The Wounded Snake

by Fay Sampson

  Yet the practised pause might have been to catch the flash of waiting cameras. He had obviously enjoyed the fame, once it came to him.

  Harry Walters broke the tensely expectant silence. ‘Well? What news?’

  Gavin allowed his face to flower into a confident beam.

  ‘The news is good, I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to hear. Dinah has passed a peaceful night under sedation, after they pumped out her stomach. Apparently, she was even confessing to feeling hungry when she woke this morning.’

  There was a ripple of enthusiasm, even a solitary cheer.

  The red-haired young man leaned forward to whisper to his neighbours.

  ‘Stomach pump? So they did think it was something she’d taken.’

  ‘So,’ said Gavin, coming forward to the speaker’s table at the front. ‘We can turn our minds back to the purpose of this weekend. How to release the secret crime novelist locked up in all of you.’ He let his smile travel round the breadth of the room.

  In spite of herself, Hilary found her own face breaking into a smile of acknowledgement. She had indeed discovered such an ambition in herself.

  She pushed away the urgency of Gavin’s voice in the night summoning Melissa away from her door.

  ‘Doesn’t answer all the questions, does it?’ said a man behind Hilary. She turned to survey him. Elderly, military. Those seemed the right words for him, even from the viewpoint of her own sixty-three years. Tall, square-shouldered, straight-backed. A green gilet, hung about with pockets, over a grey sweater with leather shoulder pads. His remaining grey hairs were severely clipped.

  His voice had the confidence of having rung out over many parade grounds.

  ‘Colonel Truscott,’ he announced. ‘What we all want to know is what made the dear lady so ill. Was it the food? I gather the chef is throwing a wobbly at the suggestion. Or a bug? Is it likely that anyone else will catch it? You hear dreadful things about this norovirus thing. Wouldn’t want to go down with that.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s no need for you to worry.’ Someone else had appeared at Gavin’s side.

  Hilary drew a sharp intake of breath. Melissa. The woman who had opened her bedroom door in the middle of the night. The stooped head of brown hair.

  She studied the taller woman for any sign of apology for last night’s intrusion. Melissa’s eyes made no contact with hers. If she was genuinely sleepwalking, would she remember? Probably not. Gavin was avoiding her eyes too.

  Melissa smiled, somewhat tightly. ‘Her symptoms don’t suggest anything of the sort. I can assure you that no one else has been taken ill. You don’t need to fear that the cause was in the kitchen.’

  ‘So what was it?’ cut in Tania, the conspiracy theorist. ‘This is getting interesting.’

  Gavin gave her a murderous look. ‘Let’s just enjoy the rest of the weekend. I’m going to divide you into three groups. If you’d like to arrange yourselves on the left, in the middle, and to the right of the room. That’s right. About nine or ten to a group.’

  Hilary and Veronica edged their chairs sideways into the left-hand circle, nearest the door.

  ‘Right. You can sit yourselves down. Now this lot,’ he beamed across at Hilary and Veronica’s group, ‘are the Toads.’

  ‘Charming!’ said Tania, the sceptical young woman they had met over breakfast.

  ‘And you,’ he turned his smile on the centre group, ‘are the Snakes.’

  An answering hiss rose from this group, as of people relaxing and getting into the spirit of the game.

  All the same, to Hilary, the genial look he gave them seemed rather forced.

  ‘And you,’ he said to the right-hand group, ‘will be the Slowworms.’

  Hilary pictured the smooth-skinned reptiles she sometimes found in damp and shadowed places in her garden. Not true snakes, despite their appearance. Harmless. Even beneficial to the gardener. But alarming to those who had a horror of snakes.

  ‘I wonder why these?’ Veronica reflected. ‘Because all reptiles are rather creepy? I fancy something more furry, like a fox.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hilary replied. ‘I’m rather fond of the toads in my garden pond. Croaking away among the lily leaves and defying me to see where they’re camouflaged.’

  The red-haired man in the leather jacket leaned across. ‘You’re forgetting. What about the dust jacket of his book?’

