The Serpent Pool

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘Your ex,’ Marc said drowsily. ‘The boyfriend. What happened to him, then?’

No longer was he sitting upright on the sofa. Too much like hard work. After following her example and kicking off his trainers, he’d slumped down, and spent the last few minutes fighting the urge to close his eyes. This was his chance, and he dared not botch it. Cassie knelt beside him on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, breasts almost caressing his chest. Breathing hard.

‘Long story.’

‘We have all the time in the world.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure.’ He tried to order his thoughts. ‘The shop is covered. I don’t need to go back.’

‘Listen, I have a confession to make.’

‘Tell me anything.’

‘My boyfriend is still around.’

He moved his head close to hers. ‘You mean…?’

‘I’m sorry, Marc.’

‘You sound like a manager, about to make someone redundant.’ He smiled, to show he was simply trying to lighten things up.

‘You know something? I was once diagnosed as an addictive personality. That was after the two of us split up, and I dropped out of uni. The psychiatrist said I was stressed, impulsive, I lacked self-esteem. A disposition towards sensation-seeking, that was her phrase.’

‘Sensation-seeking, huh?’

‘You may laugh, but she didn’t know the half of it. Not a tenth of it.’

‘I don’t believe you’re addicted to him.’

‘You don’t understand, I’m not in control. What he and I did was so terrifying that he ran away.’

Marc made a derisive noise. ‘Ran away?’

She took no notice. ‘I spent years fighting against myself, desperate to get over him. And not just him, but the way he made me feel, knowing he wanted me so much, knowing the jealousy hurt him so much, that he’d do anything — yes, anything — to destroy the pain.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s the nature of addiction,’ she said, as if lecturing a classroom of underachievers. ‘Progressively, you need more and more stimulation. The psychiatrist warned me about it, and she wasn’t wrong. She encouraged me to write about my fantasies, but when I turned the truth into short stories, they never worked. What happened between him and me was something you couldn’t make up. When he came back into my life, it started all over again. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I got such a buzz from his heartache, the way it crucified him when I explained about the other men. His imagination works overtime, always has done. Fiction can’t compare to real life, that’s what I discovered. We can’t help ourselves. He’s hooked on me, and my addiction is nothing compared to his.’

His cheeks stung, as if she’d slapped his face. ‘The chap’s obviously a loser. Wrong for you. You need to start again.’

‘I need what he does for me.’

‘Cassie, you said yourself, he causes you grief. Seriously, you don’t want him to become dependent on you. It isn’t healthy.’

‘Too late for that,’ she murmured.

Marc hauled himself up on the sofa. Knackered he might be, after a bad night in his mother’s spare bed, but he must sort things out, once and for all. He couldn’t abandon her to some no-mark.

‘Don’t worry.’ He stroked her cold and lovely cheeks. ‘You can break the habit.’

‘You think I haven’t tried? When I went into hospital, and he disappeared, I thought I’d never see him again. But the moment he turned up again, I was lost.’

‘Is he stalking you? Making threats?’

‘Don’t be silly. He isn’t like that.’

‘I’ll look after you.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like I said, you don’t understand.’

‘What is there to understand?’

‘It’s a two-way thing. Something unique and precious. He and I, we have a bond.’

‘Break it. Cassie. Please, he’s not good for you.’

‘No.’ Her expression hardened. ‘Nobody can rip us apart. Not me, not you, not anyone. The two of us are shackled together. For better or worse. We’ve been through too much, there can be no going back.’

The champagne was talking, he told himself. She’d not kept pace with him, and had barely finished her second glass, but bubbly must go straight to her head. He must make her see sense, he couldn’t sit back and let everything fall apart, after he’d given up so much, just to be with her.

When Hannah stopped talking, Fern Larter chewed the cap of a ballpoint pen as if it were a snack substitute.

‘East Londoner.’

The drive back to Divisional HQ had been slow and tortuous, but in Hannah’s mind at least, the fog had started to clear. She wanted to share her theory that Arlo Denstone was the same man who, six years earlier, had claimed to see Bethany Friend talking to a white-van man. A lead that went nowhere, because there was nowhere for it to go. Hannah was sure it was an invention, meant to steer the investigation into a cul-de-sac. An unnecessarily elaborate touch from someone who couldn’t help himself.

‘What?’

