“What kind of information?”
“Anything. Madeleine lived here for over twenty years, don’t forget. I’m sure she’ll be asked if she has any ideas where MacKenzie might have gone. That’s the only thing Bagley’s interested in.”
Maybe champagne was as potent for me after four days of alcohol-abstinence as it was for Jess after twelve years, because my first instinct was to laugh. “Do you have any idea how much it would piss me off to have Madeleine muscle in on the act? People might think we were friends.”
Jess grinned. It was the widest smile I’d ever see on her face. “She told Peter she’s coming here first to see how much damage was done. Do you want to play my trump card?”
It might have been my mother speaking. Was bridge a metaphor for life? “Which one? You hold so many. Cousinship…Lily…Peter…Nathaniel…What matters most to her?”
Jess tapped her foot on the quarry tile floor. “Barton House,” she said. “Lily rewrote her will at the same time she reassigned power of attorney to her solicitor. She gave him complete freedom to realize any of her assets to pay nursing-home fees, but if on her death Barton House still remains in her estate it’s to come to me.”
I looked at her amazement. “So what does Madeleine get?”
“Whatever money’s left after all the bills have been paid.”
“I thought you said there wasn’t any money.”
“There isn’t…but there would be if the solicitor sold the house and invested the capital. It’s worth about one point five million, and as soon as it’s converted to cash it becomes part of Madeleine’s inheritance, not mine.”
“God!” I took a swig of alcohol to oil my brain. “So why is she blocking the sale?”
“Because she doesn’t know the will’s been changed. Neither of us was supposed to know. Lily only told me because she thought I was Gran. She said Madeleine would win or lose depending on how greedy she was…and if the house ended up with me then so be it.” Jess tugged at her fringe. “I told you it was a mess,” she said ruefully. “I tried to get Lily to change her mind, but it was too late by then. She didn’t know what I was talking about five minutes later.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t inventing it? Perhaps it was a fantasy will…something she’d like to have done, but never did.”
“I don’t think so. I phoned the solicitor and said, if it was true, I didn’t want to be involved, but instead of denying it-which he could have done-he said I had to take it up with Lily.”
“Did you tell him she was gaga?”
She sighed. “No. I was afraid he’d come piling in to take charge and the will would have been set in stone. I thought if I stayed away Lily might have some lucid days, and Madeleine would get back into favour. I even wrote to the silly bitch and told her I’d fallen out with her mother…but she didn’t act on it. If anything it encouraged her to neglect the poor old thing even more. She really did want her dead, you know.”
I wondered why she thought I needed convincing. It would take a lot to make me doubt Jess’s word on anything. You don’t face danger with someone only to start mistrusting them afterwards. “Why don’t you want the house?” I asked curiously. “It’s worth a bob or two. You could sell it and buy more land.”
Another shake of her head. “I can’t manage any more. In any case, Madeleine’s bound to contest it…and what kind of hell will that be? I’m damned if I’ll have a DNA test to prove I’m related to her. I don’t even want it known.”
“Have you told Peter?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Not even Nathaniel?”
She took another sip of champagne, but I couldn’t tell if her look of disgust was for the liquid or for Madeleine’s husband. “No, but I think he guessed. When I told him about the power of attorney, he kept asking if the will had been changed as well. I said I didn’t know-” She broke off in irritation. “He really bugged me that night…said I owed him a second chance because he’d supported me through the folks’ death. Bloody joke, eh?”
I was tempted to ask, why that night in particular? Nathaniel Harrison would have bugged me every night. Instead, I said: “Was this before or after your letter to Madeleine?”
“After.”
“Then I’ll bet she put him up to it…or, more likely, came with him. Maybe they started on Lily and couldn’t get any sense out of her, so Nathaniel tried you. You take everything he tells you on trust, Jess, but-seriously-what kind of man would leave an old lady to freeze to death just because he was annoyed with her? At the very least, he should have had a rethink the next day and phoned you or Peter to check she was all right.”
