The Devil`s Feather

by Minette Walters

  “You said I could walk in whenever I felt like it.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to take up residence here.”

  “Then shut your back door, Ms. Burns. It’s an open invitation to anyone to enter.” He offered me a cigarette. “After what happened, I’m surprised you’re so unconcerned about unwanted visitors.”

  It was a variation on a question he’d asked a hundred times already. I accepted a light. “I’m not unconcerned,” I answered patiently, “but the alternative is to turn this place into a prison. Is that what you want me to do? I thought modern policing was all about persuading victims to get back to normal as fast as possible.”

  “But this isn’t normality for you, Ms. Burns. Normality was checking the locks on the doors and windows every two hours.”

  “And a fat lot of good it did me,” I pointed out. “It raised my stress levels, and MacKenzie got in anyway.” I fingered the panic alarm round my neck. “In any case, I now have this. It’s given me confidence that the cavalry will turn up…which was the intention, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled rather sourly as he dropped into the armchair beside the desk. “Indeed, but I suspect it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money. Are you ever going to use it? Ms. Derbyshire refuses to wear hers.”

  “There’s no point when she’s out in the fields. It needs a landline or a telephone signal to work.”

  He cast his usual glance around the office as if something would suddenly show itself to him. “I had a word with Alan Collins last night. He said you’re too clever for me, and I might as well give up now. He also said he won’t be shedding any tears if MacKenzie’s never heard of again. If anyone deserves what he gets, it’s your attacker.”

  I doubted Alan had said anything so crass, particularly to an opposite number in a different county. “Really?” I asked in surprise. “I’ve always thought of him as such a stickler for the rule of law. I can’t imagine him ever going on record with favourable views about summary justice and vigilantism.”

  “It wasn’t on record,” Bagley said. “It was a private conversation.”

  “Still…will he repeat those remarks to me, do you think? I like the one about my being too clever for you. If I were to broaden that out into a general piece, contrasting IQ levels among the police with those of prison inmates—” I raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  “That you’re probably the most annoying person I’ve ever met,” he said grimly. “Why doesn’t it worry you to be interviewed, Ms. Burns? Why doesn’t it make you angry? Why don’t you have a solicitor? Why isn’t he arguing police harassment?”

  “He? If I had one, don’t you think he’d be a she?”

  Bagley flicked ash irritably into the ashtray on the desk. “There you go again. Everything has to be turned into a joke.”

  “But I enjoy your visits,” I said. “Winterbourne Barton’s a black hole as far as social interaction’s concerned.”

  “I’m not here to entertain you.”

  “But you do,” I assured him. “I love watching you poke around the garden looking for clues. Have you found anything yet? Jess says you keep going back to her granary, so presumably you’re wondering if we buried MacKenzie under a ton of wheat? It wouldn’t have been easy, you know. Grain’s like quicksand. We’d have had trouble lugging a corpse on to the heap without sinking in ourselves.”

  “She’s added another ton in the last couple of weeks.”

  “And it’s all about to be shifted to a commercial grain store. Don’t you think someone will notice if a body tumbles out?” I watched his mouth turn down. “I don’t understand why you can’t accept that he freed himself and took to his heels. Is it because you’d have killed him if you’d been in our shoes?”

  He took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette. “I’m sure you dreamt of revenge.”

  “All the time,” I said with a small laugh, “but it did me even less good than checking the window locks. I lost so much weight over it that I feel like an old hen about to drop off her perch. Look.” I extended a bony right arm. “If there’s any useful meat on me you’d need a microscope to find it. How could that”—I cocked my left forefinger at a grape-sized bicep—“vanish a corpse in thirty minutes?”

  He smiled reluctantly. “I’ve no idea. Would you like to tell me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell, but even if there were you wouldn’t be able to use it. You’re on your own and there’s no recorder. Anything I said would be inadmissible as evidence.”

  “For my own satisfaction then.”

