Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

‘Sensation-seeking, huh?’

‘You may laugh, but she didn’t know the half of it. Not a tenth of it.’

‘I don’t believe you’re addicted to him.’

‘You don’t understand, I’m not in control. What he and I did was so terrifying that he ran away.’

Marc made a derisive noise. ‘Ran away?’

She took no notice. ‘I spent years fighting against myself, desperate to get over him. And not just him, but the way he made me feel, knowing he wanted me so much, knowing the jealousy hurt him so much, that he’d do anything — yes, anything — to destroy the pain.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s the nature of addiction,’ she said, as if lecturing a classroom of underachievers. ‘Progressively, you need more and more stimulation. The psychiatrist warned me about it, and she wasn’t wrong. She encouraged me to write about my fantasies, but when I turned the truth into short stories, they never worked. What happened between him and me was something you couldn’t make up. When he came back into my life, it started all over again. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I got such a buzz from his heartache, the way it crucified him when I explained about the other men. His imagination works overtime, always has done. Fiction can’t compare to real life, that’s what I discovered. We can’t help ourselves. He’s hooked on me, and my addiction is nothing compared to his.’

His cheeks stung, as if she’d slapped his face. ‘The chap’s obviously a loser. Wrong for you. You need to start again.’

‘I need what he does for me.’

‘Cassie, you said yourself, he causes you grief. Seriously, you don’t want him to become dependent on you. It isn’t healthy.’

‘Too late for that,’ she murmured.

Marc hauled himself up on the sofa. Knackered he might be, after a bad night in his mother’s spare bed, but he must sort things out, once and for all. He couldn’t abandon her to some no-mark.

‘Don’t worry.’ He stroked her cold and lovely cheeks. ‘You can break the habit.’

‘You think I haven’t tried? When I went into hospital, and he disappeared, I thought I’d never see him again. But the moment he turned up again, I was lost.’

‘Is he stalking you? Making threats?’

‘Don’t be silly. He isn’t like that.’

‘I’ll look after you.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like I said, you don’t understand.’

‘What is there to understand?’

‘It’s a two-way thing. Something unique and precious. He and I, we have a bond.’

‘Break it. Cassie. Please, he’s not good for you.’

‘No.’ Her expression hardened. ‘Nobody can rip us apart. Not me, not you, not anyone. The two of us are shackled together. For better or worse. We’ve been through too much, there can be no going back.’

The champagne was talking, he told himself. She’d not kept pace with him, and had barely finished her second glass, but bubbly must go straight to her head. He must make her see sense, he couldn’t sit back and let everything fall apart, after he’d given up so much, just to be with her.

When Hannah stopped talking, Fern Larter chewed the cap of a ballpoint pen as if it were a snack substitute.

‘East Londoner.’

The drive back to Divisional HQ had been slow and tortuous, but in Hannah’s mind at least, the fog had started to clear. She wanted to share her theory that Arlo Denstone was the same man who, six years earlier, had claimed to see Bethany Friend talking to a white-van man. A lead that went nowhere, because there was nowhere for it to go. Hannah was sure it was an invention, meant to steer the investigation into a cul-de-sac. An unnecessarily elaborate touch from someone who couldn’t help himself.

‘What?’

‘East Londoner. It’s an alternative anagram of Arlo Denstone.’ Fern beamed. ‘Actually, you can make countless groups of words from that set of letters.’

‘Are you seriously telling me this is just a coincidence?’

‘Seeton was a long-haired university dropout. Arlo is a respected expert on literary festivals who happens to be a follicly challenged cancer survivor.’

‘Seeton was an English student.’

‘So, are thousands of other people. Some of them are quite respectable.’

‘Hair can be shaved. You can’t-’

‘All right, all right!’ Fern put up her hands in surrender. ‘Calm down. I just wanted to see the look on your face. You’re right, Arlo has a load of explaining to do. But I’m not clear how this Cassie woman fits in.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

‘Tell you what, first things first, let’s ask Donna to track Arlo down. He was involved in a scene at Wagg’s party, and seems to have some sort of relationship with Wanda, even if they never slept together. So we’re entitled to ask him a few questions. The only snag is that if nobody’s seen him since Wagg’s death, he might be anywhere by now.’

‘He won’t have gone far.’

‘What makes you so confident?’

‘He won’t want to be parted from the object of his affections. Not after they have been through so much together.’

‘Go on.’

‘It grieves me to say it, but Greg Wharf was right. We’re talking about murder for an overwhelmingly powerful motive.’

‘Namely?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘You reckon?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Jealousy was the cancer that Arlo Denstone suffered from.’

‘How come he has such a hold on you?’ Marc struggled to find the right words. The fog had sneaked inside the flat and seeped into his brain, confusing everything. But he was too stubborn to give up without a battle. ‘You don’t owe him.’

Cassie tightened her grip on his fingers. Through the fuzziness in his head, he was aware of her touch. It excited him, persuaded him that everything would turn out fine.

‘Even if I explained, it would make no difference.’

‘Try anyway.’

‘OK, you asked for it.’ The faraway, storyteller’s look returned to her eyes. ‘To begin with, I felt sorry for him, because his sister died when he was a kid. Olivia was fifteen, and he adored her. When she died, he was heartbroken. She’d fallen off her bike on the way home from a first date and wasn’t wearing a helmet. A boy had taken her out to the cinema, and he’d teased her about the colour of the helmet. Olivia insisted she was fine after the accident, and their parents didn’t call an ambulance. By the time she started vomiting, and they rushed her to hospital, it was too late. The doctors said she was brain dead.’

Marc shivered. ‘A sad story, for sure, but-’

‘It ruined his life, the worst thing that could have happened to him.’ Cassie was almost talking to herself. ‘They were so close, it was unhealthy, but that doesn’t make it easier to bear. He told me her death sent him mad with grief and rage. It made him hate the boyfriend, but that wasn’t all. He blamed their parents, the family was in pieces. He was only thirteen, it’s a tender age. Within eighteen months, his mother and father died in a car crash. The boyfriend was killed too, a climbing accident. Sometimes I’ve wondered if…well, it’s speculation. Nothing has ever been said, not even between us. Better not go there.’

‘You wondered if what?’

‘Aren’t you listening?’ Her voice rose in fury. ‘I’m baring our souls here, the least you can fucking do is pay attention.’

He felt as if she’d clubbed him over the head. This wasn’t the Cassie he knew. She must be suffering such strain. The on-off boyfriend’s fault, no question.

‘Now do you understand why he feels the way he does?’ She gritted her teeth, battling for control. Marc could not guess where this was leading. ‘We’re all the product of our experiences. When we first met, the forces that pulled us together were uncanny. Not so much lust as a shared sense of loss. Though there was lust too, of course.’