“I know,” she agreed, “and I’m not trying to defend him, but if he told Madeleine about the power of attorney why didn’t she do something about it?”
“Maybe she did. Maybe she and Nathaniel put the fear of God into Lily to make her change her mind. If you want to coerce an old woman into doing what you want, turning off her heating supply is a good place to start.” I paused. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few days, Jess, and whichever way I look at it, I’m convinced Madeleine knows there’s a relationship between you. She’s too over the top about your family. If you’re not Down syndrome, syphilitic or servants, you’re tenants with bad genes who die young.”
“She got all that from Lily.”
“And the rest,” I said slowly. “Perhaps Lily felt lonely after her husband died and wanted to reconcile with her brother…and made the mistake of thinking her daughter would feel the same. Perhaps that’s what the allowance was about…compensation for being related to plebs.”
Jess threw me a withering look.
“It’s how Madeleine sees you. Lily, too, if you’re honest.”
“I know.” She glanced back down a bleak corridor of time. “She treated my father like dirt until Robert died, then she was all over him. Do this…do that…and he did it. I remember telling him he was embarrassing us. It’s the only time he shouted at me.”
“What did he say?”
Her eyes narrowed in memory. “That he’d expect a remark like that from Madeleine, but not from me. God! Do you suppose that’s what he had to put up with-Madeleine screaming and yelling and calling him an embarrassment? Poor old Pa. He wouldn’t have known what to do. He always ran away from arguments.”
“Did he know Lily asked you to take the photograph?”
She nodded. “He put pressure on me to do it because he said it would be kind. Lily was at the farm one day and saw some of my other stuff. She asked if I’d be willing to do one of Madeleine before she left for London. She wanted a portrait shot-the sort of things studios do”-Jess injected scorn into the words-“but I said I’d only do it if I could have the sea in the background.” She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
“And?”
Jess shrugged. “Madeleine spent most of the time scowling or simpering-all the other negatives are crap-but that one came out OK. It’s weird. I started off being halfway nice to her, but it wasn’t until I told her what I really thought of her that she turned and gave me that smile.”
“Perhaps she took it as proof that you didn’t know you were related to her. That would make her smile, wouldn’t it?” I raised inquiring eyebrows. “She was probably worried sick while you were being nice…particularly if it was out of character.”
Jess’s frown was ferocious. “Then she’s even more stupid than I thought she was. What makes her think I’d admit to having a talentless slapper for a cousin?”
I hid a smile. “So stop bellyaching. Move on. Let her go.”
“Is that what you’d do?”
“No.”
“What would you do?”
“Get her to retract every bit of slander she’d ever spread about me and my family, then tell her to go fuck herself.” I tipped my glass to her. “Personally, I can’t see it matters a damn whether you’re a Wright or a Derbyshire-to me you’re Jess, a unique individual-but
if the Derbyshire name means something to you then fight for it.”
“How can I?” she asked. “The minute I admit I’m a Wright, the Derbyshires cease to exist.”
I don’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I couldn’t identify with this view. I certainly wasn’t as sensitive towards her turmoil as I might have been, but I’ve never viewed labels as much of a guide to what’s in a package. “If you want to be pedantic, Jess, they ceased to exist when your father was born. The last surviving member was your great-grandfather, an alcoholic blackmailer who saw an opportunity to grab some land and took it. It was probably the single most effective thing a Derbyshire ever did, but I guarantee the farm would be a wasteland today if your father hadn’t come as part of the deal.”
She stared unhappily at her hands. “That’s worse than anything Madeleine’s ever said.”
“Except the Wrights are no better,” I went on. “The only one who had any get-up-and-go was the old boy who bought the house and the valley, but his successors were a useless bunch-lazy…mercenary…self-obsessed. By some fluke, probably because your grandmother’s genes were so strong, your father didn’t inherit those traits-and neither have you-but Madeleine has them in spades.”