  Into Hilary’s mind came a picture of that blindly questing head thrusting its way sinisterly across all those book covers on the display stand. What was that enigmatic title? The Long Crippler. The connection clicked into place. It was another name for a slowworm.

  Gavin was calling them back to attention. ‘Now, you’re probably wondering about the three names. There’s a prize for the first one to tell me where I got the idea from. A signed copy of my latest book … No, not you, Ceri,’ he said as a woman from their own Toad group shot up a hand. ‘You’re local. That’s an unfair advantage. And don’t tell anyone else. Let them do the detective work for themselves, if they’re curious and clever enough.’

  Hilary found her curiosity pricked. She turned to the woman two seats away. Black, tightly curled hair and a green skirt of a knobbly fabric that seemed to have curls of its own. What could it be that an inhabitant of Totnes would already know?

  ‘Now,’ Gavin was saying, ‘Dinah was talking to us yesterday about the many things that can inspire a detective novel: place, characters, a particularly bizarre plot idea. Today – and where better than in a place like Morland Abbey – I’m challenging you to begin your crime novel with a strong sense of place.

  ‘Of course, there’s plenty to start you off right here. You’ve got the house, the splendid ornamental gardens and the wider grounds beyond. But feel free to venture further afield, as long as you leave yourself enough time to drink in the atmosphere and get a fair bit of writing done. It wouldn’t take you long to walk down to the river. There are footpaths on the other side of the drive that will take you there. I’m not talking about the tidal estuary where we sailed last night, just the path along the waterside through the woods. Or it’s only a short drive to the edge of Dartmoor – Hound of the Baskervilles, and all that. Then there’s Totnes itself – a fascinating and ancient town. Lots of ideas there. It’s up to you. Then just sit and soak in the vibes for a while, until you are ready to write. You’ve all brought notepads, I trust.’ The groups nodded. ‘Just one word of caution. Try to avoid clichés like the wind whistling over the moor on a stormy night, or a shadowy barn with the scuffling of rats. Crime can be even more chilling when it springs out of just that situation where we feel happy and safe.

  ‘It’s just after nine. We’ll gather back here at eleven for coffee, and then break into groups to see what you’ve got. You’ll be surprised how even the mildest mannered of you can see dire deeds, if you look deeply enough and let the dark thoughts come.’

  His grin illuminated the room. This time it seemed more genuine.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Hilary to no one in particular. ‘Is that what we’re here for? To discover the darker side of our nature?’

  ‘Better to bring it out into the open,’ laughed Tania’s companion, the bespectacled Rob in shorts. ‘It’s what people aren’t saying you need to beware of.’

  People were getting to their feet, pushing back chairs. There was a buzz of anticipation, mingled with apprehension, as they headed for the door.

  To her surprise, Hilary was intercepted by Gavin as she followed Veronica to the door. His smile stretched wide. Tense, Hilary thought.

  ‘I apologize for last night. Melissa is highly strung. I hope she didn’t alarm you.’

  ‘You said she was sleepwalking. Though why she was outside my room on the top floor needs a bit more explaining.’

  She kept her eyes on him and saw him flinch.

  ‘Nothing sinister in that, dear lady. It could have been anyone’s room.’

  Hilary’s attention was snagged by the sense of a sudden movement beyond Gav
in’s shoulder. He turned and saw Melissa beckoning him vehemently. With a muttered apology to Hilary, he joined Melissa and she seized the arm of his cream linen jacket. She was gesturing in what looked like agitation. Hilary followed her gaze. She seemed to be focussed on the Snake group in the centre of the room as they moved to join the mass of people by the door. But, try as she would, Hilary could not make out just whom Melissa was drawing Gavin’s attention to.

  She had, however, seen Gavin’s start of evident alarm. Then the press of bodies around her shut them from her view.

  What and whom could he have seen?

  ‘What do you think?’ Hilary asked Veronica as they descended the stairs. ‘Here, or further afield?’

