The Devil`s Feather by Minette Walters Page B

that it was his hand on my shoulder that offended her, and not what he said.

     

    I WAS SURPRISED, therefore, when she came to Barton House, full of smiles, the next morning. “I realized last night that I never gave you an answer to the broadband question,” she said gaily, as I opened the front door. “Goodness! Is the key working properly now? Mummy only ever used the bolts because the lock was so stiff.” She walked past me into the hall. “I paid a man to grease it but he didn’t think it would last.”
    I shut the door behind her. “Jess lent me some WD-40. I give it a spray every day which seems to be doing the trick.” I gestured towards the sitting-room. “Would you like to go in here? Perhaps you’d rather be in the kitchen?”
    “I don’t mind,” she said, looking around to see if I’d made any changes. I saw her eyes flicker towards the piece of wallpaper that had peeled away from its Blu-Tack and was now, courtesy of Jess, firmly reattached with paste. “Mummy was always very pukka about entertaining guests in the drawing-room. She thought it was non-U to expect her friends to put up with dirty crockery and vegetable peelings. Did you manage to light the Aga all right?”
    “Jess did.”
    Madeleine’s mouth thinned immediately. “I expect she made a song and dance of it.”
    “No.” I opened the door to the sitting-room. “Shall we go in here?”
    Despite its size and sunny aspect, the room was too dreary to qualify as a drawing-room, and I hadn’t been into it since my first day. Jess had told me it used to be full of antiques until Madeleine replaced them with junk from a second-hand furniture shop.
    The carpet, a threadbare plush pile in muted pink, showed multiple evidence of dog accidents from when Lily had mastiffs of her own. According to Jess, she’d never exercised them enough, and had covered the marks with Persian rugs. Now packed away in storage, they were probably going mouldy, if the musty smell of damp in the room was any indication of their state when they were removed. The walls were worse. They hadn’t been decorated in years and the plaster was flaking above the skirting boards and beneath the coving round the ceiling. Irregular patches showed where Lily’s paintings had been.
    In an effort to distract the eye, Madeleine had hung two of her husband’s originals and three Jack Vettriano prints on the inside walls— The Singing Butler, Billy Boys and Dance Me to the End of Love —but all you could see of the prints was the sunlight reflecting on their glass. I couldn’t understand why she’d put them there as Vettriano’s film-noir style sat very uncomfortably with Nathaniel’s fantasy pictures of rooted and foliage-laden buildings, and I assumed she’d bought them cheap as a job lot. It wasn’t a subject I had any intention of discussing with her, however, as our tastes were clearly different.
    “What do you think of Vettriano’s work?” she asked, lowering herself to the vinyl sofa and spreading her skirt. “He’s very popular. Jack Nicholson owns three of his originals.”
    “I prefer Hockney and Freud.”
    “Oh, well, of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
    I produced my friendliest smile. “Can I make you a coffee?”
    “I couldn’t. I’ve just had one with Peter. He has an espresso machine. Have you tried it yet?”
    I shook my head as I took the chair beside her. “Yesterday’s the first time I’ve been to his house. He wanted to introduce me to some of the neighbours.”
    She leaned forward. “What did you think of them?”
    “Very nice,” I answered. It happened to be a true reflection of my views but Madeleine wasn’t to know that. In the circumstances, I could hardly say anything else without appearing rude.
    She looked pleased. “That’s a relief. I’d hate to think Jess had turned you against them.” She paused before going on in a rush. “Look, I hope you won’t take this wrongly—I know it’s none of my business—but you’ll