Shape of Snakes

committed twenty years ago.'

'Except I seem to remember you telling me that if you found Annie's thief you'd also find her murderer. Were you wrong?'

I studied a close-up of the brass artillery shell that stood in Beth's fireplace with colorful silk flowers fanning out of it like peacock feathers. 'Does it matter?' I asked her. 'Doesn't the same principle apply whatever the crime? Wouldn't I be choosing the lesser of two evils if I left Annie's death as an accident?'

She eyed me thoughtfully. 'It depends how two-faced you want to be,' she said bluntly. 'That was probably Sergeant Drury's excuse as well ... yet you've spent twenty years trying to prove him wrong.'

Correspondence re: a meeting on 20.08.99

LEAVENHAM FARM, LEAVENHAM, NR

DORCHESTER, DORSET DT2 XXY

Alan Slater

12 Peasmont Road

Isleworth

Surrey

Tuesday, August 17, 1999

Dear Alan,

I shall be at your mother's house at midday on Friday, August 20. Please ensure that you and she are both there, otherwise I shall carry out my threat to go to the police despite the pain this will cause your wife, children and brother. You should be aware that I am writing to Sharon Percy and Geoffrey Spalding to insist that they, too, attend.

Yours sincerely,

M. Ranelagh

 

From: Mrs. Wendy Stanhope, The Vicarage,

Chanters Lane, St. David's, Exeter

Wednesday, August 18

I can certainly be outside Richmond station by 11:30 a.m., which, as you say, should give us ample time to reach Graham Road by midday. 1 can't imagine why you think I might be reluctant to support you against the Slaters. I'm not easily intimidated! Also, I've always regretted that Annie didn 't think of me as a friend while she was alive. So thank you for asking me, my dear.

With love,

Wendy

*26*

It wasn't until we approached the Kew Road intersection on the outskirts of Richmond that Sam asked me if I knew what I was doing. The drive from Dorchester had taken over three hours and he was remarkably restrained throughout with only the odd bout of swearing at other drivers to betray his anxiety. We had discussed tactics the previous day while sitting over a glass of wine in the sunshine, and the plan had seemed reasonable then-perhaps plans always do under the influence of alcohol-but the friendly, rolling hills of Dorset were a far cry from the congested rat-runs of London's link roads, and the idea of taking on four potentially violent people in the most anonymous city in the world began to seem dangerously flawed.

Even then, I might have abandoned the whole project if Sam hadn't agreed with Sheila's view. The story wasn't mine to control anymore. And it wasn't a question of the lesser of two evils, he said. More of a Pandora's box. I'd opened the lid and the secrets were out. Danny for one-Michael Percy for another-would start asking questions: of Alan, of their mothers, even of Derek if they could find him. And it wasn't fair for the innocent to be tarred with the same brush as the guilty.

I laid an affectionate hand on his arm as he drew up at the traffic lights. 'Thank you,' I said.

'For what?'

'Holding back. I know how worried you are, but it has to be more sensible to take an open-minded woman with me than an angry husband who's likely to lose his temper.'

'We can still go to the police.'

I shook my head. We'd been through this a dozen times. 'They wouldn't do anything ... certainly not today ... probably never. It took Stephen Lawrence's parents seven years to win an inquiry, so I can't see myself walking into Richmond Police Station out of the blue and being believed.' I sighed. 'I tried that twenty years ago and all it achieved was to persuade everyone I was a head case.'

He nodded.

'In any case I really do want the truth this time, and Wendy was the only person I could think of. Sheila's too conservative to work outside the rules-and Larry wouldn't have let her come, anyway.'

'Could he have stopped her?' asked Sam in surprise.

'She'd have insisted on it,' I said cynically. 'She uses him as her get-out card whenever her involvement becomes too onerous.' I recalled Sheila's horrified refusal when I invited her to confront the Slaters- Good God, I couldn 't possibly. Larry would never allow it for a minute-and I thought how wrong I had been to think that Annie's doctor would be the best support I could have. If I'd had any sense I'd have realized how passive she was when she admitted abandoning Annie's cause at the first sign of irritation from Larry, but I'd been seduced by her sympathetic report on Annie to the coroner and her gutsy defense of herself against accusations of negligence. The real irony, of course, was that I need never have upset my mother by moving the family to Dorchester if only I'd known in advance that an eccentric vicar's wife in Devon had more courage and crusading spirit in her little finger than Sheila Arnold would ever have. 'And, apart from my ma,' I went on with a