Shape of Snakes

*15*

I stared into my coffee. "How did she stop her cats coming into your garden after Derek killed the marmalade one? It was long after the cat flap had been installed."

"She propped a board in front of it so they couldn't use it, then let them out one at a time to do their business. It was quite funny watching her. She used to run up and down flapping her arms to stop them coming anywhere near our fence. We reckoned she'd have lost a couple of stone with all the exercise if she hadn't had her face in the trough all the time. You should have heard her ... right noisy she was. Gobble, gobble, gobble. It made us sick just to listen."

My expression must have given away more than I intended because she dropped her eyes immediately. I thought what a vile little woman she was and how injurious her poison must have been to her family.

"You asked ... I told you," she muttered. "Don't blame me if you don't like the answers."

I caught at the edges of my anger and drew it back inside. "How do you know she used a board?"

"The kids used to climb over the fence at night and push the flap open to make the board fall on the floor."

"That must have frightened her."

"It did. She used to wail her head off."

"Why didn't she fix the board to the door?"

"Because she didn't want the RSPCA to know she was blocking the flap. She'd keep the inspector waiting at the door while she scurried around trying to find somewhere to hide the stupid thing."

"Is that why you and Sharon kept pestering the RSPCA? So they'd catch her out?"

She blew a smoke ring in my direction, then stabbed it through the heart with the point of her cigarette. "Maybe."

I gave my coffee cup a violent shove and watched it slop across the table. "You had her in a vise. On the one hand Derek was threatening to kill her cats if they did run free; on the other, the RSPCA was telling her she could face prosecution if they didn't run free."

She took to smoothing her hair again.

"What was she supposed to do?"

"Leave," she said matter-of-factly, "and take her cats with her."

"Just because she was black?"

"Why not? We didn't want a coon for a neighbor." She retreated rapidly as she saw my expression. "Look, it wasn't my idea ... I'd have done it differently if I could. But Derek wanted rid of her ... he had this thing about nig-" She corrected herself-"blacks ... really hated them. In any case, she had her chance. The social workers told her she only had to say the word and they'd rehouse us. But she said no, she was happy the way things were."

"She had no choice. Derek knew where she lived. Her cats were never going to be safe from him."

"Right, and she got so scared of him in the end, we reckoned she'd leave before Christmas." She paused. "Then the silly cow falls under a flaming truck," she finished lamely, ''and the cops find she's been killing the cats herself."

I rested my chin in my hands and studied her with grim curiosity. "They were already half-dead when they were pushed through her flap," I told her. "Someone thought it was funny to catch strays and bind their mouths with superglue and parcel tape so they'd either starve to death or have most of the fur ripped out of their heads if Annie tried to save them. I think she killed the weakest ones when the others started attacking them, but it was done out of kindness, not out of cruelty." I favored her with a crooked smile. "So whose bright idea was that? Yours? Or your husband's?"

She squashed her cigarette into the ashtray, mashing it to shreds with nicotine-stained fingers. "It weren't nothing to do with us," she said flatly, while apparently agreeing with the facts. "We weren't like that."

"Oh, come on!" I said sarcastically. "You've just told me Derek strangled one cat and threatened to nail another to a fence. And all for what? Because he was thick as pig shit and had to terrorize women to give himself a sense of authority."

She didn't like the way the conversation was going, and licked her lips nervously. "I don't know anything about that."

"What? The way he liked to terrorize women?"

She recovered quickly. "All I know is what he did to me and the kids. But he was more talk than action. Most of the time he never followed through."

"Maybe not when Annie was alive," I agreed, "but he certainly made up for it after she was dead. He was far more violent when he knew there were no witnesses."

I recalled my visit to her in hospital. It was a wet afternoon at the end of November, and I'd dripped water all over the vinyl floor beside her bed while I tried not to show my shock at Derek's handiwork. I couldn't believe how small she was, how damaged she was, and how panic-stricken her eyes were. It was a wasted journey in terms of gathering information because she was too suspicious of me to answer questions. I listened to her dreary insistence that, far from Derek using her as a punchbag, she'd been alone in the house and had missed her footing at the top of the stairs, while saying in her next breath that she'd be dead if Alan hadn't been there to call an ambulance for her. It was a ridiculous story because her broken cheekbone and blackened eyes looked too much like Annie's death mask for anyone to believe that either of them had suffered an accident; but all too belatedly I was given a glimpse of the walls of terrified silence that protect violent men.

