Winding Up the Serpent (2 page)

Joanna settled down to some paperwork. The town had a problem. In fact it had two pressing problems. The first – and the one that captured the headlines in the local paper – was the persistent theft of Royal Doulton figures. Each week – Joanna leafed through the sheafs of burglary claims – between thirty and forty Doulton figures were stolen from local houses. And the good citizens were getting very tired of the loss of the pretty china dancing ladies. The thieves were clever. They had plenty of knowledge and they were audacious, too. She picked up one of the claim forms. They had left behind any pieces that were chipped. She picked up another of the insurance forms. On another occasion they had stolen the genuine article and left the ‘seconds' or rejects, cheap prizes brought home like trophies by the pottery workers. Twice the thieves had left copies of Royal Doulton figures standing on the mantelpieces while they lifted the real McCoy. And it was this audacity that was infuriating the editorial department of the local rag, who had penned some very choice headlines. Because, although close on two thousand figurines had been stolen in the last two years, not one single piece of china had ever been recovered. And Joanna knew that her reply – to use fluorescent pen to mark the post code on the underside of the figurines – just wasn't good enough. They needed a lead to get to the stolen pieces to inspect them and
find
the post code. Worst of all, Joanna knew they had no clues either to who was committing the crimes or to how they were processing the stolen figures. To her knowledge not one of them had so far come up for sale. The best they could hope for was a ‘mole', someone to give them the vital hint. She sighed.

If the local population was getting fed up, she was frankly worried. The theft of china dancing ladies was a crime. But the recent supplying of Ecstasy to one of the local primary schools frightened her. An Ecstasy tablet sent for analysis had uncovered not only amphetamine but tiny doses of crack cocaine. She knew the results of the infiltration of the drug dealers, and she knew the impact they could have on this small town. The pushers were always searching to widen their net – more customers meant more money. Young customers meant money for life – as long or short as the life might be. And the dealers didn't care whether the kids lived or died – they could always get more. It was the mums and dads, the brothers and sisters and friends who cared – sometimes.

The pushers worried her. They were callous and amoral and left a trail of devastation in their wake. It was up to the police to try to sort out the muddle.

She sat staring into space.

The drugs were pouring in. And not one of her informers seemed to have the slightest idea how a small town had such an endless and unlimited supply, or how to stem the flow.

By eleven o'clock Jonah Wilson was at the undertaker's, staring down at a pale, flabby body.

He glanced across at his friend. ‘I'll miss the old bugger.'

Paul Haddon grinned at Jonah, raising his hooded, dark eyes. ‘It's a miracle he lived as long as he did, the way he abused his body.' Haddon laughed. ‘The number of times I've almost knocked him down with my hearse. Staggering into the road, drunk.'

Jonah frowned, then pressed the bell of his stethoscope on to the man's chest. He nodded. ‘As a door nail,' he said. ‘Cremation?'

Haddon nodded.

Jonah looked down. ‘Heart,' he said. ‘The coroner's happy. No need for a post-mortem. I'd been expecting it for years. No need to upset the family more than we have to.' He looked up. ‘Paul...?'

The undertaker had been standing still, staring down at the dead man. He started at the sound of his name, shook. ‘Sorry, Jonah,' he said. ‘Sorry ... miles away.'

Jonah put a hand on his friend's arm. ‘No regrets, Paul?'

‘No,' said the undertaker, biting his lip. ‘Not really.'

Jonah turned away from the body to wash his hands at the sink. ‘By the way,' he said, ‘Smithy didn't turn up for work this morning.'

Haddon stared at him. ‘Didn't she?'

Jonah shook his head.

‘Did you try ringing?'

‘The girls did.'

‘And?'

‘No reply. No one in.'

‘So where was she?'

The men looked at one another.

Paul spoke first. ‘What about Ben?'

Jonah shook his head. He closed his Gladstone bag then stood up. ‘Perhaps I should go round,' he said tentatively. ‘See if she's all right.'

His friend put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘I wouldn't if I were you, Jonah,' he said. ‘I'd leave her well alone. Let someone else find her.'

