Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

She abandoned denial in favour of protest. “And why should I believe it when Mummy’s GP was saying the opposite? If you knew Jess better, you’d know that stirring up trouble is her favourite pastime…particularly between me and my mother. I wasn’t going to take her word against Peter’s.”

I showed surprise. “But you and Nathaniel drove down as soon as you received this letter…so you must have given it some credence.”

There was a brief hesitation. “That’s not true.”

I went on as if she hadn’t spoken: “You sent Nathaniel to find out from Jess what ‘regret’ meant while you stayed here and tried to prise it out of your mother. Did she tell you? Or did you have to wait for Nathaniel to come back with the bad news about the power of attorney?”

I watched her mouth thin to a narrow line. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. The first I heard about the solicitor being in charge was when Mummy was taken into care.”

“That’s good,” I said encouragingly, “because when I told Inspector Bagley about the utilities being turned off, he said it sounded as if Lily had been subjected to a terror campaign. He’s wondering if it had something to do with MacKenzie.” I paused. “I told him it couldn’t have done-MacKenzie was in Iraq between November and January-but, as Bagley said, if not MacKenzie, who? What kind of person deprives a confused old lady of water, light, heat and food?”

Perhaps I should have predicted her answer-Jess certainly did-but I honestly hadn’t realized how slow-witted Madeleine was. The old adage about tangled webs might have been written for her. She was so caught up in the knowledge of what she and Nathaniel had done that the obvious answer-“There was nothing wrong with this house when I prepared it for let”-escaped her.

The intelligent response would have been surprised disbelief-“a terror campaign?”-and a finger pointed straight at Lily and her Alzheimer’s: “It must have been Mummy who did it. You know what old people are like. They’re always worrying about the cost of living.” Instead, she offered me her pre-prepared “culprit.” In some ways it was laughable. I could almost hear her brain whirring as she produced the “line” that she and Nathaniel had rehearsed.

“There’s only one person in Winterbourne Barton who’s that disturbed,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen.”

Her eagerness to implicate Jess was faintly disgusting. She looked pleased, as if I’d finally asked a question that she knew the answer to. “Jess?” I suggested.

“Of course. She was obsessed with my mother. She was always creating problems so that Mummy would have to call her up. Her favourite trick was to put the Aga out because she was the only one who knew how to relight it.” She leaned forward. “It’s not her fault-a psychiatrist friend says she probably has Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy-but it never occurred to me she’d go as far as turning off the water and the electricity.”

I smiled doubtfully. “So why didn’t she follow through?”

“On what?”

“Milking the benefits. Munchausen by proxy is an attention-seeking syndrome. It needs an audience. Sufferers make other people ill so that they can present themselves in a caring light.”

“That’s exactly what she did. She wanted Mummy to be grateful to her.”

I shook my head. “It’s not the victim who’s the audience-victims tend to be babies and toddlers who can’t speak for themselves-it’s the sympathy and admiration of neighbours and doctors that sufferers want.”

Annoyance hardened her eyes. “I’m not an expert. I’m merely repeating what a psychiatrist told me.”

“Who’s never met Jess, and doesn’t know that she’s so reluctant to attract attention to herself that hardly anyone in Winterbourne Barton knows her.”

“You don’t know her either,” she snapped. “It was Mummy’s attention she wanted-her undivided attention-and she lost interest as soon as the Alzheimer’s took over. She was happy being the constant companion but she wasn’t going to play nursemaid. That’s what that letter was about-” she jerked her chin towards the piece of paper-“shuffling off the responsibility as soon as it became arduous.”

“What’s wrong with that? She wasn’t even related to Lily.”

There was the shortest of hesitations. “Then she had no business to insist on Mummy being sectioned. Why was it done in such a hurry? What was Jess trying to hide?”

“Peter told me it was social services who ordered it, and they did it for her own safety. It was a temporary measure while they tried to locate you and her solicitor. Jess wasn’t involved…except to give them your phone number and the name of the solicitor.”

“That’s Jess’s story. It doesn’t mean it’s true. You should ask yourself why Mummy had to be silenced so abruptly…and why Jess was so keen to accuse everyone else of neglecting her. If that’s not attention-seeking, I don’t what is.”

If you repeat a lie often enough people start to believe it-it’s a truism that’s seared into the brains of tyrants and spin doctors-but of all Madeleine’s lies, the most pernicious was her use of “Mummy.” She used it to paint a picture of innocent love that didn’t exist, and I was amazed at how many people found it charming. Most of those who condemned Jess as unnatural for hanging pictures of her dead family on her walls never questioned whether Madeleine’s relationship with Lily was healthy and close.

“But Lily was neglected, Madeleine. As far as I can make out, she lived here for seven weeks in the most appalling conditions until Jess found her half-dead beside the fishpond. Peter went away…the surgery safety net didn’t work…the neighbours weren’t interested…and you stayed as far away as possible.” I took out another cigarette and rolled it between my fingers. “Or claim you did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Only that I find it hard to believe you didn’t keep tabs on what was going on.” I tucked the cigarette in my mouth and lit it. “Weren’t you and Lily close? You always call her ‘Mummy.’ The only other middle-aged woman I know who does that phones her mother every day and visits at least once a week.”

Her eyes narrowed to unattractive slits at being called middle-aged but she chose to ignore it. “Of course I phoned her. She told me everything was fine. I realize now it wasn’t true, but I didn’t at the time.”

I smiled doubtfully. “It must upset you, though. I’d be mortified if my mother didn’t feel able to tell me she was in trouble. I can just about understand why she wouldn’t ask strangers for help…although she seems to have tried by going to the village. But her daughter? Wouldn’t she have been straight on the phone to you as soon as the water failed?”

“You should ask Jess that question. She was always the first person Mummy called in a crisis. Why didn’t she do anything?”

“Who was the second?”

Madeleine frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Who did your mother phone when Jess wasn’t available? You?”

“I was too far away.”

“So Jess turfed out every single time. For how long? Twelve years? And before that her father? Was either of them ever paid?”

“It wasn’t a question of payment. They did it because they wanted to.”

“Why? Because they were so fond of Lily?”

“I’ve no idea what their reasons were. I always found it rather sad…as if they couldn’t get over the class barrier. Perhaps they felt they had to follow in Jess’s grandmother’s steps and play servant to the big house.”

I gave a snort of laughter. “Have you ever actually been to Barton Farm, Madeleine? The house is marginally smaller than this, but it’s in a lot better repair. At a rough guess, and with all the land she has, I’d say Jess’s estate is worth two or three times your mother’s. If she ever sold up, she’d be a millionairess. Why on earth would someone like that want to play servant to impoverished gentry?”