Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

“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.”

“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 at 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.”

“Is that why you persuaded her to reassign the power of attorney?”

“I didn’t. She thought it up all on her own when Madeleine told her to hurry up and die, and do everyone a favour.”

“When was that?”

“August. She didn’t show again until Lily was taken into care…probably because she hoped neglect would do the job quicker.”

“But you don’t think the valve was closed until November,” I pointed out mildly.