Shape of Snakes

*12*

Tout Quarry, home to the sculpture park and once a source of hand-quarried Portland stone, had been long worked out and abandoned. It was a wild and wonderful place. A man-made labyrinth of tangled gorges and wide-open spaces like amphitheaters where stunted shrubs and trees grew among blocks of half-excavated sedimentary rock. It looked as if a giant hand had rummaged in the belly of the earth and stirred the stone into a chaotic, tumbling dance.

Sam was fascinated by the intermittent sculptures which had been carved in situ and introduced subtle shape to the craggy landscape. Antony Gormley's Still Falling-a cameo figure plunging down a rocky cliffside. Robert Harding's Philosopher's Stone-an intricate layer of cut stones perched between V-shaped rocks. A crouching man with his chin resting on his knees. Footsteps. A tulip, prized from the rock to lie in reflection on the ground. "Is anyone allowed to have a go?" he asked, examining a fossil in a slab and trying to work out if it was a real ammonite or a simulated one.

"I think you have to be invited."

"Pity," he said wistfully. "I quite fancy leaving my mark for posterity."

I laughed. "Which is probably why people like you aren't allowed to do it. You'd get bored after a while and carve out 'Sam woz 'ere, 1999,' then the whole place would be desecrated with graffiti."

We heard the sculpture workshop before we saw it. A constant rat-a-tat of hammers on chisels, overlaid by the whistle of wind through a polythene canopy that had been rigged above the sculptors' heads. It was a scene of intense industry because everyone was there for a purpose, to learn how to work in three dimensions. White stone chippings littered the ground, and a fine dust clung to arms, hair and clothing like baker's flour. It might have been a Renaissance atelier in Italy but for the polythene canopy, the uniform prevalence of T-shirts and jeans, and the fact that half the sculptors were women.

It was situated in a sheltered gulley, and Danny stood out from the rest of the group, not just because he'd positioned himself near the entrance but because his block of stone was three times the size of anybody else's. It was also a great deal more advanced. Where most of the others were still working to establish basic form, Danny had already released a bespectacled head and upper torso from the limestone's grip and was using a claw chisel to give grained texture to the skin of the face.

He looked up as we approached. "What do you think?" he asked, stepping back and letting his hands fall to his sides, unsurprised that we'd come to admire his work. His physique interested me. I was amazed by how well developed his shoulders and arms were without a jacket to hide them.

"Excellent," observed Sam with the overdone bonhomie that he reserved for men he didn't know very well. "Who is it? Anyone we know?"

A scowl of irritation narrowed Danny's eyes.

"Mahatma Gandhi," I said, casting a quick verifying glance at the drawings and photographs on the ground beside him. I didn't need to. The likeness was there, even if more reliant on intuition than reality. "It's an ambitious subject."

That didn't please him either. "I can tell you're a teacher," he said witheringly, glancing toward the canopy where instructors were passing on advice and help to the other students. "That's what they keep telling me."

I eyed him curiously. "Why don't you take it as a compliment?"

He shrugged. "Because I know a put-down when I hear it."

"You're too sensitive," I said. "In my case it's a spur to keep you going. You're obviously the star here-head and shoulders above the others-and unless you're blind and stupid you must recognize the fact."

"I do."

"Then stop bellyaching and prove you can cope with an ambitious subject." I ran a finger along the larger-than-life spectacles which grew at a forty-five-degree angle from the wrinkled stone cheeks. "How did you do these?"

"Carefully," he said, more serious than ironic.

I smiled. "Weren't you afraid of knocking them off?"

"I still am."

"There's a bronze statue of Gandhi in Ladysmith in South Africa. It commemorates the ambulance corps that he set up there during the Boer War. It's the only other one I've ever seen of him."

"How does it compare?"

"With this one?"

He nodded. I might have mistaken his question for arrogance if the muscles in his shoulders had been less rigid or his scowl less ferocious. He is preparing to defend himself again, I thought.

