The Serpent Pool

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Must have been difficult for you, after your husband was murdered.’

  ‘As you well know, the inquest has been adjourned. The coroner hasn’t delivered a verdict.’

  ‘Do you doubt that he was murdered?’

  ‘Since you ask, no.’

  ‘Any idea why anyone would want to kill your husband in such a cruel fashion?’

  ‘None whatsoever. But you didn’t come here to discuss what happened to George, I hope. In the military jargon, that surely is mission creep.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that, Mrs Saffell.’

  ‘Another officer is in charge of the investigation into my husband’s death.’

  ‘DCI Larter knows I am speaking to you.’

  ‘Doubling up? Not a very good use of resources, Chief Inspector.’

  Stung, Hannah gave in to temptation. ‘You must admit, it’s a coincidence. Two people, apparently murdered in mysterious circumstances and for no obvious reason. Two people whom you knew.’

  Wanda flushed, and Hannah felt like shouting in exultation. At last, she’d registered a hit.

  ‘You can’t be suggesting a connection between the deaths of Bethany and George?’

  ‘Do you believe there is a connection?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. I knew them both, but that’s neither here nor there. You might as well—’

  ‘What?’

  A question too far, although she didn’t realise.

  Wanda’s expression became a blend of contempt and savage triumph.

  ‘You might as well investigate someone much closer to home. After all, George spent a fortune with Amos Books – where Bethany worked before moving to the university. She fancied Marc like crazy. Whether they slept together, I never inquired. As I said, I don’t pry into other people’s lives. But of course, he will have told you the full story, Chief Inspector Scarlett. Won’t he?’

  * * *

  Hannah had never been kicked in the stomach by a donkey, but it must feel like this. At least if you were coshed by some thug, it wasn’t accompanied by this sickening sense of betrayal by someone you trusted not to hurt you.

  In the course of a year, up to a dozen casual workers worked at the shop, helping out at busy times and in the holiday season. The Lake District was full of young people passing through, gap year students, migrants and assorted drifters, who took a job for a while, then left for something else. Marc couldn’t be expected to remember every single person. But he’d remembered Bethany Friend. You wouldn’t forget someone who died in such mysterious circumstances; the story had been all over the local papers for a couple of weeks. Especially if they’d been infatuated with you.

  She found herself taking the track that followed Stock Ghyll. Swelled by the rain of the last few days, the ghyll squeezed through narrow channels in the cliff on its way down to Ambleside. Where the path forked, she continued right, climbing steps of rock and oak root before reaching a fence with iron arches. Beyond was a railed viewpoint, overlooking the stream, but she ploughed on, along more rough steps until she reached the footbridge at the top. The paths were thick with mud; her shoes would be ruined, but she didn’t care. At last she stopped, and closed her eyes, listening to the roar of the white water below.

  This was Stock Ghyll Force. The waterfall threw up clouds of spray, and Hannah felt drops of water on her skin. A rib of rock showed through the foam; it split the falls like a dorsal fin before the waters converged again, meeting in mid-air to form a raging torrent. If you shut your eyes, you might believe a dam had burst.

  Or that all hell had been let loose.

  During the original investigation into Bethany Friend’s death, a member of Ben’s team had produced a rough curriculum vitae summarising her work experience. She’d moved around so much, the document was bound to be incomplete. It wasn’t too surprising that there was no mention of a spell at Amos Books. Probably the job amounted to nothing more than a few weekends, paid cash in hand while she worked somewhere else Monday to Friday, and served behind a bar at night.

  Marc should have come clean. Wanda Saffell hinted that he and Bethany had been lovers. Mischief-making, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. Even after Hannah had started seeing Marc, he’d dallied with Leigh Moffatt. If an affair with an employee turned sour, maybe she’d become difficult. Threatened a sexual harassment claim or something.

  Cold and hungry, with tears pricking her eyes, Hannah leant on the railing and glared down at the cascade. A couple in their seventies walked past, and looked at her with undisguised anxiety. But she wasn’t contemplating a leap into the abyss. Just facing up to the question she could no longer dodge.

