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  “I believe your son keeps snakes, is that correct?”

  Mrs. Hughes pulled a face. “Yes, he did. He kept them in his bedroom. I didn’t like it much, but you know boys, they need their hobbies.”

  Charlotte nodded. “We have traced an order for antivenom, which suggested Lloyd was keeping a particular type of snake. Would you know the whereabouts of those snakes now?”

  “There are no snakes here anymore, dear. He gave them all to a friend to look after before he left to go travelling.”

  Charlotte felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps all was not lost after all. If she could just get the name…

  “Do you know the name of the person who took the snakes?”

  Mrs. Hughes frowned and stroked the tabby cat in her lap. “Oh, I’m afraid I don’t know who it was. They turned up in a van and took them away in a case. I was just relieved to see the snakes go to be honest.”

  “We need to search the property now,” Charlotte said. “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I promise we will keep the disruption to a minimum.”

  Mrs. Hughes looked put out. “Well, I can tell you that my Lloyd wouldn’t have done anything wrong. He is a good boy.”

  Charlotte felt her mobile phone buzz in her pocket. She had put it on silent when they were waiting for the response team.

  “I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said to Mrs. Hughes, standing up and striding out of the living room.

  Outside on the street, Charlotte pulled her phone out of her pocket and answered it. It was Brookbank.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s not him, sir,” Charlotte said. “Lloyd Hughes has been in Thailand for the past two weeks, and he’s been out of the country for the past six months. That’s according to his mother. Of course, we will need to double check, and make sure she’s telling us the truth, but I believe her.”

  From the heavy silence on the other end of the line, Charlotte could sense Brookbank’s disappointment.

  She shivered and struggled to do up her coat one-handed. She decided to give him the rest of the bad news. “It gets worse. He’s given the snakes to a friend, and we have no idea where they are.”

  34

  AFTER CHARLOTTE HAD FINISHED giving the bad news to Brookbank, she continued questioning Mrs. Hughes.

  “I need you to tell me anything you can remember about Lloyd’s friend. It’s very important we find out where these venomous snakes are.”

  “Oh, no, dear. They weren’t venomous.” She shook her head so vigorously that the jowls on her neck wobbled. “I would never have allowed Lloyd to have venomous snakes in the house.”

  Charlotte frowned. This was going to be even harder then she’d anticipated. Mrs. Hughes had become agitated, and the tabby cat, sensing her unease, leapt out of her lap.

  “Why don’t I make a nice cup of tea?” Charlotte patted the woman’s hand and smiled.

  The search was continuing upstairs. Charlotte could hear them moving about as she slipped into the kitchen to make the tea. She could still see into the sitting room and saw that Mrs. Hughes hadn’t moved from her spot on the sofa. She needed to keep an eye on her, but she didn’t think it was likely that Mrs. Hughes would try to cover up or move any evidence. Charlotte was sure Mrs. Hughes genuinely believed the snakes had not been venomous.

  While the kettle was boiling, Charlotte used her phone to get onto the Internet and take a screenshot of a photograph of a Russell’s viper. She zoomed in to take a closer look and decided to save a couple more photographs. It was surprising how much individual vipers could vary in appearance.

  She took two cups of tea back into the sitting room and handed one to Mrs. Hughes. Once she was sitting down, Charlotte said, “Did the snakes look anything like this?” She showed Mrs. Hughes the images on her phone.

  Most of the vipers were sandy brown in colour with black markings.

  Mrs. Hughes nodded her head. “Yes, he had one that looked like that.” Mrs. Hughes pointed to one of the images.

  “Okay,” Charlotte said, deciding to get as much as she could from Mrs. Hughes without mentioning the fact that her son had kept one of the world’s deadliest snakes in her house.

