The Serpent Pool (9 page)

‘Listen, don’t worry. But if you come to Carnforth, you’ll have a chance to see the bigger picture. There’s more to selling books than standing behind a counter.’

‘I’d love to…oh, shit.’

‘What’s the matter?’

She shook her head. ‘I just remembered. I have a dental appointment this afternoon.’

He felt as though his own teeth had suddenly started to hurt. ‘Toothache?’

‘No, just a check-up, but I’d better not cancel. National Health dentists are as rare as signed Wordsworths, and I don’t want to be kicked off his list. Hope I don’t need any treatment, my boyfriend is supposed to be taking me out for a meal afterwards.’

‘Some other time.’ He could scarcely contain his disappointment.

‘I’d really like that.’

Her eagerness cheered him. Impossible not to feel a twinge of jealousy of her boyfriend. Though Marc still wasn’t sure if he really existed, or was just a convenient alibi to avoid close encounters when it suited her.

‘
If once a man indulges himself in murder,’ Arlo Denstone proclaimed, ‘very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbathbreaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination
.’

He paused and checked Daniel’s expression for approval. He might have been hired by the Cumbria Culture Company for his literary expertise, Daniel thought, but there was a large dollop of showmanship there too.

‘
Once begun upon this downward path
,’ Arlo continued, ‘
you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time
.’

Daniel mimed applause. ‘Word perfect.’

Arlo stretched out his legs and lifted the coffee mug from the little table beside his armchair. His white T-shirt revealed long, bony arms. He was one of the skinniest men Daniel had met, borderline anorexic, a reminder perhaps that he was a cancer survivor. Dark, long-lashed eyes kept flicking around as he weighed up his surroundings. A log fire crackled and spat and gave off plenty of heat. Outside the cottage, the sky was morose and rain slammed against the hatchback of the Micra he’d parked next to Daniel’s car.

‘It’s my favourite De Quincey quote. Though he wrote so many wonderful lines. Remember how he bemoans the way
people will not submit to having their throats cut quietly, but will run and kick and bite? “Whilst the portrait painter often has to complain of too much torpor in his subject, the artist, in our line, is generally embarrassed by too much animation”? Masterly. Is any other writer of genius so
criminally
underestimated?’

‘Except here in the Lakes?’

‘Especially here in the Lakes! We hear more than flesh and blood can bear about William Wordsworth, and plenty about Coleridge. Even Southey, and not forgetting dear old John Ruskin. Poor De Quincey scarcely gets a look in. I hope our Festival will change all that. I’d love people to realise there is so much more to De Quincey than eating opium and living in Dove Cottage. Who knows? The Festival may be the start of something big. Next stop, a De Quincey Trail across the county? He could be the Lakes’ new Beatrix Potter.’ The long lashes fluttered conspiratorially, encouraging Daniel to share the joke. ‘In the meantime, believe me, I can’t wait to read your lecture.’

‘Right now, I’ll be thrilled to finish the first draft.’

Arlo chortled. ‘Good to hear that even Daniel Kind sometimes struggles to string a few paragraphs together. When I was an undergraduate, my ambition was to write a novel, but I never made it past the first five thousand words. Now I satisfy my creative energies through writing press releases about literary festivals. It’s not quite the same.’

‘Enjoying your new job?’

‘The chance to return to the Lakes was a dream come true. Trust me, I didn’t come for the money. But the people here have been marvellous…well, mostly.’

He paused, like a born gossip hoping to provoke curiosity.

‘My sister said she met you at Stuart Wagg’s party.’

‘Louise, yes. Such a lovely lady. She’ll have told you about the little…contretemps?’

‘The woman who threw wine over you? Yeah, she did mention it.’

‘I bet.’ Arlo uttered a theatrical sigh, but Daniel guessed he relished his fifteen minutes of fame. ‘Not back in the Lakes five minutes and already I’m making waves. Not my own choice, I can assure you.’

Years spent negotiating the minefield of Oxford college politics had taught Daniel the value of discretion. Adopting a sympathetic expression, he clamped his mouth shut. If Arlo wanted to natter about the incident with Wanda Safell, that was up to him.

‘You’ll have heard that her husband died before Christmas?’

