The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [137]
Madeleine’s strident voice filled the speaker. “Peter, are you there? The bloody nursing home’s locked the door against me. I need you to come and tell them not to be so damn…stupid! They say they’ll call the police if I don’t leave immediately. How dare the solicitor stop me seeing Mummy? He’s taken out an injunction against me. I’m so angry. Oh, to hell with it!” There was a muffled shout which sounded like “I’m going, for Christ’s sake,” then silence.
I couldn’t avoid a smile and Peter saw it. “What’s she on about? Do you know?”
“The solicitor’s obviously given the nursing home authority to exclude her.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story,” I told him. “You can ask Jess about it.”
“I haven’t seen her for days. She’s not answering her phone or her door.”
“Nothing new there then,” I said. “Since when did you have to announce yourself? I thought you always went in the back.”
“I did, but—” he broke off on a sigh. “I don’t think she’s speaking to me anymore.”
“I’m not surprised if you keep ringing her doorbell. She probably thinks it’s that worm Bagley.” I watched him give a small shake of his head. “Then it’s your fault,” I said bluntly. “You changed the rules of the game and she doesn’t know how to play anymore.”
“What rules?”
“The ones that say you have to barge in on her all the time and tease her mercilessly till she laughs. She probably thinks you don’t fancy her now that you’ve seen her naked.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Mmm. About as ridiculous as you hanging around outside her front door like a nervous adolescent.” I gave his arm a friendly buffet. “We’re talking about the most introverted woman in Dorset, Peter. She’s been manhandled by a psycho…watched one of her dogs die…stood up to the third degree from Bagley…and suddenly she’s supposed to understand why a man she likes doesn’t want to tease her any more? You’re an idiot!”
He smiled grudgingly. “That’s for sure. I got it all wrong, Connie. I thought we should humour—”
I gave him another buffet, rather harder this time. “Don’t lay a guilt trip on me. I’m on a roll…I’m writing again…I’m eating again. Life’s grand. Does it matter who did what, when?” I smiled to take the sting from my words. “You helped me from the day I arrived, Peter. You and Jess helped me just by being there that night. If I’d been on my own I couldn’t have done it. Can’t you feel good about that? For me and Jess…but mostly for yourself?”
“You’re a nice person, Connie.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
The smile stretched to his eyes. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you after I’ve barged in on Jess.”
HALFWAY THROUGH my parents’ stay I received a letter from Lily’s solicitor, asking what my intentions were with regard to the information Jess and I had given him. My father was deeply unimpressed by him. As he pointed out, the man was a typical lawyer. He’d failed to protect his client before the event, but was happy to keep her alive and skim his percentage afterwards.
I didn’t disagree, but I took the line of least resistance. Did I care enough about Lily to make myself available for more police questioning? No. There wasn’t a sliver of paper to draw between her and her daughter. Lily had been no more willing to acknowledge Jess than Madeleine had. There’d been no public championing of the Derbyshires, and no stamping on Madeleine’s libels. Lily had treated her brother and her niece like servants and exploited their goodwill to the nth degree.
Did I think it would do an eleven-year-old boy any good for me to spend days in court, fighting off blackmail charges, in order to separate him from his parents? No. Rightly or wrongly, I accepted Jess’s word that Nathaniel genuinely cared for his son, and I hadn’t the will or the energy to take responsibility for a child I knew nothing about.
But in the end I kept quiet for Jess’s sake. Some debts can only be repaid with loyalty.
BALLDOCK & SIMPSON SOLICITORS
Tower House