  “Now, what can you tell me about the person who came to pick up the snakes? It’s really important you remember everything you can for me.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Hughes began, staring at the cat who was now sitting on an armchair grooming itself. “I remember they brought a big white van, and the snakes were in big glass tanks. They were locked up, but they still made my skin crawl. I made us both a cup of tea and we had chocolate digestives. We had a bit of a chat about the weather. It had been raining quite badly that morning and—”

  “Do you remember anything about their appearance? Were they tall or short? Beard or clean-shaven?

  Mrs. Hughes blinked at Charlotte. “Oh, dear. Did I give you the impression it was a man? How silly of me. It was a young woman who came to pick up the snakes.”

  35

  CHARLOTTE HADN’T CONSIDERED THE possibility that the killer may have been female. Joe Griffin had been over six feet tall and very well built. Then there was the fact that the killer had somehow managed to overpower Tyler and kill Troy Scott. Was it really possible? Could the killer be female?

  She rang the station and gave DCI Brookbank another update, letting him know they could now be looking for a woman.

  It was possible that whoever had collected the snakes was an accomplice or a go-between. Perhaps she had sold the snakes, or even sold the venom. But Charlotte knew if they managed to track her down, they could be one step closer to stopping these horrific murders.

  The next few hours passed slowly as the search team methodically made their way through every room in the house. Lloyd Hughes’ mother sat in miserable silence until Charlotte suggested she go next door to spend the afternoon with a neighbour.

  Charlotte’s thoughts drifted to DI Tyler. There had been no good news from the hospital, and Tyler’s condition remained unchanged. The doctor had told them that head injuries varied considerably from case to case, and recovery was very difficult to predict. She decided to pop in on her way home after work. Tyler might not realise she was there, but she felt she owed him that. She knew DCI Brookbank had already visited.

  “Find anything?” she asked PC Winters as he emerged from the cupboard under the stairs.

  He shook his head. “No sign of any snakes or the venom. We’ve been through the loft now and unless he’s managed to hide it in the cavity walls, there is no sign of the stuff. We have had the floorboards up in his old bedroom. Nothing looked like it had been disturbed, but we did the full search anyway. There’s no sign of the antivenom anywhere either.”

  “Which means the woman must have taken it with her when she collected the snakes.” Charlotte sighed.

  Great. If she had taken Lloyd Hughes’s supply of antivenom that would be one less way they were able to track her.

  PC Winters gave an apologetic shrug.

  “How much longer?” Charlotte asked.

  “Another hour, maybe. Unless you think we need to dig up the garden?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  She knew that most of the team now just wanted to call it a day. No one really believed they would find anything now. Their promising lead had come to a dead end.

  ***

  By the time Charlotte was ready to go home for the evening, it was late and she feared she had missed the visiting hours at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where Tyler was being treated.

  Tyler had been moved from the trauma unit into ITU. When Charlotte arrived, she was dismayed to see there was nobody at his bedside or even waiting outside in the corridor. She knew he had split from his wife a few months ago, but when something like this happened people usually put aside their differences. It seemed terribly sad to see Tyler alone like this.

  She sat down on the small chair beside Tyler’s bed. He seemed smaller somehow, his ha
ir even greyer. She knew that he had lost a lot of blood from his head wound, so she had expected him to look pale, but his skin was waxy and chalk white.

  “The investigation isn’t going well without you,” Charlotte said. “I wish you could tell us what you were doing at Troy Scott’s flat. Did you find out something? Did you see whoever it was before they hit you?”

  She felt daft talking to him like that, but she’d heard somewhere that people in comas sometimes responded to the voices of people they knew.

  “Brookbank has taken on the day-to-day running of the investigation now. He’s still very keen on the school angle and the link between the victims. I looked at your notebook, by the way. Thanks for the detailed notes on the interview with Troy Scott. That was really helpful,” she said sarcastically and glanced at the monitor that was measuring his vital signs.

  Charlotte sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair. “We thought we had a lead today, but it turned out to be nothing.”

  The dim lights in the room were making Charlotte feel sleepy. After another few moments, she yawned and stood up. Reaching out, she patted DI Tyler’s hand.