‘Burnt to death, Louise told me.’

Arlo squirmed in his chair. ‘Yes, horrible.’

‘His boathouse went up in flames?’

‘By all accounts, it wasn’t your average boathouse. A place where he kept his rare books, apparently, a bolt-hole up on Ullswater. Wanda was his second wife and I dare say he found her a handful. I met them at the first event I attended, a few days after I took up my post. She’d had a few drinks and…well, she made it clear that it wasn’t just the Festival she was interested in. Very flattering, but needless to say I made my excuses and left.’

Arlo did his best to look embarrassed, but Daniel wasn’t convinced. Maybe he wasn’t gay, and the faintly camp
manner was just a pose. Or a defence mechanism.

‘Tricky.’

‘Next thing I knew, she was on the phone every other day. She runs a small printing press and produces the occasional limited edition. Including a new book of poetry by a friend of hers that focuses on De Quincey, which she was keen to promote. I was happy to help, but she misread the signals.’

‘And then her husband died?’

‘Such a shocking tragedy. I thought Wanda would cool down, but on Christmas Eve she called me again. I suppose I was abrupt with her. I didn’t mean to be rude, but she caught me at a bad moment. When I saw her at the party, I wanted to apologise, but she wasn’t in the mood for a rapprochement. She’d obviously got stuck into the booze at home before she set off for the party. Understandable, I suppose. Perhaps she felt guilty about her husband.’

Daniel stared. ‘You’re not suggesting she had anything to do with his death?’

Arlo paused before saying, ‘Heavens, no. I mean, guilty about having flirted with another man when her husband didn’t have long to live.’

‘Was the fire an accident?’

‘Rumours are flying around that it was started deliberately.’

‘By Saffell himself? An insurance scam that got out of hand?’

‘He didn’t need the money. Wanda told me he sold his business at the top of the market. Maybe someone wanted him dead. When I met him, he seemed a decent sort, but he was an estate agent, after all, and they aren’t universally popular.’

‘You don’t kill someone because they messed up your house move.’

Arlo gave a mischievous grin, and Daniel guessed that when it came to murder cases, he was as much of a voyeur as Thomas De Quincey. ‘Who knows what people may do when driven to extremes? Anyway, I’m sorry Wanda interrupted my conversation with Louise. Such a glamorous lady.’

Daniel never thought of Louise as glamorous. She was his sister and he always pigeonholed her as a starchy lawyer.

‘She mentioned that she’d met you.’

‘I hadn’t realised that she and Stuart Wagg…’

‘They got to know each other at a legal seminar. She teaches corporate law.’

‘Whirlwind romance, by the sound of it. Stuart’s a very successful lawyer, the sort of man you want on your side.’

‘How do you mean?’

Arlo lowered his voice, as if afraid of eavesdroppers. ‘He has a reputation for ruthlessness. A good friend, and a bad enemy, or so people say. Personally, I find him very civilised. It’s wonderful that his firm is sponsoring the Festival. They’ve even printed a brochure,
Lawyers for Literature
. Of course, Stuart’s crazy about books, he collects them with a passion.’

‘Like George Saffell.’

‘Funny, in other respects you couldn’t find two more different characters. George was reserved, nothing like as charismatic as Stuart. Of course, Stuart is younger.’

The phone rang and Daniel reached for the receiver.

‘Is that you, Daniel?’

‘Louise?’

Her voice was barely recognisable. It wasn’t just that she was out of breath. She sounded frightened. He squeezed the receiver tight in hand, as Arlo Denstone leant forward in his chair, alerted by Daniel’s anxious question to the fact that something was amiss.

‘I’m in a lay-by near Windermere. Thank God you’re at home. Can I come to the cottage right now?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Stuart.’

‘What about him?’

Daniel shot Arlo a glance. He was trying to conceal his inquisitiveness, but his ears were flapping, no mistake.

‘We’ve had a terrible row. It’s like nothing I’ve—’

‘What sort of row?’

‘Daniel.’ He could hear her starting to cry. ‘He’s—’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s over.’ She stifled a sob. ‘Dead.’

‘You’d better get over here right away,’ Daniel said.

Louise was gasping at the other end of the phone. She’d run out of words.