‘East Londoner. It’s an alternative anagram of Arlo Denstone.’ Fern beamed. ‘Actually, you can make countless groups of words from that set of letters.’

‘Are you seriously telling me this is just a coincidence?’

‘Seeton was a long-haired university dropout. Arlo is a respected expert on literary festivals who happens to be a follicly challenged cancer survivor.’

‘Seeton was an English student.’

‘So, are thousands of other people. Some of them are quite respectable.’

‘Hair can be shaved. You can’t-’

‘All right, all right!’ Fern put up her hands in surrender. ‘Calm down. I just wanted to see the look on your face. You’re right, Arlo has a load of explaining to do. But I’m not clear how this Cassie woman fits in.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

‘Tell you what, first things first, let’s ask Donna to track Arlo down. He was involved in a scene at Wagg’s party, and seems to have some sort of relationship with Wanda, even if they never slept together. So we’re entitled to ask him a few questions. The only snag is that if nobody’s seen him since Wagg’s death, he might be anywhere by now.’

‘He won’t have gone far.’

‘What makes you so confident?’

‘He won’t want to be parted from the object of his affections. Not after they have been through so much together.’

‘Go on.’

‘It grieves me to say it, but Greg Wharf was right. We’re talking about murder for an overwhelmingly powerful motive.’

‘Namely?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘You reckon?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Jealousy was the cancer that Arlo Denstone suffered from.’

‘How come he has such a hold on you?’ Marc struggled to find the right words. The fog had sneaked inside the flat and seeped into his brain, confusing everything. But he was too stubborn to give up without a battle. ‘You don’t owe him.’

Cassie tightened her grip on his fingers. Through the fuzziness in his head, he was aware of her touch. It excited him, persuaded him that everything would turn out fine.

‘Even if I explained, it would make no difference.’

‘Try anyway.’

‘OK, you asked for it.’ The faraway, storyteller’s look returned to her eyes. ‘To begin with, I felt sorry for him, because his sister died when he was a kid. Olivia was fifteen, and he adored her. When she died, he was heartbroken. She’d fallen off her bike on the way home from a first date and wasn’t wearing a helmet. A boy had taken her out to the cinema, and he’d teased her about the colour of the helmet. Olivia insisted she was fine after the accident, and their parents didn’t call an ambulance. By the time she started vomiting, and they rushed her to hospital, it was too late. The doctors said she was brain dead.’

Marc shivered. ‘A sad story, for sure, but-’

‘It ruined his life, the worst thing that could have happened to him.’ Cassie was almost talking to herself. ‘They were so close, it was unhealthy, but that doesn’t make it easier to bear. He told me her death sent him mad with grief and rage. It made him hate the boyfriend, but that wasn’t all. He blamed their parents, the family was in pieces. He was only thirteen, it’s a tender age. Within eighteen months, his mother and father died in a car crash. The boyfriend was killed too, a climbing accident. Sometimes I’ve wondered if…well, it’s speculation. Nothing has ever been said, not even between us. Better not go there.’

‘You wondered if what?’

‘Aren’t you listening?’ Her voice rose in fury. ‘I’m baring our souls here, the least you can fucking do is pay attention.’

He felt as if she’d clubbed him over the head. This wasn’t the Cassie he knew. She must be suffering such strain. The on-off boyfriend’s fault, no question.

‘Now do you understand why he feels the way he does?’ She gritted her teeth, battling for control. Marc could not guess where this was leading. ‘We’re all the product of our experiences. When we first met, the forces that pulled us together were uncanny. Not so much lust as a shared sense of loss. Though there was lust too, of course.’

Too much information. He really didn’t want to know about her past infatuations. The future was what mattered.

‘Books were in our blood.’ Her temper faded, she sounded dreamy again. ‘He introduced me to De Quincey, the most famous addict in English literature. And he told me about Elizabeth. The sister who died when De Quincey was a boy. A tragedy that shaped his life, the way Olivia’s death shaped Ro’s.’

‘Ro?’ His tone implied: For God’s sake, what sort of a name is that? His head was spinning. In Cassie’s company, he never felt quite in control, but this was something else. ‘Ro?’

