The Shape of Snakes Read online

  The doors to all the upstairs rooms were closed. Five live cats, all toms, were found trapped in the back bedroom. The animals were in a distressed state, and had clearly been fouling the room for several days. All had bite and scratch wounds from fighting. There were bowls on the floor, which may have contained water or food, but were empty at the time of entry to the house. Apart from the dead toms in the wardrobe, the front bedroom contained four live queens and two neutered toms that were also in a distressed state.

  The total number of cats removed from the premises by the RSPCA inspectors was twenty-one, five of which were dead.* Their full report (attached) concludes that the tomcats had suffered the worst neglect while the condition of the queens and neutered toms gave less cause for concern. It is their view that Miss Butts had been allowing the animals to foul the interior for some time�in particular the tomcats whose odor is powerful and distinctive. They also pointed to clear evidence of cruelty in the shorn fur, broken necks and apparent willingness to allow the animals to fight "to the death," and drew attention to the fact that it was the male animals that appeared to have been singled out for torture. The inadequate supplies in the kitchen and the estimated time of death of the dead cats suggests that Miss Butts had ceased to provide proper care and attention some five to seven days before her death.

  A superficial search of the house produced nothing to indicate the names and/or addresses of Miss Butts's next of kin. A box of papers was removed from a cupboard in the front sitting room for later examination.**

  The general impression received by those attending was that Miss Butts had been living in conditions of extreme poverty for some time. There were no carpets in either of the downstairs rooms, much of the furniture was broken and dilapidated and there were few adornments. The temperature in the house was cold, yet the gas supply in the cupboard under the stairs had been turned off. In addition, several fuses had been removed from the electrical circuits, although the main supply was still on. When an attempt was made to flush the toilets, it was discovered that the stopcock under the sink had also been turned off. One explanation is that Miss Butts had become worried about paying her utility bills. This may have been influenced by a dependence on alcohol.

  * Veterinarian postmortems of the five dead cats concurred with John Howlett's assessment at the time of entry to the premises. Two had died of untreated wounds following a fight; three had died after having their necks broken. All showed clear evidence of cruelty, specifically: fur ripped from their faces�probably from the application of cellophane tape, parcel tape or carpet tape, which was then torn off. Also, two of the dead animals appeared to have had superglue applied to their lips and lids, residues of which remained on scraps of fur around their mouths and eyes. Estimated time of death: four to seven days prior to the bodies being found. Allowances were made for the cold conditions in the house, which had slowed decomposition.

  **All the papers were official: various bills�some paid, some (gas and electricity) unpaid; a check book and bank statements; a building society book (Abbey National), showing Ł15,340.21 in an interest-bearing account; TV license; and tax and rate receipts. There was an envelope containing assorted photographs of a woman (black) and man (white) with "Mum" and "Dad" or "Elizabeth" and "George" written on the back, but nothing else of a personal nature. Subsequent inquiries at Miss Butts's bank produced the deeds to the house, various share certificates and a current bank-account statement showing Ł4,324.82 in credit. (NB: Miss Butts's bank manager said she was "regularly abusive toward the cashiers and had bees in her bonnet about them stealing her money." He also said it wouldn't surprise him if she was confused about whether she could afford to pay her bills because she wasn't "quite with it.")

  Correspondence between Dr. Sheila Arnold and

  Inspector John Hewlett, of the RSPCA�dated 1983

  39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY

  Inspector John Hewlett

  RSPCA

  Guardian House

  Twickenham

  Surrey

  February 22, 1983

  Dear Mr. Hewlett,

  I am making inquiries about a visit you and your colleague, Tony Barrett, made to 30 Graham Road, Richmond, just over four years ago on November 15, 1978. The house belonged to a woman called Ann Butts who died in a road accident, and you were asked to accompany the police to her house the following day in order to rescue her cats. I have a copy of the police report of the incident, but the report that you and your colleague made had been omitted. Do you still have a copy on file and, if so, would it be possible for me to read it?

  I was Miss Butts's general practitioner for several years and I have a number of concerns relating to the way the police described her living conditions. "Squalid" and "living in conditions of extreme poverty" does not accord with my memories of Miss Butts and/or her house. With reference to her cats, my recollection is that they were always sleek, deeply loved and well cared for. In addition: my understanding is that, following complaints from Miss Butts's neighbors, you made several visits to 30 Graham Road in 1978, but that none of the complaints was upheld.

  From your memory of those visits, can you describe any of the West Indian or Central American ornaments or artifacts that she had in her front room? I am puzzled that the police have no record of their existence, particularly as Ann was proud of them and often told me how valuable they were.

  I should be most grateful for any information you can give me.

  Yours sincerely,

  Sheila Arnold

  Dr. Sheila Arnold

  * * * * *

  WHITE COTTAGE

  Littlehampton

  Nr Preston

  Lancashire

  Dr. Sheila Arnold

  39 Lyvedon Avenue

  Richmond

  Surrey

  March 7, 1983

  Dear Dr. Arnold,

  I regret to say that I retired from the RSPCA in June 1980, and, while my colleagues were kind enough to forward your letter to my new address in Lancashire, I no longer have access to files and cannot supply you with a copy of the report you requested. Nevertheless, I do recall the case quite well and am happy to pass on what I remember of Miss Butts.

