The Shape of Snakes

by Minette Walters

  I sat next to him. "Did it do any good?"

  "It did as a matter of fact. He was pretty decent about it, said he understood why I was doing it, then gave me a graphic description of what it's like to die of suffocation. He told me I had more going for me than to peg it in a graveyard with a nose full of glue fumes." He flicked me a sideways glance full of amused self-deprecation. "So I tried heroin instead."

  My disillusionment must have shown. "Meaning Mr. Drury's terror tactics were more effective than Michael's lecture?"

  Danny's smile widened. "I never liked glue-sniffing anyway ... and as for heroin"�he gave a sudden laugh�"I'd been sitting on the bog for half an hour trying to pluck up courage to stick the bloody needle in before Mr. Drury caught me, I'd always hated the damn things."

  I eyed him affectionately. "You were going to give up anyway?"

  "Sure ... injecting at least. I went on smoking it for a while, then I thought, to hell with it. I don't need this. I prefer cannabis. You keep a better grip on things with dope."

  "Why didn't you tell your mother that at the time instead of letting Drury take the credit?"

  "Because she wouldn't have believed me." He turned his cigarette in his fingers. "You wouldn't either. I was a pretty wild kid and it's not easy getting people to change their opinion of you when all you do is let them down."

  I nodded. I'd seen it myself many times during my teaching career. Give a dog a bad name and he was hanged forever afterward. It was the sort of unforgiving prejudice I hated�as Dr. Elias had so pointedly reminded me. "What did Michael mean when he said he understood why you were sniffing glue?"

  "He knew what it was like for me at home. There was only me and Mum and we loathed each other's guts. Most of the time she was passed out drunk"�he shook his head�"and when she wasn't, she'd lam into the first person she saw�usually me. It was pretty depressing. She's got real problems but she won't do anything about them ... just locks the door and sinks into a stupor."

  "Has she ever said what her problems are?"

  "You mean apart from the physical dependency?"

  I nodded.

  "The same as any other addict I guess," he said with a shrug. "Fear of living ... fear of pain ... fear of having to look at yourself too closely in case you don't like what you see."

  I wondered if he was right. "She seemed all right when I saw her."

  "Only because she knew you were coming," he said dismis-sively, "but you can bet she was back in front of the telly with her fags and her booze within five minutes of you leaving. She can put on an act for a while ... but she's too lazy to want to make it permanent. It makes me sick."

  "Do you ever see her?"

  "No. Last time was at Tansy's christening. I phone her once in a while just to let her know I'm still alive, but the only one of her kids she wants to hear from is Alan. He's always been her favorite. She'd forgive him anything ... but not me or my sisters."

  I nodded. "What stopped you from being wild?"

  He thought about it. "Getting sent down at sixteen for nicking and driving cars," he said with a grin. "Remember I told you I spent time in prison? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got me out of Graham Road. Made me think about what I wanted in life." He tilted the tip of his cigarette toward Gandhi. "There was an art teacher who showed me I had a talent for this kind of thing ... he was a good bloke ... got me a place at art school... even let me live with him and his wife for a while till I found somewhere of my own."

  Perhaps I'd been wrong to tell Maureen that Beth had worked a change in Danny when it seemed to have been an unknown art teacher who had influenced his life. "Prison can work then?"

  "Only if you want it to."

  "Did Alan want it to work? Is that how he turned himself 'round?"

  He shrugged. "He had a bad time ... got bullied because he wasn't too bright ... made him scared to go back. Then he met Beth and reckoned he had a future even though she strung him along for ages before she agreed to marry him." Another shrug�more dismissive this time. "Prison doesn't seem to have done Michael much good."

  "Or your dad," I said slowly, thinking about Alan being bullied and the truism that most bullies are cowards. "Michael told me he and your dad were in the Scrubs together five years ago."

  "Lucky Michael," said Danny sarcastically.

  "He said your dad's illiterate ... can't even manage his own name. So Michael wrote some letters for him. He said there was one to you which you didn't answer."

  "He's lying," said Danny bluntly. "I could be dead for all that bastard cares."

  "I don't think so."

  "Where did he send it?"

  "To your mum's house."

  "She'd have torn up anything with a prison logo on it. What did it say?"

  "That he cared about you."

  Danny gave a snort of derision. "He doesn't even know what I look like."

  "Mm," I agreed.

  "I expect he was feeling guilty about abandoning us."

  "Mm," I said again.

  Danny frowned. "What else did Michael say?"

