Shape of Snakes

'More or less.'

'They were called Rosie and Bridget,' I said. 'They used to walk to school every morning, hand-in-hand, wearing beautifully ironed uniforms and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.'

'That's right,' said Wendy. 'What a wonderful memory you have.'

Not really, I thought. Before Annie's death the two girls and I had been friends. We would greet each other with smiles and hellos, I on my way to one school, they on their way to another. Then, for no reason that I ever understood, everything changed in the months following Annie's death. Their wide smiles vanished and they avoided looking at me. Once upon a time Bridget had had pigtails like her sister until someone cut them off and posted them in long, blond strands through our letter box. At the time I didn't know their surname or which house they lived in. All I knew was that Rosie grew paler and thinner, while nine-year-old Bridget's hair was long one day and short the next. But I had no idea why the ends were sent to me or what their significance was.

'I didn't know their mother was ill,' I said sadly. 'I used to think what a nice woman she must be because they were so sweetly behaved in contrast to some of the others.'

More sighs. 'They were very lost after she died. I tried to help them but Geoffrey became appallingly belligerent and told me to stop interfering. There's only so much you can do, unfortunately ... and Geoffrey made them suspicious of me by saying I was trying to have them put into care. It wasn't true, but they believed him, of course.' Her mouth turned down at the memory. 'He was a beastly little man ... I never did like him.'

'Are either of the girls still on Graham Road?' I asked.

She looked troubled. 'No, and the awful thing is I've no idea where they went or what happened to them. I believe Michael was living with them at one point, but he was in and out of juvenile prison so much it was difficult to keep track. I asked Geoffrey once what had happened to them but he brushed me aside as if I were an irritating gnat. A most pernicious creature. I've always felt he and Sharon deserved each other.'

I brought her back to Rosie and Bridget. 'Did the girls marry?'

She shook her head. 'I couldn't say, my dear. If they did it wasn't in St. Mark's.' She paused for reflection. 'Mind, the report on the armed robbery-the one about Michael Percy-mentioned a wife called Bridget-and I thought at the time'-she pursed her lips into a tight little rosebud-'well, well! All those children were close. They used to run around in a gang together ... couldn't prize them apart most of the time.'

Geoffrey Spalding at his wife's

funeral, outside St. Mark's

Church, Summer J982

Libby Williams and the

Ranelaghs at the funeral of

Ann Butts, November 1978

I wasn't there to score points with superior knowledge so I searched for a photograph of Jock Williams instead. Predictably, I couldn't find one. He vaunted his atheism as loudly as a born-again Christian vaunts Jesus' love, and he wouldn't set foot inside a church if his soul depended on it. There was a picture of Libby talking to Sam and me at Annie's funeral, and I pointed it out to Wendy and asked her if she'd ever met the husband. 'His name was Jock Williams. They lived at number 21.'

'What did he look like?'

'Late twenties ... about five years older than Libby ... dark-haired, quite good-looking, five foot ten.' Another shake of her head. 'He and Libby divorced eighteen months after Annie died. Libby took herself off to Southampton but Jock moved to a three-story town house in Alveston Road.'

Wendy smiled apologetically. 'To be honest I wouldn't have known who this woman was if you hadn't told me. Is it important?'

'Probably not.'

She watched me for a moment. 'Meaning it is,' she declared. 'But why?'

I concentrated on a small figurine on a side table which was the same shade as Sheila Arnold's bracelet. 'Most people have to settle for smaller houses when they get divorced,' I said mildly, wishing I knew more about jade. 'Jock moved into a bigger one.'

She was clearly puzzled by my interest. 'It was the way we were living then. People took absurd risks on property after Margaret Thatcher came to power. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I remember one of our parishioners saddled himself with a mortgage of nearly L200,000 and doubled his investment within five years. Another bought just as the market peaked and within a few months found himself owing more than the house was worth. Your friend was lucky.'

I nodded agreement. 'What about Maureen Slater's and Sharon Percy's houses?' I asked her. 'If they're still living on Graham Road does that mean they remained as council tenants or did they exercise their right to buy?'

'Oh, they bought, of course,' she said sourly. 'Everything in public ownership was sold off within the first two or three years. It was laughably cheap ... no one in their right mind would have turned their backs on an offer like that. Sharon paid for hers outright, I believe, and Maureen opted to stagger her payments. Now, of course, they're quids in. Their houses are worth about L200,000 ... and they paid an absolute pittance for them because the wretched taxpayers subsidized the sales.'

I smiled. 'You don't approve.'

'Why would I?' she countered crossly. 'Every time I see a homeless person lying in a doorway I think how criminal it is that there's no housing left for the genuinely deprived.'

'Some might say Maureen Slater was genuinely deprived,' I murmured. 'She took a lot of punishment from her husband.'

'Yes, well, Maureen's different,' she admitted grudgingly. 'Her brain was turned to mush by that brute. Peter