The Serpent Pool

Daniel had heard enough. He’d learnt that in his father’s world, real people did things to real children, things too sickening for words. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Those words troubled him for years.

His mother always wanted Ben to let the job drop, to shut the door on the harsh and terrifying world of crime when he came home to his family. She dreaded the thought that murder might taint all their lives. But Ben never managed to chill out for long. The urge to see justice done drove him; the irony was that sometimes he failed to do justice to the people who meant most to him.

Daniel had wanted to talk to Hannah Scarlett about his father. The old man must have admired her passion about what she did. It wasn’t simply about ticking the boxes on the forms and building up your pension pot so you could retire after thirty years and advise businesses on security in between golf trips to the Algarve. Hannah was someone else who wanted to give to the innocent the justice they deserved.

Since meeting Hannah, he’d encountered murder at close quarters and seen the havoc it caused. Murder changed lives for ever, tore families apart. Yet there was no point in trying to pretend that his interest was purely academic. Murder didn’t simply intrigue him, it obsessed him. As it had De Quincey, as it had when, as a small boy, he’d waited hour after hour for his father to come home and imagined that, single-handed and unarmed, he was busy slapping handcuffs on homicidal maniacs.

Might as well face up to something else. It wasn’t only the fascination of detective work, and the chance to learn more about the father who had left home for another life, that drew him to Hannah. Even before Miranda’s decision to leave, he’d felt a strong attraction to her, and that sense of passion burning beneath the surface of cool professionalism. But Hannah was with Marc, and he would never dream of wrecking their relationship.

The phone trilled. He snatched up the receiver, glad of the distraction. His mind was wandering into dangerous territory.

‘Daniel Kind.’

‘This is Arlo.’ Denstone was speaking on a mobile and the reception was poor. A common problem in the Lakes. ‘I’m in the neighbourhood, wondered if you’re free.’

‘Sure, it would be good to meet. I heard you on the radio this morning.’

‘Really?’ Arlo sounded pleased.

‘You pricked my conscience. The deadline for delivering my Festival paper to the printers isn’t far away.’

‘End of this week. I can’t wait to see it.’

‘Um…I’m working on it now.’

‘Hope you don’t mind my inviting myself round? Please don’t think I’m checking up on your progress.’

Through gritted teeth, Daniel made appropriately good-natured noises.

‘I promise not to disturb you for long, but I’ve been dying to meet up ever since you agreed to be our keynote speaker. No need to move from your desk until the doorbell rings. I can be with you in fifteen minutes.’

‘I’ll put on the coffee.’

Daniel put down the phone and ambled barefoot into the kitchen. Any excuse to stop work was welcome when the words stopped flowing. He felt like a quarryman, hacking at an unforgiving rock face. Yet the call had shattered his concentration, a cause for resentment. At least until he reminded himself that when the phone rang, his thoughts had already drifted away from murder, to DCI Hannah Scarlett.

Cassie Weston was due for a morning off, but a couple of part-timers had called in sick, victims of the virus sweeping the county, and she’d offered to cover for them up to half-day closing. Marc hated paying overtime, but with Cassie he was happy to make an exception. He even allowed himself to wonder if her willingness to help him out was due to something more than the fact that she was at a loose end on a damp January day.

He joined her at the cash till after she finished serving a woman who ran one of the craft shops in the courtyard and was invariably accompanied by an aggressive little terrier called Whisky. The customer had driven a hard bargain over a first edition about traditional quilting, and Marc could have squeezed a couple of pounds more out of her, but who cared? Even in a shapeless blue sweater and jeans, Cassie looked good. He cast his mind back to the night before last, and her shadow in the window as she stripped.

‘Thanks again for filling in.’

‘No problem.’ She smiled. ‘I enjoy it here. And I’m happy to serve the customers with dogs. I don’t mind animals, but don’t I remember you told me you can’t bear them?’

He felt his cheeks redden. Somehow it didn’t seem politically correct to admit that he’d had a lifelong dread of man’s best friend, but at least Cassie wasn’t offended. ‘It’s only dogs that I can’t bear to be near. When I was seven years old, I was bitten by a German Shepherd. The pain was appalling, I thought I was going to die. Of course, it was all right in the end, but these childhood traumas leave a mark, long after the actual scars have healed.’

‘You’re so right.’ Her eyes widened. ‘What a terrible experience.’

Thank God she didn’t think him a coward. All the same, he didn’t feel comfortable admitting a weakness, and he was quick to change the subject.

‘So, what are you getting up to this afternoon?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Sorry.’ He wasn’t sure how to play it. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘No, no, I wasn’t suggesting…’

‘It’s just that…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m meeting a dealer in Carnforth this afternoon. He’s disposing of a collection of Wainwright firsts and he’s offered me first refusal. If you were interested, you could come along, get an idea of pricing stock.’

‘I sold that quilting book too cheap, didn’t I?’

‘No, I didn’t mean-’

‘You’re being kind. I saw the look of triumph on her face. She knew she’d got it cheap. I’m so naive!’ Crestfallen yet gorgeous was nearer to it, Marc thought. ‘I bet she waited till you were out of the way before asking how much I’d take for it. I should have-’

‘Listen, don’t worry. But if you come to Carnforth, you’ll have a chance to see the bigger picture. There’s more to selling books than standing behind a counter.’

‘I’d love to…oh, shit.’

‘What’s the matter?’

She shook her head. ‘I just remembered. I have a dental appointment this afternoon.’

He felt as though his own teeth had suddenly started to hurt. ‘Toothache?’

‘No, just a check-up, but I’d better not cancel. National Health dentists are as rare as signed Wordsworths, and I don’t want to be kicked off his list. Hope I don’t need any treatment, my boyfriend is supposed to be taking me out for a meal afterwards.’

‘Some other time.’ He could scarcely contain his disappointment.

‘I’d really like that.’

Her eagerness cheered him. Impossible not to feel a twinge of jealousy of her boyfriend. Though Marc still wasn’t sure if he really existed, or was just a convenient alibi to avoid close encounters when it suited her.

‘If once a man indulges himself in murder,’ Arlo Denstone proclaimed, ‘very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbathbreaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.’

He paused and checked Daniel’s expression for approval. He might have been hired by the Cumbria Culture Company for his literary expertise, Daniel thought, but there was a large dollop of showmanship there too.

‘Once begun upon this downward path,’ Arlo continued, ‘you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.’

Daniel mimed applause. ‘Word perfect.’

Arlo stretched out his legs and lifted the coffee mug from the little table beside his armchair. His white T- shirt revealed long, bony arms. He was one of the skinniest men Daniel had met, borderline anorexic, a reminder perhaps that he was a cancer survivor. Dark, long-lashed eyes kept flicking around as he weighed up his surroundings. A log fire crackled and spat and gave off plenty of heat. Outside the cottage, the sky was morose and rain slammed against the hatchback of the Micra he’d parked next to Daniel’s car.