"What are you talking about?"

"Derek putting you in hospital two weeks after Annie's death. Didn't you ask yourself why that happened? He'd never hit you so hard before that you went into a coma and had to rely on your children calling an ambulance for you." I jerked my head toward the party wall. "Your protector was dead. Her house was empty. Derek was free to break every bone in your body if he wanted to, then dump you in the road somewhere and claim you were run over by a truck..."

Maureen rejected my suggestion that Annie had been her "protector." It was rubbish, she protested-Annie hated her. I repeated what she'd said herself, that Annie had wailed every time Derek raised his voice. "You asked me earlier who had ever cared about you," I reminded her. "Well, Annie did. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but it is the truth." I took two letters from my rucksack and pushed them across the table. "The top one's a copy of a note she wrote to your then councillor, J. M. Davies, in June '78. The one underneath is his reply. She obviously didn't know how to spell your name and, because she was incoherent when she tried to raise the matter over the telephone, he put the whole thing down to maliciousness."

Maureen looked uncomfortable reading Annie's bold handwriting as if, even in reproduction, it had the power to summon her into the room with us. "Perhaps it was malicious," she said, laying the letters aside. "Perhaps she was just trying to cause trouble for me and Derek."

"Oh, for God's sake!" I sighed impatiently. "If that was her intention, she'd have made a better job of it. She'd have written a barrage of letters, almost certainly unsigned, and she'd have accused Derek of killing animals instead of hurting them. Can't you see her concern was for you? She says, 'something should be done for Maureen,' not, 'something should be done about the white trash next door because they keep stealing from me.' "

She fumbled nervously at her cigarette packet. "She'd have been lying if she had."

I shook my head in contradiction. "Alan gave me a tiny wooden statuette which he told me he'd carved himself from an old table leg as an end-of-year present. I believed him because it's very primitive, and looks like something a child might do, but I'm certain he stole it from Annie."

"You can't prove that."

"No," I agreed, "but I can certainly prove he never carved it. It's been analyzed by an expert. It's a representation of an Aztec god, called Quetzalcoatl, and was cut from pine, probably around the turn of the century, in a style common to natives of Central America. Annie's father made a collection of Central American artifacts during the '30s and '40s, so the circumstantial evidence suggests that the Quetzalcoatl in my possession once belonged to her. The only question is, did she give it to Alan, or did he steal it?"

Maureen leaped at the bait. "She gave it to him."

"How do you know?"

She thought for a moment. "He ran an errand for her ... it was her way of saying thank you. Matter of fact, I was the one who made him pass it on to you. He kept on about what a nice lady you were, and how you'd kept quiet about the time you caught him thieving from your wallet. 'One kindness deserves another,' I said, 'and Mrs. Ranelagh's more likely to appreciate a wooden statue than you are.' "

"Why did he tell me he'd carved it?"

She caught my eye briefly. "I expect he wanted to impress you."

I laughed. "I'd have been more impressed if he'd told me he earned it running errands for Mad Annie. He used to shout 'daft nigger' after her in the street. She turned on him once with a growl and grabbed at the sleeve of his jacket. He was so terrified he took to his heels and left the jacket in her hand." I paused. "She'd never have asked him to run an errand for her. And, even if she had, she'd have cut off her right hand before she rewarded him with one of her treasures. She disliked him even more than she disliked Derek. The little brute never left her alone ... He was always on the lookout for her..." I fell silent before anger made me strident.

"That's lies. You're inventing things to suit yourself. All you're saying is that Alan played in the street a lot. It doesn't mean he was on the lookout for Annie."

"He was an abused and neglected child, Maureen, who was too frightened to take on his father and saw Annie as easy meat. He learned that bullying worked and put it into practice on the most vulnerable person he could find." I gave a humorless laugh. "I wish I'd known how you and Derek were treating him. I wish I'd had him prosecuted when I had the chance. Most of all, I wish he'd been taken away from you and taught some decent values when it mattered."

"You were just as responsible as us," she muttered. "You were his teacher. Why didn't you say something to him when he called her a 'daft nigger'?"

