Diamond moved along the row in silence, taking it in. At first he couldn’t see anything alive. There was no movement. In the second tank he noticed a mottled brownish green surface that wasn’t part of the log that lay across the middle.
A coiled unmoving serpent as thick as a man’s thigh.
“Can you tell the difference between a boa constrictor and a python?” Halliwell said. “I can’t, but I reckon he’s got both.”
Diamond said nothing.
“Part of his macho lifestyle, I suppose,” Halliwell went on. “I’ve never wanted to keep exotic reptiles myself. Are you okay, guv?”
Diamond said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Back on deck, he stood facing the open water and not seeing anything. At least his brain was functioning again, seeking to find some understanding of the bizarre things forced on his consciousness.
After some thought, he said, “What do they feed on — chicks and mice, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never asked.”
“He’ll keep them in the fridge.”
“I expect so. I didn’t look inside.”
“In the wild, they can go for weeks without eating and then they want something substantial. Big snakes like those are man-eaters, given a chance.”
“That’s an ugly thought, guv.”
“I’m in an ugly mood.”
Halliwell had his phone out and was googling man-eating snakes. “It’s rare, but not unknown. A fully-grown python will crush you and try to swallow you whole. The jaws are flexible and expand. Swallowing the shoulders is the hard part.”
“If the body was butchered into joints of meat, the python wouldn’t have any difficulty.”
Halliwell screwed up his face in disgust. “Is that what Fergus did?”
“At this stage, Keith, your guess is as good as mine. It would account for the people who disappeared and were never seen again.”
“That’s gross.”
“Keeping large reptiles in captivity is gross. I don’t understand the mentality behind it. I’m going to question Candida again and see how much she knows. I don’t think Fergus will be here any time soon.” With more of an agenda, he might recover from the humbling he’d let himself in for. Peeling off the forensic suit was a start.
With Ingeborg at his side, he stepped aboard Deck the Halls. “I won’t spare her,” he said. “I tried being nice cop and it didn’t work.”
Candida, too, started on a combative note. At the door, she said, “If you’re here to apologise, forget it.”
“Apologise for what, ma’am?” he said.
“Trashing our reputation, that’s what. All of Bath and Bristol knows Fergus and me are the reason for the police divers. I’ve had reporters on at me day and night. Cameramen all over the boat. Next thing we’ll be asked to leave and find another mooring.”
“If you’d been more honest before, none of it would have been necessary,” he told her. “We’re bound to be suspicious when you give us half-truths and lies.”
“Like what?”
“Like the horseshit about Mary Wroxeter. You never once mentioned she was your mother.”
Straight to it. She made a sound like one of the pythons hissing. “Who told you that?”
“We’d better talk inside. It’s time to front up, Candida.”
She turned round and stepped into her main cabin, her shoulders and back rigid with tension. Bart was on the floor chewing on an apple.
Candida faced them and said with fury, “There’s no reason I should tell you or anyone who my parents were.”
“Oh, but there is when Mary’s death is under investigation and you were the last person to see her alive.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re not accusing me of murdering her?”
“Not yet. I want the truth about that night. You said you drove her home from the pub and told her you were pregnant. Why wait? Your own mother? Why not pick up the phone and tell her as soon as you knew about it?”
“I only knew that afternoon, that’s why. I couldn’t call Mary while she was filming. I didn’t lie to you. I gave her my news in the car.”
“You didn’t go in with her? That’s hard to believe.”
“It’s the truth. I had no more to say to her. I knew she’d want to celebrate the only way she knew how and drinking was one thing I shouldn’t do, being pregnant. I left her outside her door and drove straight back here. If you think I encouraged her to drink herself to death, you’re nuts.”
“You kept it quiet — the fact that you were her daughter — even after she died.”
“She would have wanted that. The studio took charge and fixed the funeral. They gave her a lovely send-off as I knew they would. I was there as someone who’d worked with her, that’s all.”
“No regrets about that?”
She clicked her tongue. “We were never that close. In all her life I never called her mum. As a kid I was farmed out to foster parents and packed off to a crap private boarding school. I scarcely ever saw my birth parents. My dad died years ago anyway. The one good thing they gave me was my name. At least, I thought it was until my schoolmates found out it’s also the name of a fungal infection and called me Thrush.”
Ingeborg said, “Mary must have cared. She found you the job at Bottle Yard.”
“Years later. I was on her conscience by then. I left school with nothing to show for all the fees and went through a really bad patch. Hard drugs, sleeping rough, nicking stuff, the lot. She found me a flat and fixed it for me to make a start as a runner on the understanding that we’d tell no one I was her daughter. I loved the job straight away and stayed. End of story.”
“Not quite the end. You met Fergus, got pregnant and moved in here.”
She laughed. A bitter laugh. “Shit-for-brains, me.”
Diamond asked, “How much did you know about Fergus?”
“He fancied me. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Did you know he kept snakes?”
“He only had the one when we met, the one that died of old age and had the suitcase for its coffin. I refused to have it in here while it was alive, so he bought the old tub you see next to us and spent far too much doing it up and turning it into a snake house. I can’t stand them. I never go in there.”
“You say he fancied you,” Ingeborg said. “Was it more than that?”
“I told myself it was. I wouldn’t have got pregnant twice if I didn’t think he loved me. I’m not a total slag. I lost the first one and then Bart was born.”
“And what are your feelings now?”
She flared up again. “What is this — sex therapy? I don’t have to tell you what goes on in my private life.”
Diamond said, “We’re asking because we want to know how deeply you’re involved. People are missing, believed dead. You could be aiding and abetting a serial killer.”
“Give me strength,” she said, eyes blazing, each word charged with outrage. “You think Fergus topped those guys? What for? He may be thick, but he’s not that thick.”
“Two nights ago,” he said, “they finished the filming at Milroy Court. It was late in the day. The de-rigging would have been the last thing to happen and Fergus was in charge so he would have got home late. Do you recall what time it was?”
“This was when?” she said. “Tuesday? Let me think.” She bent down and took the partially eaten apple from Bart and pushed a sippy cup against his mouth before he could protest. “God, this is ridiculous. Yes, he was late. I was about to watch The News at Ten when he got in and wanted to eat. He’s always late when they de-rig. They have to load the trucks and return them to Gripmasters up at Cold Ashton. He leaves his motorbike there by day and then rides home.”
“Okay,” Diamond said without sounding okay. She’d reminded him Fergus was a motorcyclist. It complicated the scenario. You can’t transport a body on a motorbike. But there had been a bike in the field where Greg Deans was attacked. “How was his mood? Any different from usual?”