Shape of Snakes

I felt like a rag doll that had just lost all the sawdust out of its knees, and, from the way Wendy clutched at the gatepost, I clearly wasn't the only one.

I should have considered the size of Maureen's sitting room before I picked her house as the meeting place. Barely ten feet square, it was too small to allow each of us the amount of space we wanted, and we grouped ourselves in uncomfortable proximity according to our fragile alliances. This meant the Slaters sat rigidly on a sofa against the internal wall while Wendy, Sharon, Geoffrey and I faced them on hard-backed chairs in front of the window. It was reminiscent of trench warfare during the First World War-and I began to wonder if the outcome would be as futile.

I had been swept with nausea from the moment I saw Derek, and I struggled to contain it as the sour smell of him-more remembered, I think, than real-filled my nostrils. I kept asking myself why it hadn't occurred to me that Maureen would confront me with him, when instilling fear was what she was best at. I tried to speak and found I couldn't.

'Go on then,' she said, gloating over my discomfort. 'Say what you have to say, then get out.'

It was a strange moment. The anger and bitterness inside me had been through a number of evolutions over the years-from a savage desire to kill, through apathy and a wish to forget-to this, my final position. Most of the time I could delude myself that I was pursuing justice for Annie-indeed I believe that most of the time that's what I was doing. But every so often I recognized that Dr. Elias and Peter Stanhope were right and my motives were based on revenge. If Maureen had kept her mouth shut, I might have been able to persuade myself forever that it was justice I was seeking ... but such a surge of hatred shot through me in that moment that I was back where I started.

If Derek was dying, as Michael had suggested, it wasn't immediately obvious. He was thinner than I remembered and his hands had the permanent tremor of alcoholism, but he still held his head like a boxer, watching for any opening, and he still radiated an illiterate's aggression. As for Alan, he was just an older, broader version of his brother and I couldn't look at him without thinking of Danny. I had pictured him for half my life as a muscular giant with a child's brain, but the reality was a nervous man with grimy fingernails and a beer gut who strove to keep as much distance from his parents as a three-seater sofa would allow.

In the end it was Derek who spoke first. His voice had changed very little-hard vowels and glottal stops-and it grated on my ears as it had twenty years ago. 'You can't blame the boy,' he muttered, putting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. 'He only did what I told him to do.'

'I know.' I looked at Alan's bent head. 'I've never blamed him.'

'Then you'll drop the rest of the stuff if I admit to it? That's what you've come for, isn't it? My head in a noose.'

'Not just yours.'

His eyes glinted dangerously. 'You brought it on your own head,' he ground out. 'You shouldn't have set Drury on me ... shouldn't have accused me of murdering the nigger.'

I swallowed bile. 'I didn't,' I answered, forcing my voice to remain steady. 'Mr. Drury asked me to give him the names of anyone I thought might have a grudge against Annie, so I named Maureen, Sharon and you. But he was only interested in you-probably because you had convictions for assault-and asked me what your grudge was. I said you were a drunken bully who made no secret of your racist views, that you had low self-esteem, a negligible IQ and a 'poor white' mentality. I also told him you were in the habit of punching and kicking anyone who annoyed you, and cited the time you thrashed Michael Percy because he stood up to you after your own son ran away. At no point did I accuse you of murdering Annie.' I held his gaze for a moment. 'In fact the only accusation I ever made was that you threatened me with what might happen if I didn't keep my mouth shut.'

He stabbed a trembling finger at me. 'You lied about that.'

I shook my head. 'If you'd read my statement you'd have known what I said. But you couldn't read, so you accepted Mr. Drury's interpretation.' I smiled slightly. 'The funny thing is, I don't even blame you very much either. It's your nature to piss on anything you don't understand, so to condemn you for doing it is about as senseless as blaming a rat for spreading disease'-I looked at Maureen-'or a snake for being venomous.'

The woman's eyes narrowed immediately. 'Don't drag me into this,' she snapped. 'It was none of my doing.'

There was a short silence while she and I stared at each other with our mutual hatred written strong on our faces. 'But at least you know what Derek and I are talking about,' I said evenly. 'Which no one else does'-I gestured to right and left-'except Alan of course. You see, I've always wanted to know who planned it. It was too'-I sought for a word-'subtle for either of these morons to work out alone.'

'Whatever they did, they did off their own bat. Ask them if you don't believe me.'

'There'd be no point,' I said with an indifferent shrug. 'You've already persuaded Derek to take the blame. Just as you always did.'

'And how would I do that, Miss High-and-Mighty?' she demanded with a sneer. 'He's a man, isn't he? He does what he wants.'

It was interesting to watch Alan's reactions. He sat between his parents, leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor, but every time his mother spoke his body leaned perceptibly closer to his father's.

'I don't know,' I said honestly. 'Probably by frightening Alan into paying him off. It has to be worth a try. Alan's got so much to lose. A wife and children who love him ... a home ... happiness.'

Alan's knuckles squeezed into white knots as I spoke. 'You said you didn't blame me,' he muttered.

'I don't,' I answered, 'but I will if you insist on supporting your mother's lies. I came for explanations, Alan, not to have your father made the scapegoat. Why did I have to be threatened, anyway? Drury had lost interest in the whole subject by that time ... All he wanted was to shut me up because I kept accusing him of racism ... That's the only reason he got Derek fired up.'

Maureen's lip curled in a sneer. 'You were no better than the nigger,' she said. 'You called my man a 'poor white' and types like him don't take kindly to insults. Particularly not from a jumped-up schoolteacher who fancied herself way above us. Why wouldn't he want to shut you up?'

The depressing part was, I was sure she was telling the truth, at least where Derek was concerned. A woman's sneer was the only motivation he would ever need to assault her. I looked at him. 'Did you piss on Annie, too?' I asked him, 'Is that why she reeked of urine?'