It was a good question. Why hadn't I? And what sort of excuse was it to say I was frightened of a fourteen-year-old? But I was. Alan was a huge child for his age, tall and heavily built, with a low IQ and little understanding of anything except aggression, which both emboldened and scared him. Had there been no Michael Percy to take the flak, then I think Alan's problems would have been more obvious and he might have attracted sympathy instead of dislike and disgust. As it was, most people avoided him and, in the process, turned a blind eye to the way he and his gang terrorized Mad Annie. It seemed an even contest, after all. She was bigger than they were, crazier than they were, older, bulkier and perceptibly more aggressive-particularly when she'd been drinking- and she had no compunction about lashing out when their teasing became intolerable.

"I've spent twenty years regretting my silence," I told Maureen. "If I'd been a little braver, or a little more experienced"-I gave an uneasy laugh-"maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty now."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't fret about it. Alan wouldn't have listened to you even if you had taken him to task. The only person he paid any mind to was his father."

"Until he turned on him with a baseball bat."

"It was bound to happen one day," she said indifferently. "Kids grow up. It was Derek's fault anyway. He didn't realize Alan wasn't up for a thrashing anymore."

I looked again at the cluster of empty bottles on her windowsill. "Do you ever feel guilty, Maureen?"

"Why should I?"

I gave her a copy of Michael Percy's letter, detailing how her children had stolen trinkets from Annie. She was more amused than fazed by it for, as she said herself, I'd have a job proving it. "No one's going to believe Michael," she pointed out, "and he wouldn't talk to the police anyway, not while he's in prison. It's more than his life's worth to be known as a grass."

"They might believe Alan," I suggested.

"He'll just deny it. He's got a family now ... doesn't want something he did as a kid coming back to haunt him this long afterward. And Danny doesn't even remember his dad, let alone who lived next to us twenty years ago. He asked me down the phone what Annie was like and why I've never mentioned her."

"What did you say?"

"That she was a fat bitch who made our lives hell, and he didn't ought to believe anything you said because you had about as many screws loose as she did."

I smiled at her as I pulled a manila envelope from the bottom of my rucksack and put it on the table in front of her. "He'll probably believe this, though. I made this copy for you. When you've read it, give me a call. My number's on the front."

"What is it?"

"An affidavit from a jeweler in Chiswick who bought several items off a woman called Ann Butts. It took me and my father about two hundred letters to find him after Michael suggested you'd sold the ring you took off Bridget. We started with jewelers and pawnbrokers in Richmond and radiated out until we hit pay dirt in Chiswick. He's still in business and keeps a record of every item that passes through his hands ... together with the name of the seller and purchaser."

She dropped the envelope on to the table as if it were a red-hot coal.

"He's an honest trader and pays an honest price, so he requests proof of identity and ownership in order to be sure that the goods aren't stolen. He also records the type of proof that's offered. In the case of Ann Butts, it was a bank card and supporting statement, and a Sotheby's valuation of a list of items, including the jewelery, which were viewed on site at 30 Graham Road, Richmond. I presume you don't still have it?" I said with a lift of my eyebrows. "You wouldn't have been that stupid, would you?"

She reached for another cigarette but I took the packet away from her and flattened it under my heel as I stood up.

"The really interesting fact," I finished, leaning my hands on the table, "is that the first item wasn't sold until June '79, and my jeweler friend is positive that the Ann Butts he dealt with was a small white woman with a Brummy accent."

She had a quick mind for a Prozac junkie and a drinker. "Just like half a million others then," she said.

"My phone number's on the envelope," I reminded her. "Call me if you want to trade. If you don't, I'll give the affidavit to the police."

"Trade what?"

"Information. I want to know who murdered Annie, Maureen ... not who stole from her."

Sharon Percy refused to open her door beyond the burglar chain. "I'm not going to talk to you," she said. "You thought I wouldn't recognize you, but I watched you go into Maureen's so it didn't take much guessing."

A tortoise head loomed behind her in the hallway. "First you pester us with bloody letters," Geoffrey spat at me, "now you turn up in the flesh. Why don't you just bugger off and leave us alone?"

"I would have done if you'd written back," I said.

"What's to say?" he growled. "We don't know anything. Never did."

"Then why did you lie in your statements to the police?"

There was a look of panic on both their faces before the door was slammed against me. As I hadn't expected anything else, I set off on the two-mile walk to Jock Williams's house.