“So? It still doesn’t make me a Derbyshire.”
“But it’s a good name, Jess. Your grandmother, father and mother were happy with it…your brother and sister, too, presumably. I don’t understand why you’re so unwilling to fight for it.”
She rubbed her head in confusion. “I am. That’s why I don’t want any of this to get out.”
“It won’t,” I said, “not if you keep it between you and Madeleine.”
Her unhappiness grew. “You mean blackmail her?”
“Why not? It worked for the Derbyshires last time.”
21
I HAD TO admire Madeleine’s flair for duplicity. She appeared with a concerned smile at eleven o’clock the next morning and said she’d just come from Peter, who’d been telling her about the awful events of the previous weekend. She looked cool and pretty in a white cotton shirtwaist, and I thought how well she confirmed my mother’s advice that no one should judge a book by its cover.
“I had no idea you and Barton House were involved until I spoke to Peter,” she said with convincing sincerity. “The papers talked about Dorset, but didn’t specify where. You must have been terrified, Connie. This man sounds appallingly violent.”
She used my name with casual ease, even though it was only a few days since she’d left a message calling me Marianne. “Come in,” I invited, pulling the door open. “How nice to see you.” She had no monopoly on duplicity.
Her eyes darted about, looking for anything unusual, and she found it immediately. Despite the efforts of a professional cleaner, brought in by the police, and further attempts by me and Jess the previous evening, the bloodstains on the unsealed flagstones and porous fifties wallpaper refused to come out. They were more the colour of mud than freshly spilt haemoglobin, but it didn’t take much imagination to work out what they were.
Madeleine clapped her hands to her mouth and gave a little cry. “Oh, my goodness!” she squeaked. “Whatever’s happened here?”
It was a girly response-the sort of thing clichéd actresses do-but it was genuine enough to persuade me that Peter hadn’t told her much. If anything at all. Jess had been certain the previous evening that, when it came to taking sides, he’d pick me and her over Madeleine, but I wasn’t so easily convinced. In my experience he had verbal diarrhoea where Madeleine was concerned.
I led her towards the green baize door. “Didn’t Peter tell you?” I asked in surprise. “How very strange of him.”
“Is it blood?” she demanded, her heels pecking across the flagstones behind me. “Did someone die?”
I shook my head, pushing open the door and ushering her through. “Nothing so dramatic. Jess’s dogs had a fight and one of them was wounded. It looks worse than it is.” I shepherded her down the corridor. “Would you like a coffee?” I asked, pulling out a chair for her. “Or are you caffeined out on Peter’s espressos?”
She ignored me to wave her hand rather wildly towards the hall. “It can’t stay like that,” she protested. “What will prospective tenants think?”
I retreated to the worktop. “I’m told the flagstones will come up good as new if the top layer is sanded off,” I said, ostentatiously lighting a cigarette. “I’ll have it done before I leave.”
“What about the walls?”
“Those, too.”
She looked suspiciously around the kitchen and I wondered if she’d noticed the faint hum that was coming from the scullery, or the two loops of fabric tape at either end of the Aga rail. “What were the dogs fighting about?”
I shrugged. “Whatever dogs usually fight about. I’m not much of an expert, I’m afraid. Should I stick to the same colour scheme, or would your mother’s solicitor prefer something different?”
“I don’t-” she stopped abruptly. “Did it happen while this man was here?”
“Didn’t Peter tell you?”
She folded herself on to the chair, placing her bag on the floor beside her feet. “Not every detail. I think he wanted to shield me from the worst.”
“Why?”
“Presumably because he didn’t want to worry me.”
“I see.”
She had trouble with short answers. In her world everyone played the game and readily divulged their scrubby little pieces of gossip. She forced a smile. “Peter’s so sweet. He kept it as low-key as possible to avoid upsetting me but the truth is, I’d rather have had the details. It is my house, after all.”
