The Shape of Snakes Read Online Free PDF

to suggest it was anything other than an accident, but I was very angry afterward to discover how her reputation had been destroyed."
    I thought cynically that the anguish I'd seen in Annie's dying eyes had had nothing to do with concern for her reputation. "Did you read the pathologist's report?"
    She nodded. "I was sent a copy with the inquest verdict. It was very straightforward. She caught a glancing blow from a truck and was thrown against a lamppost. Frankly, it was a tragedy waiting to happen-they should never have let Graham Road be used as a shortcut-but I always thought a child would be hit, not someone as mindful of safety as Annie was."
    I nodded. "She was wearing a dark coat the night she died, and the weather was frightful ... rain like stair rods. I only saw her because I almost stepped on her as I was crossing the road." I put a hand on Dr. Arnold's arm as she prepared to open the driver's door. "You said you were angry about her reputation being destroyed. Did you follow that up?"
    A faraway look crept into her eyes as if she were searching some distant horizon. "Not for three years. It may sound callous but I forgot all about her while I was in the States, and it wasn't until I saw what the builder had done to her house that it occurred to me to ask what had happened to the contents."
    "Presumably they were sold off."
    She went on as if she hadn't heard me. "People had a very false impression of Annie because of the way she dressed and the way she behaved, but she wasn't a poor woman by any manner of means. She once showed me a list of valuations that a dealer had put on some of the artifacts, and my recollection was that the total came to over Ł50,000. That was a fair sum in the 1970s."
    "The police must know what happened to it all," I said. "Did you ask them?"
    She gave a theatrical shudder. "Not them ," she countered tartly, "just the one. A man by the name of Sergeant Drury- Joseph Stalin's younger, ruder and more aggressive brother. It was his case so I wasn't allowed access to anyone else."
    I laughed. "I knew him. It's a good description."
    "Yes ... well, according to him, Annie was destitute. They took some RSPCA inspectors in the day after the accident in order to remove her cats, and Drury said there was nothing of value in the house. Worse, he described the conditions inside as little short of a cesspit."
    I nodded again, remembering. "It was mentioned at the inquest. The coroner said the RSPCA should have taken her animals away from her when the neighbors first complained about the smell."
    "Except squalor was alien to her nature," said Dr. Arnold, folding herself behind the steering wheel. "I used to visit her regularly and it was a battle to stop her jumping up every ten minutes to wash her hands. She had a thing about germs-it's a common symptom of Tourette's syndrome-along with a compulsion to check the bolts on the front door hourly. Of course Drury didn't believe me. It was three years down the road and he decided I was confusing her house with someone else's." She reached out to shut her door, apparently under the impression that I understood what she was talking about.
    I held it open. "What didn't he believe?"
    She blinked in surprise. "Well ... obviously ... that Annie's house had been ransacked and everything of value stolen."
 
    In the past, Sam had always shied away from discussions about Annie. I remember his embarrassment when I tackled a chief superintendent at a party in Hong Kong and pinned him to a wall with an hour-long diatribe on the inequities of the Richmond Police. Sam had hauled me away eventually and by the time we reached home his embarrassment had turned to fury. "Have you any idea how idiotic you sound when you start talking about that bloody woman?" he had demanded angrily. "You can't lecture total strangers on garbage about the eyes being the windows of the soul if you want to be taken seriously. You're my wife, for Christ's sake, and people are starting to avoid