The Devil's Feather

by Minette Walters

  I moistened my mouth again. “How do you think I sent the text? It depends which server you use.”

  “Is that right? So why doesn’t this guy have a signal?” He nodded at Peter’s mobile, which was on the desk. His eyes narrowed speculatively. “You wouldn’t have come looking for me if you’d been able to call the police. Am I correct, feather?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t like that, yet how strange that it was the truth that made him uneasy. I think he wanted me to bluster and pretend, because no one in my position would admit so readily that help was unavailable. I don’t even know why I did it, since my hope had been to persuade him the police were on their way.

  He darted a suspicious look at the hall behind me. “You’d better not be lying.”

  “I’m not,” I said with as much sincerity as I could muster. “How could I have called them without a signal? The landline’s not working. You know that.”

  It was the smallest of hits-a nervous toying with my father’s mobile as he confirmed the lack of signal-but it seemed to hand me an advantage. A fear that he hadn’t read the situation as well as he believed. My difficulty was that I couldn’t see how to exploit it, as I had no idea how long he’d been in the house or what he knew, and his doubts would vanish, anyway, when the cavalry failed to appear.

  “They know about you,” I said. “Your mother’s made a statement.”

  He stared at me. “You’re lying.”

  Was there doubt in his voice?

  “If you go into my inbox, you’ll find it as an attachment to the last email from DI Alan Collins.” I could hear the clicks as my tongue rasped against my dry palate. “I remembered her name from the letter you asked me to post.”

  The flicker of recognition, brief though it was, was unmistakable.

  “I told Alan Collins she was called Mary MacKenzie, and had probably been…or still was…a prostitute. He passed the information to Glasgow and they found her quite easily.”

  I wasn’t committing myself to much. If he denied his mother was a prostitute, or that Mary MacKenzie was her name, I’d say my information had been wrong and the police had located her another way. He didn’t. He was more interested in the axe. “You’d better not take me for an idiot, Connie. Do you think I’ll turn my back on you? It’s no matter, anyway. My bitch of a mother’s been dead to me for years. Tell me what her statement says.”

  Oh God! Such tiny steps and each one had to be understood and profited from immediately or MacKenzie would smell a rat. I shouldn’t need thinking time to recall a statement. It helped that I’d given some thought to his mother, helped that I’d trawled the net for information on sadists and rapists. I’d even had the idea of trying to find her myself, either by using a private detective agency or going to Glasgow and searching through the local newspaper archives. It seemed incredible to me that a man of his violence hadn’t shown up in the courts before he left his native city, or that his hatred of women was unassociated with his mother.

  I gave a passable attempt at a shrug. “She blames herself for the way you are…says it was her being on the game that started you off. You found school difficult and started truanting…and she talks about thieving and drunken fights.” There was enough of a reaction to make it worth trying something I’d found on a website-the term Glasgow prostitutes use for the red light district. “She says she was more frightened of you than going on the drag.”

  “That’s crap,” he grated angrily.

  “It’s what she says. There’ve been seven unsolved prostitute murders in Glasgow since 1991, and she’s told Strathclyde police she thinks you’re responsible. It’s all in her statement.”

  He didn’t know whether to believe me or not. Would a Zimbabwean know that Strathclyde police was the over-arching force for Glasgow or that files were still open on seven prostitutes from the drag? The murders had happened, although they weren’t thought to be linked to a single individual. Did MacKenzie know that?

  He sent a darting glance towards the computer screen. I kept my eyes on his face, but at the edge of my range I could see Peter struggling to release his hands. I knew from experience that it was wasted effort but I prayed for a miracle, anyway. “It’s your mother who provided the photograph,” I said.

  I was afraid that might be a step too far. Would Mary MacKenzie have a recent picture of her son? Apparently so, because he didn’t question it. I wasn’t entirely clear where it took me, except that it seemed to keep his unease alive. My real hope was to persuade him that taking out his anger on me, Jess and Peter would achieve nothing if it was his mother who had given most of the information to the police.

