Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

“I suppose you’re afraid of me now,” she said abruptly.

“You’re not much different from MacKenzie, that’s for sure. He was very fond of saying no one would believe me…but his threats were a lot more persuasive than yours, Jess.”

She looked uncomfortable. “I’m not threatening you.”

“You said you’d accuse me of being a zombie…and ask Peter to back you up. What’s that if it’s not a threat?” I hefted the walking-stick and axe again, and headed for the corridor. “Don’t forget to lock the mortise when you leave.”

I SAT AT MY DESK in the back room, listening for her Land Rover, but it never left the drive. I used the time to email my parents.

Text received. Phone on the landline when you’re ready. Don’t want to use mine without 141, and it’s a bore climbing into the attic to activate the mobile! Too many rats and bats!!!! Lol, C.

I was acutely attuned to noises I didn’t recognize. Had been for days. I heard Jess’s dogs on the gravel once or twice as they circled the house. Heard the sound of a car as it drove down the valley. Half an hour later I listened to Jess’s steps across the hall. They were more tentative than usual. “It’s not what you think,” she said from the doorway, as if thirty minutes’ deliberation had merely trapped her in a continuous loop of denial.

I turned my chair to look at her. “Then what is it?”

She came into the room and looked past my shoulder to see what I’d typed on my monitor screen.

How did the Derbyshires end up owning more land than the Wrights?

How could they afford it?

I watched Jess’s face as she read the questions. “You said Lily was envious,” I reminded her. “Did she resent the way your family acquired the farm?”

She pondered for a moment. “Supposing I say to you…it’s old history…Lily’s in a good place…and it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie or people will be hurt. Will you drop it?”

“No, but I might agree to keep it to myself.”

She sighed. “It’s really none of your business. It’s no one’s business except mine and Lily’s.”

“There must be someone else involved,” I pointed out, “or you wouldn’t have burnt those delivery slips. I can’t see you doing it to protect Madeleine. You might do it to protect Peter”-I lifted an eyebrow in query-“except Peter wouldn’t have turned off the valve. And that leaves only Nathaniel. I’m betting November was when you threatened to shoot off his dick.”

She capitulated suddenly, pulling up another chair and leaning forward to stare at the monitor. “It’s my fault. I should have guessed he’d do something stupid. I gave him some ammunition to use against Madeleine, and I think he may have decided to take it out on Lily first. He probably thought it was funny.”

“Bloody hilarious,” I said sourly. “He might have killed her.”

“People don’t die because their Agas go out for a few hours. I imagine he wanted to make her angry, and that was the easiest way to do it. He knew where the outhouse was, so all he had to do was leave his car at the gate and sneak across the grass. Lily hated it when things went wrong.” She pulled a face. “I should have told him how bad she was, and he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Madeleine would have told him.”

“I doubt it,” said Jess. “They hardly speak these days.”

“According to who? Nathaniel?”

“He wasn’t lying.”

“Oh, give me a break!” I said crossly. “The man’s a complete shit. He swaps sides at the drop of a hat, dangles his todger in front of any woman who’s prepared to admire it, then thinks he can take up again where he left off. Do you think he tells Madeleine where he’s going when he comes down here to see you? Of course he doesn’t. Cheats never do.”

Jess rubbed her head despairingly. “You’re worse than Peter. I’m not a complete idiot, you know. If you remember, it was me who told you Nathaniel was a shit. I don’t like him. I never have done. I just… loved him for a while.”

“Then why protect him?”

Jess was full of sighs that evening. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just trying to stop this whole damn mess getting any worse. I don’t see that my life is anyone else’s property. Haven’t you ever wanted to bury a secret so deep that no one will ever find out about it?”

She knew I had.

ONE OF THE dogs gave a sudden high-pitched bark, and we looked at each other with startled expressions. When it wasn’t repeated, Jess relaxed. “They’re just playing,” she said. “If there was anyone out there, they’d be barking in unison.”

I didn’t share her confidence. The hairs on the back of my neck were as stiff as brush bristles. “Is the back door still locked?”

“Yes.”

I looked towards the sash window but the darkness outside was total. If the moon had risen, it was obscured by clouds, and I remembered how Jess had been lit up like an actor on a stage when she was in the kitchen. Now the pair of us were visible to anyone. “This isn’t the best room to be in,” I said nervously. “It’s the only one that doesn’t have two exits.”

“If you’re worried, call the police,” Jess said reasonably, “but they won’t get here for twenty minutes…and I wouldn’t advise crying wolf unnecessarily. It’s a long way to come for nothing. The dogs will protect us.”

I bent down to retrieve the walking-stick and axe that were lying on the floor. “Just in case,” I said, handing her the stick. “I’ll keep the axe.”

“I’d prefer it the other way round,” she said with a smile. “I don’t fancy being in a confined space with you and that thing. You’ll drop it on your head the first time you try and lift it…or you’ll drop it on mine. If you have any muscles in your arms I haven’t noticed them. Here.” She made the switch and placed the axe on the chair beside her. “Hold the stick by the unweighted end and swing it at his legs. If you’re lucky, you’ll break his kneecaps. If you’re unlucky, you’ll break mine.”

I must have looked extremely apprehensive, because she drew my attention back to the computer screen. “You wanted to know why we ended up with more land than the Wrights. Which version do you want? My grandmother’s or Lily’s?”

It was done to distract me, because she never volunteered information lightly. I made an effort to respond, although my ears remained attuned for sounds I didn’t recognize. “Are they very different?”

“As chalk and cheese. According to my grandmother, my great-grandfather bought the land when Lily’s father sold off the valley to pay death duties. Everything on this side of the road went to a man called Haversham, and everything on our side to us. Joseph Derbyshire took a loan to do it, and increased our holding from fifty acres to one and a half thousand.”

“And Lily’s version?”

She hesitated. “Her father made Joseph a gift of the land in return for”-she cast around for a suitable phrase-“services rendered.”

I looked at her in surprise. “That’s some gift. What was land worth in the fifties?”

“I don’t know. The deeds of title are with the house deeds, but there’s no valuation and nothing to show that Joseph ever took out a loan to pay for them. If he did, the debt was cleared before my father inherited the property.” She fell silent.

“What kind of services?”

Jess pulled a face. “Lily called it a disclaimer. She said Joseph signed a letter, promising silence…but there’s no copy of anything like that with the deeds.”

I was even more surprised. “It sounds like blackmail.”

“I know.”

“Is that the ammunition you gave Nathaniel?”