The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards Page A

cake. Every now and then, she told him that he ought to make an honest woman of Hannah. Once, in frustration, he’d trotted out the old joke about what you feed a woman to put her off sex. When he said the answer was wedding cake, she’d uttered such a groan of dismay that the floorboards rattled. You couldn’t beat marriage for companionship, she maintained, although he gathered her recipe for connubial bliss involved keeping her husband well and truly under her thumb. Mr Beveridge was a retired chauffeur (‘and he still drives me to distraction!’) who spent every daylight hour on an allotment in Kendal, no doubt to keep a safe distance from his wife’s relentless chatter.
    The kitchen staff had left early to get home before the weather worsened, and there wasn’t a customer in the shop. The mill was one of half a dozen buildings grouped around a yard; the others housed an assortment of craft shops, and visitors often drifted from one store to another. But not today.
    He fled from Mrs Beveridge’s clutches to the detective fiction shelves, and blew dust off a set of squat reprints lacking dust jackets. Hack work produced by long-forgottenpractitioners with names like Bellairs, Morland and Straker. Titles as hard to shift as aged relatives who have long outstayed their welcome. It was increasingly difficult to sell anything that wasn’t out of the ordinary. He blamed the Internet, as most booksellers blamed the Internet for whatever went wrong with their business. An Agatha Christie reprint from the Sixties, a Ruth Rendell from the Eighties? No, thanks. You could get them online for a handful of pennies.
    Rarities. He must keep finding them, if his business was to survive. He didn’t need Hannah to remind him that he couldn’t live off the legacy for ever. He had a few scouts, people with the know-how to search out scarce books, who were ready to sell at a hefty discount in order to make a quick profit. Charity shops and car boot sales were a waste of time, but he haunted book fairs, although the good buys were to be had from fellow dealers early on the first morning, long before the doors opened to admit Joe Public. Even the punters were savvier than ten years ago. Internet comparison sites and online auctions made everyone an expert.
    The doorbell jangled, and he looked over his shoulder in surprise.
    A woman wearing a hooded raincoat stepped into the shop. She dropped a zipped shopping bag onto the floor, pushed back the sleet-spattered hood, and gave him an Arctic smile.
    ‘If you buy me a coffee, I promise not to throw it all over you.’
    Marc exhaled.
    ‘Afternoon, Wanda.’
    * * *
    When Mrs Beveridge brought their drinks and a plate of scones, she hung around, trying to engage Wanda Saffell in conversation. But Wanda didn’t do small talk, and eventually, the cafeteria manager admitted defeat and retired to the kitchen.
    Wanda watched her retreating back. ‘You must miss Leigh.’
    Marc frowned, but said nothing. Wanda was so bloody provocative. His fling with Leigh was long in the past, long before they’d worked together. He didn’t like people getting the wrong idea about their relationship. It was purely professional.
    ‘Thought you might like to see my latest production.’ She unzipped the bag and produced a thin red slip case. ‘Of course, I’m hoping that you would be prepared to stock it.’
    She slid a little book out of the slip case. It was bound in papyrus and stitched with raffia.
    ‘ Voilà !’
    Marc had seldom seen Wanda Saffell show pleasure – her natural expression was chilly disapproval. She must be proud of what she had done. Picking up the book between forefinger and thumb, he considered the title page.
    ‘ Pulses of Light ?’
    ‘You don’t recognise the quotation?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘Thomas De Quincey, talking about Dorothy Wordsworth. He was talking about her energy, the way she illuminated the scene. He had the hots for her, all right. Poor woman, not pretty,