  I glanced towards the hall. “I wanted to kill him,” I admitted. “I would have done if I’d been a better shot. I was aiming for his head when I hit his fingers…and the only reason I didn’t take another swipe was because it felt as if I’d been electrocuted when the axe slammed on to the flagstones. I had judders all the way up my arms and into the base of my neck. That’s when I decided it would be better to tie him up.”

  I squashed my fag end into the ashtray. “Jess wanted to kill him, too—she was devastated about Bertie—but we couldn’t see how to do it. Peter had already left and there wasn’t time to work anything out. I suggested we untie MacKenzie and argue self-defence, but Jess said we’d have to corner him to do it”—I sighed—“and I had this sudden picture of the women in Sierra Leone…all huddled against walls because there was nowhere else to go.” I fell silent.

  “Did Ms. Derbyshire agree with you?”

  “Yes. She said it might have been different if he’d been blindfolded but it wasn’t possible after she’d seen into his eyes.” I pulled a wry smile. “I don’t think it’s easy killing people. I don’t think it’s easy killing animals. I couldn’t kill a rat if it looked at me the way MacKenzie did. I can’t even kill woodlice. There’s a nest in some of the rotten wood in Lily’s drawing-room and the only way I can deal with them is to hoover them up and chuck them outside…”

  H. L. MENCKEN ONCE SAID: “It’s hard to believe a man is telling the truth when you know you would lie if you were in his place.” If I’d realized earlier that Bagley shied away from killing animals, I’d have introduced rats and woodlice at the beginning. His views on psychopaths and sadists were extreme—they should all be hanged—but he empathized strongly with my inability to crush the life out of vermin. I’m not sure I ever fully understood the logic of his argument, but apparently my clear reluctance to kill anything was more convincing than repeated denials that I’d killed MacKenzie.

  In a shameless PR exercise to encourage complete exoneration, I persuaded Jess to release her dogs in front of him. As she predicted, they headed straight up the field for Bertie’s grave and began a mournful howling around it. Bagley asked how they knew he was there and Jess said they’d attended the first funeral. Like elephants, they never forgot. Whether he believed that, I don’t know, but he declined her invitation to dig poor Bertie out a second time. The remaining dogs showed no inclination to go anywhere else in the valley, and had to be dragged away from the grave on leashes.

  After that, Bagley left us in peace. Alan was amused by the motives I ascribed to this sudden end to suspicion, saying it had more to do with an absence of evidence than Bagley being unable to kill woodlice, but I still feel I showed my best side as a woman when I mentioned the hoover.

  THE SECOND WEEK of September saw the arrival of my parents and the beginnings of an Indian summer after the rains of July and August. Jess took to them immediately, and in no time at all my father was up at the farm, lending a hand. My mother worried that he was over-exerting himself after his injuries, but Jess assured us he was only driving a tractor and helping Harry feed the livestock.

  The subject of MacKenzie was taboo. None of us wanted to talk about him or what had happened. For all of us, it was done and dusted, and there was nothing to be gained by conducting a ghoulish post-mortem on who had suffered the most. Nevertheless, within a few of days of her arrival, my mother read some signals that were invisible to me and sought out Peter for a long
chat.

  I’d hardly had any contact with him since the incident, but I assumed he was still making regular visits to Jess. She’d mentioned his attendance at Bertie’s exhumation, and defended him for some of the information he’d given Bagley, but, bar a phone call one evening to ask if I was all right, he hadn’t been near me. I remember cutting the conversation short when he insisted on beating himself up for sins of omission and commission, but as Bagley arrived shortly afterwards Peter dropped out of focus again.

  My mother gave me a hard time over it. I, more than anyone, should have understood how crippling it was to feel a failure. It was worse for men. They were expected to be courageous, and it destroyed their confidence to realize they weren’t. Tongue in cheek, I asked her if it would have been better for Peter if Jess and I had failed the bravery test as well, and she echoed Bagley’s statement about finding me deeply annoying.

