The Devil's Feather

by Minette Walters

  “One moment.” There was a pause. “Yes, I can confirm Mrs. Marianne Burns paid her account at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Did she say where she was going…leave a number for me to call?”

  “May I ask what your name is, madam?”

  “Connie…Connie Burns. I’m her daughter.”

  “I’ll check for you.” Another pause. “I’m sorry, Ms. Burns. There are no messages and no forwarding address. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No…yes,” I corrected immediately. “Did anyone come to collect her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “We’re a big hotel, Ms. Burns. Guests come and go all the time. We don’t keep track of their movements.”

  “Then can you check if there was a phone call to her room? And if so, is there any way of finding out where it came from? I don’t understand why she left.”

  “I’m sorry,” the man said again with pseudo-regret. “We can’t divulge private information about our guests. Would you like me to make a note that you called in case your mother returns?”

  I thanked him and rang off, then redialled the flat and my father’s mobile. I left messages on both phones, just saying, “Please call me,” and for good measure sent a text to his mobile: “Where are you? What’s happening? Mum has checked out. Am worried. C.” I hoped he’d remember to call the landline, but as I climbed down the loft ladder, I placed my mobile on the frame of the trapdoor opening. There was enough of a signal for it to ring, although I wasn’t optimistic about reaching it before the messaging service kicked in. It was worth a try, however.

  Of course I assumed MacKenzie was involved in some way-I was too paranoid not to-although I didn’t understand why that should have resulted in my mother leaving her hotel. How could he know where she was unless my father told him? I had enough faith in Dad to believe he’d sacrifice every fingernail before he put my mother in danger. And why would MacKenzie ask the question anyway? Why bother with my mother when it was me he wanted? It didn’t make sense.

  I kept telling myself the more likely explanation was that Mum had staged her own little mutiny and decided to go back to the flat. But in that case why weren’t they answering the phone? I stood irresolutely on the landing, wondering what to do. Wait a couple of hours in case they’d gone out for a meal? Try to contact Alan? Call the local police and ask them to check the flat? Even Alan wouldn’t take me seriously. Only a madwoman reports her parents missing after half an hour’s attempt to locate them.

  Despite being convinced my mobile would ring the minute I was out of earshot, I went downstairs to see if my mother had emailed. She hadn’t. There was nothing new from her since Thursday afternoon. I played the answerphone in case I’d missed a call but the only messages were those I’d already heard. On the off-chance that she’d decided to return to their previous hotel, I phoned there, only to be told Mr. and Mrs. Burns had left the previous morning. I even tried my father’s office, while knowing that no one would answer at eight o’clock on a Saturday night.

  It’s said that our minds can process fifty thousand thoughts a day. I’ve no idea if this is true, or how thoughts can be counted, but I do know that trying to pre-guess events within a knowledge vacuum creates intolerable anxiety. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself that “no news” is “good news,” your brain will always assume the worst. And in the end your instinct goes with what you know to be true.

  Shit happens.

  Extracts from notes, filed as “CB16-19/05/04”

  …I think there were three dogs and I guessed they were Alsatians because that was the breed I saw in the office with MacKenzie at the Baghdad academy. I could feel their breath against the tops of my thighs when they stood around me, so they were the right size for Alsatians. On a couple of occasions he encouraged them to lick me and I heard the camcorder running

  (can’t deal with that at the moment)

  …So much depended on MacKenzie being able to control them. So much depended on him being willing to control them. I don’t know if he was clever enough to understand the psychology of that, or if he’d learnt the technique from the torturers and murderers he’d worked with, but I was ready to do anything rather than face those dogs. It’s why I came to love the crate. Being in a cage offered safety in a way that nothing else did…

  14

  IN THE DYING days of apartheid I wrote a piece on South African gold-miners with silicosis and emphysema. Statistics suggested that more blacks contracted the diseases because they worked deeper in the mines and had a higher exposure to silica dust after blasting, but it was surprisingly hard to find long-term black sufferers although I interviewed a number of elderly white men with the complaints.

