Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool

The dog made a dozy noise. A throaty rumble.

Ro nodded towards it.

‘A wild creature. I bought him illegally, and that isn’t my only crime. I didn’t feed him for forty-eight hours. And then I slipped something into his last supper.’

Marc forced his gaze away from the pit bull. His heart bumped inside his chest. Much more of this, and he’d have a coronary.

It might be for the best.

‘I named him Thomas, what else? Trust me, when he wakes from his sleep, he’ll be in a very bad mood. And he will be hungry. Ravenous.’ Ro threw a scornful glance at Marc’s skinny, trembling body. ‘He’s a carnivore. Not fussy about the quality of his meat.’

Tears ran down Marc’s cheek. He couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t dry the tears, either.

A noise attracted his attention. Someone was moving away the boards at the narrow window. He peered round and saw a face he recognised.

It was Cassie. Standing outside, looking in.

Through the opening in the wall of the tower, Marc saw no expression in the gaze she fixed on the man who called himself Arlo Denstone, but the faintest of smiles played on her lips.

‘Murder is a fine art,’ the man said. ‘But it evolves with time. It needs updating. This is an age when we watch the world go by, on our television screens or laptops. Cassie, and I, we have turned it into a spectator sport.’

‘Wagg was good in bed,’ Cassie whispered. ‘But nowhere near as good as you. No one is as good as you, my love.’

Marc wanted to scream. It’s a lie, a wicked lie. I only wanted to be her friend. I never even touched her .

But he knew nothing he might say could save his life, and no words came.

The man grinned at the dog. ‘Last week, I watched Thomas chew a rabbit that had escaped from a hutch next door. Call it a rehearsal. Took a while, but there wasn’t much left by the time old Thomas was done.’

Marc shivered uncontrollably.

Jesus, was the dog stirring?

Undercrag was melancholy in the fog, a sombre, hollow shell. Hannah was no longer sure she wanted to live here, but that was a decision for another day. Marc’s car was nowhere to be seen. Hannah searched the ground floor and then ran upstairs to look into each of the bedrooms. Nothing.

OK, it would have been extraordinarily crass for Marc to bring Cassie to their home for a quick shag. Hannah was ashamed of herself for having feared it possible.

But if he wasn’t misbehaving here, that begged the question of where he might be, and what he might be doing.

Hunger pangs assailed her. She needed to eat. This wouldn’t be a good time to fall down in a faint. She found an apple from a fruit basket in the kitchen, and was starting to peel it when her phone rang. She took a quick bite and shoved knife and fruit in her jacket pocket. Food would have to wait.

Greg Wharf’s Geordie tones filled her ear. ‘I’m just leaving Sir Julius Telo’s mansion.’

Sir Julius was the chair of the Culture Company. ‘What did he have to say about Denstone?’

‘He’s been fretting about the guy for weeks. He had a great CV, and he was brimming with enthusiasm as well as expertise. The clincher was that he offered to do the job for free. It sounded too good to be true.’

‘Did nobody wonder how he could afford to be so altruistic?’

‘He said he’d inherited money from his uncle, but the key point was that he loved the Lakes, and was crazy about De Quincey. He’d fought cancer and won, and now he wanted to make every day count, plus raise money for a good cause. This was only a six-month contract, and he saw it as a dream job. A challenge combined with a chance to put something back into the community.’

‘So, Sir Julius bit his hand off?’

‘Not the done thing to cross-examine a cancer survivor who behaved so selflessly. Especially if you have more money than brain cells. Sir Julius accepted his CV at face value, there wasn’t any due diligence. At least not until the Culture Company realised that the start date of the Festival was drawing near, and there was still a vast amount of work to do. The troops were becoming restless, and there was gossip about Denstone’s habit of disappearing for hours or even days at a time.’

‘To shag Cassie Weston, I suppose,’ Hannah said bitterly.

‘Some people guessed he was conducting an affair, and that was taking his eye off the ball. Sir Julius rang up the Australian university where Denstone was supposed to have held some senior post, only to be told that the guy’s track record was much less high-powered than he’d led everyone to believe. It’s the old story: there are lies, damned lies, and CVs. Arlo Denstone was a foot soldier who promoted himself to field marshal.’

‘Why didn’t Sir Julius take action?’

‘He called Denstone in straight after New Year. They met here in Rydal, but the conversation didn’t go to plan. Denstone played the sympathy card. He said the cancer had come back.’

‘We know what he really meant, don’t we?’

‘We sure do, but Sir Julius fell for it, hook, line and sinker. In his words, he felt he was treading on eggshells. Denstone reckoned he had a wonderful new idea for the Festival. Holding a De Quincey event at a folly near Ambleside.’

‘A folly?’

‘Yeah, he’d dreamt up a son et lumiere production. Said it would give the Festival an added wow factor. Load of bollocks, if you ask me. Even Sir Julius wasn’t convinced it was practical, but he let Denstone go ahead with a feasibility study. The place was disused and locked up, to keep out trespassers, so he made arrangements for Denstone to be given the key.’

‘The folly, Greg,’ she said, trying to control her impatience. ‘What is it called?’

‘Didn’t I say? Some place known as the Serpent Tower.’

Hannah flung on a pair of heavy boots and jumped into her car. She headed down the lane that led to the fell. The last time she’d come this way was on New Year’s Eve. A lifetime ago. She couldn’t drive far, and had to get out and walk once she reached the end of the lane, but every second saved was precious. She couldn’t be certain that Cassie Weston and Arlo Denstone had taken Marc to the Serpent Tower, but it was a decent bet. What they had in mind for him, she dared not guess.

The shape of a car loomed out of the mist. At the sight of it, Hannah felt her guts churn. She pulled up and gave it a once-over. A purple Nissan Micra hatchback. Empty, but there was some stained matting at the back, as if something had been transported in it.

Something, or someone.

She swore under her breath. Her guess had been right, but it wasn’t cause for celebration. God knows what Marc might be going through if they had him. This wasn’t a good time to let her imagination rip. Must keep a cool head.

Fingers trembling, she dialled Greg’s number and told him what she’d seen.

‘You reckon Denstone and Weston are up in the Serpent Tower?’

‘Yes. And they may have Marc.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I wish. She works for him. I think…she may have lured him away on a pretext.’

If he thought she was holding back on him, he was too shrewd to say so.

‘Don’t charge in there on your own,’ he said. ‘You need backup.’

‘No, in this fog, it will take too long.’

‘I said, leave it.’ His voice rose. No doubt he thought she was a loose cannon. Apt to panic if her man were put in jeopardy. And was he that far out? ‘Don’t worry. I’ve left Rydal, and I’m only a mile away. Stay put, ma’am, and I’ll be with you before you know it.’

‘I told you to call me Hannah,’ she said, and ended the call.

Fog snatched at her throat and sinuses as she hurried up the slope. The atmosphere was cold and moist, the dark bushes and trees seemed malevolent as they reared up in front of her out of the grey nothingness, as if intent on blocking her climb.