The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [89]
“Madeleine would have told him.”
“I doubt it,” said Jess. “They hardly speak these days.”
“According to who? Nathaniel?”
“He wasn’t lying.”
“Oh, give me a break!” I said crossly. “The man’s a complete shit. He swaps sides at the drop of a hat, dangles his todger in front of any woman who’s prepared to admire it, then thinks he can take up again where he left off. Do you think he tells Madeleine where he’s going when he comes down here to see you? Of course he doesn’t. Cheats never do.”
Jess rubbed her head despairingly. “You’re worse than Peter. I’m not a complete idiot, you know. If you remember, it was me who told you Nathaniel was a shit. I don’t like him. I never have done. I just…loved him for a while.”
“Then why protect him?”
Jess was full of sighs that evening. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just trying to stop this whole damn mess getting any worse. I don’t see that my life is anyone else’s property. Haven’t you ever wanted to bury a secret so deep that no one will ever find out about it?”
She knew I had.
16
ONE OF THE dogs gave a sudden high-pitched bark, and we looked at each other with startled expressions. When it wasn’t repeated, Jess relaxed. “They’re just playing,” she said. “If there was anyone out there, they’d be barking in unison.”
I didn’t share her confidence. The hairs on the back of my neck were as stiff as brush bristles. “Is the back door still locked?”
“Yes.”
I looked towards the sash window but the darkness outside was total. If the moon had risen, it was obscured by clouds, and I remembered how Jess had been lit up like an actor on a stage when she was in the kitchen. Now the pair of us were visible to anyone. “This isn’t the best room to be in,” I said nervously. “It’s the only one that doesn’t have two exits.”
“If you’re worried, call the police,” Jess said reasonably, “but they won’t get here for twenty minutes…and I wouldn’t advise crying wolf unnecessarily. It’s a long way to come for nothing. The dogs will protect us.”
I bent down to retrieve the walking-stick and axe that were lying on the floor. “Just in case,” I said, handing her the stick. “I’ll keep the axe.”
“I’d prefer it the other way round,” she said with a smile. “I don’t fancy being in a confined space with you and that thing. You’ll drop it on your head the first time you try and lift it…or you’ll drop it on mine. If you have any muscles in your arms I haven’t noticed them. Here.” She made the switch and placed the axe on the chair beside her. “Hold the stick by the unweighted end and swing it at his legs. If you’re lucky, you’ll break his kneecaps. If you’re unlucky, you’ll break mine.”
I must have looked extremely apprehensive, because she drew my attention back to the computer screen. “You wanted to know why we ended up with more land than the Wrights. Which version do you want? My grandmother’s or Lily’s?”
It was done to distract me, because she never volunteered information lightly. I made an effort to respond, although my ears remained attuned for sounds I didn’t recognize. “Are they very different?”
“As chalk and cheese. According to my grandmother, my great-grandfather bought the land when Lily’s father sold off the valley to pay death duties. Everything on this side of the road went to a man called Haversham, and everything on our side to us. Joseph Derbyshire took a loan to do it, and increased our holding from fifty acres to one and a half thousand.”
“And Lily’s version?”
She hesitated. “Her father made Joseph a gift of the land in return for”—she cast around for a suitable phrase—“services rendered.”
I looked at her in surprise. “That’s some gift. What was land worth in the fifties?”
“I don’t know. The deeds of title are with the house deeds, but there’s no valuation and nothing to show that Joseph ever took out a loan to pay for them. If he did, the debt was cleared before my father inherited the property.” She fell silent.
“What kind of services?