Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

Now Hannah had raised a possible link with the unexplained drowning of Bethany Friend in the Serpent Pool. Bethany, like the two men, had a passion for books — and she’d worked for both their firms. And then there was the connection between the psychology of the victims. Each of the three victims had died in terror.

‘Should we call in a profiler?’ asked a young DC called Ciaran who had the manner of an eager puppy.

Hannah ignored the mutterings from the sceptics, Greg Wharf among them, who stood at the back of the room. For some detectives, psychological profilers ranked with witch ball-gazers and folk who offered racing tips, but you couldn’t ignore any tool in the box.

‘We’ve put a call in to Trudy Groenewald at Lancaster University. She’s due here to look over the files this afternoon.’

‘Why the six-year gap between the crimes?’ a DS in Fern’s team asked.

‘Of course, we’re keeping an open mind about whether the deaths are connected. Bethany’s hydrophobia might just be a coincidence. But if the same person or people are responsible for all three deaths, there may be various explanations for the years of inactivity.’

‘For example, that the killer hasn’t been inactive,’ Hannah added. ‘There may be other deaths in the meantime where a connection hasn’t been identified. Think of the MO in the Bethany Friend case. Drowning didn’t exclude the possibility of suicide. With Saffell, the killer didn’t try so hard to disguise the murder. And Wagg couldn’t have killed himself. We have a progression, a murderer becoming increasingly reckless. And we can’t rule out that there were other victims, after Bethany and before Saffell.’

‘Ciaran, I want you to check the records,’ Fern said. ‘Do any other cases fit the pattern? Remember, assumption is the mother of all cock-ups. But if we’re just looking at these three deaths, we need to focus on sadists who spent the past six years out of circulation. In prison, for instance — anyone released last autumn who fits the bill? A job for you, Roz.’

Roz nodded. A dark-haired DC with a toothpick figure, she’d attracted a couple of glances from Greg Wharf. Whether she fancied him or not, she was smart enough not to give the slightest hint that she was aware of his existence.

‘Nathan Clare was in Ambleside yesterday evening.’ Hannah indicated his photograph on the whiteboard, a shot in which he looked more like an apeman than ever. ‘Locked in an embrace with Wanda Saffell. Nathan was Bethany’s lover, although he left her to start an affair with Wanda. And Wanda worked with Bethany, claimed to be her friend. All this was long before she met George.’

‘And the connection with Wagg?’ asked Ciaran.

‘She had a fling with him during her marriage to Saffell. And she was a guest at his New Year party. She was pissed out of her mind, and threw wine all over a man who was rude enough to say no when she propositioned him.’

‘Donna and I broke the news that her husband was dead,’ Ciaran said. ‘She didn’t shed a single tear.’

‘She’s a flake,’ Donna diagnosed. ‘Alcoholic too, if you ask me.’

‘Stuart Wagg had a history of dumping his lovers,’ Hannah said. ‘He was pretty brutal about it: his policy was to go for a clean break, not to let the woman down gently.’

‘He got away with it,’ Fern said. ‘Until the day before yesterday, when his luck ran out.’

‘Suppose Wanda had a grudge against him,’ Maggie Eyre said. ‘What motive could she have for harming Bethany Friend? She was a gentle soul. People liked her.’

‘But she was confused about her sexuality. Maybe the relationship she had before Nathan Clare was with a woman,’ Hannah said.

‘You think she and Wanda slept together?’ the puppy asked.

‘The original investigation never picked up anything. But Wanda isn’t short of charisma, and Bethany was pretty and impressionable. She’d had a crush on a teacher when she was at school, and she liked older lovers. Nathan Clare, for instance. Maybe she and Wanda fancied an experiment.’

A furrow appeared in Maggie Eyre’s forehead. She wasn’t the quickest thinker in the room, but she gnawed at problems as if they were chicken legs.

‘If we put Wanda in the frame, doesn’t the connection between the cases break down? The relationships ended in different ways. If Stuart dumped Wanda, revenge might be a motive for her to murder him. But Bethany was dumped by her lover, we were told. Not the other way around. Just like she was dumped by Nathan Clare.’

‘We don’t know for sure there was a relationship between Wanda and Bethany,’ Fern said. ‘But DCI Scarlett and I agree about the importance of close liaison. Assuming a link between the cold and current cases, we’re not going to be territorial about this. Maggie and Liam will cross-check the lists of people who had a connection with Bethany against those associated with Saffell and Wagg. Meanwhile, DCI Scarlett will question both Nathan Clare and Wanda Saffell again.’

‘Pissing in the dark, aren’t we?’

Greg Wharf’s murmur was so audible, he must have meant everyone to hear. His hands were behind his head. For the past half hour, he’d been leaning so far back in his plastic chair as to be in imminent danger of tipping over onto his backside. No such luck, but that was Greg for you. Never quite as unbalanced as he seemed. He’d kept so quiet, Hannah wondered if he was sickening for something. But he’d just been biding his time, waiting for the chance to make waves.

‘All right, Greg,’ Fern said. ‘Let’s have the benefit of your wisdom, eh?’

‘So, Bethany knew Wanda, George and Stuart through work, so what? This is the Lake District. The most incestuous bloody place in Britain, if you ask me. Leave out the tourists and itinerants, and everybody knows everybody else. Sometimes seems like everybody shags everybody else, too; it’s the only thing to do in this bloody place during the long, cold nights of winter.’

Maggie Eyre, fiercely loyal to her home turf, turned crimson with outrage. She shot him an angry look, but it would take more than that to bother Greg Wharf.

‘We need to face facts. If every dodgy relationship led to murder, the streets of Windermere would be as deserted as Wasdale.’

Fern intercepted the glance he tossed at Hannah.

‘Hang on, Greg. Touch of exaggeration there, don’t you think? Grasmere isn’t exactly Gomorrah.’

He shrugged. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Sure, but you know rejection can be painful. It breeds resentment, might even be a motive for murder. Though I guess you’re lucky, and nobody’s ever turned you down.’

Donna sniggered, and Roz raised her neat eyebrows, but Fern’s sarcasm bounced off Greg Wharf like slingshot fire off armour-plating.

‘These people live in each others’ pockets. If someone knows one of the murder victims — assuming they were all murdered — chances are, they will know the others. The question isn’t whether Wanda was one of Wagg’s fancy women, never mind Bethany’s. What we really want to know is this…’ He allowed himself a rhetorical pause, a performer skilled at holding an audience in the palm of his hand. ‘A woman drowned, a man burnt to a cinder, another buried alive. So brutal — but why?’

Fern frowned. ‘And your answer?’

‘Sorry, don’t have one. That’s why I’m still a DS.’

He leant back even further in his chair, testing gravity to the limit. Drawing everyone’s eyes to him. A sly smile crept across his face, and Hannah saw how much he loved to be the centre of attention.

‘One thing is for sure. The motive has to be powerful. Overwhelming, I’d say. Never mind profilers, we need to ask what could drive someone to such extremes? Find that out, and we’ll find our murderer.’