‘Did you hear me? Right away.’

He was determined not to panic. Trouble was, he’d never heard Louise sound so desperate. Not cool and collected Louise. Her frosty moods and ice-axe tongue had destroyed half a dozen relationships. He disliked Stuart Wagg, and it wasn’t the end of their affair that spooked him, but the fear in his sister’s voice. As if something terrible had happened, something she dared neither describe nor explain.

‘All…all right.’

The line went dead.

‘A problem?’ Arlo Denstone’s dark eyes glinted with curiosity.

Daniel took a breath. ‘My sister, she’s…’

‘Yes?’

‘A little upset.’

Lame, but what else could he say? Arlo evidently relished
gossip, preferably laced with scandal. Daniel didn’t want Louise becoming the talk of the Lakes.

‘Of course, you must look after your sister. Believe me, you’re so lucky to have her.’ Arlo consulted his watch. ‘If she is coming here, I’d better get out of your hair. So much to do back at the office, it’s all go. Our timetable is tight; let’s speak again the moment you finish the Festival paper.’

‘Sorry about—’

Arlo extended his hand. ‘Nothing to apologise for. I hope Louise isn’t in any difficulty. She’s a sweet person. I’d like to help. If there’s anything I can do, you will let me know?’

‘Thanks, but I’m sure everything will be fine.’

As the door closed behind his visitor, Daniel hurried up to the guest bedroom and flung open the window. Rain pounded outside, but the room needed airing. What had happened between Louise and Stuart Wagg? Arlo Denstone’s phrase flitted through his mind:
He has a reputation for ruthlessness
.

Not the most tactful message to give to the brother of Wagg’s latest squeeze, but perhaps Arlo thought Daniel needed to know. Or did he have an ulterior motive? The faintly camp manner didn’t count for much. Arlo might have taken a shine to Louise himself. He hadn’t long been back in the UK, and, despite rebuffing Wanda Saffell, he might hanker after female company. Someone intelligent, attractive, self-sufficient.

Such a glamorous lady
.

He slammed the cupboard door. Louise’s life was difficult enough right now. She didn’t need Arlo Denstone making it any more complicated.

The phone trilled.

Jesus, what now? He sped downstairs.

‘Is that Daniel Kind?’

He didn’t recognise the caller’s voice. A slow-speaking man. Elderly, well-educated, Irish accent.

‘Speaking.’

‘It’s about your sister.’

Daniel checked the screen. The number of the caller’s phone was familiar. It was Louise’s mobile.

Fear clutched his throat. When he spoke, his own voice sounded scratchy and unfamiliar.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s O’Brien, but that doesn’t matter. I’m calling about your sister.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s had an accident, but—’

‘For God’s sake!’

He had to force himself not to scream. Impossible for Louise to die. He couldn’t cope without her. In that instant, he realised how much she meant to him, even though he’d never acknowledged it, even to himself. But he’d lost his father, and later his mother. Then Aimee. Even bloody Miranda had left him, but Louise was always there. Intense and prickly, yet the one person he could trust. The one person who understood him.

‘Keep your hair on. She’s alive and kicking, thank goodness. She asked me to let you know. Car’s a write-off, I’m afraid. The police are here and a couple of paramedics, but—’

‘Where are you?’

‘On the Brack Road, half a mile from the village.’

‘I’m on my way.’

‘We all had a lucky escape, if you ask me. A very lucky escape.’

O’Brien was a talkative Dubliner in his early sixties. He and his wife, a tiny woman with dyed red hair who sat knitting in the passenger seat of their ancient Vauxhall and kept her thoughts to herself, probably the result of long marital experience, had been spending the New Year with their daughter and son-in-law at their bungalow in Brack. They were driving off to the Holyhead ferry when Louise’s Mercedes skidded as it raced round a bend and finished up on the wrong side of the road. Steering into the skid at the last moment, she had caught the Vauxhall’s front bumper a glancing blow before finishing up in a shallow ditch.

‘Too right.’