  “I don’t like to see you gloating, Connie.”

  “I’m not gloating.”

  “I don’t like to see your father gloating either.”

  “He’s having fun,” I protested mildly. “Ploughing Jess’s fields is a lot more exciting than sitting at a desk all day.”

  “He’s been cock-a-hoop since you phoned him in hospital,” she said accusingly. “What did you say to him?”

  The demons are dead and buried… “Nothing much. Just that we’d all survived and MacKenzie had run away with his tail between his legs.”

  Mum was peeling some potatoes at the sink. “Why should that please him? He wanted the beastly man dead or behind bars, not free to do the same thing to someone else. I can’t understand why you’re all so unconcerned about him getting away. Aren’t you worried that he’ll murder some other poor woman?”

  I watched her busy hands and debated the merit of truth over lies. “Not really,” I said honestly. “It’s the age of the global village. The story’s gone round the world with his photograph, so he’ll be found very quickly if he’s alive. There are too many people looking for him.”

  She turned to look at me. “If?”

  “Wishful thinking,” I said.

  “Mmm.” A pause. “Perhaps that explains your father. He’s behaving like a schoolboy at the moment.”

  “Being on a farm reminds him of home.”

  “Except the last time he operated a tractor was twenty years ago,” she said. “We employed a workforce for ploughing…Dad was the boss man who drove a four-by-four and checked the furrows were straight.” She held my gaze for a moment before returning to the potatoes. “But I’m sure you’re right. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

  ONE AFTERNOON, Jess said she was going to visit Lily and asked if I’d like to go, too. I knew Jess went to the nursing home regularly, even though Lily had no idea who she was, but this was the first time she’d invited me to accompany her. I went out of curiosity—a desire to put a face to the personality I’d come to know—and I’m glad I did. Even though the fires that had driven her were now absent, Lily’s beauty was so much sweeter than her daughter’s. It proved nothing—for I firmly believe that looks are skin deep—but I did understand when she smiled why Jess was so fond of her. I’m sure the same bemused affection had been in Frank Derbyshire’s smile when his daughter had quietly taken his hand in hers, and stroked it without saying a word…

  IF I LIVE to be a hundred I’ll never understand my mother’s gift for socializing. When she and my father first arrived in London, they were on the Zimbabwean exiles’ dinner party list within hours of the plane landing. My father complained about it—“I hate being trapped at tables with people I’m never going to meet again”—but underneath he was secretly pleased. He had more in common with ex-pat farmers who had experienced Mugabe’s ethnic cleansing at first hand than he did with the London chattering classes who could only talk about their second homes in France.

  Suddenly, visitors started appearing at Barton House. I knew a few of them through Peter, but most I’d never seen before, and I certainly wasn’t on dropping-in terms with any of them. The first time anyone appeared—a jolly couple in their sixties from Peter’s end of the village—Jess was in the kitchen and, despite her best efforts to melt into the background, my mother drew her back out again. I warned her she’d scare Jess away if she wasn’t careful, but it didn’t happen. Jess turned up each evening with Dad, and seemed content to be quietly included in whatever was happening, albeit on the fringes.

  On a few occasions Julie, Paula and their children came too. Even old Harry Sotherton put in an appearance, and had to be driven home by my father after consuming more ale than he was used to. It reminded me so much of life in Zimbabwe where meals were regularly stretched to accommodate anyone who was passing. Jess was never going to be the life and soul of a party, but to see her held in genuine affection by the people who knew her did her nothing but good.

  Peter became the most regular visitor. I never did find out what my mother said to him, but she asked me to make the first move by inviting him over. I decided to go to his house and, if necessary, slap a MacKenzie embargo on him, but the subject never arose. He was more interested in Madeleine. “Listen to this,” he said, pressing the button on his answerphone. “I got back about five minutes ago and it was waiting for me.”