  Veronica turned on her with a patient smile. ‘We don’t both have to choose the same setting, do we? I rather fancied that garden walk above the tiltyard – you know, the flat lawn with the line of yew trees.’

  ‘Of course I know what the tiltyard is. You can still see the terraced banks around it where the spectators watched. Don’t be patronizing.’

  ‘Sorry. Of course you’d know. The flower beds along the walk above it are lovely this time of year, all misty vistas of mauves and blue, shot with gold. Rustic benches. Just the place for a romantic rendezvous.’

  ‘I thought we were supposed to be writing a crime novel.’

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t be your sort of thing. You may be into something unpleasantly dark and forbidding, but I’m sticking with my heartthrob investigator and the smitten heroine. What better place for them to meet than in this garden? And who knows what might be lurking behind those yews? As Gavin says, it doesn’t have to be the cliché of a sinister setting. There is something more shocking about murder in an idyllic place, don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps you do have a darker side to you, after all,’ Hilary chuckled. ‘Right then, I’ll leave you to it. I’m off into town, to see if I can find a short-stay car park and soak up a different sort of medieval vibe than I get here. Less of the local gentry and more guttersnipes perhaps.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘I won’t know until I find it, will I? The perfect place for a murder.’

  SEVEN

  The steep High Street of Totnes was bustling with Saturday morning traffic. It was too late in the season for stallholders in Elizabethan costume, and probably, Hilary reflected, the wrong day of the week. But her well-informed imagination found no difficulty in peopling the narrow thoroughfare with a motley cast of characters from the sixteenth century. Here, a grubby-faced urchin darted in among the shoppers, cutting a purse from the owner’s belt. There, an ample countrywoman shouted her crop of red-cheeked apples as buxom as her own face. A grave alderman strode slowly but purposefully downhill with the expectation that the common folk would step aside for him into the muck-strewn street.

  The illusion was helped by the fact that Totnes had resolutely stood out against the advance of ubiquitous chain stores. Not a McDonald’s in sight, she noted approvingly.

  Below her, where the short walk from the car park had brought her out on to the street, the view of the main thoroughfare was picturesquely broken by a steepled arch. Beyond it, the hill led on down to the River Dart. Hilary stopped to get her bearings. She wished she had brought her copy of the town trail with her. She had printed it out from the Totnes website, hoping there might be a free time in the weekend’s programme when she and Veronica could explore it. She had not thought to go back to her room and fetch it.

  She stood indecisive, wondering which way to go next. The crowded main street might indeed be a potential crime scene, in this or any other century, but it was not quite what she had in mind. St Mary’s church? She could see the sandstone tower with its pinnacles close by, between her and the arch which carried the rampart walk. Further downhill, she recollected, was the museum, with its reconstructed scenes of Elizabethan life. Or, going further back in time, there were the remains of the Norman castle at the top of the hill.

  Which to choose?

  She found herself turning uphill, to where the High Street narrowed still further and rounded a bend. This was an area less familiar to her. Her eye fell on the name of the side street she was passing: Leechwell Street. Leech was an old name for a physician. Leechwell suggested a healing spring. Her curiosity piqued, she ventured down this side road. It led her past board-faced houses to a black-and-white timbered inn. Ahead, the road seemed to be taking her on to a modern highway. Definitely not what she wanted. But to her left, a much narrower lane plunged steeply downhill. She glanced at her watch. It had taken her less than half an hour to get this far. She still had time.

  The lane was hardly more than a footpath, not wide enough for cars. Drawn by a mounting curiosity she could not name, she started down it.

  Once she had left the corner of Leechwell Street, no houses fronted the path. The noise of traffic fell behind her. There was nothing but the tall blank stone walls on either side, over which ivy tumbled. They were oddly without windows or doorways. A very close-set lane. Hardly room for two people to pass. But there were no other people. She had an uncanny feeling that she was walking out of time, not knowing where and when she might arrive.

  The lane curved, making it impossible to see what was ahead. She felt a sudden, irrational longing for someone else to be with her. Her hand went into her shoulder bag and fingered her mobile phone. It was a reassurance to know that David would be on the other end of the line. That is, if there was a mobile signal here between these tall enclosing walls.