  In fact you're correct in saying I made several visits (four in total) to 30 Graham Road in the months prior to Miss Butts's death. You are also correct in saying that none of the neighbors' complaints was borne out by the evidence. Her cats were well looked after and in excellent condition. However, on none of those visits did I find more than seven cats in residence (six on the last occasion, following the death of one which affected Miss Butts deeply) nor was there any evidence to suggest there were more cats to find.

  I made two recommendations on my first visit in March 1978: 1) that she install a cat flap in the kitchen door to allow the animals free access to and from the garden; 2) that she consider having her tomcats neutered in order to mitigate her neighbors' complaints of offensive odor. She followed both recommendations and, despite continued complaints against her, I had no reason to suspect her of neglect and/or cruelty to her animals. Indeed, I went further and suggested to the police that the complaints were malicious and would warrant investigation. However, I have no idea if anything was done about it. What my colleague and I found in her house on November 15, 1978, was a different matter altogether. Between my last visit�some time in August '78�and that November morning she seemed to have acquired another fifteen cats. If you have a copy of the police incident report, you will know that we found five tomcats dead, and another five severely distressed and injured behind the closed door of the back bedroom. Not to put too fine a point on it, the dead ones had either killed each other or had their necks broken, and the live ones had been so badly tortured and neglected that they were skin and bone, and covered in scratch and bite marks from fighting each other. A decision was made to put three of them down immediately and the other two died within forty-eight hours. Of the remaining eleven cats, all were either neutered or q
ueens, six of which I was able to identify as the cats I had seen on my previous visits.

  In my opinion, the police description of the house as "squalid" was an understatement. In truth, it was disgusting. The cat flap in the kitchen had been blocked by a piece of furniture with the result that the animals had been fouling the interior for several days. Miss Butts's own sanitary arrangements were appalling with reeking unflushed toilets and dirty paper and feces on the floors. I cannot stress too highly that I was horrified by what we found, although I have no idea why her circumstances had deteriorated so badly between August and November. There was evidence that she had been drinking heavily�as I recall the police discovered in excess of fifty empty spirit bottles about the house�and this may have contributed to her decline.

  I regret I cannot give any clear descriptions of West Indian or Central American ornaments from my previous visits. I do remember that Miss Butts had a number of interesting and colorful displays in her front room, but I was never allowed to inspect them long enough to be precise about what they were. Sadly, she viewed me with suspicion because of my uniform and preferred to talk to me in the kitchen. I recall some vivid paintings on the wall opposite the sitting-room doorway and a display of peacock feathers in a brass artillery shell beside the front door; also, a pair of matching silhouette pictures in the hall which she told me represented her grandparents. However, the house was bare of ornamentation on November 15, and I assume she sold everything off to pay for her drinking habit.

  With particular reference to the twenty-plus cats we found in the house, I can only speculate that she began to attract strays to the property following my last visit in August and panicked when the tomcats fought. It seems to me significant that: 1) there was evidence the toms' mouths had been taped, which implies she was trying to find a way to stop them from biting each other; 2) the cat flap was wedged closed with the intention, presumably, of trying to stop more strays from coming in, although why she chose to contain the ones already there remains a mystery. The male cats had received the worst treatment, which I found disturbing�evidence perhaps that Miss Butts had developed some sort of obsession against men in general?�and I do wonder if she chose to contain them for fear of giving her neighbors the proof of neglect and cruelty of which they habitually accused her.

  In conclusion, I have always been sorry that her life ended in the way it did. She wasn't an easy woman to deal with as I'm sure you know. However, despite the official nature of my visits, I believe she looked on me as a friend and I'm saddened that she did not think to call me when my help might have made a difference.

  Yours sincerely,

  John Howlett

  * * * * *

  39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY

  John Howlett, Esq.

  White Cottage

  Littlehampton

  Nr Preston

  Lancashire

  March 23, 1983

  Dear Mr. Howlett,

  Thank you for your letter of March 7. I should tell you that I visited Annie in her house two months before she died and there was nothing then to indicate a deterioration in her circumstances. I am not a cat lover myself, so did not take particular notice of the ones I saw that day. However, had there been more than normal I'm sure I would have registered the fact. Certainly there was no question of the house smelling.

  One of the reasons for my visit was to tell her that I was going away for twelve months. Annie became extremely agitated at the news, which I had been expecting. Sufferers from Tourette's syndrome dislike change, so I sat with her for an hour in her sitting room talking about the colleague who would be taking over in my absence. I had ample opportunity, therefore, to evaluate the room and what was in it. Before I left, she said she wanted to give me a going-away present and invited me to choose something. We spent a further fifteen minutes examining the many treasures she had�most of them quite small� and I can say with absolute certainty that, on that day� September 8�that room was full of ornaments.