  “I’m off now,” she said. “I’ll be back soon, and next time I expect to see you with your eyes open, okay?”

  His hand felt cool and dry, and Charlotte squeezed his fingers, carefully avoiding the IV line in the back of his hand. “See you soon.”

  As Charlotte left the hospital, she got the same creepy feeling that she was being watched again and quickly turned to look over her shoulder. But at the hospital entrance beside the sliding doors, there was only an old man in pyjama bottoms and a dressing gown, smoking a cigarette and talking to a younger woman cradling a baby.

  A paramedic headed through the sliding doors. There was nothing there out of the ordinary.

  Charlotte tried to shake off her uneasy feeling and walked across the road, heading towards the underground station. She hadn’t visited her nan in ages. It would be easy to cry off tonight, but she had promised to pop in after work, and she hated letting her down, so she got on the underground at Whitechapel station and headed for Mile End.

  When she left the underground and walked out onto Mile End Road, it started to rain.

  “Fantastic,” she grumbled under her breath as she zipped up her coat and raised her hood. She should have brought her umbrella, but she couldn’t stand carrying it around with her all the time.

  She glanced back at the station just before she turned left into Burdett Road. There were lots of people around, but she didn’t see anything untoward.

  There was hardly anyone at the bus stop, which meant she had probably just missed the bus, but it wasn’t a long walk to Selsey Street, so she lowered her head against the rain, stuffed her hands in her pockets and walked quickly.

  By the time she got to Underhill house in Selsey Street, it was quiet. No one wanted to be out in this weather. She had checked frequently over her shoulder during the walk, but she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being followed.

  She’d been pretty good lately, getting that excessive checking of all her locks at home under control. She’d managed to cut down to one circuit of the flat, checking everything was secure, when she got in at night and one circuit when she left in the morning. She’d managed to whittle it down to just ten minutes now, whereas a few months ago she’d spent hours doing it.

  She opened the door to the flats and entered the lobby. Ignoring the lift, she headed for the stairwell.

  Charlotte hadn’t been to the gym in over a week, so the least she could do was a little bit of stair climbing.

  By the time she got to Nan’s flat, she was panting for breath, reminding her just how unfit she really was.

  She rang the bell and Nan answered quickly as if she had been hovering by the door.

  “Hello, darling. Lovely to see you,” Nan said as Charlotte leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

  “Have you eaten yet? I’ve got a treat for you,” Nan said without even waiting for an answer.

  Charlotte closed the door behind her and followed Nan into the kitchen. She looked at the plastic bag on the kitchen counter with a parcel of food wrapped up in white paper and a tell-tale polystyrene cup.

  “Aw, Nan, you shouldn’t have,” Charlotte said. “Maureen’s?”

  “Of course,” Nan said. “I wouldn’t get it from anywhere else.”

  Maureen’s was a pie and mash shop in Chrisp Street. It had been there ever since Charlotte could remember, and Nan had always taken her there on Saturday when she’d been a young girl as Charlotte’s mother used to work at the weekend.

  Nan started to plate up the pie and mash, and lifted the small saucepan from the hob, which contained the liquor. Pie and mash just wasn’t the same without it.

  They had their pie and mash on trays in front of the TV, watching one of Nan’s soaps.

  Charlotte happily smothered her pie, mash and liquor with vinegar, her mouth watering in anticipation.

  “Have you heard from your mum and dad?” Nan asked.

  Charlotte nodded and tried to swallow a mouthful of piping hot mashed potato. “Last week,” she said. “They are all right. They are having better weather over there at any rate.”

  “Are they coming back for Christmas?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “They’re going to stay in Spain. The flights over Christmas are ever so expensive.”

  After she had polished off the pie and mash, Charlotte took the plates to the kitchen and washed up. She was glad she had come to Nan’s instead of going home to her empty flat. She didn’t live far away, but she decided she would stay here tonight. It would be nice to spend the evening relaxing and watching the telly with Nan before falling asleep.