  "That you had a broken arm when you were a child. Do you remember that?"

  He cast an involuntary glance at his right hand. "Sort of. I know I was in plaster once, but I thought it was something to do with my wrist. It aches sometimes."

  "Do you know how it happened?"

  "I fell off my bike."

  "Is that something you remember or something you've been told?"

  A difference in my tone�too much curiosity perhaps�made his brows draw together in a puzzled frown. "Why so interested? All kids break bones at some time or another." I didn't answer and he seemed irritated by my silence. "Probably something I was told," he said curtly. "I don't remember much before I was six or seven."

  "Neither do I," I said equably. "It's odd. Some people have very clear memories of their early childhood, but I have none at all. I used to think the stories my parents told me were real memories, but I've come to the conclusion now that if something is repeated often enough it acquires a reality." I paused to watch one of the student sculptors chip nervously at a small block of stone which had so little shape I wondered why he was bothering. "Michael said he doesn't remember seeing Alan after your dad left," I said next. "Is that the time he went to prison for dealing?"

  Danny appeared to be on safer ground with this question. "Sure. It's the only sentence he's done. He told me about it once, said it did his head in something chronic." He leaned forward to pick a stone from the ground. "He didn't come home afterward. I think they reckoned he was a bad influence on the rest of us, or vice versa." He polished the stone with the ball of his thumb. "I only found out what he looked like when I skived off school one day to go wandering 'round Twickenham. It was when I was about thirteen, and this big guy stops me in the street and says, 'Hi, I'm Alan, how you doing?' He'd have been about twenty-four by then"�he gave a hollow laugh�"and I hadn't a clue who he was. I knew I had a brother somewhere but it was a bit of a shock to find he was only four miles away. He said he'd been keeping an eye on me from a distance."

  "Did you tell your mother you'd seen him?"

  "No chance. She used to get really wound up every time his name was mentioned, then she'd hit the bottle and start breaking furniture. I always thought she blamed Al for making my dad leave until Al turned up out of the blue a year later and she wept all over him and said how much she'd missed him."

  "Why did he come?"

  "Wanted to see her, I guess."

  "No, I meant, why then. Why wait so long?"

  He looked interested, as if it were something he'd never considered before. "It was after Mr. Drury retired," he said. "I remember Mum saying there was no one left who'd recognize him�" He broke off abruptly. "She probably just meant he wouldn't be picked on anymore."

  "Is Alan fond of her?" I asked, remembering what Beth had said about Alan's depression every time he visited Maureen.

  "Maybe. He's the only one who bothers t
o see her."

  "But?" I prompted when he didn't go on.

  He stretched his right arm and dropped the stone, staring at his hand in absorbed fascination as he flexed his fingers. "He's scared of her," he answered abruptly. "That's the only reason he goes ... to keep her from turning on him."

  We went for a walk through the sculpture park, diving down little alleyways between craggy walls of stone. We squeezed through a cleft into a cave where a pink blanket and a pile of empty cans suggested someone had taken up residence or a couple of lovers had found a private retreat.

  "Maybe I should take it over," said Danny, "and sneak out at night to carve the stones by moonlight."

  "Do you enjoy it that much?"

  He made a rocking motion with a hand. "Not all the time�it can be bloody frustrating when it doesn't go right�but it's what I want to do."

  "Sam's willing to let you work in the barn at the bottom of our garden," I said, leading the way back out again. "It'll mean slumming it in the tack room and working with the doors open if you want any light"�I shrugged�"but it won't cost you anything. If you can scrounge some stone and don't mind sleeping rough for a bit ... it's free and available."

  He was less than appreciative. "I'd freeze to death in the winter."

  "Mm," I agreed, "and Sam'll have your hide if he catches you smoking cannabis."

  "What about you?"

  "I never argue with my husband in public so if you come ... and he catches you ... you're on your own." I turned to look at him. "Think about it, anyway. You won't get a better offer today."

  He became very quiet as we approached the car. "Why would you want to help me?" he asked, taking the keys from my hand to unlock the door.

  "Think of it as an investment in the future." He held the door open.

  "You'd never make a penny," he said gloomily. "I haven't that much talent."

  I gave him a quick hug. "We'll see." I lowered myself onto the seat. "But it's not a financial investment, Danny, more a loan of goodwill that you can repay with interest to someone who deserves a similar chance at another time."

  He wouldn't meet my eyes. "What do you want in return?"

