Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

“Maybe she did. Maybe she and Nathaniel put the fear of God into Lily to make her change her mind. If you want to coerce an old woman into doing what you want, turning off her heating supply is a good place to start.” I paused. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few days, Jess, and whichever way I look at it, I’m convinced Madeleine knows there’s a relationship between you. She’s too over the top about your family. If you’re not Down syndrome, syphilitic or servants, you’re tenants with bad genes who die young.”

“She got all that from Lily.”

“ And the rest,” I said slowly. “Perhaps Lily felt lonely after her husband died and wanted to reconcile with her brother…and made the mistake of thinking her daughter would feel the same. Perhaps that’s what the allowance was about…compensation for being related to plebs.”

Jess threw me a withering look.

“It’s how Madeleine sees you. Lily, too, if you’re honest.”

“I know.” She glanced back down a bleak corridor of time. “She treated my father like dirt until Robert died, then she was all over him. Do this…do that…and he did it. I remember telling him he was embarrassing us. It’s the only time he shouted at me.”

“What did he say?”

Her eyes narrowed in memory. “That he’d expect a remark like that from Madeleine, but not from me. God! Do you suppose that’s what he had to put up with-Madeleine screaming and yelling and calling him an embarrassment? Poor old Pa. He wouldn’t have known what to do. He always ran away from arguments.”

“Did he know Lily asked you to take the photograph?”

She nodded. “He put pressure on me to do it because he said it would be kind. Lily was at the farm one day and saw some of my other stuff. She asked if I’d be willing to do one of Madeleine before she left for London. She wanted a portrait shot-the sort of things studios do”-Jess injected scorn into the words-“but I said I’d only do it if I could have the sea in the background.” She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

“And?”

Jess shrugged. “Madeleine spent most of the time scowling or simpering-all the other negatives are crap-but that one came out OK. It’s weird. I started off being halfway nice to her, but it wasn’t until I told her what I really thought of her that she turned and gave me that smile.”

“Perhaps she took it as proof that you didn’t know you were related to her. That would make her smile, wouldn’t it?” I raised inquiring eyebrows. “She was probably worried sick while you were being nice…particularly if it was out of character.”

Jess’s frown was ferocious. “Then she’s even more stupid than I thought she was. What makes her think I’d admit to having a talentless slapper for a cousin?”

I hid a smile. “So stop bellyaching. Move on. Let her go.”

“Is that what you’d do?”

“No.”

“What would you do?”

“Get her to retract every bit of slander she’d ever spread about me and my family, then tell her to go fuck herself.” I tipped my glass to her. “Personally, I can’t see it matters a damn whether you’re a Wright or a Derbyshire-to me you’re Jess, a unique individual-but if the Derbyshire name means something to you then fight for it.”

“How can I?” she asked. “The minute I admit I’m a Wright, the Derbyshires cease to exist.”

I don’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I couldn’t identify with this view. I certainly wasn’t as sensitive towards her turmoil as I might have been, but I’ve never viewed labels as much of a guide to what’s in a package. “If you want to be pedantic, Jess, they ceased to exist when your father was born. The last surviving member was your great-grandfather, an alcoholic blackmailer who saw an opportunity to grab some land and took it. It was probably the single most effective thing a Derbyshire ever did, but I guarantee the farm would be a wasteland today if your father hadn’t come as part of the deal.”

She stared unhappily at her hands. “That’s worse than anything Madeleine’s ever said.”

“Except the Wrights are no better,” I went on. “The only one who had any get-up-and-go was the old boy who bought the house and the valley, but his successors were a useless bunch-lazy…mercenary…self-obsessed. By some fluke, probably because your grandmother’s genes were so strong, your father didn’t inherit those traits-and neither have you-but Madeleine has them in spades.”

“So? It still doesn’t make me a Derbyshire.”

“But it’s a good name, Jess. Your grandmother, father and mother were happy with it…your brother and sister, too, presumably. I don’t understand why you’re so unwilling to fight for it.”

She rubbed her head in confusion. “I am. That’s why I don’t want any of this to get out.”

“It won’t,” I said, “not if you keep it between you and Madeleine.”

Her unhappiness grew. “You mean blackmail her?”

“Why not? It worked for the Derbyshires last time.”

I HAD TO admire Madeleine’s flair for duplicity. She appeared with a concerned smile at eleven o’clock the next morning and said she’d just come from Peter, who’d been telling her about the awful events of the previous weekend. She looked cool and pretty in a white cotton shirtwaist, and I thought how well she confirmed my mother’s advice that no one should judge a book by its cover.

“I had no idea you and Barton House were involved until I spoke to Peter,” she said with convincing sincerity. “The papers talked about Dorset, but didn’t specify where. You must have been terrified, Connie. This man sounds appallingly violent.”

She used my name with casual ease, even though it was only a few days since she’d left a message calling me Marianne. “Come in,” I invited, pulling the door open. “How nice to see you.” She had no monopoly on duplicity.

Her eyes darted about, looking for anything unusual, and she found it immediately. Despite the efforts of a professional cleaner, brought in by the police, and further attempts by me and Jess the previous evening, the bloodstains on the unsealed flagstones and porous fifties wallpaper refused to come out. They were more the colour of mud than freshly spilt haemoglobin, but it didn’t take much imagination to work out what they were.

Madeleine clapped her hands to her mouth and gave a little cry. “Oh, my goodness!” she squeaked. “Whatever’s happened here?”

It was a girly response-the sort of thing clichéd actresses do-but it was genuine enough to persuade me that Peter hadn’t told her much. If anything at all. Jess had been certain the previous evening that, when it came to taking sides, he’d pick me and her over Madeleine, but I wasn’t so easily convinced. In my experience he had verbal diarrhoea where Madeleine was concerned.

I led her towards the green baize door. “Didn’t Peter tell you?” I asked in surprise. “How very strange of him.”

“Is it blood?” she demanded, her heels pecking across the flagstones behind me. “Did someone die?”

I shook my head, pushing open the door and ushering her through. “Nothing so dramatic. Jess’s dogs had a fight and one of them was wounded. It looks worse than it is.” I shepherded her down the corridor. “Would you like a coffee?” I asked, pulling out a chair for her. “Or are you caffeined out on Peter’s espressos?”

She ignored me to wave her hand rather wildly towards the hall. “It can’t stay like that,” she protested. “What will prospective tenants think?”

I retreated to the worktop. “I’m told the flagstones will come up good as new if the top layer is sanded off,” I said, ostentatiously lighting a cigarette. “I’ll have it done before I leave.”