‘His nickname. His parents were teachers, it was sort of a classical allusion. They named their kids Roland and Olivia. Ro is what I always call him. The moment I set eyes on him, I wanted him. He became an obsession. Still is, I suppose.’ She tightened her grip on his fingers, crushing them in her bony hand. Marc felt tears pricking his tired eyes. ‘And it was mutual, that was the perfect thing. He was crazy about me. Couldn’t bear to think of anyone else so much as touching me. To start with, I teased him about his jealousy, but soon he made me realise it was no laughing matter. Even if I’d never done anything — like you and I have never done anything, it was just the same. He hated it.’

‘You haven’t told him about…you and me?’

‘What is there to tell?’ Her lips curved in a malicious smile. ‘But Ro and I have no secrets. I wondered how it would make him feel.’

His throat was dry, his voice hoarse. ‘You haven’t told him that we’re lovers?’

‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’ Again the smile. ‘Or am I wrong?’

‘But-’

‘I belong to Ro — and him alone.’

‘You’re not a chattel,’ he said. ‘Not a poss…possession.’

Shit, he was slurring his words, he couldn’t believe it. And that hammering in his temples. How could he have drunk so much and not even noticed?

‘Don’t you see?’ she demanded. ‘It’s so wonderfully terrifying, to be possessed.’

‘But-’

‘Have you never felt like that, with your strait-laced police inspector lady? Never yearned to indulge yourself in absolute surrender to your most powerful, most prurient instincts? Never longed to abandon yourself to the darkest desires of life and death?’

‘What are you…on about?’ he mumbled.

For all his pent-up excitement and fear, he was slipping away. Clinging to consciousness as a desperate man hangs by his fingertips to the top storey window ledge, not daring to look down on the city street below.

‘I thought I wanted to possess someone, but I was wrong. Bethany was a failed experiment. Far better to be possessed. Oh Marc, do you still not get it, despite surrounding yourself with all that learning, all those books?’ She gave his fingers a final squeeze, then dropped his hand as if it were a scrap of litter. ‘What are you like? I’m talking about murder. Considered as one of the fine arts.’

While Fern briefed Donna about Denstone aka Seeton, Hannah shut herself in her office and steeled herself to speak to Marc. Of course, she’d have to tread with care, given that she was so close to the situation. Cassie must be questioned about her relationship with Bethany Friend, and that was a job for Maggie. But Hannah needed to prepare the ground. Solving the case might prove to be a pyrrhic victory. It had the potential to destroy her life with Marc.

Judith answered the phone and, after an exchange of pleasantries about the dreadful weather and the horrible nature of the bug, she said she supposed Hannah was after Marc.

‘If he’s not too busy.’

‘He rang to say he won’t be in today. There’s a collection of Olaf Stapledon manuscripts he’s chasing, owned by some bloke in Keswick.’

‘All right.’ Hannah paused. ‘Could I have a quick word with Cassie, please?’

Did Judith hesitate before replying, or was that just her imagination?

‘Cassie isn’t in today, either.’

Hannah digested this in silence. She didn’t like the path her thoughts were taking.

‘Fogbound?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Can’t blame anyone for not wanting to turn out in this weather. You’ve done well to make it in.’

‘I live on a bus route. It only took five minutes longer.’

‘Does Cassie drive to work, as a matter of interest? Or does she catch a bus too?’

‘No, she drives.’

‘Yeah, now you mention it, I think I’ve seen her car parked in the courtyard.’

Not true, but who cared?

‘Can’t miss it, really, can you?’ Judith obviously wanted to say something bitchy, but wasn’t sure how far she dare go with her employer’s partner. ‘Between you and me, it’s not a colour I care for. Rather gaudy. I certainly wouldn’t fancy a purple car myself.’

Momentum. Every investigation needed momentum, and at last they had it. Typical — you wait ages for one suspect to turn up, and then two arrive at the same time. The immediate challenge was to find them. Cassie Weston lived outside Kendal, and Arlo Denstone in Grasmere. While members of the joint team were despatched to track them down and invite them in to answer a few questions, Hannah texted Marc and left a voice message, asking him to call her urgently, then headed to the cafeteria to kick the case around over a coffee with Greg Wharf.

‘Bethany Friend and Cassie Weston,’ she said. ‘Two attractive young women whose shared love of literature brought them together.’

‘So, they had a fling?’

For once, his tone wasn’t prurient. He was getting his head round it all. Beneath the bravado and bluster, he wasn’t a bad detective. Greg was very different from Nick Lowther, but maybe they could work in tandem after all.