  When I asked a doctor why whites seemed to survive longer with respiratory problems-expecting to be told they had access to better medication-he explained it in terms of exertion. “The more demands anyone makes on his body, the more oxygen he needs. If a black with emphysema could sit in a chair all day, and be waited on hand and foot by a maid, he’d survive just as long. When a man can’t breathe, it kills him just to get up and cook a meal.”

  I thought of that doctor as I waded through treacle, trying to gather weapons together. He should have added that failing to cook a meal will also kill you since any engine will seize up without fuel. On my trip to retrieve the axe, I succumbed to the double whammy of uncontrollable anxiety fluttering in my chest and a two-stone weight loss in three months, and folded wearily onto a pile of logs in the woodshed. It was laughable to think about whirling an axe at MacKenzie when I barely had the energy to carry it back to the house.

  Ahead of me, fifty metres across the grass, was the fishpond where Jess had found Lily. I stared at it for several minutes as something to focus on and, because Lily was less alarming to think about than MacKenzie, I began wondering about her again. What had taken her there on a cold winter’s night? Peter had said there was no logic to Alzheimer’s wandering-she may have been acting out a memory or following an imperative to feed the long-dead fish-and had slipped and fallen. It could have happened anywhere.

  For once, Jess agreed with him. “If Madeleine had been around, I wouldn’t have put it past her to give Lily a push-solve all her problems in one fell swoop-but she wasn’t.” She shrugged. “There used to be fish in the pond but I don’t remember Lily ever feeding them. Maybe she just wanted to see if they were still there.”

  Because I was sitting in the woodshed, it occurred to me that Lily might have come out to collect logs for the fire. Whatever Peter said about logic, it was the obvious thing to do on a cold night, and the pond would have proved an easy distraction because it was so close. I still didn’t understand why she hadn’t moved herself into the kitchen. The Aga threw out more warmth than any of the fires and required no effort to keep it burning as long as there was oil in the tank. Why hadn’t an instinct for survival triumphed over snobbery and dementia?

  I even wondered if some forgotten memory had prompted her to look for water in the well beneath me. It was dismantled and long-redundant, covered over by the wooden planks that the logs sat on, and I only knew it was there because Jess had told me. She said it was her grandmother’s job to draw the water and heat it for the family’s baths before the house was put on a mains supply. Could Lily’s dementia have taken her back fifty years and sent her outside to look for bathwater?

  Fate has a strange way of propelling us forward. I was very close at that moment to unravelling Lily’s riddle, even closer when thoughts of hot baths reminded me that I hadn’t checked the oil since I arrived. It seemed a good time to do it, as the door was just behind me. Perhaps, too, I was curious to see if Jess had returned the scullery keys to the hook behind the tank. Propping the axe against the door jamb, I unlatched the door and pulled it open.

  The sun was touching the distant horizon but there was still enough light to show the tank inside the outhouse, t
hough not enough to read the gauge. I felt around for a switch, and in the process dislodged a sheaf of flimsy papers that were fixed to a wooden upright by a drawing-pin. They fluttered apart as they fell, but when I finally located a switch and was able to gather them up again, I saw they were receipts of some sort from the oil supplier. I couldn’t believe they were important since one was dated 1995, but as the drawing-pin had vanished, I tucked them into my pocket to take back into the house.

  Having satisfied myself that the gauge was registering over half full and there were no keys on the hook behind the tank, I killed the bulb again. But either my eyes had trouble readjusting or night had fallen during the few minutes I was inside. I realized suddenly how little I could actually see. With no artificial light anywhere, not even in the house because the sun had still been shining when I left it, the garden was a place of stygian shadow.