  "Nothing," I said honestly, reaching for the door. "There are no strings attached. The barn's there if you want to take us up on it. If you don't, no hard feelings."

  He shuffled his feet on the gravel. "Alan's phoned a few times wanting to know what you've been saying about him," he said abruptly. "He's really twitched even though I keep telling him you're only interested in what happened to the black lady." I didn't answer.

  "What did he do to you?" he asked me.

  "What makes you think he did anything?"

  "Your face goes blank every time his name's mentioned."

  He put his hand on the door to stop me closing it. "I'd never go against him," he said painfully. "He's my brother."

  "I wouldn't expect you to," I said as I started the engine. "But the offer of the barn has nothing to do with Alan, Danny. If you're happy to come, we're happy to have you. I hope you'll remember that ... whatever happens..."

  My last visit that day was a prearranged one to Sheila Arnold in her office. She and Larry had been away the previous week on a whistlestop visit to the Florida condo�"keeping Larry happy" had been her wry description over the telephone�and this was my first opportunity to show her the photographs of Beth and Alan's house. She had agreed to see me at the end of afternoon surgery and was updating some patients' notes on her computer when I dropped into the chair beside her desk. She gave me a quick smile, then pushed her keyboard away and turned to face me.

  "Well?"

  I'd had more copies made from the negatives after Drury's fit of pique with my rucksack, and I produced these from my pocket and spread them across her desk.

  "My God!" she declared in amazement. "I thought you were exaggerating when you said you'd found the mother lode."

  I tapped the bangle on her wrist, then pointed to a close-up of Beth Slater's forearm. "Snap?" I suggested. "She has four of them, and I think she wears them all the time because she pushes them up her arm every time she goes near the sink. I doubt she has any idea they're valuable or even that they're jade. She probably thinks they're plastic or resin."

  Sheila studied a picture of Beth with her children. "She has a nice face."

  "Yes," I agreed.

  "You liked her."

  "Very much," I said with a sigh, "which makes it difficult to know what to do next. I don't think she has any idea these things were stolen. She told me Alan bought the Quetzalcoatl in a junk shop then started collecting other Mexican pieces because he believes the Aztecs were an alien civilization. Her children were full of it while I was taking the photographs�they think their dad's a genius because he knows more about aliens than anyone else�and it seems rather pointless to make them unhappy just for the sake of proving he was a thief twenty years ago."

  Sheila lifted each picture in turn and studied it closely. "I remember some of these things," she said finally, "but I couldn't swear to all of them. Also, apart from the bangles and the mosaic, there doesn't seem to be much of any value. What happened to the gold and silver pieces, for example?"

  "Alan's mother sold them to buy her house," I said, "but I've very little proof to back that up." I showed her the Chiswick jeweler's affidavit. "The description of the woman fits Maureen�along with half a million others who can manage a Birmingham accent�but it's only five items and accounts for less than Ł1,000."

  "How much did the house cost her?"

  "About Ł15,000 in total. She claims it all came from a win on the football pools which is why she didn't have to declare it." I lifted an amused eyebrow. "The house is now worth upwards of Ł200,000 and increasing every day as the housing boom takes off."

  "My God!" said Sheila in disgust. "We didn't get much more than that for our four-bedroom job seven years ago."

  "I know. It's sickening." I isolated a wide-angled shot of the sitting room. "Maureen stuffed most of this into the cupboard under her stairs because she didn't think it had any value"�I smiled ironically�"and it was still there when you were trying to persuade Drury Annie had been burgled. In fact, as Alan didn't retrieve it until a good ten years later Drury could have found it if he'd bothered to investigate."

  She looked annoyed. "And I would have been vindicated?"

  I nodded.

  "I'll never forgive Peter Stanhope for accusing me of neglecting her, you know. He said I'd only invented her wealth to make myself look better."

  "I know." It obviously still rankled with her, I thought, and decided to keep to myself that Drury had known about the Quetzalcoatl long before Sheila had reported it stolen. I wanted an objective opinion, not one given in anger. "The worst of it is," I said, showing her the picture, "that poor Beth did all this decorating herself to make a Mexican setting for the artifacts ... and it seems cruel to take them away just to prove a point. No one else is going to appreciate them as much as she and Alan do."

  Sheila propped her chin in her hands and regarded me solemnly. "Is this a way of asking me to forget that I ever said Annie was robbed?"

  "I don't know." I sighed. "I keep wondering if it's right to destroy innocent children's lives over a crime that was 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, LEA
VENHAM, 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.