold and alien land. And she hated driving through it even more. You could never tell what lay round the next bend. A car without lights, a multi-vehicle pile-up.

The twists of the road demanded all her concentration. But she couldn’t rid her mind of a single image: the rictus of anger on Wanda Saffell’s face, on New Year’s Eve, as she threw red wine over Arlo Denstone’s white jacket. Wanda was drunk that night, and a woman scorned. But did the incident reveal a dangerous lack of restraint? Was she capable of much worse than making a scene at a party? Or was Hannah simply hoping so because she’d hinted that Marc had slept with Bethany?

She made straight for Fern’s office. Fern organised a coffee for each of them and spent five minutes putting things into perspective. Marc needed to be interviewed, for the record. If he could contribute anything more to the inquiry, fine. But Bethany had finished at the bookshop months before her death. She’d had countless previous jobs if you included all her part-time stints behind bars or waiting on table. It was no big deal.

‘Marc has moved out,’ Hannah said.

Fern swallowed a mouthful of coffee. The slogan on her coaster read Well-behaved women seldom make history .

‘After you read him the riot act?’

‘He ought to have been upfront, and admitted that he knew her. Not leave me to find out from Wanda Saffell.’

As she spoke, she realised she sounded flinty and uncompromising. Mulish was how Marc described her in this kind of mood.

‘Yeah, but we don’t always do the right thing, do we? He must have worried that you’d react badly.’

‘He was right to worry.’

Fern put her head on one side, as if this might help her read Hannah’s mind. ‘You’re not seriously thinking that he might have anything to do with Bethany’s death?’

‘No…’

‘Well, then.’ Fern stood up. ‘With a bit of luck, he’ll come to his senses. And so will you. All right, let’s marshal the troops.’

The joint team briefing threw out questions like sparks from a Catherine wheel. None of the radiators were working, but for once nobody complained. The detectives working for Fern on the suspected murder of George Saffell had run into a brick wall. Discovering fresh lines of inquiry gave them an adrenaline rush.

Fern reported that CSIs continued to swarm over Stuart Wagg’s home in the hope of finding forensic evidence to link his murder with the fatal fire in the Ullswater boathouse. Differences in the MO did not disguise similarities between the cases. Two wealthy professionals, who moved in the same social circles, and even shared the same expensive hobby, both killed at home. Nobody believed the choice of victims was random. The murderer must be known to both victims. Throw into the mix a possible sighting of the culprit’s car, and no wonder the room buzzed with anticipation.

A farm worker had spotted a small purple car parked across the road from Crag Gill for three-quarters of an hour shortly after the last known sighting of Stuart Wagg by Louise Kind. The car was tucked away among the trees, but the man had seen it from his tractor cab, as he travelled to and from a nearby field. The windows were steamed up and he’d supposed a couple of teenagers were getting it together inside. If only he’d given a more precise description; in a perfect world, he’d have noted the registration number too. But the world wasn’t perfect, and he knew more about tractors than cars. Maybe it was a Nissan Micra, maybe something else. Even so, the sighting was a break.