The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [113]
She had no qualms about bargaining my address against their lives. “It would have been madness to do anything else,” she said. “While there’s life there’s hope, and I knew you’d worry if you couldn’t get me at the hotel. I prayed you’d phone that policeman friend of yours in Manchester. Your father was unhappy about it…but”—she squeezed my hand again—“I was sure you’d understand.”
I did. I do. Whatever nightmares I still have would be a thousand times worse if I were carrying my parents’ deaths on my conscience. My mother believes my father’s “unhappiness” related entirely to his fears for me, but his concerns were rather more practical. He was appalled at her naïve assumption that a man like MacKenzie would honour a promise to leave them alive if she gave him the information he wanted.
He tried to dissuade her, but his dislocated jaw had seized the muscles in his face, making speaking difficult. To stop any further attempts, MacKenzie muzzled him completely by winding several turns of duct tape round his head. The ironic upside was that, with his jaw supported, my father’s pain lessened, and he survived the next twelve hours in considerably more comfort than he would otherwise have done. The downside was that it increased my mother’s concern for him, thereby encouraging compliance.
“Weren’t you worried that MacKenzie would kill you anyway?” I asked her.
“Of course…but what could I do? He threatened to strangle your father in front of me if I refused. At least there were slivers of hope if I betrayed you…none at all if I betrayed Brian.” A small crease of doubt furrowed her brow. “You do see that, don’t you, darling? It was a card game…and you were my only trump. I had to use you.”
I didn’t know how to answer. Absolutely…? Don’t worry about it…? I’d have done the same…? They were all just anodyne forms of words that meant nothing if she didn’t believe them. “Thank God you had enough faith in me,” I said bluntly. “Dad wouldn’t have done. He still thinks of me as a little girl in pigtails who screams every time she finds a spider in the shower.”
“Only because he loves you.”
“I know.” We exchanged smiles. “He was very brave, Mum. Is his tail wagging now? It damn well ought to be.”
Her smile played around her eyes. “You’re so alike, you two. You both assume the only way to win is to show no weakness. You should have played bridge with Geraldine Summers. I’ve never known anyone conjure so many triumphs out of hands that contained nothing.”
“By bluffing? Is that what you did with MacKenzie?”
“I couldn’t do anything until he removed my gag because he wanted the password to your father’s laptop. Before that, he went through my suitcase. I told him he wouldn’t find your address in the computer, but I suggested he read the email you sent to Alan Collins. I hoped he’d realize how pointless it would be to kill any of us.”
“What did he say?”
“That you’d chosen a good parallel in the story of the death-ray and the Chinaman. The only point of killing was to gain from it. He wasn’t very talkative—I doubt he spoke more than twenty sentences from the moment I arrived—and he became extremely agitated when I asked what he gained from killing. That’s when he said he’d strangle your father if I didn’t tell him what he wanted…and the gain would be the look on both our faces when it happened.” She shook her head. “And I’m sure he was telling the truth…I’m sure that’s why he does it.”
I felt a shiver of goosebumps on my arms. “Then why didn’t he go ahead with it?”
“Because your address was my trump card, darling. Supposing I was lying? He had no way of checking unless he phoned you—which would have alerted you—so I persuaded him to take me along as security. It was the only bargaining chip I had…and it meant your father and I stayed alive for a few more hours. I felt I’d won the trick when he produced the car