‘An intense relationship, yes. Whether sex was part of it, who knows? For Cassie, in particular, it was probably a matter of curiosity. Just seeing what it was like, being with another woman. Probably she’s someone who likes breaking taboos. She made Bethany a present of a novel about possession. A joke, or a sign of self-awareness, who knows? They’d been extremely discreet, that suited them both. But the inscription is a giveaway. It proves they were close, and that’s all we need.’

‘Yet Cassie finished with her.’

‘The minute she met Arlo, is my guess. Or should I say the minute she met Roland Seeton?’

‘The long-haired dropout?’

‘He’s charismatic.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Don’t start,’ she said wearily. ‘But he’s the sort of man who attracts women. There’s something…I don’t know…masterful about him. Cassie could pick and choose her men, and Wanda’s no mug, but they both fancied him like mad. Takes all sorts.’

‘OK, ma’am.’ He took a slurp of coffee. ‘And meanwhile, Bethany teamed up with Clare on the rebound?’

‘She didn’t choose her lovers wisely, for sure.’

A stab of self-knowledge stopped her short. Who am I to talk?

‘After Clare abandoned Bethany, it was plausible that she might have become depressed enough to kill herself.’ He was thinking aloud, working it out for himself. Hannah approved. ‘Cassie and Seeton took advantage.’

‘He was jealous of Bethany.’

‘Even though Cassie had already dropped her?’

‘There’s nothing logical about jealousy.’ Don’t I know it? ‘Suppose it excited Cassie to torment Seeton, by inflaming his desire for her — how better than by making him as jealous as hell? A pair of passionate lovers, turned on by pushing the boundaries. One of them fanatical about De Quincey, the other an eager disciple.’

‘Wasn’t there a book, The De Quincey Code?’

‘Very funny. De Quincey once lived in Grasmere. For all we know, Arlo moved to the same village as a sort of homage to his hero. De Quincey was famous for two things. He was a drug addict, and he was obsessed with murder.’

‘I suppose your mate Daniel Kind gave you the low-down.’

She gave him a sharp glance, but this afternoon, there wasn’t a hint of innuendo in his tone. Though she didn’t underestimate his capacity to make mischief, if she didn’t watch her step.

‘He’s been helpful.’ Brisk and businesslike, that must be the way when Daniel’s name cropped up. ‘At present, it seems he was the last person to talk to Arlo Denstone.’

‘Useful contact.’ Greg kept his face straight.

‘De Quincey had a craving for opium. In those days, it wasn’t even against the law, you could buy it over the counter, dirt cheap. Seeton had a record for illegal possession; the odds are he never kicked the habit. If he and Cassie were high on something, it may explain how they came up with such a crazy idea. To kill an innocent woman, simply because of a past relationship. And not only that, to punish her and extract revenge by killing her in the way she feared most… Death by drowning.’

‘Bethany died on Valentine’s Day. If Cassie encouraged her to hope they’d get back together, she might have invented a pretext to persuade her to come up to the Serpent Pool.’

‘Such as? It was a bit cold for outdoor sex, surely?’

‘Like you said, ma’am, it takes all sorts.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Suppose Cassie made use of the fact that Bethany was desperate for affection to persuade her into playing some kind of bondage game. Bethany would have made herself vulnerable.’

‘Yeah, that may have been what happened.’

‘You think Roland Seeton was present at the scene?’

‘The kind of man I think he is, it would turn him on. For all we know, they shared the work. Say Cassie hits Bethany on the head, and while she’s stunned, Seeton leaps out of the undergrowth and pushes her head under the water. The details don’t matter.’

Greg nodded. ‘It’s easier to get away with a weird crime than something orthodox — until you come under the microscope.’

‘Which Cassie never did, because Bethany kept their affair secret. She was afraid her mother would be upset if she found out her daughter was mixed up with another woman. And Seeton may never even have met her. He took a risk by coming forward as a witness.’

‘But he got away with it.’

‘Not completely. Cassie had a breakdown when it sank in that she was responsible for someone’s death. Seeton lost the plot and abandoned her. Left the country, took a new name, forged a new career.’

Greg put down his cup. ‘He couldn’t keep away from her for ever.’

‘He’d reinvented himself successfully as Arlo Denstone. Nobody was likely to remember Roland Seeton, and in any case, his appearance had changed almost beyond recognition. When the Culture Company dreamt up a De Quincey Festival, and looked around for someone to lead it, the temptation was irresistible. He didn’t even ask for payment. So long as he could get back together with Cassie. He liked to say he was a cancer survivor. A good metaphor for jealousy. Once he was back with Cassie, he found himself succumbing again.’