It was a miracle that she was still in one piece. The front of the car was crumpled like a used tissue, but she’d clambered out with no more than a twinge in her shoulder and a bruised elbow. O’Brien had been driving at a sedate twenty-five miles an hour and had kept his car on the road. The damage looked superficial and neither he nor his wife seemed to have suffered whiplash. The paramedics had checked Louise and the O’Briens, and they all briskly declined the offer of a more thorough examination at A&E in Westmorland General.

The rain had paused for breath, and patches of lightness softened the sky. In a field beyond the hedge stood a spiky, wind-blown oak tree, back bent by a century of gales roaring through the narrow valley. A quartet of Herdwick sheep surveyed the activity of the emergency services with bemused fatalism. In the distance, mist cloaked the corrugated ridges of the fell tops that made up the Kentmere Horseshoe.
The air was filled by the hum of the recovery wagon, as it hauled the Mercedes out of the ditch.

Louise waited on a sodden verge of grass and mud. For a woman who had made such a frightened phone call and then come within kissing distance of death minutes later, her apparent calm was surreal. Daniel’s knees felt as though they might give way with sheer relief. She was charming a tubby middle-aged constable in an attempt to convince him that this sort of accident could happen to anyone in treacherous weather conditions, and that it would be absurd to contemplate a charge of driving without due care and attention. From the constable’s sympathetic nods and failure to get in a word edgeways, Daniel suspected she might just get away with it.

‘So, your sister lives with you here in Brackdale?’ O’Brien asked.

It struck Daniel that he and Louise had never lived together, just the two of them, with nobody else in the house. How would it work? Even after Ben deserted them, their mother was always around.

‘Um…yes.’

‘You seem more shocked than she is.’ O’Brien rubbed his hands with theatrical vigour, as though an anorak and chunky sweater weren’t enough to keep him warm. ‘Tell me, do I know your face from somewhere?’

At least it was better than: ‘Didn’t you used to be Daniel Kind?’ Daniel’s instinct was to brush away questions about his years as a media tart. He’d come to the Lakes to escape from that stuff. But he didn’t want to be rude. All things considered, O’Brien was a model of Christian forgiveness. Daniel guessed that he prided himself on remaining calm in a crisis.

‘I’ve done a bit of television.’

‘History!’ O’Brien beamed in triumph at his feat of memory. ‘Thought as much. I never forget a face. I’ve always been interested in the Second World War, myself. The Dunkirk spirit, we could do with more of that these days.’

Daniel made polite conversation as the car was towed away. He supposed Louise regretted that, in the first moments of shock after the crash, she’d begged O’Brien to send for him. She always liked to be in charge. But she needed a lift to Tarn Fold. That squashed Mercedes was destined for the crusher.

By the time she was ready to go, the chime of the clock in Brack village marked one o’clock. The police constable decided not to add to Cumbria’s crime statistics, the paramedics departed to tend to someone less fortunate, and Louise lavished thanks upon the Irish couple and made sure they had her insurance company’s details. With handshakes, waves and a cheerful toot of the horn, the O’Briens resumed their journey home.

When they were finally alone, Louise breathed out. She stared towards the horizon, as if trying to pinpoint an invisible hill, not yet trusting herself to look into her brother’s eyes.

‘Another fine mess I got myself into, huh?’

‘Could have been worse.’

‘You know something? I’m sure you must be right, but at this precise moment, I don’t see how things could be any fucking worse.’

She’d kept her composure for long enough. Suddenly she was vulnerable and scared, and that cool facade crumpled
like the front of her sports car. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and felt her shudder as she surrendered to loud, racking sobs.

Back at Tarn Cottage, Daniel made himself a sandwich, but all Louise wanted was brandy, insisting that if she had anything to eat, she’d throw up. As she curled up in an armchair in the living room, and dozed, Daniel warmed his hands in front of the fire, waiting for her to come round so that he could find out what had gone wrong.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked when she stirred and opened her eyes. ‘Headache, muscle pain?’

‘Stop fussing.’

‘You could have broken your neck. When I saw your car in that ditch…’

‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll be all right, promise.’

He stretched out his legs. ‘You want to rest, or talk?’

She gazed at a hairline crack that ran across the whitewashed ceiling, and didn’t utter a word. Her eyelids were heavy. No wonder after a night without rest, never mind the brandy.

‘What happened at Crag Gill, Louise?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

He shook his head. ‘Tell me.’