  Idiot! She had come for a weekend of crime writing. A rational exercise of clues, deductions, ingenious plots. Not a foray into the darker Gothic fantasy. Nothing lurked around that curve ahead, except what her imagination chose to make of it for the purposes of a detective novel.

  She reached the corner and stopped in surprise. Whatever she had expected, it was not this. Not one, but three similar lanes converged on an open spot where the morning sun could fall between their walls. Two of the lanes were narrow, walled, windowless, without doors. The third, leading up at an angle to the one she had descended, showed a high white wall and a slate roof. The nameplate said ‘Leechwell Cottage’. And between these two lanes, facing the third downhill one, was a large rectangular basin, surrounded on three sides by ivy-clad stone walls. There was the tinkle of falling water. A natural spring? A watering trough for animals? She looked at the three narrow lanes which converged on it. It was just about possible to imagine a mule laden with panniers.

  Hilary moved round to stand in front of the basin.

  She had been wrong. Into that wide, shallow well, not one but three springs spouted from low down in the rear stone wall. Each one let fall a small cascade into its separate basin, flanked by a low stone kerb. Water spilled over from them on to the cobbled base of the much larger rectangular enclosure.

  The Leechwells were plural.

  Three lanes. Three sacred wells – the word ‘sacred’ formed itself in her mind before her conscious brain had made that decision. Three was a mystic number. Three springs, uniting in one larger pool, their waters separated by these divisions only a stone’s width higher than the surrounding basin. Three in one, like the Trinity. The lower stones were dark with algae.

  Yet no two troughs were alike. The middle one, in front of her, was a long narrow enclosure reaching across the basin almost to her feet. The one to the left was only half its length, while the right-hand one had been turned through ninety degrees to lie broadside on to the back wall. It seemed as though each of these springs had its own personality.

  As she would have expected at a natural well, there was ample evidence that others held these waters sacred. There was a grating above the middle spring. Coloured ribbons had been tied to its bars. Pots of flowers and egg-shaped stones stood on the ledge below this grating. There was a hoop of twisted twigs. Evidence of New Age reverence, or age-old Christian rites?

  The water in the larger space around the troughs looked b
arely deep enough to cover her shoes. In places, the cobbles were dry. At the edge of the tarmac someone had placed a flat-topped stone to enable her to step down into the pool. She took advantage of it and picked her way across to the further wall over the driest stones.

  She reached her hand tentatively down into the middle pool. It was slightly warm from the sun shining down on the shallow water. She leaned further over. The water spouting from the pipe in the wall was colder. She wondered just what healing properties these Leechwells were supposed to have.

  ‘Ah, that’s the Long Crippler, that is. There’s them as is afraid of him, but he’s good for sore eyes.’

  Hilary started upright. She had not heard him coming. An old man, back bent, so that he stooped his head and helped himself along with a stick. His voice had the rich burr of the Devon countryside.

  ‘I’m sorry! You startled me.’ Hilary found herself uncharacteristically flustered. It was not like her to react to fanciful imaginings, but this place, secluded, yet so near the town centre, the odd desertion of these narrow lanes, the water trickling into these curiously walled-off troughs, had got to her.

  ‘I take it this is a sacred well. I hadn’t heard about it.’

  ‘Sacred? Well now, I’m not sure what you means by that. But they do say there’s something in the water. Couldn’t tell you what. Or should I be saying who? There’s three of them, see? That one over there’s the Toad, and the one on the right’s what they call the Snake, and that one you had your hand in is the Long Crippler.’

  The Long Crippler. His recitation of strange names would not have been out of place in the scene of the witches’ spell in Macbeth.

  But the rational part of her brain jumped into place. It didn’t take her more than a second to realize she had heard those names, or at least two of them, earlier this morning. Gavin had chosen them for the names of their groups. The third …

  ‘The long crippler? That’s another name for a slowworm, isn’t it?’