Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

“Hard to pull out a blade with broken fingers.”

“He had quite an incentive,” I said dryly. “He was about to be arrested.”

Bagley studied me for a moment. “Why weren’t you as worried as Dr. Coleman when you saw that MacKenzie was missing? He could have been anywhere…upstairs with Ms. Derbyshire for example.”

“Jess arrived on the landing about the same time as I came into the hall…and Peter’s voice was so far up the register that most of what he said was incomprehensible. I’m not sure I even realized MacKenzie was missing until Peter started to calm down…and then we heard the sirens. It was all very quick.”

“You’re an observant woman, Ms. Burns. You must have noticed the floor was empty.”

“I was looking at Peter.”

But Bagley couldn’t accept that. “As soon as you realized Dr. Coleman was frightened, you’d have checked on MacKenzie as a matter of priority.”

I shrugged. “This would be a lot easier if Peter hadn’t given you such an inflated opinion of me. You seem to think I have an immediate grasp of what’s going on in any situation. Well, I don’t. I may have seen Bertie out of the corner of my eye-a shape -and assumed it was MacKenzie…although I don’t remember doing it, and I don’t remember thinking about it.” I tugged a cigarette out of my pocket and lit it with relief. “Just out of interest, why isn’t Peter being put through the third degree? He’s far more likely to have freed MacKenzie than Jess or I.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because he was worried about MacKenzie’s hands. Perhaps he decided to loosen the duct tape when he came back in.”

“I don’t think so.”

I absorbed as much nicotine in one shot as I could, then blew the smoke in Bagley’s direction. “Is that a bloke thing, Inspector? The fact that you’re willing to believe a man, but not a woman?”

He took it in good part. “Ms. Derbyshire heard Dr. Coleman’s car come back. She says there was a few seconds’ time lapse between that and his shouting. I haven’t ruled out that he did what you suggest but it seems unlikely. He didn’t have a knife on him when we searched him, and he’d have needed one to cut through the duct tape.”

“Perhaps MacKenzie took it off him.”

“Did Dr. Coleman look as if he’d been in a fight?”

“No…but if he had any sense he’d have relinquished the knife and run out the front door before he got slashed with it.”

“Leaving MacKenzie to collect his bag and disappear through the office window? Is that what you’re saying happened?”

“Why not? It’s what you’re suggesting Jess and I did, isn’t it?”

“We think he left through the front door…and, from the impressions on the floor, he appears to have been on bare feet.” Bagley smiled slightly. “We have a lot of bare feet, Ms. Burns. It’s quite confusing.”

“All different sizes…and with different toeprints.”

“Prints don’t register well on stone. There was a lot of skating done through the blood. It’s hard to say who went where when.”

“Only in the hall. Have you found MacKenzie’s prints anywhere else?”

He wasn’t going to answer my questions. “One line we’re pursuing is that he managed to ease his shoes off in order to slip out of the duct tape round his ankles. You told us you wrapped the tape round the bottom of his trousers. Do you recall how many turns you made and whether he was wearing socks?”

I thought back. “Not really. About four, perhaps. I just wound it till it seemed tight enough. I don’t remember seeing socks.”

“What sort of trousers were they?”

“Denims.”

“Do you remember Dr. Coleman undoing the fly to help him breathe?”

I nodded.

“So all MacKenzie had to do was slide out of the trousers to free himself?”

I saw criticism immediately. “I’m damned if I’ll take the blame for that,” I said indignantly. “It wasn’t me who unbuttoned his stupid trousers. Blame Peter. He could have worked it out just as well as I could.”

“I’m not blaming you, Ms. Burns, I’m pointing out what might have happened. Did you bind his hands in the same way? Was the duct tape over his cuffs or against his skin?”

I was very tempted to say it was over his cuffs but it wouldn’t have been true. “Against his skin. The cuffs were rolled back.”

He’d obviously been told the same by Peter because he nodded. “He had more opportunities once his feet were free, of course. Do you remember what happened to the flick knife?”

“I kicked it away from him. As far as I remember, it went under the stairs.”

“We haven’t found it.”

I shrugged, suspecting another trap. By his twisted logic, victims were probably required to retrieve all pieces of evidence and line them up for inspection when the police arrived.

“A flick knife would have been easier to manipulate than Ms. Derbyshire’s Leatherman…but, in either event, he seems to have taken them with him. We haven’t found the Leatherman either.”

I drew in a lungful of smoke. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the beginning? Why accuse me of murder if you’ve known all along how he freed himself?”

“No one’s accusing you of murder, Ms. Burns.”

“Well, it feels like it,” I said. “The only difference between you and one of Mugabe’s henchman is that I still have some fingernails left.”

He lost patience with me. “Interviewing witnesses is a necessary part of any criminal inquiry, and it’s not police policy to exempt women. I agree it can be a stressful experience…however, given your views, I’m surprised you feel unequal to it.”

I grinned. “Ouch!”

He took an irritated breath. “Did you or Ms. Derbyshire move MacKenzie’s canvas bag from the office to the hall, Ms. Burns?”

“ My bag,” I corrected. “He stole it from me in Baghdad.”

“Did you move it?”

“Yes. I handed it to Jess on my way to collect her clothes so that she could check the pockets. He’d put her knickers in the flap, but I thought he might have taken her bra as well. He was that kind of pervert.”

“Do you remember what she did with it?”

“I think she left it on the chair.”

“Did either of you take anything out of it?”

“I can’t speak for Jess, but I didn’t.” I stubbed out my cigarette. “I should have done. My father’s binoculars and mobile were in it. Why do you ask?”

“Just tying up loose ends.” He saw my frown. “The SOCOs found your imprints on the office floor, but none that matched those by the front door. We wondered why, since you and Dr. Coleman both said the bag was by the desk.”

He was very thorough, I thought. “Have you found the bag? Why did you think we might have removed something?”

“It was a hope, Ms. Burns. If you’d kept something of MacKenzie’s we’d have a better chance of extracting some DNA.”

“Oh, I see.”

“We have foot- and fingerprints but nothing else. There might have been saliva traces on your father’s mobile or an eyelash on the binoculars, although the most likely source would have been your clothes, since you came into contact with him when you tied him up. If Ms. Derbyshire’s dogs had drawn blood or the axe had broken his skin-” he shrugged.

“What about Jess’s clothes or Peter’s clothes?”

He shook his head. “If you’d left Ms. Derbyshire’s untouched, we might have found a rogue hair, but there was too much moving and handling…and Dr. Coleman lost anything on his way back to his house.”

“Do you need DNA evidence if you have his fingerprints? Peter and I can both identify him.”

Bagley smiled rather grimly. “It depends if he’s recognizable when we find him, Ms. Burns.”