The Shape of Snakes Read Online Free PDF Page A

downstairs and redesigned it as one huge open-plan room with patio doors to the garden." There was reservation in her voice as if she wasn't sure that an open plan was an improvement.
    "Didn't you like it?"
    She paused by the door. "Oh, it was splendid enough, but I couldn't help remembering what it was like in Annie's day. Did you ever go inside while she was living there?" I shook my head. "It was like an Aladdin's cave. She and her mother were both hoarders. The front room was packed with West Indian and Central American artifacts, all brought back to England by Annie's father during the '40s and '50s. Some of them were quite valuable, particularly the gold pieces. I remember there was a little statuette on the mantelpiece which had emeralds for eyes and rubies for lips."
    "I didn't know there was a Mr. Butts," I said in surprise. "I always assumed the mother had been left holding the baby."
    "Good Lord, no. Her father died of lung cancer some time in the late '50s. I never knew him but one of my partners remembered him fondly. His name was George. He was a retired merchant seaman with a fund of anecdotes about his travels round the world. He married Annie's mother in Jamaica in the '30s and brought her and Annie home to live in Graham Road soon after the war." She smiled again. "He said he couldn't bring them back while his parents were alive because they wouldn't have approved of a black daughter-in-law."
    I shook my head in amazement, realizing how many gaps there still were in my knowledge of a woman I had never spoken to. Did Annie's neighbors know she was half white? I wondered, and would it have made a difference if they had? I thought "no" to both questions. They had been even later arrivals to the street than Sam and I ... and Annie had been too dark-skinned to pass as anything other than black. "I didn't know any of this," I told Sheila. "I certainly didn't know her father was a white man. Why didn't someone come forward to claim her estate? She must have had English relations, surely?"
    "Apparently not. My colleague said George had a younger brother who was torpedoed in the North Atlantic, but other than that-" She broke off on a shrug. "It's tragic but not unusual. Whole families were wiped out during the two world wars, particularly those with sons and no daughters." She glanced reluctantly at her watch and stepped outside. "I really must go. I've two more patients to see." But she moved slowly as if she didn't want to break this link with the past. "Do you still think she was murdered?"
    "I know she was."
    "Why?"
    I led the way down the path. "I can't explain it. I tried once, but everyone just thought I was as mad as she was. Now I don't bother."
    "I meant, why would anyone have wanted to murder her?"
    It was the great imponderable. "Because she was different," I suggested. "Perhaps they'd have left her alone if she'd been mad but not black ... or black but not mad ... Sometimes I think they despised her for her color, other times I think they were afraid of her."
    We halted beside her car. "Meaning you think one of her neighbors killed her?"
    I didn't say anything, just gave a small shrug which she could interpret as she liked.
    She watched me for a moment, then opened the rear door of her car and put her bag on the backseat. "She wasn't mad," she said matter-of-factly. "She had Tourette's syndrome, which caused her to grimace and talk to herself, but she was as normal as you or I in every other respect."
    "That's not the impression the coroner gave at the inquest."
    Dr. Arnold nodded unhappily. "The man was an idiot. He knew nothing at all about TS and wasn't interested in finding out. I've always felt very badly about not giving evidence in person, but I left for a twelve-month sabbatical in the U.S. before she died and had no idea he would effectively ignore Annie's medical records." She saw the sudden hope in my face. "The verdict would have been the same," she said apologetically. "There was no evidence