Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

The Inspector steepled his hands in front of his mouth and studied me reflectively for several seconds. “He recalls that now,” he agreed, “but not at the time. And you didn’t remind him.”

“Then I can only apologize for a blonde moment,” I said sarcastically. “Has Peter apologized for a senior moment? It all happened very fast. As soon as he made up his mind to go, he ran for the door.” I folded my hands on the table. “I wish I could make you understand how disorientated we all were…but maybe you’ve never had a psychopath break into your house and take you prisoner.”

He didn’t rise to that bait either. “So what happened next? When did Ms. Derbyshire join you in the hall?”

“Almost immediately. She heard Peter’s car on the gravel and came down to find out what was happening.”

“Were the dogs with her?”

“No. She left them in the bedroom…she was worried they’d start sniffing around Bertie.”

“What was she wearing?”

“My dressing-gown. It was too long for her and trailed across the floor. She knelt down to stroke the dog, and-” I sighed. “It all got very messy.”

“What was on her feet?”

“Nothing. None of my shoes fit her. Which is why she asked me to find her boots.”

“But you weren’t wearing shoes either.”

“No, I took them off before I went into the hall. I didn’t want MacKenzie to hear me coming.”

Bagley nodded. “What made you look for Ms. Derbyshire’s clothes outside the office window?”

“Because they weren’t in the office. MacKenzie had kept her knickers-he’d put them in the bag-but there was no sign of anything else. Then Jess told me she’d heard the window open and close after he put her on the footstool…so I raised the sash and spotted them immediately.”

“And you went through the kitchen to retrieve them?”

“You know I did. You found my bloody footprints.”

“Mmm. And during the time it took for you to go outside and return, Ms. Derbyshire was alone with Mr. MacKenzie?”

“Yes,” I said wearily. “We’ve been over this twice already. I ran-you can measure my strides-and when I returned, the only thing that was different was that Jess was sitting in the armchair under the stairs. If you spray it with Luminol I’m sure you’ll get a reaction from the bloodstains on my dressing-gown.”

“You’re very knowledgable about crime scenes, Ms. Burns.”

“I’ve covered a fair number of trials over the years. It’s amazing how much information you pick up from hours of police evidence. You should try it yourself some time.”

It was impossible to provoke him to anything other than displays of polite scepticism, except when it came to MacKenzie’s disappearance. On that subject, his disbelief was total. Yet again, he took me through the sequence of events.

“You say MacKenzie was lying on his side and you could see the duct tape was still firmly in place.”

“Yes.”

“You then handed Ms. Derbyshire her clothes and suggested she have a bath to wash off Bertie’s blood because it was clearly distressing her. She went directly upstairs, and shortly afterwards you heard the water running.”

“Right.”

“You were also distressed by the dog’s blood, so you chose to wash in the kitchen sink before changing into a skirt and T-shirt that were waiting to be ironed in the scullery. And to avoid the blood setting on your stained clothes, you left them soaking in a bleach solution in the sink…because they were ‘whiteish’ and made out of cotton.”

“Yes.”

“Did you expect it to work?”

“Not really, but it seemed worth a try. My wardrobe’s hardly bursting, and it was only dog’s blood. The pathologists will prove me right. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that DNA is still recoverable after a garment’s been washed.”

“Except we’re not talking about washing, Ms. Burns, we’re talking about bleaching …and all the literature says bleach destroys DNA.”

“Really?” I murmured. “I didn’t know that.”

“Why did Ms. Derbyshire do the same thing? Why did she leave your dressing-gown in a bleach solution in the bath? Was it your suggestion? Did you take the bleach to her after you’d finished in the kitchen?”

I dropped my chin onto my clasped hands. “It’s ‘No’ to the last two questions, and ‘That’s what women do’ to the first two. Every woman in the world has a problem with bloodstains on her clothes. You should watch African girls spending hours at the rivers, hammering away with stones to get rid of them. We’re all programmed to do the same thing…never mind our cultures. Do you have a wife? Ask her.”

“Did you take the bleach upstairs, Ms. Burns?” he repeated.

“I’ve already said I didn’t. There was a bottle of Domestos beside the lavatory in the bathroom. Look”-I paused, wondering if it was wise to continue-“you must see how ridiculous this line of questioning is.” What the hell! I was exhausted. “Peter wasn’t away more than twenty minutes…and the police and ambulance arrived shortly after he returned. How could Jess and I kill MacKenzie and get rid of his body in that short time?”

“You couldn’t.”

“Then why keep implying we were in some sort of conspiracy? Has Jess told you a different story?”

“No. Her account matches yours. MacKenzie was still tied up when she went for a bath, and she only learnt he’d gone when Dr. Coleman started shouting in the hall.”

POOR PETER. He became intimately acquainted with panic that night. His first idea when he found the front door wide open, and no MacKenzie on the floor, was that he was about to be jumped again. His second was that Jess and I were probably dead. His third-not very sensible in view of the first two, as they suggested MacKenzie was hovering around with the axe-was to start hollering for us.

His voice was high-pitched and uneven, and I heard it in the kitchen. “Connie! Jess! Where are you? Are you all right?”

I called back that I was in the kitchen, but when it became obvious that he hadn’t heard me, I dried my hands and went down the corridor. Peter described me as behaving “with extraordinary calm.” Indeed, I was so relaxed that when I urged him “to get a grip,” he came to the strange decision that Jess and I had moved MacKenzie somewhere else.

“But you hadn’t?”

“Of course not. Peter told me to leave him where he was until the ambulance arrived. How could we have moved him, anyway, without releasing his feet? We couldn’t have carried him.”

“Two of you might have been able to.”

“Where to?” I asked reasonably. “You’ve searched the house three times, and he’s not here. And you’ve tracked every one of our footprints.”

“Those we can find. Blood dries quicker than you think, Ms. Burns. We’ve found your outward tracks through the kitchen when you went for Ms. Derbyshire’s clothes, but there’s nothing to show you returned.”

“Except that I must have done since she was wearing them by the time the first police car arrived.”

I think he found my composure as frustrating as Peter had done. They both felt that hand-wringing and breast-beating suited the mood better than hard-headed analysis. Peter lost it completely in the middle of the hall when he asked me what I’d done with MacKenzie. He even accused Jess and me of “doing something awful” since MacKenzie couldn’t have freed himself without assistance.

“And did you, Ms. Burns?”

“No.”

“Then how did he free himself?”

“I don’t know. At a guess, he used Jess’s Leatherman. She said he took it off her. If it was in his trouser pocket, he might have been able to move his arms enough to wriggle it out.”