In a muffled voice, she said, ‘Shall I tell you what’s so funny? When I fell for Stuart, I actually thought this was the real thing. Him and me. Can you believe it?’

He waited.

‘I’ve not fallen head over heels for a man since… God knows when. I was nineteen or something. I thought I was armour-plated against infatuation. But Stuart knocked me sideways.’

She stared at her nails. Today they were deep purple, a vivid contrast to the white of her thin, delicate fingers. Daniel kept his mouth shut. Let her take this at her own pace.

‘I thought he was so amazing, you know? I so like successful men.’ She was talking to herself. ‘Stuart was different from your average small-town lawyer. A City slicker, but his love of the Lakes persuaded me he was special. The look in his eye when he spoke about clambering over the crags and along the coffin trails. He liked to wander—’

‘Lonely as a cloud?’

A feeble attempt at humour. Louise groaned.

‘You hated him, didn’t you?’

‘I hardly know him.’

‘Ever the diplomat, Daniel.’

‘One of us needs to be.’

‘Stuart is the most selfish man I’ve ever met.’

He breathed out. ‘That’s saying something.’

‘Given my track record in choosing lousy lovers? No need to rub it in.’ Her voice rose. ‘I’m quite capable of flagellating myself, thanks. Besides, it’s not simply his selfishness. He’s cruel.’

Daniel leant forward. ‘Cruel?’

‘He has no conscience. You should hear the way he talks about people, as though they were only put on Earth for his convenience. When they aren’t useful to him any longer, they might as well be dead, for all he cares. Like Wanda Saffell.’

‘What about her?’

‘They had something going at one time.’

‘While she was married to George?’

‘Don’t sound so shocked. Stuart couldn’t care less. For him, women are like books, though he prefers books, because they don’t answer back.’ She was talking rapidly now, fired up by the alcohol, determined to make him understand. ‘But books or women, they’re trophies, to be collected and then stashed away. It’s not just the thrill of the chase, for him it’s about having something that looks good. Along with the private pleasure of possession. He savours it, you’ve no idea. I doubt he reads one in ten of the books that he buys. Spends a fortune on them, then locks them away. He told me ninety per cent of the value of a rare book is in the condition of the dust jacket. Can you imagine? Nothing to do with what’s inside. They have to be kept out of the bright light. It wouldn’t do for the spines of those lovely jackets to catch the sun. So he keeps them hidden away; as long as he knows they are his, that’s all that matters. It turns him on to have something that someone else yearns for. Now it’s a book, now it’s another man’s wife. Same difference, as far as Stuart Wagg is concerned.’

Tirade over, she slumped back in her chair. Daniel gave her a minute before he spoke again.

Tears welled in her eyes again as she said, ‘It’s my fault, nobody else’s. How could I have been so daft?’

Daft
. He’d not heard her use that word since they were kids together in Manchester. ‘We all do daft things sometimes.’

‘I chucked away a decent job and followed him up here, like a star-struck schoolgirl. I suppose I heard the biological clock ticking, but that’s no excuse.’

‘You want children?’

He couldn’t help asking. The drink had loosened her
tongue; she’d never hinted at maternal instincts before. Since her teens, she’d made a song and dance about building a career, scornful of stay-at-home mums who lived vicariously through their offspring and failed to make the most of their own abilities.

Through gritted teeth, she said, ‘I may be stupid and naive, Daniel, but I’m not quite as inhuman as you think.’

‘It’s just that you never said—’

‘I can’t bear people who wear their hearts on their sleeves. I thought, if kids happen, they happen. But as I’ve grown older, I haven’t always found myself good company. It wouldn’t hurt to focus on looking after a child, instead of just myself. I might even find I was a good mother. Stuart said I would.’

‘You discussed having children with him?’

He couldn’t disguise his amazement. That bastard Wagg, he’d figured out which buttons to press with the skill of a lifelong manipulator.

‘He murmured once or twice about wanting to settle down. The single man’s equivalent of “My wife doesn’t understand me”. I was blind not to see through the sales pitch. He saw me as a challenge. That’s what turned him on. Once he’d proved he could bend me to his will, he’d won, and it was game over. I should have known better. I blame myself.’