  “Your photograph has been posted with every police force in the UK, along with a warrant for your arrest on suspicion of the Glasgow murders. Once you’re in custody, Alan Collins and Bill Fraser will be given time to question you about the Freetown and Baghdad murders. You came under UK jurisdiction as soon as you entered the country…which means you can be questioned about crimes anywhere in the world.” Carefully, I adjusted my grip on the axe. My palms were so wet I could barely hold it. “It’s all in Alan’s email.”

  If I could indeed tempt him into turning his back, I would certainly hit him, but I had few illusions about my ability to do any serious damage. I was more likely to miss him completely and bury the axe in my monitor. At least I’d kill the awful repetition of my own tearful entreaties, followed by mute obedience, that filled the screen behind him. The images, many in close-up, were worse than anything I’d imagined.

  I had to try twice before any words came. “They’ve done a psychological profile on you that says if you filmed me, then you’ll have filmed the women you murdered as well. They say you’re an addictive trophy killer…you hang on to evidence that will convict you because you need to keep reminding yourself-”

  The speed with which MacKenzie’s fist whipped out to flick a knife blade in front of Peter’s face stopped me in my tracks. “Stay where you are,” he warned. “I don’t give a shit for this man’s sight…but you probably do.” With his other hand, he felt behind him for the CD-ROM button. “You talk too much, Connie,” he said, glancing round to retrieve a disk from the open tray. “All women talk too much. It does my fucking head in. I liked you better when your tongue was tied.”

  He played the point of the knife between Peter’s terrified eyes while he slid the DVD into his pocket. “What else does this profile say?”

  Christ! Which was better? Back off or keep going? How much did he know about psychological profiling? What was more likely to tip him over the edge? Something anodyne or something brutal? I dredged facts from the research I’d done. “That you’re an organized killer…a vengeful stalker who blames women for your inability to make relationships…that you target your victims carefully and plan your murders to avoid detection.” I kept my eyes on the blade. “That your socioeconomic group is at the lower end of the scale…you’re unlikely to be married…possibly delusional…have no interest in personal hygiene…” I fell silent because his aggression suddenly vanished.

  He lowered the knife to the table and assessed me critically. “You’re skin and bones, feather,” he said gently. “What happened to you?”

  “I haven’t been eating. I feel sick if I put something in my mouth.”

  “You think about me then?”

  “All the time.”

  “Go on,” he encouraged, placing the knife on the desk to reach for a canvas bag that I hadn’t noticed within the embrasure of the desk. I watched him pull back the flap to put my father’s mobile and the DVD inside, and with a small shock I recognized it as my own bag.

  “At night, I wake up screaming because I’m afraid you’re in the room,” I said in a monotone. “During the day I have panic attacks because I see a dog or smell something that reminds me of you.” Inside the bag, I could see a pair of miniature binoculars that I was sure belonged to my father. “There isn’t a single minute in twenty-four hours when Keith MacKenzie doesn
’t fill my mind.”

  I lapsed into silence again because I didn’t know what he was doing. Part of me wondered if he was preparing to leave; the other part remained intensely suspicious. His only way out was past me, but I wasn’t so naïve as to lower the axe to let him pass. Nor was I prepared to separate myself from Jess and Peter. However incapacitated they were, I drew a confidence from their presence that I wouldn’t have had if I’d faced MacKenzie alone.

  My concern now was Jess. She was beginning to tire. On the fringes of my vision, she kept jerking her head back to keep her shoulders in contact with the walls. Peter’s fear for her was intense. He doubled his efforts to free his hands, and I saw his desperation every time he looked from her to me.