  With shaking hands I recovered the axe and turned towards the path. As I did so the overhead lamp came on in the kitchen, and I saw Jess walk past the window. My immediate feeling was relief, until I saw the gleam of her dogs’ pale coats in the backwash of light and realized they were between me and the house. With nowhere else to go, I stepped back and felt for the outhouse latch again.

  Mastiffs can move with extraordinary speed. They covered the ground long before I had the door open. I doubt I’d have been able to use the axe if they’d attacked me-I wouldn’t have had time-but I raised it to shoulder height in preparation. Faced with a visible threat, my brain persuaded me to show some courage for the first time in weeks.

  “Get down!” I growled. “NOW! Or I’ll beat your fucking brains out.”

  Perhaps eyes are the key. Perhaps they saw real intent in mine because, amazingly, they dropped to their bellies in front of me. Jess claimed afterwards that it’s what she’d trained them to do, but their obedience was so immediate that I lowered the axe. I’d have accepted an indefinite stand-off if one of them hadn’t started inching towards me.

  I thought briefly about calling for Jess, but I didn’t want to alarm the dogs with loud noises, and chose instead to put myself on their level by sitting down. I can only explain it by instinct, because logic was telling me I’d have more authority standing up. I remember thinking I’d appear less afraid if I could hold a rock-steady position on the ground with my back against the outhouse door.

  Which is how Jess found me, ten minutes later, shivering, cross-legged with three great muzzles in my lap, and two of the male dogs using my shoulders as leaning posts. I don’t recall what I said to them, but it was a long and rather aimless conversation, punctuated by a lot of stroking. In the time I sat there, I became an expert on mastiffs. They have a drooling and flatulence problem, they snort and wheeze, and the boys roll over at the drop of a hat to expose their extremely large testicles.

  I watched Jess approach with a torch. “Are you OK?” she asked.

  “MacKenzie knows about dogs,” I told her. “If I can do this, he’ll have them eating out of his hand in a minute flat.”

  “They’ve got you penned in, haven’t they? Try standing up.”

  “They’re too heavy.”

  “Point made then.” She clicked her fingers and motioned them to stand behind her. “They’d have barked if you’d tried to move, and I’d have found you a lot quicker. What are you doing out here?”

  I nodded to the axe which was lying on the ground where I’d left it. “Looking for weapons.”

  She stooped to pick it up. “I’d forgotten Lily had that. I’ve brought you a few things from the farm. There’s a couple of baseball bats that belonged to my brother and a lead-weighted walking-stick. I’d lend you a gun but you’d probably shoot yourself by mistake.” She eyed my rigid posture. “Are you coming back in?”

  “What about the dogs?”

  Jess shrugged. “It’s up to you. We can leave them out here or take them inside. But I’ll tell you this for free, if you’d had Bertie in the house earlier, I’d never have been able to reach your bedroom without him hearing me.”

  “I meant, will they do something if I move?”

  “You won’t know unless you try.”

  “Can’t you shut them in the hall?”

  “No.” She turned away but not before her teeth flashed in a smile. “If you can sit with their heads in your lap, you won’t have a problem walking past them.”

  THE MOST DRAMATIC THERAPY for phobias is “flooding,” where a person is immersed in the fear reflex until the fear starts to fade. It’s a form of familiarization. The longer you’re exposed to what you fear, the less anxious you feel. It doesn’t work for everyone, and it wouldn’t work for me if I was locked in a cellar again with some Alsatians, but I did relax with the mastiffs. It’s hard to be frightened of an animal that wags its tail every time you stroke its head. “Is this Bertie?”

  Jess glanced sideways from where she was cooking a fry-up on the Aga. “No, that’s Brandy. There are two bitches-Brandy and Soda-and three boys-Whisky, Ginger and Bertie. I wanted Lily to call Bertie ‘Jack Daniels’ but she wouldn’t do it. He’s the one with his chin on your feet.”

  “Do they fight?”

