Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

Belatedly, I asked the obvious question. “How did you get in if all the doors are locked?”

She fished a key-ring from her pocket and held it up. “Spares to the scullery. Lily was worried about falling down and breaking her hip so she put them on a hook behind the oil tank in the outhouse.” She shook her head at my expression. “But, if they hadn’t been there, I’d have come in through the downstairs loo. That’s the easiest window to open from the outside. You just need one of these”-she dropped the knife back on the bed-“to ease up the catch. Any moron can do it.”

I surprised her with a laugh, although her puritan streak blamed the alcohol and not the absurd waste of time of checking locks every two hours. “There’s not much hope then, is there? What do you suggest I do? Use the knife on myself and save MacKenzie the trouble?” I lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry. That wasn’t a dig at you…just tasteless gallows humour.”

“You can start by eating,” she said severely. “I’ve brought some food. If nothing else, it’ll help you think straight.”

“Who says I want to?” I asked, sinking onto the end of the bed. “You don’t get panic attacks when you’re pissed.”

“Too bloody right,” she muttered grimly, pulling me to my feet for the second time in ten days. “If you carry on like this, you’ll be mincemeat for this animal.” She shook me angrily. “It won’t stop you hurting, though. You’ll be sober as a judge the minute he shoves your head in a bucket…but by then it’ll be too late. He won’t be playing with you…he’ll be killing you.”

IT WAS an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. I’d mentioned drowning to Peter but it was Alan who’d suggested that MacKenzie “played” with his victims. All Jess should have known-assuming the Hippocratic oath and police confidentiality stood for anything-was what I’d told her and Peter in the kitchen ten days before. My abductor was British, I’d unearthed his story, it hadn’t surfaced because he was under investigation for serial rape and murder and the reason for the abduction was to warn me off.

Peter drew his own conclusions about what might have happened-“You don’t warn people off by feeding them grapes for three days”-and returned later with a printout of the Istanbul protocol. Jess left the whole subject alone, and talked weasels and crows until I stopped answering the door. I was prepared to accept that Peter might let drowning slip during one of their conversations-in fact I expected it-but there was no way either of them could have known of Alan’s theory.

I stopped on the landing and shrugged Jess’s hand off my arm. “OK. What’s going on? Have you been talking to Alan Collins?”

She didn’t bother to lie. “Only your mother…but I’ve read Alan Collins’s emails. She forwarded them to me this morning…along with the ones you wrote to him.”

“She had no right,” I said angrily, “and you shouldn’t have read them. They weren’t addressed to you.”

“Well, I have,” she said without heat, “so there’s nothing to be done unless you want to sue me. Your mother didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“How did she get hold of you?”

“Rang directory inquiries. You gave her my name, apparently, and told her I had a farm down the road from Barton House. It wasn’t that difficult.”

“You never answer your phone,” I said suspiciously, “and you never return messages.”

“I did this time. She kept phoning till I answered.” Jess held my gaze for a moment. “I thought it was you at first because she called herself Marianne. The pitch of your voice is pretty similar but she’s got a stronger accent.”

“Is she here?”

“No. That’s why she sent me the emails. To explain why I’m having to do this, and not her. She’s frightened of leading this bastard to your front door.”

“Do what?”

“Tell you what an arse you’re being…persuade you to stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Her mouth twisted. “I told her I wasn’t much of a talker, but she wouldn’t listen. She doesn’t give up easily, does she? She was ready to give me your whole bloody life story if I hadn’t said I’d be coming anyway-” Jess broke off abruptly. “Your mother gave me a list of things to say. She said you’d want to hear them.”

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “My father’s deeply hurt, my mother can’t cope with his mood swings and needs me to start phoning again, they hate the hotel…What else? Oh, yes, I’m their only child and all their love and hopes are vested in me.”

Jess felt in her pocket and took out a piece of paper. “Nothing so corny,” she answered, unfolding it and running her finger down the page. “Your dad’s gone back to the flat. Your mother thinks he’s trying to prove something re demons. He refuses to discuss it and won’t say if the police know. Just keeps telling her Japera was a mistake and he doesn’t want a repeat. He’s moved your mother to a different hotel and banned her from calling him. He’s left the laptop with her, and she wants you to email or phone. She’s given me the number of her new hotel.” She looked up. “That’s it. She said you’d understand the references to demons and Japera.”

Angrily, I snatched the page from Jess’s hand. “I knew I shouldn’t have told anyone. It was all OK, as long as no one knew. What the hell does he think he’s doing?”

Jess took a step back. “The way your mother described him, he’ll be setting traps…which is what you should be doing.”

“He doesn’t have a chance,” I hissed. “He’ll be sixty-five in November.”

“At least he’s trying.”

If that was her best shot, the conversation wasn’t going to last very long. “ I tried, Jess. I told Alan Collins. And this ”-I shook the piece of paper-“is the result. My father trying to prove he isn’t a coward. He’s ashamed because he thinks he gave up the farm too easily…so he’s salvaging some pride by behaving like a jerk.”

She shrugged. “It runs in the family then. That’s pretty much what you’re doing, isn’t it? Being ashamed and behaving like a jerk, except there’s not much sign of pride.”

“That’s not going to make me do what you want,” I snapped.

“Who gives a shit? You’re not my responsibility.” She set off down the stairs. “I’ll be taking my phone off the hook, so if you don’t want your mother calling the police when she can’t get through, you’d better contact her.”

I think she half-expected me to plead with her to stay, because she paused on the bottom step to look up at me, but when I didn’t say anything she disappeared through the baize door. I didn’t need to say anything. I knew she’d come back.

I DECIDED to speak to my father first, since my mother would ask me to do it anyway. I’d have preferred to dodge any conversation with him that evening because it would certainly develop into a shouting match, but I felt responsible for his being there. Nevertheless, I was so paranoid about my landline registering as the last call that I dialled 141 first to withhold it, and only remembered that withheld numbers were being blocked when I heard the message telling me so. I tried his mobile but it wasn’t responding.

My choice was to redial his landline without 141 or use my mobile, but there were too many hairs bristling on the back of my neck to take the first option. It wasn’t that I expected MacKenzie to be in the flat-I didn’t-rather that Sod’s Law predicted my number would still be registering when he broke in and took a punt on 1471. At least if I used my mobile, there’d be no exchange code and nothing to show I was phoning from Dorset.

My second choice was to rebuild Jess’s pyramid in the back bedroom, which I’d dismantled when I’d had broadband installed, or climb into the attic. I chose the attic as the least onerous option, and went in search of the hooked pole that released the latch on the trapdoor. I found it behind the door in the nearest bedroom, and when I picked it up I realized what a good weapon it would make. It was a homemade construction of two hefty wooden rods, designed to come apart in the middle for storage. The top half was capped by the hook and the bottom by a two-inch screw.