Jonah looked dubious. ‘But I'm her employer,' he said. ‘She could be hurt. She could be lying there, in pain ... fallen or something. Who else will go?'

‘Someone will.' Paul spoke grimly. ‘And if no one does, all the better.'

‘Paul.' Jonah shook his friend's hand off his arm.

‘I don't know how you can care at all about her,' Paul said. ‘I don't have your nature, Jonah. I can't forgive her.' He stared across the room. ‘She's ruined more lives ... caused more unhappiness ...' He looked at his friend then. ‘I hate her,' he said. ‘I hate her.' He shook his head. ‘I wouldn't go round if I were you. Leave it alone.'

His dark eyes stared into the doctor's face and as he spoke he nodded meaningfully, gripping the doctor's arm now. ‘Leave it alone,' he said again. ‘Don't you get involved.'

Jonah looked confused and embarrassed. ‘What if—' he started urgently.

‘Forget “what if”! Forget it, Jonah.'

The doctor sighed. His shoulders drooped. ‘Something might have happened to her.'

‘We can all live in hope,' said the undertaker darkly.

Jonah picked up his bag. ‘I'm going, Paul,' he said. Haddon gripped his arm again. ‘I mean it, Jonah,' he said urgently. ‘Promise me you won't go.'

Jonah frowned. ‘I...'

‘Promise.'

‘I promise.'

Ben was desperate to be let out. Desperate and frightened, too. He gave a whine then a series of loud barks.

In the bedroom nothing stirred. The breeze had dropped. Outside it began to rain. Droplets splattered on the windowsill. Ben barked again, watched the bed. Nothing moved.

He darted downstairs, sniffed behind the sofa. Then he squatted uneasily. If she found it she would beat him. He finished and guiltily ran back upstairs.

If she found it.

He put two paws on the bed, licked the cold hand.

By eleven o'clock Evelyn Shiers had finished at the market. She walked into the kitchen and dumped her shopping bag on the table. Strange, she thought, as she caught sight of the red car standing in her neighbour's drive. Was she on holiday this week? Before she switched on the radio she stood still for a minute listening, her ear cocked like an animal's for sounds from next door. Silence. Then she heard Ben whining and that made no sense. Marilyn was at home. Her car was in the drive. Why should the dog whine? She frowned as her thoughts progressed slowly towards conclusion. ‘Don't be silly,' she muttered. ‘She's on holiday. She's in the house – or walking in the town.'

So why, her small, inner voice said, didn't she take the dog with her, or put him in the pen outside? Why was he whining? And there was no answer to that.

‘Try her again,' Sally urged, pushing Maureen towards the telephone. ‘The doctor won't see all her evening patients as well. She'll have to come in, hangover or no hangover.'

Maureen looked at her. ‘Have you ever known Sister Smith to have a hangover?'

Sally pressed the number quickly. She had dialled it so many times this morning she knew it by heart. ‘She must have a hangover. She was all right yesterday and she's never ill. And she hasn't rung ...' Her voice trailed into nothing and she replaced the receiver.

Jonah left the undertaker's with a sudden sense of freedom. Spring was in the air. The weather was bright and clean and the journey across the moors to the small isolated village of Flash fitted in with the dream he had always had of English country general practice. If only Pamella could have been with him it would have been perfect. But she would never come now and this was his sadness, because his dream had always been to share this and not to be alone. He glanced at his bag which now occupied her seat and he tried to concentrate on the patient he was about to see, on one of his regular home visits, an old man who had smoked all his life and was now dependent on cylinders of oxygen to give him breath. It wouldn't be long before he paid the ultimate price for a packet of the cigarettes he had loved.

The wife was a stringy old bird of seventy-five or thereabouts and she looked after him hand and foot, kept him out of hospital and still washed the sheets by hand, with water drawn from a well. One day Flash would be fed piped water and for a few years families would value it as a luxury. Until then it would have to survive on wells and springs.

It was as Jonah groped in his bag to check for a syringe that the second thing went wrong that morning. He found to his annoyance that he had run out of fine insulin needles. He rummaged around in the bottom of the bag with one hand, keeping his eyes on the road. He frowned. He could have sworn he had a couple left. He must have used them all. Damn. But at least this distracted him from his sense of loss.