  “The bitches did once…frightened themselves so much, they’ve never tried again.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Let them get on with it. They’d have had a go at me if I’d put myself between them.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Sure. There’s nothing worse than a dogfight. It’s the noise-sounds as if they’re killing each other-but most of it’s for show. They’re hoping to scare each other off before they do any real damage.” She broke some eggs into the frying pan. “Did MacKenzie’s dogs fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “What breed were they?”

  “I never saw them. Alsatians, I think.”

  “How did he get them to fight?” She glanced at me again when I didn’t answer. “You said in your email to Alan Collins that you thought they were police dogs, but police dogs don’t fight. It’d cause mayhem if they started attacking each other in the middle of a riot. They’re selected for their temperaments, and the aggressive ones get booted out PDQ. They’ll bring a man down but they won’t kill him.”

  “He threw them something…said it was food…but it was alive because I heard it screaming.”

  “Twisted fucker,” she said in disgust. “It was probably another dog…a little one that tried to defend itself. I’ve seen a Jack Russell take on a Rottweiler when it was backed into a corner.” She put the eggs onto plates with bacon and tomatoes. “Did he set the dogs on you?”

  “No.”

  “But you thought he was going to?”

  “Yes.”

  She handed me a plate. “I’d have been frightened, too,” was all she said before joining me at the table and lapsing into her usual silence while she ate.

  To break it, I told her about my failed attempts to get hold of my parents. “I don’t suppose the phone rang while I was outside?” I asked.

  “Nn-nn. I spotted your mobile when I went up the ladder to see if you were in the loft. If you’re expecting them to call on that, you’ll have a job hearing it downstairs.”

  “I know. Did my mother say anything to you about checking out?”

  “Not that I remember, but it’ll be on that piece of paper if she did.”

  I felt in my pocket for Jess’s note, and pulled out a handful of receipts at the same time. “It just seems so odd…and very unlike her. She hates missing calls. And why get you involved? She could have left a message here.” I isolated the note but there was nothing more than Jess had already told me.

  “She said you weren’t listening to them.”

  “I always listen. I don’t necessarily answer.”

  “Maybe that’s what your parents are doing. Teaching you a lesson.”

  “It’s not their style.”

  Jess’s response was predictably blunt. “So phone the police. If your gut’s telling you something’s wr
ong, then something’s wrong. Talk to this Alan bloke. He’ll know what to do.”

  “He’ll say I’m being ridiculous.” I checked my watch. “It’s barely an hour and a half since I made the first call to Dad. The chances are Ma got bored and went back to the flat, and they’ve gone out for a meal because there’s no food in the fridge.”

  “Why are you worrying then?”

  “Because-” I broke off. “I’ll have another go on the mobile.” I stood up and pulled the remaining slips from my pocket. “I knocked these down while I was in the outhouse. I think they’re receipts for the oil. Do you know if they’re supposed to be in date order?”

  Jess turned the pile to read the top slip. “They’re delivery notes. Burtons’ driver leaves them by the tank to show he’s been, and when the bill arrives you check the delivery note matches what you’re paying for. Lily never bothered to bring hers in, so these probably go back years.”

  I looked over her shoulder, curious to see Lily’s signature. “Why aren’t any of them signed?”

  “She never bothered. I don’t either. The driver just whacks it in and leaves.” She looked amused at my expression. “Dorset folk are pretty honest. They might go in for a bit of poaching but they don’t try to cheat the oil suppliers. There’d be no point if they ended up on a blacklist.”

  “What about the supplier short-changing the customer?”

  “That’s what the gauge is for. If you don’t check it, you deserve to be ripped off.”

  “On that basis any victim of theft deserves it. We should all live behind security fences with multiple bolts on our doors.”

  “Too right. Or kill any bastard who breaks in.” She eyed me for a moment. “You get what you ask for in life…and victims are no different.”

  “Is that a dig at me?”

  She shrugged. “Not necessarily…it depends how long you plan to let this psycho mess with your mind.”