Shape of Snakes

'You ought to be,' I told him. 'Your brother had real talent at fourteen.'

He looked surprised. 'Alan?'

I nodded. 'I've still got a little wooden figure he carved for me. It's in the shape of a snake with feathers 'round its head.'

'That's probably right,' said Danny. 'He's got this thing about an Aztec god who was half snake, half bird. It's a load of crap, but Alan reckons the bastard was an alien who came to earth to create a lost civilization in Mexico.'

'Quetzalcoatl?' I suggested.

'That's the one. He's got a mosaic of him on his sitting-room wall.'

I learned nothing further about Alan's picture that evening because Danny was more interested in pouring scorn on his brother's belief in extraterrestrials than he was in discussing his taste in art. I clung to my dwindling patience in order to listen to the hoary old arguments on both sides, and was somewhat relieved when a six-foot- tall brunette with legs up to her armpits seduced him away with a cigarette.

I watched them perform the opening moves of a courtship dance-an awkward affair of wriggling shoulders and pretended casualness as they dipped their heads to the cigarette lighter-and was about to go back inside when Sam appeared at my elbow with a peace offering. 'It's Cloudy Bay,' he said gruffly, shoving a glass of wine into my hand. 'I was going to drink the lot to drown my sorrows, then I thought, to hell with it, it's not your fault Larry got me fired up.'

It wasn't a white flag exactly but I could always recognize a truce when I saw one. I responded with a chink of glasses and a smile, while wondering if Sam had used the opportunity I'd given him to find out who Danny Slater was and why he was there. If not, I feared the truce would be of short duration. It was one thing for his wife and his father-in-law to keep secrets from him ... quite another for his sons to do it as well.

He might have read my thoughts. 'Who's the dark-haired chap you were talking to?' he asked, nodding in Danny's direction. 'I was watching from the window. He seemed to have a lot to say to you.'

'His name's Danny Slater,' I told him. 'He's working up at the sculpture park on Portland.'

'Any relation to Derek Slater?'

'His son,' I said evenly. 'Do you remember Derek?'

'No. I've been going through your rucksack.' He hunched his shoulders like a boxer preparing to defend himself. 'And don't give me any heartache over it because if you didn't want me looking, you shouldn't have left it on the bed.'

'My fault,' I agreed, hoping he'd had the sense to go through everything. Ignorance had kept him happy for years; partial ignorance would eat away at him like a rotten worm.

'You were right about the Rev's wife. She took some useful photographs. This lad's the spitting image of his father twenty years ago.'

'There's a lot of his mother in him,' I demurred.

'That would be Maureen Slater?'

I nodded.

'Mm, well, I didn't recognize her. In fact I didn't recognize any of them except Julia Charles and Libby Williams. There's a blond woman who came into the pub occasionally, I think, but other than that'-he shook his head-'they were all strangers.'

I wondered how much of the correspondence he'd read and how much he thought I'd withheld. If he knew the truth, he'd be devastated.

He flicked an abstracted glance across the field of heads in front of the house, looking for Luke and Tom. 'That's quite a file the boys have collected on Graham Road. How long have they been doing it?'

'Since your coronary.'

He smiled slightly. 'On the principle that you'd be coming home whether I lived or died?'

'Something like that.'

He paused before his next question, as if considering the wisdom of asking it. He knew as well as I that bridges were best left unburnt, but his need for reassurance was stronger than his caution. 'Did you tell them I walked out on you?'

'No. I told them Annie was murdered and that I was trying to get the investigation reopened. Nothing else.'

He stared into his wineglass, his mouth working strangely as if trying to formulate unaccustomed words. But in the end, all he said was: 'Thank you.'

Statement made by Mrs. M. Randagh in 1979

re: an alleged assault by Derek Slater of 32 Graham

Road, Richmond.

INCIDENT REPORT

Date: 25.01.79

Time: 10:32

Officer: PS Drury, Richmond Police

Witness: Mrs. M. Ranelagh, 5 Graham Road, Richmond, Surrey

Incident: Alleged assault on Mrs. Ranelagh at 15:00 approx. on 24.01.79

Mrs. Ranelagh states: I went to the shops yesterday afternoon because there was no food in the house and I