Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

‘Don’t tell me,’ Hannah said. ‘Cassie Weston, right?’

‘Hannah!’

She was striding past the Salutation Hotel when Daniel hailed her. He and Louise had just left the bistro where they’d had lunch and were heading back to the car. This time he was determined not to let her disappear without a word.

‘I’ll be in the handbag shop,’ Louise said quickly, as Hannah waved and began to cross the road towards them.

He gave her a crooked grin. Surely she wasn’t becoming tactful in her old age? ‘See you in ten minutes?’

As Louise vanished into a misty side street, Hannah arrived at his side.

‘How is she?’

‘It hasn’t hit her yet. Infatuation, break-up, discovery of the body. A lot to cope with. In the long run, she’ll be fine, but…’

‘You’ll take good care of her.’ She scrutinised him. ‘Anything wrong?’

‘Not wrong.’ She saw him, he guessed, as pretty much an open book, whereas he could never read her mind. ‘But…odd.’

‘Want to get it off your chest?’

‘You’re too busy.’

She dug gloved hands into her pockets, pulled the scarf tighter around her neck to keep out the cold. ‘You never waste my time.’

‘I’ll try not to.’ He recounted his conversation with Sandra. ‘So, Denstone is a volunteer, not a hired hand.’

She reached back into her memory. ‘I seem to recall the publicity in the local press when he took up the post. I didn’t get the impression he was working for free.’

‘When he got in touch, he told me he was a cancer survivor. Perhaps he wants to do good by stealth, without a thought of kudos for himself.’

‘Does he strike you as selfless?’

‘Not really.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised at being messed about, after years of working with television people. They love to impose crucifying deadlines, and when you kill yourself to do the work in time, it turns out they put the pressure on you to cover up their own incompetence.’

‘Ouch, that came from the heart. But I agree, Arlo’s behaviour is strange.’

‘Louise reckons he’s been spending too much time with the likes of Wanda Saffell instead of making the Festival happen.’

‘Nothing happened between him and Wanda.’

‘Allegedly.’

‘They both tell the same story. Why else would she throw wine over him, if she didn’t feel humiliated by rejection?’

‘Unless that’s what everyone at the party was intended to think?’

Behind them, a car hooted at a van that had stopped on double yellow lines while the driver carried a delivery into a shop. Tempers were as harsh as the weather.

‘Ingenious.’

‘Over-ingenious, I guess,’ he admitted.

‘Perhaps.’

She took her right hand out of her coat pocket and offered it to him. An oddly formal gesture. He wondered if she wanted to put their relationship on a different footing, after that kiss outside The Tickled Trout.

‘Keep in touch, Daniel.’

‘You bet,’ he said.

Hannah needed to talk to Marc about Cassie, but first, she’d better get her head straight. Watersedge wasn’t far away; she’d call at the care home and see if Daphne Friend could shed any more light. Cassie Weston’s name might ring a bell. The longest of long shots — but you never knew.

On arriving at reception, she was greeted by the familiar aromas of old age and disinfectant. When she gave her name to the spotty teenager at the desk, the Polish girl she’d met on her last visit was summoned.

Kasia’s manner was subdued, verging on grumpy. Without looking directly at Hannah, she said, ‘You have heard about Mrs Friend?’

Hannah felt her throat constrict. Easy to guess what was coming.

‘What about her?’

‘She died last night.’ Kasia was pale, and Hannah suspected she minded suffering too much to work in a place like this, where death often came to visit. But she hoped the young woman would not change. ‘Very peaceful, she…slipped away.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘This weather.’ Kasia’s voice hardened, as if she’d found something to blame for her melancholy. ‘It is not good for the residents. Not merely cold, but damp as well. Unhealthy.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘I liked her,’ Kasia said. ‘You should not have favourites, it is not good. But I cannot help it.’

‘Don’t be hard on yourself, it’s human nature.’ Hannah considered. ‘What happens to her things?’

‘There is a niece in Shropshire. She saw Daphne once or twice. It was a duty, I think. She said she was too busy with her family, and her job.’

‘Did Daphne keep any papers, anything about her daughter?’

‘The girl who died?’ Kasia was sombre. ‘Nothing much. Only a few books.’

Books, there was no escaping them.

‘May I have a quick look?’

A tired flap of the hand. ‘You are the police, you can do whatever you wish.’

‘If only.’ Hannah smiled. ‘I’m grateful for your help, I won’t keep you long.’

Kasia led her to a storeroom. Daphne’s worldly goods had been bundled into a handful of brown-paper parcels loosely tied with red string, and a large, battle-scarred suitcase. Not much to show for seventy-one years, but it would make no difference if the old lady had left a house as full of rare treasures as Crag Gill. Stuart Wagg was no less dead than Daphne Friend.

‘Her clothes are in the suitcase.’ Kasia started to open the parcels. ‘The books and her reading glasses are in here.’

There were a couple of dozen books. Three Catherine Cooksons, and a handful of well-read Liverpool sagas. Most of the remaining novels were different, not least because their spines weren’t cracking with wear. The Shipping News, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Midnight’s Children, The Ghost Road , and among the shiny paperbacks, a pristine, dust-jacketed copy of Possession .

Call herself a detective? After all these years of sleeping with a bookseller, she had glanced at the titles in Daphne’s bookcase, and still failed to appreciate the wild variation in tastes. Of course, the same reader could love both Catherine Cookson and Pat Barker. It wasn’t breaking any rules. But really, was Daphne Friend a likely fan of Salman Rushdie? Hannah picked up Possession . It was the only book by AS Byatt she’d ever read, mainly because she’d watched the film on TV with Marc, a sort of detective story that wasn’t about professional detectives.

She began to flick through it, but didn’t get past the title page. Under Byatt’s name a gift inscription was scrawled in a round, extravagant hand that she recognised from the Christmas card the same woman had sent to Marc.

To my darling Bethany, who knows that Possession is nine points of the law .

With all my love, Cassie .

Cassie was a born teller of tales. She had it all: soft, husky voice, and a gift for keeping him on tenterhooks for the next chapter of her story. And God, she was good to look at, as she talked with her long lids half-closing her eyes. The T-shirt had ridden up, showing a flat stomach. Her skin was smooth and without a blemish, the rise and fall of her breasts hypnotic. Forget the booze, a man could get drunk on the sight of her.

‘More champagne?’ she asked.

‘Don’t stop talking. Please.’

She’d never known her father; she’d been conceived after an alcohol-fuelled kids’ party. Her mum was a week past her fifteenth birthday when she was born; and her grandparents threw her out the moment they learnt she was pregnant. Mum did her best to look after her; she drank and did drugs, and was a lousy judge of men, but she was intelligent, and she loved to read to her little girl at bedtime — Cassie owed her passion for stories to those precious times together. But at school, the other kids taunted her because of the rumours that her mum screwed old blokes for money.