"It's a thoroughly professional life-size representation in bronze of a tiny little man who did his duty by the Empire after accepting British citizenship," I said. "But that's all it is. It gave me no sense of his greatness, no sense of the extraordinary effect his humility had on the world, no sense of inner strength." I moved my fingers to touch the rough limestone face. "Gandhi was a giant with no pretensions. For myself, I'd rather have him larger-than-life and rough-hewn in stone than realistically small and neatly polished in bronze."

His scowl relaxed. "Will you buy it?"

I shook my head regretfully.

"Why not? You just said you liked it."

"Where would I put it?"

"In your garden."

"We don't have a garden. We're only renting the farmhouse for the summer. After that"-I shrugged-"who knows? If we're lucky we may be able to afford a brick box with a tablecloth for a garden and a few roses 'round the border ... and, frankly, a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in the middle of it would look very out of place."

He was disappointed. "I thought you were loaded."

"Sadly not."

He pulled out his cigarettes. "Just keeping up appearances, eh?"

"Something like that."

"Ah, well," he said with resignation, bending his head to shield his lighter from the wind. "Maybe I'll give him to you for free." He blew smoke through his nose. "It'll cost me an arm and a leg to get him back to London, and the chances are the specs'll get knocked off in the process. You can start a collection ... put him next to Alan's Quetzalcoatl ... make the Slaters famous for something other than drugs, burglary and wife-beating..."

I suggested we treat Danny to lunch at the Sailor's Rest in Weymouth but Sam wasn't keen. "The food's good," he admitted, "but the landlord's an asshole."

"I think you already know him," I told Danny as we made our way back to the car. "He's the policeman who got Alan sent down. I thought it might amuse you to see him in different surroundings." I interrupted the silence that followed this remark to point at the wreck of a Viking long ship that was creatively cast upon some rocks to our left. "That's a clever use of materials," I murmured.

"What's his name?" asked Danny.

"James Drury. He was a uniformed sergeant in Richmond until he was forced to take early retirement and took himself off to train as a pub manager for Radley's Brewery. They started him off in Guildford, then moved him to the Sailor's Rest in '95."

Danny eyed me with understandable suspicion. "How do you know he's the one who nicked Alan?"

"A neighbor of ours in Graham Road told me," I explained. "Libby Williams?" He shook his head. "She knew I was interested in anything Mr. Drury did, particularly if it concerned an ex-pupil." I tucked my hand companionably into the crook of Sam's elbow to soften the blows of revelation. "I had several encounters with him before we moved abroad. He's probably the most corrupt person I've ever met ... a thief, a liar, a bully ... and a racist. Quite the wrong sort of man to be given a police uniform."

A mirthless laugh escaped Danny's mouth. "He sure as hell stitched Alan up. Okay, I'm not saying my brother was an angel, but he was no drug pusher. A user, maybe-never a pusher."

"What happened?"

"I don't know the exact details ... I was just a kid at the time ... but Ma said Drury nicked him in a pub one night, and dropped four ounces of hash into his pocket while he was slapping on the handcuffs. He was a right bastard. If he couldn't get you for one thing, he'd get you for another."

"What had Alan really done?"

Danny made fists of his hands and punched the knuckles against each other. "Couldn't stay out of a fight, particularly when he was drunk. Took the whole damn police force on one evening and laid about him like a good 'un, never mind he was only fifteen." A reminiscent smile curled his mouth. "He got five thousand quid compensation for it."

"That's some trick," said Sam.

"Not really. Al's injuries were much worse than the coppers'. Three broken ribs ... boot marks all over him from the kicking they gave him ... internal bleeding. You name it, he had it. The only problem is"-Danny sent a stone flying with a well-aimed toecap-"Drury had it in for the Slater kids from that moment on. He arrested us all at one time or another." He rubbed his arm in tender recollection. "And gave us a damn good thrashing whenever he got the chance."

"So what was Alan actually convicted of?" I asked curiously. "Possession or assault on the police?"