Evelyn fidgeted all morning, unable to settle to her usual round of duster flicking, vacuum cleaning and spraying indiscriminately with scented polish. She was drawn too frequently towards the window to make an efficient job of the cleaning and she kept peeping out through the curtains for a sign of Marilyn's pudgy figure, listening all the time for the click-clack of Marilyn's stilettos. She heard nothing but the dog's crescendo of yowls. Eventually she stopped altogether, her hand on her duster poised in front of her. She had never heard Ben whine like this. He was generally a quiet dog, well used to his life chained up outside in a pen, a guard dog who kept the house safe by day when the nurse was out working. And in the night the dog kept guard by sleeping at the foot of the stairs in a huge basket. This noisy behaviour was unusual – so strange it made her feel sick and uneasy.

She watched the house for signs of movement, concentrating on the brightly painted pink front door with its brass knocker, its huge brass hinges and letterbox. She stared at the door, willing it to open, hardly caring now that Marilyn might see her. In fact she would be relieved to see her, might even wave. But the door remained firmly shut. She glanced at the windows. The downstairs curtains were drawn. The red Astra sat motionless in the drive.

And still there was no sign of movement and no sound except the dog's anguished howls punctuated by frenzied, maddened yapping.

All morning she thought of walking up the drive, knocking on the door and shouting, asking whether something was the matter, but she was put off by the dog. Evelyn had always been a little frightened by Ben. And there was that incident about a year ago ...

... She had been idly glancing out of the kitchen window – not spying – but she had seen a van pull up abruptly at the foot of the drive. A man had jumped out, slammed the door, run up the drive and hammered on the front door, shouting, swearing obscenities.

Evelyn's heart fluttered at the memory.

Marilyn's dumpy figure had appeared in the doorway, hands on hips. She had been wearing a satin thing, fallen open to reveal plump breasts. She had laughed at the man, shouted back, sworn to match his expletives. She had stepped towards him and the satin thing had slipped off her shoulders so that almost the full breast was exposed, pink crescent of nipple showing. She'd wagged her finger in the man's face, cavernous red mouth wide open. They had both shouted and then Marilyn's voice had dropped suddenly and the man seemed subdued. Then Marilyn had glanced across and seen her watching.

Both had turned on her with a torrent of foul, ugly language and Evelyn had dropped to the floor, shaking and frightened. She heard Marilyn shouting, threatening to set the dog on her. She had been frightened of Marilyn Smith ever since ...

So instead of approaching the house she did other things to absorb her attention, plumping up cushions, wiping the front doorstep, attending to a cupboard that needed sorting out. But when men's sweaters, shirts, ties, socks tumbled out in a woollen jumble she shuddered, picked them up, stuffed them back in the cupboard again and slammed the door shut.

She muttered to herself and polished windows, dusted shelves, washed the kitchen floor. But she left the radio switched off, and every few minutes she stood by the kitchen window and peered over the low wall at the house and listened to the noisy barks.

It was at lunchtime that she knew something was definitely wrong.

Marilyn would not have left the dog alone inside the house for so long. He would have wrecked it. Marilyn was in there too. Evelyn stared at the house with mounting fear and she wrung her hands because she didn't know what to do. ‘Oh, help,' she said. ‘Please – somebody must help me.'

Ben was terrified now. He whined and slunk across the bedroom floor, tail down. He watched the still figure on the bed and knew she would find the mess downstairs. Then she would beat him.

He growled and whined, then ran downstairs into the kitchen. Some drops from the dripping tap slaked his thirst. He licked some meat from a plate on the side. Then he bounded upstairs again ...

When two o'clock struck and there was still no sign of movement and the only sounds were the yelps of the dog, Evelyn telephoned the surgery and asked for Sister Smith.

If only Marilyn would pick up the phone at the other end. But when her call was answered she said only, ‘Sister Smith.' Then she panicked and threw the receiver down on to its cradle.

Jonah watched his old patient gasping for breath. With a tinge of pity he touched the old man's hand.