Snakes

John Price nodded. 'I'll see you around then.' He dropped his gaze, added with a hint of embarrassment, 'I think that maybe two fellers moving quietly and knowing what they're about might stand more chance of finding these snakes than a whole army of searchers beating hell out of the vegetation.'

'Is that an invitation to join you in a snake hunt?'

'Yeah, I guess it is.'

There was a long pause, an uneasy silence before Keith replied. 'Maybe, I can't rightly say at this moment, it all depends on my girl. I got problems, you see. Tell you what, I'll try and get 'em sorted out today and if everything's OK you and me'll take a look around tomorrow, I can't commit myself further then that at this moment.'

'Fair enough,' John Price dropped the butt of his cigarette on to the tarmac, ground it to shreds with his heel. 'You come down to my place, Mrs Harrison's bungalow, early in the morning and we'll see what's doing then.'

Keith watched the other walk back down the drive, slow loping steps, another man who had to be doing something or else he would go crazy.

And as he pulled the clapped-out Atco back up the drive to the garage the gardener was praying that the search parties might find the reptiles today and destroy them. If they did not then he would be as scared as the rest of the villagers. He hadn't promised to go on a snake hunt, though.

But he knew that he would help John Price to seek the killers out all the same.

As he drove out of the Yardleys' gateway he had to wait for a convoy of army Land Rovers to pass, open-backed vehicles packed with men in camouflage clothing, armed with shotguns. Slowing, pulling into the side of the road, beginning to disembark. So sinister in the main street of an English village.

Keith's flesh crept and his mouth was dry, the kind of dryness that even a lager at the Rising Sun would not alleviate. Basic fear, terror because there was no doubt in his mind that the snakes were right here in Stainforth village. Hiding out somewhere.

And nobody would sleep easily in their beds again until every one of those killers was dead.

Chapter 11

'I'M GOING to see Kirsten, Mother.'

Not wholly a lie. I'm going to try and see Kirsten, Mother, do my damnedest. She wasn't at home earlier and the car wasn't in the garage, and in all probability my guess was correct that they've left Stainforth for the present. Except I've got a feeling that they'll be back soon. Maybe I'm clinging to vain hopes but at least if I go down there and hang around I'm actually doing something. I can't stay here and be interrogated all evening.

'Are you sure it's all right to go out?'

'Well, I've been out most of the day gardening, haven't I, and I'm OK.' Liar, you changed your mind and went for a pint in the Rising Sun after you'd been to the Davis house. A pity you didn't go with that Price feller in the first place. Still, it had helped to fill the day in.

'Like I told you earlier, Keith, the soldiers have been all through the gardens in the village today. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you, men with guns on the lawns, poking in the shrubs.'

'But they didn't find anything, did they, Mother?'

'No-oo-oo . . . but they might have.'

Jesus Christ, there might be a nuclear war tonight and we'll al! be blown to blazes! 'Don't you worry, these snakes have probably high-tailed it out of the area and in a couple of days Stainforth will be declared safe and the roads opened up again.'

'Maybe.' Joan Doyle resigned herself for the second time that day to the fact that there was no way she was going to stop her son from going out. 'What time will you be back?'

'Shouldn't be too late.'

The only way he could end these conversations was by going out and closing the door. She would sit up and wait until he returned; damn it, that was her fault.

He looked at his watch. A quarter past eight. He had not realised that it was as late as that. Nevertheless, he had given the Davis family plenty of time to return home if they were going to. And if they hadn't then he might just go back to the Rising Sun again.

Damnation, he still had not filled up with petrol. It was too late now, the garage would be closed. The needle had dropped into the red sector on the gauge. But that usually meant there was half a gallon left in the tank. Or thereabouts. A mile to the Davis house and a mile back, it should be plenty. There were times when you had to be an optimist.

You're wasting your time, Keith Doyle. What else can I do? I have to do something. It's all part of a parental plan by the Davises. Take Kirsten out of the environment, work on her. You're wasting your time on that Doyle boy, even if he has got a string of qualifications he hasn't got a. job. You've been in Stainforth too long, you haven't widened your scope. There are shoals of fish in the sea.

The snakes came in very convenient when you needed a seemingly bona fide excuse to whisk your daughter out of the clutches of a man you did not approve of. Oh yes, they had come just when they were needed as far as Jack and Mary Davis were concerned.

But if Kirsten is pregnant that really throws a spanner in their connivings, Keith smiled to himself. They would have to let her make the choice then. Or would they? Surely they would not force her to have an abortion?

Army vehicles still lined the village street but there was no sign of the hunters. They would keep at it until darkness fell. He remembered that half-promise about tomorrow. I don't have to go with John Price, I only said I'd give it some thought.

And then he saw Kirsten Davis!

The sudden shock caused him to swerve, bump against the kerb. It can't be, I'm having hallucinations. The right place, just past the church, the time was right too. Except that their meeting had been arranged for three days ago.

The van's brakes squealed their protest, the engine stalled and he was leaning across the passenger seat to pull the door catch down with a hand that shook.

Kirsten was wearing a light blue dress, almost a mini, that showed her shapely legs off to perfection. A low-cut neckline, a cleavage that had you wanting to see the rest. Only her expression worried him; pale-faced, eyes that were red-rimmed from crying, black pouches beneath them from lack of sleep. Distraught, her hair was not as immaculate as it usually was.

As she swung herself into the passenger seat and slammed the door his hopes plummeted, almost had him wishing that he had gone to the Rising Sun instead and kept on kidding himself that everything would be all right; not knowing for sure meant that you still had illusions. But eventually you had to face up to reality.

'We'd better go somewhere where we can talk.' Her voice faltered and she stared straight ahead of her.

'All right.' His stomach was churning. Hell, that wasn't easy, not only was he almost out of petrol but half a mile further on there was a police road block. 'Let me think ... I know, the sandpit.'

She nodded but did not speak. The 'sandpit' was a played-out sand quarry just to the rear of the churchyard. It had not been quarried for twenty years and up until a few years ago the village bikers used to scramble there at weekends. There had been complaints about the noise, a petition, and nowadays nobody went there except teenage courting couples who did not have transport to take them further afield.

A bridle path, just wide enough to take a car, led off from where the wall bordering the cemetery ended. A hundred yards, rutted and dipping sharply, terminating in five acres of overgrown scrubland surrounded by high precarious sandcliffs, thorn bushes and saplings somehow securing a hold and serving to create an atmosphere of dank loneliness. Even in the heat of summer it was cool in here.

It was obvious to Keith that the snake hunters had beaten the place out thoroughly, bracken and grass flattened, even some of the low-growing bushes on the steep face had been ripped out. At least there was no danger here.