The Serpent Pool Read Online Free

file from cover to cover and committed the salient points to memory. There had only been eighteen inches of water on the day Bethany Friend’s bound body was discovered by a group of fell-walkers. She was lying face down in the water.
    She and Marc stood together on the soft ground, lost in thought.
    ‘You’d never think a woman could drown in something so shallow,’ Marc muttered.
    Hannah swung round and stared at him.
    ‘You know about Bethany Friend?’
    The dark patch of water seemed to hypnotise him, as though if he stared at it for long enough, the solution to some eternal mystery would sneak into his brain.
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘How did you hear about her?’
    His gaze didn’t waver. ‘How did you?’
    ‘It’s my job to know these things.’
    ‘You never mentioned Bethany when we were buying the house.’
    ‘I read the file before I finished for the holiday.’
    He breathed out. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re treating it as a cold case?’
    ‘It’s an unexplained death.’
    ‘She committed suicide, didn’t she?’
    ‘The coroner recorded an open verdict.’
    ‘That isn’t so unusual.’
    ‘No, but since we moved here…’
    ‘You took an interest just because we live close to where she died?’
    ‘Uh-huh.’ Not the whole truth, but she wasn’t ready to tell him the whole truth. ‘It’s a strange case, so much was left unexplained. That’s why it caught my interest.’
    He stared at her. They’d known each other long enough for him to guess she was holding back on him. But he was holding back too, she was certain of it. That was why he didn’t push his luck.
    Her feet were freezing and she stamped them. ‘Come on, we’d best get back before the mist closes in.’
    He followed as she moved towards the trees, but they walked in silence. She wanted him to tell her how he knew about Bethany Friend. But he wasn’t in the mood for talking, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask him again.

CHAPTER THREE
    Back in the kitchen of Undercrag, they were shedding their outdoor gear when the phone rang. Marc grabbed the receiver, saying it might be a customer from Japan chasing a signed Edgar Wallace, but after a brief exchange of words, he thrust it at Hannah.
    ‘Fern Larter, for you.’
    Hannah took the phone into her study. It was as draughty as a barn, but she loved its solitude and stillness. Or, at least, the absence of people. Even in winter, the countryside teemed with life. Squirrels fought on the grass beneath her window, occasionally a roe deer came up to press a baffled face to the panes. Easy to persuade herself that the nearest village was twenty miles distant, instead of a stroll away.
    Once, Undercrag had accommodated hospital offices at ground level, while live-in staff slept upstairs. Hannah and Marc had only afforded the mortgage thanks to a downward blip in the market, coupled with a legacy from Marc’s aunt, who succumbed to a stroke a fortnight short of her eightieth birthday. Although there were only the two of them, thehabitable space seemed to have vanished within weeks of their moving in. Marc annexed the reception room next to the lounge as his office. Three bedrooms were crammed floor-to-ceiling with books. Stock, he called it. She blamed bibliomania, not the business.
    ‘Happy New Year, Fern.’
    ‘And to you. Hey, I resolved to treat myself after Christmas. My in-laws are all bloody vegans, it’s been a nightmare. I hate dieting, most of all when it’s a moral obligation. Fancy getting together for a bacon butty before work one morning?’
    ‘Love to.’
    ‘Excellent, who cares about blood pressure? I’m pig-sick of the ACC’s healthy-eating initiative. I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying about clogged arteries.’
    Fern, a fellow DCI, had lent a solid shoulder to cry on when Hannah’s career hit a rocky patch. Lauren Self, the assistant chief constable, had shunted her into cold case work, but Hannah preferred to investigate the crimes of today. Fern