The Devil`s Feather

by Minette Walters

  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 wrong, 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.”

  As I left her sorting the notes by da
te, I tried to imagine any other circumstance that would have allowed us to become friends. Assuming she’d been willing to talk to me if I’d met her socially—and I couldn’t conceive of that happening except in an interview—her uncompromising attitudes would have had me heading for the door very quickly. Yet the better I came to know her, the better I understood that her intention was to empower and not to censure.

  She did it clumsily, in bald, clipped sentences which often followed a prolonged silence, and the views she expressed could be woundingly blunt, but there was no malice in her. Unlike Madeleine, I thought, as I reached the top of the stairs and looked at the photograph at the other end of the landing. One of the messages on the answerphone had come from her two days ago. It was full of exaggerated emphasis and dripping with innuendo and spite, and I hadn’t bothered to respond to it.

  “Marianne…It’s Madeleine Harrison-Wright. I’ve been meaning to ring for ages. Peter’s taken me to task for being naughty”—a playful laugh—“he says I shouldn’t have broken Jess’s confidence in the way I did. I do apologize. It’s difficult to know what’s for the best sometimes.” A pause. “A lot of it was Mummy’s fault of course…it’s not fair to play with people’s affections…pretending to love them one moment and showing how bored you are the next. It always leads to problems in the long run. Still…I said more than I should. Will you forgive me? Peter’s talking about having a supper party for me when I come down next week. Will I see you there?” Her voice faded into another little laugh. “I think I’ve been cut off…I’m so bad with these machines. Call me back if nothing I’ve said makes sense. My number’s…”

  As far as I was concerned it made perfect sense. Roughly translated, it meant: “Peter and I are so intimate that: a) he talks about his patients; b) he has permission to tick me off for naughtiness; c) he repeated what you said to him; and d) he’s planning to wine and dine me, but won’t be inviting you. While making a token apology for breaking confidences, I am also confirming that what I said when we met is true. Jess has serious problems. PS. I know exactly how to use these machines but I think it’s more attractive to laugh and pretend I don’t.”

  It made me question Peter’s role again. Were he and Madeleine genuinely as close as she was suggesting? And if so, was he two-timing Jess? What sort of relationship did he and Jess have? I could well believe Peter was a serial philanderer on the evidence of the two nurses he’d bedded while he was still married to the inept ex-wife, but I found it harder to believe he’d cheat on Jess with her worst enemy.

  It may have been that my brain worked better on a full stomach but, looking at Madeleine’s photograph, I thought how all the artistry was Jess’s. The setting. The lighting. The captured sweetness of Madeleine’s face. Move it on five clicks and the sun would have gone behind a cloud, Madeleine’s chin would have been buried in her collar, and the photograph would have been rather more sinister—an unrecognizable, black-coated figure against a raging sea.

  “I only did it to make Lily happy…”

  But why would a mother need a photograph of her daughter looking pretty? Were the other pictures unflattering? Was it the only one Lily had? I couldn’t work it out at all. I didn’t understand either why Madeleine had left it in Barton House. If it had been a portrait of me, I’d have kept it for myself. I asked Jess once if Madeleine had the negative, and she said, no, it was in a box somewhere at the farm.

  “Is this the only print?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why doesn’t Madeleine have it in her own house?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Because you took it?”

  She didn’t deny it, merely added: “Lily refused to have any of Nathaniel’s stuff on her walls. I expect that had something to do with it as well.”

  “Has Nathaniel ever seen this?”

  “Sure.”

  “What does he think of it?”

  “The same as me. There’s too much sweetness in her face. It doesn’t look anything like Madeleine.”

  “Why should that matter? It’s very striking…very dramatic. It’s not important who the woman is.”

  Jess looked amused. “That’s why Madeleine hates it.”

  15

  “YOU SEEM HAPPIER,” said Jess when I returned to the kitchen. “Did you get through?”

  “I didn’t try. There was a text waiting.” I put the mobile on the table in front of her so that she could read it. All fine. Ma with me. Nothing to worry about. Call soon. Dad. “I’m not sure if he wants me to phone them or vice versa, but at least they’re OK.”

  “That’s good. Do you have any more of these slips in your pockets?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I thought I’d put them back in order for you…but there seems to be one missing.” She turned the pile towards me. “The last note’s dated November 2003, but there should be one from 2004. Lily didn’t go into the home until January but the oil tank was full when I lit the Aga for you.”