“Oh dear,” I murmured, tapping ash into the sink, which brought an immediate scowl to her face, “that means I’ve given the wrong information to the police. I told them it belonged to your mother. I believe Peter did as well. He even supplied them with the solicitor’s address…the one who has power of attorney.”
She kept the smile in place. Just. “It’s the family home.”
I nodded. “You told me last time.”
She opened her mouth as if to say, “Well then,” but seemed to think better of it. “The papers said this man-MacKenzie-held three people captive then escaped before the police arrived. Was Jess one of the three? You said her dogs were here.”
“I said they had a fight,” I corrected mildly.
“While MacKenzie was here?”
“Jess’s mastiffs are better guard dogs than that.”
Her impatience got the better of her. “Then who was here? You must see how worrying it is for me to know that a man broke in so easily with three people on the premises. Did one of them let him in? What did he want? Was he after something in the house?”
“Why don’t you ask your mother’s solicitor?” I suggested. “I’m sure he’ll be able to set your mind at rest. Or even the police. I can give you the name of the detective leading the inquiry.”
“I already know it,” she snapped. “I’ve asked to see him this afternoon.”
“Then there isn’t a problem,” I pointed out reasonably. “He’ll tell you as much as he can.”
She stared at me for a moment, trying to assess if there was any mileage in continuing, then with a shrug reached for her bag. “You’d think the crown jewels had been stolen the way everyone’s behaving.”
“Well, you can be reassured on that front at least,” I said with a small laugh. “MacKenzie didn’t think there was anything worth stealing…so your husband’s paintings are still here.”
She threw me a look of dislike. “Perhaps he was targeting my mother’s antiques. Perhaps he didn’t know she’d left.”
“That was Inspector Bagley’s first idea,” I agreed, “which is why he wanted a list of anything that had struck me as unusual since I took over the tenancy. I said there were several things…but I didn’t think they were connected with Saturday’s events.”
Madeleine froze. Only briefly, but enough for me t
o notice. “Like what?”
I blew a ring of smoke towards the ceiling. “The water had been turned off.”
It was a guess, much like the guesses I’d made about MacKenzie’s mother, but as I’d said to Jess the previous evening, why stop at turning off the Aga? Why not the water? I couldn’t get it out of my head that Jess had found Lily beside the fishpond. Or that memory might have told her there was a well under the logs in the woodshed. What was she doing outside at eleven o’clock at night? And why did she go to other people’s houses to clean her teeth and have a cup of tea?
“That wasn’t me,” Madeleine said abruptly, searching through her bag so that she wouldn’t have to look at me. “It must have been the agent. The stopcock’s under the sink. All you had to do was turn it back on again.”
“I didn’t mean it was off when I arrived,” I told her. “The taps in the kitchen were fine. The problem was upstairs. There was so much air in the water pipes to the bathroom taps that they all started banging. It scared the living daylights out of me.”
“It’s an old house,” she said carefully. “Mummy was always complaining about the pipes.”
“I called in a plumber because I was so worried, and the first thing he did was check the stopcock. According to him, air gets into a system when the main supply is interrupted and people keep trying the taps because they don’t understand why nothing’s coming out. Water runs out downstairs and air fills the void upstairs. He said it could only have happened while someone was living here…and that must have been your mother because the house was empty till I took it on.”
She took a tissue from her bag and touched it to the end of her nose. “I don’t know anything about the water system. All I know is that Mummy said the pipes were always banging.”
I was relying very heavily on the fact that she knew nothing about the water system. Or any other system. My “oddities” were courtesy of Jess. “Try Madeleine with the electricity as well,” she had said. “The night I found Lily, the house was in darkness and I couldn’t get the outside lights to work. That’s the main reason I took her back to the farm. I didn’t want to waste time trying to find out which of her fuses had blown. Everything was working fine the next day, and I rather forgot about it.”
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