The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [128]
She referred obliquely to the cruelty she and Nathaniel had inflicted on Lily. “I told Nathaniel no one would help her…she was such a bitch they never went near her. Even Peter wasn’t that bothered…he said the troll would always tell him if things got worse. Blame her for neglect…she’s the one who walked away and left me to deal with it…as if I were the servant…”
I’d have let her run her head even farther into the noose if she hadn’t decided to grind her heel into my hip bone. Enough was enough. I was out from under her heel and on my feet while her gabby mouth was still flapping about her status in life, and she wasn’t ready for the pile-driving charge that drove her against the Aga rail and knocked the wind out of her.
I don’t think she noticed when I slipped her right wrist through a fabric loop and pulled it tight, but she certainly struggled as I grabbed her left wrist and yanked it the other way. “My God, you really are a piece of work,” I said in disgust before raising my eyes to the webcam on a cupboard next to the sink. “Did you get all that, Jess?”
Jess pushed the scullery door wide and the sound of her hard-drive fan intruded noticeably into the kitchen. “The camera in the hall failed,” she said, coming in, “but the three in here worked perfectly. Are you OK? It looked pretty bad on screen but as you didn’t yell—” she broke off to stare at Madeleine. “I don’t think she’s ever taken on anyone of her own size before…just frail old ladies and children.”
I rubbed my shoulder gingerly where a bruise was beginning to form. “Not so different from MacKenzie then. I wonder what else they have in common.”
“Arrogance,” said Jess, examining the other woman curiously as if she’d never seen her before. “I should have guessed it was Dad who wanted it kept secret. He used to say if any of us pretended we were better than we were, he’d disown us. I thought it was because we came from working stock, but now—” she jerked her chin at Madeleine—“I think he was terrified we’d turn into this.”
MADELEINE’S IGNORANCE of Jess’s proficiency in computer technology and film-making meant we could only convince her of what we had by moving Jess’s hard-drive and monitor into the kitchen, playing the scene again from the perspective of three different cameras and demonstrating how easy it was to copy the images to disk. She harangued us fluently throughout, accusing us of blackmail and kidnap—both of which were true—but when I retrieved a pack of envelopes from the office and started addressing them to the inhabitants of Winterbourne Barton, she quieted down.
“You can have a go at persuading the neighbours it was a joke or a piece of play-acting,” I told her, “but it doesn’t show you in your best light, does it?” I glanced thoughtfully at the muted monitor. “I wonder what your smart friends in London will make of it.”
Madeleine stopped trying to wrestle her wrists free and took a deep breath. “What do you want?”
“Me personally? I’d like to see you charged with attempted murder of your mother and assault on me but”—I gestured towards Jess—“your cousin’s even less inclined to admit a relationship with you than her father was…and she won’t have a choice if we send these disks out and the police become involved. The easiest solution will be for you to instruct Lily’s solicitor to sell this house. That way you can cut your ties with Winterbourne Barton and Jess can keep the secret.”
She gave an angry laugh. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“No.” I wrote on another envelope.
She wrenched at the fabric tape again. “I’ll have you prosecuted for this.”
“I doubt it. You may be the stupidest woman I’ve ever met, but you’re not that stupid.”
“Go ahead,” she spat. “Make as many copies as you like. There’s no better proof that you set out to blackmail me. What does a film prove? I’ll say you held me prisoner and forced me to do it.”
“The cameras are still running,” I said mildly. “Every word that comes out of your mouth is being recorded.”
“Yours, too,” she hissed.