  “I expect it’s still in the outhouse…or I dropped it on the way back.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve just checked. There’s nothing. It’s very odd.”

  I noticed the dogs had gone, so I guessed she’d taken them with her and left them outside. “Presumably the agent has it…or Madeleine…or Lily’s solicitor. Who would the bill have been sent to?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned. “The solicitor, I suppose—the house still belongs to Lily so he’s in charge—but how did he get the delivery note without being here when the driver came?”

  “How do you know he wasn’t?”

  “I don’t for sure, but wouldn’t he have taken all of these at the same time?” She gestured towards the pile. “He cleared out everything else. I was here when he did it. He wanted all Lily’s papers…bank statements…receipts…the works…and it had to be done before Madeleine showed up and tried to burn the evidence.”

  I resumed my seat. “What evidence?”

  “Anything that showed what a grasping bitch she was. Old cheque-books, mostly.” She fixed me with her unwavering stare. “The other odd thing is that the valve was turned off at the oil tank. I should have thought about it at the time but I didn’t—I just assumed it was something the agent had insisted on. Like when you hire a car, you get a full tank and there’s no arguing about it.” She fell silent.

  “Why should that be odd? It sounds quite sensible to me.”

  “Because it’s pointless. The valve’s only there in case of accidents, not to regulate the flow of oil to the Aga. There’s a governor near the burner for that.” She paused. “Did you ever read those instructions the agent gave you? Did they tell you the valve was closed?”

  “I can’t remember but it’s easily checked.” I nodded to the drawer by her right shoulder. “They’re in there…brown envelope. I think I skipped the Aga page because you’d already done it.”

  She pulled out the stapled pages and flicked through them. “OK, here it is. ‘Aga. Location…Functions…Recipe books…Cleaning…’ Well, one thing’s for sure, Madeleine never wrote this. It’s far too organized.” She ran her finger down a few lines. “ ‘Instructions for lighting.’ ” She read them in silence. “These wouldn’t help anyone—they’re straight out of a recent Aga manual and Lily bought hers second-hand about thirty years ago. It doesn’t say anything about having to open the valve first, which it should do if the agent closed it.”

  I couldn’t see what she was getting at. “I expect it’s a standard page for all rented property with Agas. If I’d complained at the beginning, they’d have sent someone out to fix the problem, and then rewritten the instructions. You said Madeleine didn’t know how to light it, so presumably she never told them there was a trick to it.”

  “But who closed the valve?” she asked. “The solicitor didn’t—he never went outside—and the agent didn’t or he’d have mentioned it in here.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps he forgot.”

  “Or didn’t know.” She looked a
t the pile of slips again. “I think it was turned off at the end of November. I’ll bet you any money you like that’s when the last delivery was made. That’s why the tank was full. Lily never used any of the oil because the Aga was out.”

  “She wouldn’t have had any hot water…wouldn’t have been able to cook.”

  “Right.”

  I watched her for a moment. “So what are you saying, that she turned it off herself? Why would she do that?”

  “She wouldn’t,” said Jess slowly. “I doubt she even knew there was a valve…she was pretty ignorant about how things worked. In any case, the wheel was stiff when I turned it, and she had arthritis in her wrists—” She lapsed into a thoughtful silence. “I suppose she might have started worrying about the cost and asked the driver to do it.”

  “But she wouldn’t have done that after he’d filled the tank. Not unless she’d lost the plot completely. She’d be billed anyway. Surely she’d have let it run dry…wouldn’t have called him at all…just waited till the Aga went out of its own accord.”

  Jess ran her fingers into her hair and tugged ferociously at her fringe. “Then it must have been Madeleine. There’s no one else who would have done it. My God! She really is a bitch. She probably hoped Lily would die of hypothermia.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “No wonder she went downhill so rapidly—Peter’s never understood that, you know—” Her frown gathered ferocity. “It would explain why she went looking for warmth in other people’s houses. She probably wanted a bath. They said she washed herself.”

  There was a perverted kind of logic to it although it posed more questions than it answered. “Why didn’t she tell someone?”

  “Who?”

  “Peter? You?”

  “I stopped coming and told her not to phone me anymore. She tried once or twice but I wiped the messages without listening to them.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head, unwilling to answer that question. “She wouldn’t have told Peter,” she answered instead. “She was terrified he’d tell Madeleine she couldn’t cope. She was convinced she’d end up in an institution somewhere, wearing incontinence pads and tied to a chair. She kept newspaper clippings about old people being abused in homes after their relatives lost interest. It was sad.”