  Unfortunately I am having huge difficulty persuading the police that the most likely explanation for the house being "empty" nine weeks later is that she was robbed. I have shown your letter to Sergeant James Drury�one of the officers who accompanied you that day�and he tells me that unless I can find someone who saw the interior during the week before her death, he must conclude, as you did, that she sold her possessions herself in order to buy drink. This was his most helpful contribution! Rather less helpful was his suggestion that my memory is at fault or, worse, that I am deliberately lying in order to gloss over my failure to safeguard the health of a patient. Neither is true. I cannot repeat often enough that the last time I saw Annie she was in good mental and physical health. There was no indication that she was drinking more than usual and certainly no evidence of incontinence.

  At the time of her death, I assumed that the only privileged knowledge I had about her was her medical history. However, I now realize I also had privileged information about the inside of her house because I was among the handful of people who were allowed beyond the front door. Even the vicar was made to stand on the doorstep because she mistrusted his perceived friendship with her neighbors. I have located a social worker who was shown into the sitting room in '77 but her description of it, although it accords with mine, has been ruled too out of date to be of value. Sergeant Drury dismisses your recollection of "vivid paintings," "peacock feathers" and "silhouette pictures" for the same reason�i.e., your last visit was in August '78�on the basis that three months was quite long enough for her to have disposed of the items herself.

  I won't bore you with my extreme irritation (and anger!) at having both my memory and my professional expertise questioned by a policeman who is clearly reluctant to reopen an old case, but I do wonder if you could try to picture to yourself what was on the right-hand side of the mantelpiece in the sitting room. The going-away present that Annie gave me came from there and, as I still have it, it would be very helpful indeed if I could demonstrate to Sergeant Drury that in this respect at least I am not "imagining things." A positive and unprompted memory from one of her few "friends" would be invaluable.

  It's only fair to tell you that I am extremely unimpressed by both Sergeant Drury and by the coroner, both of whom seem to have paid lip service to their responsibility for investigating Annie's death. While I wouldn't go so far as to say she was murdered�as I understand one of her neighbors did�I certainly believe she was reduced to a state of extreme anxiety by having her house invaded and her treasured possessions stolen. This, in turn, may have led to the deterioration in her circumstances and the overindulgence in alcohol, which was a contributory factor in her death.

  Yours sincerely,

  Sheila Arnold

  Dr. Sheila Arnold

  WHITE COTTAGE, LITTLEHAMPTON, NR

  PRESTON, LANCASHIRE

  Dr. Sheila Arnold

  39 Lyvedon Avenue

  Richmond

  Surrey

  March 24, 1983

  Dear Dr. Arnold.

  I regret I cannot remember the mantelpiece at all, nor what was on it, but my wife has reminded me that one of the pictures in the sitting room was a framed mosaic of an Aztec god�Quetzalcoatl�otherwise known as the plumed serpent or feathered snake. My wife is a lover of D. H. Lawrence's work and apparently I told her after one of my visits to Graham Road that Miss Butts owned an extraordinary mosaic of "The Plumed Serpent." Sadly, 1 can barely remember either the picture or the conversation, but my wife is adamant that it was "the mad black woman with the cats" who had the Quetzalcoatl on her wall.

  Trusting this will be of help,

  Yours sincerely,

  John Hewlett

  Correspondence between Dr. Sheila Arnold and

  Richmond Police�dated 1983

  39 LYVEDON AVENUE, RICHMOND, SURREY

  Sergeant J. Drury

  Richmond Police Station

  Richmond

  Surrey

  May 25,
1983

  Dear Sergeant Drury,

  Re Miss Ann Butts, 30 Graham Road, Richmond, Surrey

  Following numerous conversations with you, both in person and on the telephone, I have become increasingly angry about your refusal to investigate the possible theft of property from Miss Ann Butts prior to her death on 14.11.78. In the absence of any other explanation, I am forced to conclude that Richmond Police are as indifferent to Miss Butts today as they clearly were at the time of her death.

  It is unacceptable to say, as you did on the telephone this morning, that "anyone as mad as Mad Annie could easily have blown a fortune on drink over a nine-week period." As your own report from the time states, she had Ł4,000 in her bank account and Ł15,000 in a building society. Therefore there was no necessity for her to sell her prized possessions as you claim she must have done. Nor can I stress too strongly that Tourette's syndrome is not a form of insanity, but rather an inability to control certain motor functions, and the fact that Miss Butts made faces and muttered to herself in no way affected her intelligence.

  I am now convinced that her extraordinarily rapid decline must have been due to her house being ransacked in the week before her death. I have said to you many times that an invasion of her property would have triggered extreme anxiety because of her compulsive�therefore uncontrollable�obsession with home and personal security, and it is pointless to keep arguing that she would have called the police if such an invasion had happened. All strangers worried her, including officials in uniform (c.f. John Howlett's letter, dated March 7, '83) and if you and your colleagues treated her while she was alive with the sort of indifference you seem to be demonstrating now, she would have had no reason to trust you. In this one respect�trusting strangers�Ann's behavior could be described as irrational but only because obsessive behavior is compulsive. In all other respects her behavior was normal.