  MacKenzie saw it, too, and smiled as he jerked his head towards the stinger. “It’s a neat little thing, isn’t it? I assume it was meant for me, feather. If your friend’s unlucky, the nails will get her in the belly. I’ve seen more soldiers die of gut wounds than anything else. The filth from the intestine infects the blood.” He gave an indifferent shrug. “It’s your choice. You can come in and move the trap…or you can let her fall. I’ll even make a deal with you. As soon as you’re through the doorway, I’ll leave.”

  Peter nodded violently, begging me to obey. I forced my tongue across my lips so that I could generate some noise. “JESS!” I cried. “Listen to me! You must concentrate! I can’t come in. Do you understand?” Her head ducked a millimetre in response. I went on more calmly: “I don’t care how tired you are or how much it hurts, you stay upright. At least you’re on your feet and not cowering in a corner. Understand?” Another dip of her head.

  I don’t know when I realized that I wasn’t as afraid as I’d expected to be. I showed physical signs of it in my parched mouth and sweating hands, but that had more to do with fear of being taken by surprise than fear of MacKenzie himself. Rightly or wrongly, I felt it was he who was isolated, and I who was in control.

  He was smaller than I remembered and a great deal seedier, with stubble on his jaw and a shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been changed for days. I could smell it from ten metres away. It stank of dirt and sweat and caused my only genuine falters when the nausea of memory scorched the back of my throat. For the most part, I wondered how someone so unprepossessing could have gained such a hold over my imagination.

  The policeman who interviewed me later asked me why I hadn’t accepted MacKenzie’s offer to leave. “Because I knew he wouldn’t,” I answered.

  “Dr. Coleman’s less sure.”

  “Peter was frightened for Jess-it’s what he wanted to believe. All I could see was that we’d all be more vulnerable if I did what MacKenzie wanted. While I was free and barring the exit, he was the one in the trap…but if I’d entered the room the dynamics would have changed completely.”

  “Weren’t you worried that Ms. Derbyshire would fall?”

  “Yes…but I felt she could hang on a bit longer. In any case, I couldn’t have moved the trap easily. I’d have had to look at it-which would have meant taking my eyes off MacKenzie-and he’d have jumped me immediately. I don’t see I had a choice except to stay where I was.”

  “Even when Dr. Coleman was threatened?”

  “Even when,” I agreed. “It’s easier to understand if you think of it as a game of chess. As long as I controlled the doorway to the hall, MacKenzie’s moves were limited.”

  The policeman eyed me curiously. He’d introduced himself as Detective Inspector Bagley and, despite my request that he call me Connie, he insisted on the more formal Ms. Burns. He was ginger-haired and stocky, not much older than I was, and, though he remained courteous throughout, his suspicion of me was obvious. “Were you that cold-blooded at the time?”

  “I tried to be. It wasn’t always easy…but I couldn’t see what good it would do any of us if I didn’t stay one step ahead of him.”

  Bagley nodded. “Did you and Ms. Derbyshire make the stinger, Ms. Burns? Was that part of the plan to stay one step ahead?”

  “No.”

  “According to Dr. Coleman, MacKenzie said the stinger was meant for him. Are you sure you didn’t plan a trap that went wrong?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “In any case, I don’t think Peter heard MacKenzie right. He speaks with a very strong accent. The way I heard him, he said it was meant for me.”

  “So it was MacKenzie who made it? Along with the other five we found?”

  “He must have done.”

  Bagley consulted some notes. “Dr. Coleman says you told MacKenzie that your plan was to kill him.”

  “Only when he asked me what I’d do if he used the axe on Jess. I didn’t have any plan when I first went into the hall except to try to convince him the police were on their way.”

  “That’s not the impression Dr. Coleman received, Ms. Burns. He says you knew what you were doing from the moment you appeared in the doorway. He also says MacKenzie had the same impression.”

  I shrugged. “What was I doing?”

  “Looking for revenge.”

  “Is that what Peter thought?”

  “He certainly believes MacKenzie thought it. He says he was frightened of you.”

  “Good,” I said dispassionately.