Danny frowned. "Dealing, I think." he said vaguely. "But it was a stitch-up whichever way you look at it. They reckoned he was a bad influence on the rest of us, so Drury had him put away till he calmed down. He's been straight ever since ... so I guess it worked."

I wondered if any of it was true, or if it was a story the family had invented for public consumption.

Sam turned to me with a puzzled look. "And this Drury is the man who was staring at you?"

I nodded. "I think he was trying to work out who I was."

"Well, he'll know by now. I paid by credit card."

"Yes." I agreed. "That's why we went there."

He looked away, racing to put the pieces of his own personal jigsaw puzzle together. "So what's the plan?" he asked as we approached the car. "Do we walk up to this thug and confront him? Or do we behave with civilized disdain?"

"We behaved with civilized disdain last time," I reminded him.

"You may have done," he snapped irritably, inserting his key into the car door. "I didn't know him from Adam. All I saw was a middle-aged prick ogling my wife." He frowned at us across the roof. "If you're intending to talk to him about the robbery you won't get anywhere. Larry said he wasn't remotely interested when Sheila tried to raise it with him. He just became extremely offensive and reduced Sheila to a nervous wreck."

I exchanged a quick glance with Danny and saw only curiosity in his eyes. "I want to unsettle him a little," I said. "Make him wonder what three ex-residents of Graham Road are doing in his pub."

Sam shook his head, clearly unimpressed. "Yes, but why? What are you expecting to achieve? There's no reason to think you'll be any more successful than Sheila, and I'm not keen to end up in the middle of a screaming match in public."

Danny spoke before I could answer, after shoving his hands into his pockets to protect whatever was there. Cannabis? I wondered. "I've done my best to put distance between me and Mr. Drury these last ten years," he grumbled, "and I'd be well pleased if he thought I was dead."

I gave a noncommittal shrug. "Okay, we'll go somewhere else. I always planned to confront him on my own anyway. He doesn't scare me ... or not as much as he'd like to think."

I was lying of course.

Sam took up the gauntlet as I hoped he would, albeit reluctantly since he obviously thought I was planning a scene, while Danny muttered that the issue had nothing to do with being scared and everything to do with common sense. He asked me if we intended to drive him back to the sculpture park afterward, and when I said we would, he brightened visibly and tucked something down between the cushions of the backseat before we left the car.

When we reached the Sailor's Rest, Sam chose a table near the harbor wall and eyed the other customers warily to see if he recognized anyone. "Just try to keep your voice under control," he muttered irritably. "You get very strident when you talk about Annie."

"Not anymore," I said, switching my attention to Danny and asking him to come inside with me. "Sam can guard the table," I told him, "while you and I sort out the drinks."

"What you mean is, you want the ferret to see the rabbit," Danny muttered despondently as I led the way across the cobbles to the front door of the pub.

I smiled, liking him a great deal. "Rabbits plural," I said. "We're both in the same boat. But there's strength in numbers ... any rabbit will tell you that."

"So who's this Annie you get strident about?" he asked as we paused on the threshold to let our eyes adjust from brilliant sunshine to the Stygian gloom inside.

"Annie Butts," I told him. "She was living next door to you in Graham Road while Sam and I were there. Your mother would probably remember her. She was a black lady who was killed by a truck shortly before we left. Her death was one of the reasons Mr. Drury and I came to blows."

He shook his head. "Never heard of her."

I believed him. He seemed to have no memories of his early childhood-perhaps because it was too painful and he had chosen to blank it, just as I had done with some of my more disturbing memories-and I was grateful for his ignorance. If nothing else, it meant my conscience could ride a little lighter. "There's no reason why you should," I said. "People die every day, but they're usually only remembered by their families."

He looked toward the bar where Drury was standing. "So why did you and him come to blows over her?"

It was a good question. "I don't know," I answered honestly. "It's something I've never understood. But I'll get an explanation one day ... assuming there is one."

"Is that why we're here?" he asked in an unconscious echo of my mother three days before. In a way it was flattering. They both assumed I knew what I was doing.