  Was the man she’d loved for years capable of tying up Bethany Friend and leaving her to drown in the Serpent Pool?

  On her way back to the car, she called at a shop that was holding a sale and bought herself new shoes. Three pairs. Retail therapy was her best chance of de-stressing – she didn’t expect to break open a bottle of wine with Marc any time soon. The old, mud-caked shoes she stuffed into a litter bin. If only you could ditch everything wrong in your life so easily.

  Within two minutes of her arrival at HQ, she found herself bellowing at a temp who had messed up some photocopying. As the girl’s face crumpled, she apologised, and cursed herself inwardly. Wrong to vent her ill humour on subordinates, however lazy and incompetent – wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Fern wasn’t around, which was a relief. She didn’t want to feed back on her conversation with Wanda until she’d had a chance to confront Marc. But she’d barely stomped into her office and slammed the door to discourage interruptions, before it swung open again. Maggie bounded in like an eager spaniel expecting to be taken out for a walk.

  ‘Are you all right, guv?’

  ‘Can’t it wait, whatever it is? I’m busy.’

  Maggie’s face fell. She threw a reproachful glance at the PC screen, yet to be switched on.

  ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

  Give me strength.

  ‘Fire away, then.’

  ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened.’

  Hannah was about to snap: I’m not into guessing games, just spit it out. But if she wasn’t careful, she’d burst a blood vessel. She was too hunched up in her chair, too rigid and tense. Lean back, breathe out, strive for calm.

  ‘Tell you what, Maggie. Why don’t you pull up a chair, and then break it to me gently?’

  ‘The boss has gone AWOL, then?’

  Alf Swallow’s van and trailer were already outside the front porch when Daniel and Louise arrived. The gardener was a muscular man with a square jaw and features as rugged as the Langdale Pikes. He had close-cropped greying hair and Daniel was sure he’d never tugged a forelock in his life. The rolled-up sleeves of his mud-stained overall revealed brawny arms with blue tattoos. A lifetime spent out of doors in the Lake District meant bad weather didn’t bother him. Probably not much did.

  ‘He hasn’t answered his phone for twenty-four hours,’ Louise said. ‘Of course, I may be worrying unnecessarily, but…’

  Swallow considered her, much as he might assess a choice bloom in a nursery. ‘He’ll be all right, love, don’t fret.’

  ‘Did he mention going away?’

  ‘You’d know better than me, love. The boss and I don’t see much of each other. When I’m here, he’s in his office or at court. He leaves it to me to keep these grounds spick and span.’

  ‘You neatened things up before the New Year’s Eve party, didn’t you?’

  ‘Tidied all the rubbish people left a couple of mornings later, come to that. I saw the curtains were closed, so I figured out he couldn’t have gone back to work yet. But I didn’t want to disturb anyone. Stuffed my bill through the letter box as usual and went on my way.’

  ‘You can’t guess where he might be?’

  ‘Likes to go walking, doesn’t he? Told me once he was a fresh-air fiend.’

  He spat on the ground, as if to indicate his private opinion of a
soft solicitor who fancied himself as an outdoor type.

  ‘But he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Maybe he’s holed up in a B&B somewhere. Or a luxury hotel, more like.’

  ‘He might have tumbled down a gully,’ Louise said.

  ‘Trust me, love. Stuart Wagg will always fall on his feet.’ A crooked grin. ‘Least, I hope so. Can’t afford to lose a good customer.’

  ‘Do you have keys to the outbuildings? If he’s had an accident…’

  ‘Can’t imagine he’s trapped himself in there. But you can have a look, if you like.’

  It was clear he thought she was making a song and dance over nothing, but he led the way around the side of the house to the tree-fringed gardens looking out to Windermere. This stretch of the lake had not frozen over, but there wasn’t a single boat on the water. As befitted a house that took its name from a Ransome novel, there was a wooden landing stage where a sleek fibreglass boat was moored. Just for show, Louise said; Stuart Wagg was too often seasick to be much of a sailor. This was the first time Daniel had seen the view in daylight. Crag Gill’s location was perfect. The house crouched on the slope, quiet as a church in prayer.