  ***

  BEING CLOTHED made a difference. Even a flimsy cotton top and sarong felt like body armour compared with the shameful exposure of nakedness. When I made the decision to stay in the doorway, I wiped each palm down the side of my skirt while I balanced the axe in the other, then tucked my hem into my knicker elastic to give myself more freedom of movement.

  Being able to see changed everything. For the first time, I understood how fear had distorted my perceptions of the man I was up against. For all the violence that I knew MacKenzie could generate, I saw him as a little man, not much taller than I was. And he couldn’t disguise what was going on inside his head. His eyes darted to and fro, checking and double-checking that he still had control of his environment; but whenever he looked at me now, it was with doubt.

  Did I still recognize his authority? How much did I care about the other people in the room? Was my hatred of him greater than my loyalty to them? How frightened was I? How much sympathy did I have for Jess’s plight?

  “She’ll not be able to stand there all night,” he told me, “and neither will you. Better do as I say, Connie.”

  “No.”

  He raised the knife to Peter’s face again. “Shall I cut the doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Then come in.”

  “No.”

  He placed the tip of the blade under Peter’s right eye. “One flick and he’s blind. Do you want to be responsible for that, feather?” Peter cringed into the back of the chair. “Look at him,” MacKenzie said in disgust. “He’s even more scared than you were.”

  “Then untie him and see if he’s as scared when his hands are free.”

  “You’d like that.”

  “Of course,” I agreed unemotionally. “You ought to be able to take him easily if you were in the SAS. But you never were, were you?”

  He didn’t rise to the bait, but I hadn’t expected him to. Instead, he stared at Peter with contempt. “Your father showed more spirit than this creep.”

  It was a tactic he’d used with me, and I’m sure on every other victim. The more a person’s belittled the harder it is to retain a sense of worth. I tried the same ploy on him. “What do you think I’m going to do if you use that knife?” I asked with as much scorn as I could muster. “You can’t really be stupid enough to think I’ll suck your cock again. Or maybe you are? Your mother’s IQ was measured at retard levels.”

  It was like water off a duck’s back. He played the point of the blade between Peter’s eyes again. “You’ll do what I want I you to do, Connie, the way you did before.”

  Peter’s terror was so intense I could feel it. It palpated the air. And I was cold-blooded. I remember thinking, You haven’t begun to experience what I experienced, Peter, or even w
hat Jess is experiencing now. I was angry with him, too, because his fear was feeding MacKenzie’s confidence.

  I managed to produce enough saliva to project a globule of spit on to the floor. “That’s what I think of you, you little fucker,” I growled at MacKenzie. “You try anything on me and you’re dead. You should listen to the voices in your head that tell you how frightening women are. You daren’t go near them if their hands are free.”

  That didn’t seem to trouble him either.

  “Do you know what the prostitutes in Freetown called you?” I said with an abrupt laugh. “ ‘Zoo Queen.’ They thought you were gay because you hated women so much…and the story went that you shafted dogs because you couldn’t afford pretty boys. Why do you think the Europeans gave you such a wide berth? The first thing any of us learnt was, don’t shake hands with Harwood or you’ll catch whatever his ridgeback has.”

  I had his attention.

  “I told the police you could only get a hard on when dogs were present,” I went on, fishing for anything that would provoke him. “Nothing I did excited you. Look at you now. You’re far more aroused by Peter than you are by me or Jess. You can only do it with women when they’re tied up and subservient. They remind you of your mother…grunting and sweating under any man she brought home.”

  He didn’t answer, just stared at me.

  “You have to blindfold women so they won’t see the size of your dick,” I went on, “and you force fellatio on them so you won’t have to come into contact with anything intimate. Breasts and vaginas scare the shit out of you. You can fuck an anus, but you sure as hell can’t fuck a vagina.” This time the hit was a very direct one if the momentary shock in his eyes was anything to go by. “It’s all in your profile. They call it ‘stage fright’ because you can’t hold an erection-”