  And a relaxing evening was exactly what she needed tonight. She needed to unwind and de-stress, as she knew she had one hell of a day in front of her tomorrow.

  36

  MACKINNON DIDN’T GET HOME to Oxford until after midnight. When he let himself in, he found Chloe dozing on the sofa. A half-full wine glass was in front of her on the coffee table.

  She stirred as he walked into the room and smiled sleepily at him. “Hi.”

  “Any left?” Mackinnon asked, nodding at her wine glass as he sat down beside her on the sofa.

  Chloe stretched and moved her feet to rest them on Mackinnon’s legs.

  “Sorry, there’s only a dribble left. I needed it tonight, but I can open another one if you want.”

  Mackinnon shook his head. He knew he needed to get some sleep otherwise he was going to regret it in the morning. “How is Katy?”

  Chloe groaned. “I don’t understand that girl. I’ve been trying to get it out of her all evening, but she won’t tell me anything. I still have no idea what went on, although I know she’s the one in trouble with the headmistress.”

  Mackinnon frowned. It didn’t make sense. This whole thing didn’t fit Katy’s personality. She was always so well behaved, achieving top grades and she was in the top sets for all of her subjects at school. Was Katy just acting out because no one was listening to her or dealing with the situation?

  Mackinnon changed his mind about the wine and went to open another bottle of red Shiraz. Chloe followed him into the kitchen.

  “So what did the headmistress say on the phone? What does she want to talk about tomorrow?” Mackinnon asked as he poured the wine.

  Chloe exhaled a long sigh. “Katy’s punishment.”

  Mackinnon shook his head and took a sip of his wine. He couldn’t be bothered to wait for it to breathe. Punishment? What on earth had Katy done?

  Mackinnon knew he had a long day ahead of him tomorrow and should have headed to bed, but despite that, he and Chloe stayed up talking until the early hours of the morning.

  When Chloe could barely keep her eyes open and they had finished the bottle of wine Mackinnon had opened, he got to his feet and pulled Chloe up from the sofa. “Come on,” he said. “We have to get to bed or we will never get up in the morning. It�
��s not going to look good if we’re late for our visit to the headmistress.”

  Chloe looped her arms around his waist. “You do know that I appreciate you coming back, don’t you? I know you are in the middle of a big case at work.”

  “Work can wait,” Mackinnon said and gently kissed her forehead. “This is more important.”

  37

  CHARLOTTE WOKE UP LATE the next morning. She’d slept like a log at Nan’s and then had to scurry around quickly, showering and throwing on her clothes in record time. She thanked her lucky stars that she had kept some of her clothes at Nan’s for when she stayed over, so she didn’t have to go back home to get changed.

  Nan was still in her nightdress, sipping a cup of tea when Charlotte left.

  She raced out of the flat and down the stairs. As she exited onto Selsey Street, she was moving so fast that she almost ran into a woman with long, dark hair. A woman who looked strangely familiar.

  Charlotte stopped abruptly and stared at her. “Have you been following me?” she demanded.

  Charlotte felt a rush of satisfaction as she realised that she hadn’t been imagining things.

  The woman lifted a hand and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. “Yeah, sorry about that, but I need your advice.”

  Charlotte gritted her teeth. She didn’t have time for this. She folded her arms across her chest and said, “I’m in a rush. I’m late for work.”

  “But you know him,” the woman said. “And I need your help. I keep doing things that annoy him.” She looked up at Charlotte with tear-filled eyes. “I don’t mean to, but I seem to have rubbed him up the wrong way…”

  Charlotte felt herself softening towards the woman. This was the same woman her ex-boyfriend had brought to Charlotte’s flat a few months ago, flaunting his new relationship. She was sure he intended to make her feel jealous but Charlotte hadn’t felt the slightest spark of jealousy, instead, she felt terribly sorry for her. It had been obvious it was going to end up like this. Charlotte’s ex was a cruel and abusive bully.