The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards Read Free Book Online Page A

He’d already spent a large chunk of the publishers’ advance, and time was running out. No excuse for putting off the moment when he sat down and typed those two little words. Sometimes Daniel thought they were the two most terrifying words in the world.
    Chapter One .
    He yawned again. His limbs felt heavy, his eyelids drooped, yet he couldn’t blame a night of Saturnalian excess for his fatigue. Was there any point in sitting down at the computer until Louise had come and gone? Having her live a few miles away at Stuart Wagg’s lakeside mansion would seem strange. When he’d set off for the States, she’d been teaching corporate law in Manchester. He’d never imagined that, by the time of his return, she would have jacked in her job for a post at the University of South Lakeland, let alone that she’d have struck up a relationship with a local celebrity.
    The coffee burnt his throat. How long would this infatuation with Stuart Wagg last? Daniel had spent ten minutes in Wagg’s company, on the way back from theairport, when Louise stopped off at Crag Gill to introduce them. Wagg switched on the charm for his benefit, but what else did strait-laced Louise see in a slick and fashionable lawyer? Wagg seemed to take her devotion for granted, and Daniel had seen Louise hurt too many times to be confident of a happy ending to the fairy tale.
    The doorbell squealed, and he jumped to his feet. Lovers come and go, but family is for ever. Or so it should be. He flung the door open.
    ‘Happy New Year, Daniel.’
    Louise kissed him on the cheek. No sign of her ancient anorak. The crisp new Barbour jacket was unzipped, revealing a clingy silk-and-cashmere dress that, despite the cold, showed plenty of pale skin. Her perfume was a velvety, sensual fragrance. The Stuart Wagg effect. How much had she really changed?
    ‘Happy New Year.’ He waved her inside and shut the door on the icy blast. ‘Good party?’
    ‘Um…’ Louise pursed her lips. ‘Memorable.’
    She hung her jacket in the cloakroom. Her hair was windswept and her cheeks pink, as if she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t. In that instant he saw what men like Wagg, men who could pick and choose, saw in her. For all her reserve, she’d never had any trouble attracting admirers. Finding a partner who stuck around proved more of a challenge.
    ‘Tell me more.’
    ‘Soon.’ She considered him. ‘You look bleary. Only just got up?’
    ‘It is New Year’s Day.’
    She clicked her tongue. A habit inherited from their latemother, a long-suffering woman whose default instinct was to reproach.
    ‘I bet you haven’t started writing that book. Or even decided on a title.’
    ‘Grossly unfair. Not to mention untrue.’
    ‘Tell me, then.’
    ‘ The Hell Within .’
    ‘Charming.’
    ‘No need to be sarky. It’s taken from De Quincey, his essay on Macbeth .’
    ‘What’s the quote?’
    ‘“The murderer has hell within him,”’ Daniel said softly, ‘“and we must look into this hell.”’
     
    ‘You’ll never guess who I met at the party last night,’ Louise said as she wiped toast crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
    ‘Elton John?’
    ‘Stone cold.’
    ‘Madonna?’
    ‘Dream on.’
    ‘Disappointing.’ Daniel glanced through the misty window as rain slanted down on the winter heathers. ‘I thought Stuart Wagg knows everyone who is anyone.’
    ‘You’re so mean about Stuart.’
    ‘I’ve not breathed a word.’
    ‘You don’t have to. The way you rolled your eyes when we called at Crag Gill said it all. Just because he’s a rich solicitor. Behave, will you?’
    ‘Like you did with Miranda?’
    ‘She deserved it.’
    Was that true? He cast his mind back to the first time he’d brought Miranda here, to Brackdale. A tranquil valley in the south-east corner of the Lake District, shoehorned in between Kentmere and Longsleddale. As soon as she saw the cottage in Tarn Fold, she’d set her heart on buying it and living the