  The grounds were bordered by tall hawthorn hedges; thick but not impenetrable, like the hedge Daniel had squeezed through the previous day. At the end of the drive stood a triple garage linked to a large brick storeroom. Louise murmured. ‘I never went into the garage, I always parked outside. Too afraid of clipping the wing of his bloody car. The other building is full of garden equipment, but we’d better look inside, in case…’

  Swallow opened the store and waved them in. There was a sit-on lawnmower and an array of hoes, spades and scythes suspended from a rack that ran the length of one wall, but no Stuart Wagg. Daniel looked through the doorway that gave on to the garage. Parked in a neat line were a rich man’s toys. The Bentley to impress clients, an open-top Mercedes for casual driving and a gleaming Harley Davidson for fun.

  ‘He takes the bike over to the Isle of Man for the TT races,’ Swallow said. ‘That apart, I doubt if he rides it more than once in a blue moon. Anyhow, you can see he’s gone walking. Else a car or the bike would be missing, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Louise sounded miserable, as though she guessed that Swallow was laughing to himself at her silliness. She hated making a fool of herself.

  ‘Suppose you’ll want to see the summer house?’ Swallow’s bushy eyebrows lifted. ‘Make sure he’s not keeled over while he was inside, watching the rain pour down?’

  He spat on the path before striding off across the garden in the direction of a pine summer house with a verandah. He was whistling something that sounded like an approximation of ‘The Dambusters March’. A son of the soil, humouring folk who ought to know better.

  Daniel whispered, ‘They should have called him Alf Spit, not Alf Swallow.’

  Louise didn’t appreciate his attempt to lighten the mood. ‘Something bad has happened,’ she hissed.

  She was shivering beneath the heavy fleece. He grabbed her arm, and squeezed it tight. They hurried after the gardener and caught up with him as he rattled a key in the lock securing the summer house. Inside stood a table and a set of stacked garden chairs. Boxes of cutlery and crockery occupied a single shelf at the back of the building. Cobwebs criss-crossed the windows and, when they stepped over the threshold, a cloud of dust blew up and made Daniel sneeze.

  ‘Bless you,’ Swallow said.

  ‘Is there anywhere we haven’t searched?’ Louise demanded.

  A shake of the head. ‘There’s the well, of course, but no way would he be down there.’

  ‘Oh God, I’d forgotten the well,’ Louise said. ‘Stuart pointed it out to me, when he showed me round here.’

  ‘It’s not been used for many a long year. Dates back to when the old house was on this site. It may have been dug out before then, for all I know. Once upon a time there were wells like this all over the countryside.’

  ‘How deep is it?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Thirty feet, maybe less. The bottom’s silted up. The boss talked about filling it in, but we haven’t got round to it yet. It used to be covered with wooden boards, but they were rotting, so I put a new metal sheet over the hole this time last year. Heavy bugger to shift. You needn’t worry, love. Nobody could fall down there by accident.’

  ‘Let’s have a quick look,’ Daniel suggested. ‘Better not leave any stone unturned.’

  Swallow shrugged and led them along a grassy path, past a couple of dense mahonias and into a small clearing with a compost heap, a short distance from the boundary hedge. Daniel wrinkled his nose at the stench of the rotting vegetation. On a small platform of broken house bricks lay a round metal cover showing the first traces of rust.

  ‘That’s funny,’ Swallow said.

  ‘What?’ Louise sounded hoarse.

  ‘I could have sworn the metal sheet wasn’t in that position last time I dumped a barrow load of compost. You’ve got me imagining things myself now.’

  ‘Can you move the cover?’ she asked in a small voice.

  Alf Swallow cast a glance to the heavens. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of weight in that, love. Look at it. No way could anyone shift that bugger by mistake.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Daniel said, moving towards the well. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘You’re all right, mister, leave it to me.’ Swallow’s good humour sounded as though it was wearing thin. ‘Don’t want you to put your back out.’