  Madeleine’s strident voice filled the speaker. “Peter, are you there? The bloody nursing home’s locked the door against me. I need you to come and tell them not to be so damn…stupid! They say they’ll call the police if I don’t leave immediately. How dare the solicitor stop me seeing Mummy? He’s taken out an injunction against me. I’m so angry. Oh, to hell with it!” There was a muffled shout which sounded like “I’m going, for Christ’s sake,” then silence.

  I couldn’t avoid a smile and Peter saw it. “What’s she on about? Do you know?”

  “The solicitor’s obviously given the nursing home authority to exclude her.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told him. “You can ask Jess about it.”

  “I haven’t seen her for days. She’s not answering her phone or her door.”

  “Nothing new there then,” I said. “Since when did you have to announce yourself? I thought you always went in the back.”

  “I did, but—” he broke off on a sigh. “I don’t think she’s speaking to me anymore.”

  “I’m not surprised if you keep ringing her doorbell. She probably thinks it’s that worm Bagley.” I watched him give a small shake of his head. “Then it’s your fault,” I said bluntly. “You changed the rules of the game and she doesn’t know how to play anymore.”

  “What rules?”

  “The ones that say you have to barge in on her all the time and tease her mercilessly till she laughs. She probably thinks you don’t fancy her now that you’ve seen her naked.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Mmm. About as ridiculous as you hanging around outside her front door like a nervous adolescent.” I gave his arm a friendly buffet. “We’re talking about the most introverted woman in Dorset, Peter. She’s been manhandled by a psycho…watched one of her dogs die…stood up to the third degree from Bagley…and suddenly she’s supposed to understand why a man she likes doesn’t want to tease her any more? You’re an idiot!”

  He smiled grudgingly. “That’s for sure. I got it all wrong, Connie. I thought we should humour—”

  I gave him another buffet, rather harder this time. “Don’t lay a guilt trip on me. I’m on a roll…I’m writing again…I’m eating again. Life’s grand. Does it matter who did what, when?” I smiled to take the sting from my words. “You helped me from the day I arrived, Peter. You and Jess helped me just by being there that night. If I’d been on my own I couldn’t have done it. Can’t you feel good about that? For me and Jess…but mostly for yourself?”

  “You’re a nice person, Connie.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  The smile stretched to his eyes. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell
you after I’ve barged in on Jess.”

  HALFWAY THROUGH my parents’ stay I received a letter from Lily’s solicitor, asking what my intentions were with regard to the information Jess and I had given him. My father was deeply unimpressed by him. As he pointed out, the man was a typical lawyer. He’d failed to protect his client before the event, but was happy to keep her alive and skim his percentage afterwards.

  I didn’t disagree, but I took the line of least resistance. Did I care enough about Lily to make myself available for more police questioning? No. There wasn’t a sliver of paper to draw between her and her daughter. Lily had been no more willing to acknowledge Jess than Madeleine had. There’d been no public championing of the Derbyshires, and no stamping on Madeleine’s libels. Lily had treated her brother and her niece like servants and exploited their goodwill to the nth degree.

  Did I think it would do an eleven-year-old boy any good for me to spend days in court, fighting off blackmail charges, in order to separate him from his parents? No. Rightly or wrongly, I accepted Jess’s word that Nathaniel genuinely cared for his son, and I hadn’t the will or the energy to take responsibility for a child I knew nothing about.

  But in the end I kept quiet for Jess’s sake. Some debts can only be repaid with loyalty.

  BALLDOCK & SIMPSON SOLICITORS

  Tower House Poundbury Dorset

  Ms. C. Burns

  Barton House

  Winterbourne Barton

  Dorset

  14 September 2004

  Dear Ms. Burns,

  WITHOUT PREJUDICE

  Re: Ms. Derbyshire’s account of an alleged assault on you by Madeleine Harrison-Wright; and information contained in a film purporting to show the incident