The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [104]
“Very stupid,” I assured him. “About as stupid as going back into the house in the first place…but you don’t think straight when you’re frightened.”
More irony. “That’s certainly true of most people.” He smiled slightly. “Tell me why the dogs decided to draw back.”
“I don’t know. I think the sound of the axe striking the stone might have startled them. Only the top half of the blade hit MacKenzie…the bottom half cracked one of the flags.”
He consulted his notes. “At which point you decided to tie him up?”
“Yes.”
“Even though he was wounded?”
“Yes.”
“Using his own duct tape…which meant you had to go back into the office?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t think to release Dr. Coleman and Ms. Derbyshire?”
“I didn’t have time. I was frightened of leaving MacKenzie free even for the seconds it took me to run in and out of the office.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because I was sure he was only winded. His eyes were open…and he was groaning. He called me a bitch when I kicked the flick knife away.” Wearily, I massaged my temples with my fingertips. “I thought about bashing him on the head to knock him out, as a matter of fact, but I didn’t how much force would be needed. I was afraid of killing him by mistake.”
“Mmm…Dr. Coleman mentions the groans. He says they stopped after you retrieved the tape. Did you decide to gag him as well, Ms. Burns?”
“Does Peter say he was gagged?”
He shook his head.
I chose to take that as a firm negative. “He passed out when I bound his hands together. If I’d realized I’d broken his fingers, I might have been a bit more careful…but, at that stage, I didn’t even know I’d made contact with them. Wouldn’t you expect an axe to chop them off…instead of just mangling them?”
“It depends when the axe was last sharpened.”
“I know that now. I didn’t at the time.”
“Wasn’t it obvious to you that he was incapacitated? He’d been savaged by a pack of dogs and attacked with an axe.”
I took a few seconds to order my thoughts. “No, it wasn’t obvious at all. I agree he looked a bit of a mess because he had Bertie’s blood all over him, but I’d seen him in fights in Sierra Leone and I knew he could take punches. I’d have been mad to risk it.”
The Inspector’s expression was sceptical. “Surely a more normal reaction would have been to get a doctor to him as fast as possible…particularly as there was one less than fifteen metres away?”
“That’s effectively what I did,” I said mildly, “and Peter agreed I was right to tie him up first. None of the blood was MacKenzie’s. He had the broken fingers and some bruising on his arms where the dogs had held him through his shirt, but no puncture wounds.”
“Did Ms. Derbyshire ever tell you that’s how she trained her dogs? To terrify and restrain rather than inflict damage?”
“No. All she ever said was that I had no reason to fear them, but she didn’t specify why.” I produced my most ingenuous smile. “If she had done, I’d have known MacKenzie wasn’t in any danger from them.”
“But you knew MacKenzie had a flick knife, so you knew the dogs were in danger from him. Presumably you also knew how angry the death of one of her mastiffs would make Ms. Derbyshire?”
“Not really,” I said apologetically. “I’m not a doggy person.”
His scepticism grew. “Why did you release Ms. Derbyshire before Dr. Coleman?”
“Because she was the most vulnerable. If she’d lost concentration she’d have fallen on the nails.”
“Then why didn’t you release Dr. Coleman directly afterwards?” He consulted the notes again. “He says you and Ms. Derbyshire left the room and it was several minutes before you came back again…which contradicts your earlier assertion that you took Dr. Coleman to Mr. MacKenzie as fast as you could.”
I sighed. “Only if you accept Peter’s estimate of how long anything took…but