  After a preparatory spit, the gardener bent down and, with a loud grunt, like a Wimbledon star striving to serve an ace, he heaved the metal cover to one side. A small dark opening appeared.

  The moment Alf Swallow glanced down into the well, his eyes widened. His face grew dark as scorn gave way to horror, and he swore with primitive savagery.

  Daniel’s gorge rose. He’d dreaded this. Tried to persuade himself that it was not possible.

  Louise gave a strangled cry. ‘What…what is it?’

  Daniel stepped forward, pushing past the gardener to see for himself. The well hole was a black abyss. When he knelt down by the edge and peered inside, the stench hit him like a blow from a knuckleduster. He recoiled, but with a frantic effort, managed not to fall down.

  Wedged fifteen feet below ground level, before the hole narrowed to nothingness, was the bruised and broken body of a man in shirt and trousers, not dressed for outdoors, let alone for the cold underground. He’d curled up into a foetal ball – whether to ward off blows, or to avoid confronting the fate that awaited him, Daniel dared not guess. The face was hidden, thank God, for the insects must have been busy. No question about the corpse’s identity, though. No mistaking that proud mane of dark hair, even though now it was dirty and matted with blood.

  The gardener had been wrong.

  For once, Stuart Wagg had not fallen on his feet.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Hannah, you’ve heard the news?’

  Daniel’s voice was low and tense and disturbingly good to hear. She pressed the mobile closer to her ear. He’d rung the moment she hurried out of the well-lit entrance of Divisional HQ into the night. It had been a long and hard day and it wasn’t about to improve. Tonight she had to confront Marc about Bethany Friend.

  ‘Stuart Wagg is dead.’

  ‘Louise and I found the body.’

  ‘Horrible for you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Louise has never seen a corpse before.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Shocked, as you’d expect. He was so wrong for her, but she can’t understand why someone murdered him.’

  ‘Assuming he was murdered. Until the forensic people have finished—’

  ‘His head was badly wounded and he’d been shoved down an old well which was then covered up. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he could climb out. I really don’t think there’s any chance of accident or suicide, do you?’ He paused for breath. ‘Hey, this is a bad idea. Y
ou’re a chief inspector, it’s more than your job’s worth to discuss what has happened.’

  She dug her nails into her palm. I’ve blown it.

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Louise is a suspect, bound to be.’ He groaned. ‘Stupid of me to call. As a matter of fact, I don’t have an alibi myself.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense.’

  He didn’t reply. One of the senior women from Legal stepped into a pool of light cast by the security lamps. She waved as she headed at a brisk clip for her people carrier at the other end of the car park. Hannah waved back and mouthed goodnight.

  She softened her tone. ‘Listen, I’m glad you rang me. You want to meet?’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t want you to feel compromised,’ he muttered.

  ‘This isn’t my case, there’s no question of compromising me.’ She was far from certain about that, but what the hell? She was sick of trying to do the right thing. ‘You and I are friends. Your dad was my boss. Nobody can stop us having a conversation.’

  A pause.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  Despite himself, he laughed. ‘All right, you’ve persuaded me. When?’

  ‘When suits you?’

  A pause. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of later tonight?’

  * * *

  And then there were two. The last customer had long gone when Mrs Beveridge finished cashing up and disappeared into the evening cold. Cassie put the Closed sign on the door and collected her coat and scarf. Marc stood at the counter, checking an Internet auction sale, as she approached him.

  ‘Goodnight, Marc.’

  ‘Your car’s fixed, I hope?’

  She shook her head. ‘The garage said it will be a couple more days. No problem, the bus journey gives me a chance to unwind.’

  ‘Am I such a taskmaster that you need an hour to unwind?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘What time is your bus?’

  She clicked her tongue in annoyance as she checked her watch. ‘Bummer. I just missed one. Never mind. I think they run every half hour.’