The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [116]
What happened when you left the kitchen, Ms. Derbyshire? I was jumped. Can you be more explicit? No. Did you know who your assailant was? I guessed. Who removed your clothes? He did. Did you think he was going to rape you? Yes. Even with Dr. Coleman and Ms. Burns in the house? Yes. Did MacKenzie speak to you? No. Then why did you think he wanted to rape you? He took my clothes off. Can you be more explicit? No. Were you upset by your dog’s death? Yes. Did you want revenge for Bertie? Yes. Did you want revenge for yourself? Yes. Did you take it? No. Why not? There wasn’t time. But you would have done if the police hadn’t arrived? Yes.
Our worst fault seemed to be that we weren’t frightened enough. With MacKenzie on the loose, we should have demanded round-the-clock police protection or seclusion in a safe house, but neither of us did. Jess refused to leave the farm because she couldn’t rely on Harry and the girls to run it alone, and with search teams scouring the valley, I effectively had police protection anyway.
IT WAS an odd few days. Although Jess and I were never arrested or charged with anything, we were both treated like suspects in a murder investigation. I was asked several times if I wanted a solicitor present, but I always refused on the basis that I had nothing to hide. I believe Jess did the same. The silver lining was that the press was held at bay while every nook and cranny of Winterbourne Valley was painstakingly examined, and the police withheld our names—including Peter’s and my parents’—after Jess and I invoked our right to anonymity because of the nature of the crimes against us.
I was allowed to see my mother briefly in Dorset County Hospital before she was transferred back to London to be near my father, and I was able to speak to Dad on the phone. Because of his jaw, I did most of the talking, but he gave a couple of grunting laughs and seemed pleased when I suggested he and Mum come to stay as soon as the brouhaha died down. He managed a few sentences that I understood. “Did we win? Are the demons dead?”
“Dead and buried,” I said.
“Good.”
Perhaps it was a mercy no one overheard that little exchange, because it would certainly have been misinterpreted. As would my conversation with Jess when the police finally ackowledged we’d had no hand in MacKenzie’s disappearance. We were warned to expect further questioning if and when MacKenzie was taken into custody, but in reality it was a green light to pursue our lives as normal.
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Jess since the early hours of Sunday morning. There was no official ban on our communicating with each other, but, with the continuous police presence in Barton House, neither of us felt inclined to do it. The telephone line was repaired almost immediately, more for police convenience than mine, but I was given permission to operate my laptop in the back bedroom when I explained that my boss in Baghdad deserved an explanation before MacKenzie’s name appeared on the newswires.
For three days, the back bedroom and the kitchen were the only areas I was allowed to use. Even the bathroom was sealed off for forty-eight hours while the U-bend was taken apart for forensic examination. The same happened in the scullery. I asked Bagley what he was expecting to find since both drains had had bleach down them, but he said it was routine. I pointed out that it was routine for me to take regular baths and wash my clothes, and with bad grace he ordered the plumbing to be reinstated on the Monday afternoon.
On Wednesday evening, I watched Jess’s Land Rover nose up the drive less than half an hour after Bagley had taken his leave. I remember wondering how she knew he’d gone, and half-suspected she’d been squatting in her top field with binoculars. The one thing I knew about Jess was that her patience was inexhaustible. It had taken one hundred hours of filming to capture the antics of weasels on a fifteen-minute video loop.
“I hope you understand why all this was necessary, Ms. Burns,” Bagley