He stood up, walked over to the whiteboard and pointed at the flash-lit blurry image. ‘Take a close look and I’d like any of you to tell me what you see.’
‘A bloody ugly-looking git,’ Potting said.
‘Anything else, Norman?’ Grace said.
‘Yes, looks like a photograph of a ceiling. The ceiling’s in sharper focus than Stonor,’ Potting said.
‘Quite ornate cornicing — the sort you’d get in a Victorian house,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘But that window to the right, the top part of it just visible, with leaded lights, looks like mock Tudor. I know that because Lena and I used to live in a mock Tudor house.’
‘What are those glass cupboards?’ DC Davies asked. ‘They look a bit like the kind you can get from Ikea.’
‘I think they’re storage boxes.’ Glenn Branson stood up and peered closer. ‘Or aquariums?’
‘Vivariums, Glenn?’ DS Batchelor said. ‘I think that’s the proper term for them.’
‘It is, Guy. Containers that reptiles are kept in, providing them with a microcosm of their natural environment,’ Grace said. ‘Some of them look free-standing but others seem to be fitted.’
‘Ah, so Stonor lived in one of them, did he?’ Potting asked. ‘A very suitable home for him.’
Ignoring him, as most of the team did when he became irritating, Branson asked, ‘What’s the significance of this photograph?’
‘It looks like it was taken accidentally,’ Grace said. ‘There are no other photographs for several days before this one and none after. Even though it’s hard to see Stonor’s expression too clearly, he’s not posed for it, and he’s not actually looking into the camera. The date’s interesting — it was taken last Tuesday evening, February 24th. The toxin from a saw-scaled viper takes from around forty-eight hours to several days to kill its victim. It was about 8 p.m., Sunday 1st March that Stonor crashed his car.’
Grace looked down at his notes. ‘The High Tech Crime Unit obtained that information. They’ve also given me the approximate location, from triangulation — it was taken in presumably a house, in the Roedean area of the city. Significantly, there have been a spate of reported burglaries in this area over the past two months, all bearing Stonor’s MO.’ He stood up and walked over to the whiteboard with the map of east Brighton, and ran his finger around the red-inked perimeter.
‘So you think he might have broken into a house to steal some poisonous reptiles to order, it went wrong and he was bitten, sir?’ DC Boutwood asked.
‘That’s one line I’m considering at the moment, EJ,’ Grace said. ‘The accidental photograph. The small cut on his right arm the pathologist noticed. Maybe he fell over and the creatures got out. We need to re-interview Stonor’s girlfriend, Angi Bunsen, urgently. We also need to find out where those vivariums came from, and who fitted them. There can’t be many houses that have these.’ He looked at DS Cale.
‘Tanja, it’s going to be a big task — can you get some staff — borrow some from John Street, if you have to — checking building firms and individual carpenters who might have fitted these vivariums in a house in the Roedean area within the past few years?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Grace liked her. The redhead had joined his team after the tragic death of Bella Moy last year and she had a warm personality and a willing nature.
‘Did anyone report a break-in that night in that area, sir?’ DC Davies asked.
‘No,’ Grace replied. ‘But it could be because they were keeping these creatures illegally.’
‘Or maybe one of these reptiles bit them too,’ Potting said. ‘And killed them?’
‘Why would anyone want to keep a thing like that as a pet?’ EJ asked. ‘Wouldn’t you have to be a bit weird?’
‘Yep, well I think I’d rather have something a bit more cuddly,’ Grace retorted. ‘I can’t imagine you can just walk into the average pet shop and come out with a snake that can kill someone.’
He was interrupted by his phone ringing. Glancing at the display, he just saw the word international. Raising an apologetic finger, he answered it, in case it was to do with Dr Crisp.
Instantly, he recognized the German detective’s voice. ‘Marcel!’ he said, quietly. ‘I’m in a meeting. Is it urgent, or can I call you back in half an hour?’
Kullen was sounding more sombre than usual. Strangely sombre. In a few words he told him the reason for his call.
Grace froze.
60
Tuesday 3 March
As Jodie lay back on the bed in their cabin, sipping the glass of champagne the butler had brought her, she reflected on how it was all going with Rowley. So far so good. She knew enough about marriage laws to fend off a challenge from any of Rowley’s family, but she did not know the full size of his estate nor his inheritance planning. She’d walk away from this with a decent sum, a few million at the very least, she hoped. But not enough to buy a £50-million villa on Lake Como.
More than anything in the world, she longed to fly her parents to Italy, take them out on a boat on Lake Como, past all the fuck-off villas, past George Clooney’s, Richard Branson’s and all the others. Then they would see the most stunning villa of all, and she would tell the driver of the boat to go to the dock and tie up.
And she’d look at the strange expression on her parents’ faces.
And she’d say, ‘Welcome to my little holiday home!’
And Cassie, finally, would have said, ‘Wow!’
All thanks to a snake.
Well, some of it, for sure. Beautiful, beautiful snakes.
On her laptop she typed into her password-protected diary:
So just how different are we humans from snakes? Like, here’s an intriguing mathematical puzzle: Cows share twenty-five per cent of their genes with snakes. Humans share eighty per cent of their genes with cows. So we share about twenty per cent of ours with snakes.
I reckon that percentage is a lot higher in some people. There are some seriously reptilian people out there.
Snake charmers use a musical instrument called a Pungi. It’s a wind instrument made from a gourd with reed pipes. But snake charmers have removed either the fangs or the venom glands, and some sew the mouth shut. The charmer sits out of biting range because the snakes actually consider the charmer and the Pungi a threat.
It’s all a con.
You just have to turn to the Bible. Psalm 58, verses 3–5: ‘The wicked turn aside from birth; liars go astray as soon as they are born. Their venom is like that of a snake, like a deaf serpent that does not hear, that does not respond to the magicians, or to a skilled snake charmer.’
I can tell you another thing that snakes don’t like — I learned it from my late husband, Christopher Bentley, keeper of snakes and expert on poisonous creatures in general. And that is having their venom extracted.
It’s an incredible sensation! You hold the snake — in my case a saw-scaled viper — with your fingers, right behind its head, and press it down on a hard surface. I can tell you, it really does not like this. But if you keep the pressure up, in the right place, at the top of its neck, on the edge of a glass beaker, it spits its venom out. This is not a great way to make friends with a snake — but the reality is, none of us, ever, will become buddies with a creature that will only ever view you as one thing — lunch!
Kill or be killed. It’s the story of the animal kingdom. And of the human race. If you want to be a survivor you must, like me, follow in the path of Ka, who said, ‘Life is not a matter of chance... it’s a matter of choice.’
I made my choice. It’s all working out pretty well.