‘Because she’d slept with Saffell and Wagg.’ Greg’s expression hardened. ‘Even though the affairs were over and done.’

‘That’s the nature of jealousy. It’s a disease. Left untreated, it destroys everything.’

‘Spoken from the heart.’

Greg scanned her face for clues, but she was determined to give nothing away.

‘Yeah, well. I’m trying to get inside Arlo’s head. Not a nice place to be. He’s obsessed with Cassie Weston, and with anyone who’s been involved with her. Two murders in a matter of weeks? He’s losing the plot all over again.’

‘Saffell was a loner. Easy to target him when he was in the boathouse. Wagg must have been a trickier target.’

‘My guess is that Cassie never quite got Bethany out of her system. Bethany had worked for Wagg and Saffell. They were older, successful men, perhaps she carried a torch for them.’ She paused, unable to resist asking herself the question: Is that how it was with Marc, as well? She fancied him, and he was flattered, but did either of them do anything about it? She cleared her throat. ‘Cassie followed in her footsteps, she was fascinated by the woman she’d slept with and then helped to kill. But she went further than Bethany. She had brief flings with each of them, but after she teamed up with Arlo again, she rekindled the relationship with Stuart. Possibly George too, for all I know. She’s gorgeous, and they were weak.’

‘Yeah, well, men are different from women.’

‘Brains in their underpants, tell me about it.’ She shook her head, trying not to think about Marc. ‘Wagg even invited her to the New Year party, but she played hard to get. She and Arlo didn’t want to bump into each other in public, and besides, Louise Kind was in the way.’

‘What about the wine-throwing incident?’

‘My bet is that Wanda told the truth.’

‘Don’t tell DCI Larter. She’d rather believe that pigs do fly.’

‘Arlo provoked her as a distraction from any possible link with Cassie.’

‘Over-elaborate.’

‘Like everything about Arlo is over-elaborate. He’s a drama queen, same as his hero, De Quincey. Once the party was over and done with, Cassie persuaded Wagg to drop Louise like a hot potato. As soon as she packed her bags and left Crag Gill, Cassie and Arlo seized their chance. The MO varied each time, but they were variations on a single theme. They relied on making people vulnerable. Provoking a kind of crazy desire for Cassie. Then destroying them because of it.’

‘Dangerous lady.’

He was right, Cassie was bad news.

She shivered, remembering that Bethany had worked for Marc, and now Cassie did too. What if Marc were with Cassie now?

The cold woke him. That, and the pain. As consciousness returned, he became aware of the throbbing of his head and arms. His wrists and ankles felt as though they were on fire, but the rest of him was freezing.

Where in God’s name was he, what was happening? He didn’t have a clue how much time had passed since he’d rung Cassie’s doorbell. His eyes were shut, and he dared not open them. He dreaded the truth.

‘Coming round?’

A man’s voice, soft, yet not in the least reassuring. Marc tried to speak, but no words came. He couldn’t open his mouth. Someone had taped it shut. His hands were bound up above his head; impossible to move them an inch.

‘Open your eyes.’

Marc did nothing. For as long as he did not see, he could imagine the possibility of escape. Hope, he must cling to hope.

‘Open your eyes!’ the man shouted.

Marc obeyed.

He was in a small, circular room. Old stone walls, rough floor hewn from rock. A single narrow window, boarded up with a couple of dirty old wooden planks. Ten feet above his head was a brick roof. He was naked, his body shrivelled and defenceless. No wonder his arms ached; they were covered in bruises, and so were his chest and legs. Someone had manhandled him on the way to this place. His wrists were fastened by thick black cord that cut into his flesh. The cord was tied to a rusting hook on the wall. His ankles were bound to each other.

The man stood in front of him. He was wearing a bright yellow fluorescent jacket, but Marc’s eyes were dragged away to something lying on the floor. A nauseous fear seized him at the sight of it.

A huge creature lay sprawled on the rough ground, motionless.

Sedated, must be.

It had a fawn and white coat, red nose, tail thick and tapering to a point.

No muzzle.

An ugly, savage beast of the kind that growled and slavered through the worst of nightmares.

A pit bull terrier.