Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

While I accept that you have a genuine grievance against Madeleine Harrison-Wright, I worry that an attempted prosecution will exonerate her and allow her access to confidential information. For this reason, may I urge you to consider all of the above and let me know if you intend to proceed? You will, of course, be aware that any such action will lead to disclosures about Ms. Derbyshire’s connection with the family.

Finally, on behalf of Mrs. Lily Wright, I would like to thank you and Ms. Derbyshire for bringing these matters to my attention. I am distressed that my client was unable to inform me of what was happening to her at the time, but I am advised that her long-term condition would not have been unduly affected by her daughter’s mistreatment. Sadly, the progress of the disease was always irreversible.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Balldock

SEVERAL RUMORS SURFACED at the same time, although it wasn’t clear where they started. Everyone knew about the injunction preventing Madeleine from visiting Lily, and it was generally assumed that she’d made an attempt on her mother’s life in the nursing-home. From that developed the Chinese whispers. I was told variously that Madeleine had been diagnosed with a personality disorder; that she was under compulsory psychiatric care; that she’d been forced to leave the London flat after assaulting her son; that Nathaniel had filed for divorce; and that a restraining order had been imposed to stop her coming within a mile of Winterbourne Barton.

The only whisper I knew to be true (apart from the nursing-home injunction) was the restraining order which Thomas Balldock had applied for on behalf of Jess and myself. I don’t know what evidence he presented, but we were told to notify the police if Madeleine or Nathaniel tried to contact us or enter our properties. However, it wasn’t until Peter bumped into an acquaintance of Nathaniel’s in London that the separation was confirmed. According to the acquaintance, it was Nathaniel and Hugo who’d moved out of the flat, and Madeleine who remained in possession. Father and son were living in Wales with Nathaniel’s parents, and Madeleine was struggling to pay the bills.

The residents of Winterbourne Barton were surprisingly honest in their reactions. Most claimed to be shocked by the rumours, but a few said they’d always found Madeleine’s charm superficial. I was the recipient of several indirect apologies to Jess for some of the things that had been said and thought about her, but no one was brave enough to make them in person. If they tried, they were met with a ferocious scowl.

I stayed out of it, but I know my mother urged her to be generous since people were “only trying to be nice.” Jess replied that it was she who was being nice, by letting them “gawp” at her, because the only thing that had changed was their perception of Madeleine. Jess was the same as she’d always been and Winterbourne Barton remained a retirement village for rich, ignorant pensioners who knew nothing about the countryside. Under my mother’s emollient balm, she was persuaded to produce the odd smile in place of a scowl, but small talk remained beyond her.

I suggested to Mum that as soon as she and Dad went back to London Jess’s brief renaissance would be over. “I don’t want to schmooze the locals any more than she does,” I pointed out, “and my tenancy ends in December.”

“Jess has a kind heart,” she said. “If she hears of someone in trouble, she’ll help them. She helped you, didn’t she?”

“But I didn’t impose on the friendship.”

My mother laughed. “And neither will anyone else. People aren’t stupid, Connie. As long as she keeps making social calls, everything will work out fine. It’s hard to dislike someone with as much warmth as Jess has.”

Warmth…? Were we talking about the same person? Jess Derbyshire? Dysfunction on legs? “Jess doesn’t make social calls.”

“Of course she does, darling. How many times has she dropped in on you since you arrived here?”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t think so. When Peter tells her one of his patients needs some eggs, she’ll be round like a shot. It’s her nature to look after others. She’ll make an excellent doctor’s wife.”

It was my turn to laugh. “Do you think that’s likely? I don’t think she’s the marrying type.”

“Perhaps not, but she could do with a baby or two,” said my mother matter-of-factly. “Otherwise her farm will go to strangers when she dies.”

I eyed her with amusement. “Have you told her that? How did she respond?”

“Rather more positively than you’ve ever done.”

I didn’t believe her for a moment. Jess’s most likely retort was that giving birth to me hadn’t stopped strangers taking my parents’ farm in Zimbabwe-it was the answer she’d given when I’d strayed on to the subject of inheritance-but I decided not to argue the point. My mother was too well practised at turning other people’s babies into a lecture on my lack of commitment in the same department. In any case, I rather liked the idea of Jess producing little Derbyshire-Colemans. I thought they’d grow up to be as affectionate, competent and well balanced as her mastiffs.

I SPENT a couple of days in Manchester at the end of September, giving Alan Collins a full statement of the events in Baghdad. By then he’d built up quite a file against MacKenzie, which was available to other national and international police forces in the event of an arrest. I asked him if he was optimistic, and he shook his head.

“I think he died the night he came to your house, Connie.”

“How?”

“Probably the way you suggested to Nick Bagley…he lost his bearings in the dark and fell.”

“Off the cliff?”

“Unlikely.”

I watched him for a moment. “Why not?”

Alan shrugged. “His body would have been found. Nick tells me there’s a rocky shoreline along that part of the Dorset coast.”

“Perhaps he went in farther down. Some of the cliffs to the east are sheer.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

He smiled slightly. “Did I ever tell you I took the family on holiday to Dorset once? We rented a cottage near Wool, about ten miles from where you are. The children loved it. There was a well in the garden with a thatched roof and a bucket painted red. They were convinced there were fairies living at the bottom of it, and they used to climb on the stone surround to look down. My wife was terrified they were going to fall in.”

I folded my hands in my lap. “I’m not surprised.”

“It was quite safe. It was capped below the parapet to prevent accidents. I asked the old boy next door what he’d done with his well, and he told me he’d filled it in and put a patio over the top. He said he’d had to wait until the late sixties for mains water, and he didn’t want any reminders of the back-breaking days. According to him, every old house in rural Dorset has a redundant well somewhere. The big houses usually have two…one outside and one inside.”

I squeezed my hands between my knees. “Well, if there are any at Barton House they were covered over long ago. You could look forever and never find one.”

Alan watched me while he shuffled his papers together and tapped them on the desk to square them up. “Nick tells me the woman who owns Barton House asked for an interview but never turned up. Do you know why not?”

“Lily Wright?” I said in surprise. “She can’t have done. She has advanced Alzheimer’s. Her solicitor put her in a nursing home eight months ago.”

“I believe he said the name was Madeleine Wright.”

“Oh, her !” I said scathingly, wondering how many conversations he’d had with Bagley, and how much he’d said to him about wells. “You mean Madeleine Harrison -Wright, the double-barrelled daughter.”