Some of them began to respond to his presence, rearing up and spreading their hoods, whispering sibilantly, their horrible forked tongues flickering in and out. He shuddered in revulsion and carefully retreated backwards out of the room.

Turning around, he entered the room across the hallway. Going by the thick oak desk and numerous bookcases, Stephen deduced that it was probably a study. Lying both on the desk and piled on the floor was a collection of sophisticated and expensive-looking camera equipment – lenses of varying sizes, tripods and a number of camera bodies.

Glancing at the wall, he noticed a framed certificate. Peering closer, he saw that it was an award to Grecken for being ‘Reptile Photographer of the Year’. He frowned, struck by a jab of doubt. Would someone of Mister Snigiss’s repute really be the same kind of person who won awards for taking photographs of reptiles?

Turning his attention to the bookcase, a large hardback caught Stephen’s eye, one of those expensive coffee-table books, placed face-out for full effect. The title was The Cobra: King of Snakes. On the front cover was a big colourful photo of a cobra with its hood spread, baring its fangs. Looking closer, beneath the title, Stephen saw the words, ‘Photographs by Jim Grecken’.

Scanning the spines of the other books in the bookcase, he saw several similar ones that also credited Jim Grecken. Most of them seemed to be about cobras.

Stephen scratched his head. It appeared that Grecken was some kind of wildlife photographer who specialised in snakes, specifically cobras.

He felt a sharp pang of frustration, annoyed with himself that his preliminary research hadn’t picked up on Grecken’s profession. He supposed he could snoop around a bit more, but his instincts, plus what he had seen so far, told him Grecken was not the ruthless underworld player that they were looking for.

With a sinking heart, he took out his phone and prepared to call Nancy. He knew only too well how she hated hearing bad news. It would put her in one of her moods and she was never fun to be around when she was like that.

59

As the figure emerged from the mist, Bailey began to make out more details. Below the black fedora hat, the person was slender, swaying slightly from side to side on heels.

It was a woman.

Her features became distinct as she moved closer. Probably in her early thirties, she had an angular but pretty face with hard grey eyes that scrutinised Bailey intently from beneath the brim of the hat. She was dressed stylishly in a figure-hugging black trench coat with the collar turned up against the cold.

The woman stopped around two metres away from Bailey. They both stood there in the misty graveyard staring at each other in silence.

Bailey’s mind swam with confusion, her expectations totally confounded. Was this Mister Snigiss? It couldn’t be. Surely. Not only was this a woman, she was way too young to have been the person who’d abducted her sister. She concluded that Mister Snigiss must have sent someone else in his place. But who was this woman and why was she wearing Mister Snigiss’s hat?