The Devil`s Feather

by Minette Walters

  Now that the dust has settled a bit, I would appreciate a full explanation. We’re staying in a very cramped room in a mediocre hotel, and it would help to have a time-frame. Your mother’s idea of packing was to include our good stuff and leave out anything comfortable, so we’re dressed to the nines on a Saturday morning and extremely bad-tempered. Our only other choice is to stay in pyjamas all day, but we’re liable to kill each other if we don’t go out.

  We’re not happy, C. We’ve done as you asked because you used emotional blackmail to achieve it, but we’ll need some very good reasons to continue. Your mother’s worried and depressed because she doesn’t know why you’re afraid of this man, and I feel powerless to do anything for the same reason. I’m inclined to overrule you and take it to the police. You may have me over a barrel, in that I can’t give them his name, history or full description, but I can give them your address, C, and I may still decide to do that in your own interests.

  I’m sorry to be a grouch but you’re asking a lot of us. You may be used to living out of a suitcase, but we’re well past the age of finding it amusing. In case you’ve forgotten, your mother turns sixty-four at the end of the month, which is another reason why she’s cross. Apart from the fact that we won’t be coming to stay with you, the light in the hotel bathroom is less forgiving than the one at home(!).

  Please don’t do what you normally do, and leave this sitting in your inbox for days on end. I will not go away if you ignore me. If I don’t receive a reply by tomorrow, with an explanation of why all this is necessary, I shall go to the police. And that’s not emotional blackmail, it’s a threat.

  This is emotional blackmail. If we have to remain in this room much longer, you’ll be responsible for your parents’ divorce.

  All my love, Dad xxx

  From:

  alan.collins@manchester-police.co.uk

  Sent:

  Sat 14/08/04 14:19

  To:

  connie.burns@uknet.com

  Subject:

  Additional information

  * * *

  Dear Connie,

  In fact I’m working a weekend shift, so I received your email this a.m. May I quote something my father taught me when I was nine years old and being bullied at school? “The secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom, courage.” When I pointed out that I didn’t have any courage, my father said, “Of course you do, son. Courage isn’t about trying to hit someone who’s bigger and stronger—that’s foolishness—it’s about being scared to death and not showing it.” He was a self-educated coal-miner who died of emphysema when I was 15. I’ll tell you about him one day. He’s never going to make the history books, but he was a good man who spoke a lot of sense.

  If Dad was talking to you now, he’d say it was courage that kept you alive, but he’d also tell you that the downside of putting on a brave face is that you have to work through your fears on your own. And the mind has a dangerous habit of distorting facts.

  I expect you’ve worked out numerous reasons why MacKenzie didn’t kill you—all of them discounting your own contribution. In abusive situations, victims invariably underestimate themselves and exaggerate the intellect and power of their abuser. He thought Surtees would put two and two together? He didn’t trust his accomplices? You’d falsely accused him and he’s not a murderer at all? They’re all hogwash, Connie. Any man prepared to imprison and brutalize a woman is certainly capable of murder, and there was nothing to stop him following his well-tested MO of disfiguring (even beheading) you, leaving Iraq, changing his identity, and letting terrorists take the blame.

  I wish you’d see yourself for what you were—a prisoner without power—but I fear you’re rewriting history to show yourself in the worst light. I may be wrong, but I’m guessing you were forced to do certain things you’re ashamed of, and now your imagination is busy exaggerating your willingness to cooperate. Will you think I’m belittling your experience if I say these feelings are common to every woman, man or child who’s been abused, raped or sexually assaulted? It’s extremely hard to retain a sense of self when the intention of abuse is to reduce the victim to the level of slave.

  Since it’s obvious MacKenzie failed in that purpose—you wouldn’t have contacted me/produced the photograph if he hadn’t—can I suggest that the reason you’re still alive is because you won his respect? The way you reacted, however that was, worked in your favour. I’m sure you’ll believe it’s because you cooperated—all surviving victims do—but you’d be wrong to assume that, Connie. There’s no question the two murdered women, whose corpses I saw in Sierra Leone, began by cooperating. Any trained SOCO could read that from their rooms—from the lack of evidence of fettering to the clear indications that intercourse/rape happened on the beds. They set out to appease, and succeeded only in provoking.

  So why didn’t that happen to you? What did you do right that they did wrong? I can only assume that he saw you as a person rather than an object. Perhaps you hid your fear better than they did. Perhaps he never fully possessed you. Who knows? But I urge you not to jump to the conclusion that it was because you’re white and spoke his language. To a man like that, any defenceless woman represents the means to self-gratification, and he may not know himself why he didn’t follow through.

  I also urge you not to conclude that because you were blindfolded and came away “unmarked,” he never had any intention of killing you. It’ll persuade you that you could/should have rejected some of his demands, and that would be a wrong inference from the facts you’ve given me. If you reread my report on the Sierra Leone murders, you’ll see there are several indicators to suggest the murderer had been in the victims’ rooms for some time—last sightings of the victims, rearrangement of furniture, evidence that food had been consumed, etc.

  I made the suggestion in the report that the killer “played” with his victims before unleashing his final attack because he enjoyed watching their responses. It would have been a roller-coaster ride of hope and fear, and the fewer marks he left on them, the greater the hope they would have had of survival. I believe this is what he was doing with you, Connie, and the reason you’re still alive is because you played his “game” better than they did.

  In passing, one of the reasons I wanted a pathologist sent out to Freetown was because both the women I saw appeared to have petechial haemorrhaging of the eyes (small spots of blood under the surface). It’s possible they were caused by the ferocity of the attack, but petechiae are commonly found in cases of suffocation—as, for example, when a plastic bag is used to obstruct the airways—and I did wonder if the killer’s “play” involved this type of torture. It’s favoured by totalitarian regimes because it leaves no marks. Mock drownings are also popular…but tend to “saturate” anything over the victim’s eyes. If it’s any comfort, there’s nothing you can tell me that I haven’t seen or heard before. There’s a depressing familiarity about the way deficient men bolster their self-esteem, and it invariably involves the attempted “humiliation” of another human being. In your case, I’m glad to see that the attempt has proved unsuccessful, despite your (hopefully temporary) belief to the contrary.

  Finally, I’ve passed MacKenzie’s details and picture to the Met and asked for heightened alert in the region of your parents’ flat and your father’s office, and I’m happy to do the same with your county police force if you’re prepared to tell me where you are. I have upped MacKenzie’s description to “extremely dangerous and possibly armed” and I urge you to consider that before you “go it alone” any longer. I understand very well that you feel safer with no one knowing your address, but you’ll be isolated and vulnerable if MacKenzie does succeed in finding you.

  Yours as ever,

  Alan

  DI Alan Collins, Greater Manchester Police

  From:

  connie.burns@uknet.com

  Sent:

  Sun 15/08/04 02:09

  To:

  BandM@freeuk.com

  Subje
ct:

  Correspondence with DI Alan Collins

  Attachments:

  Alan.doc (356 KB)

  * * *

  Dear Dad,

  I’m really sorry to be causing all this trouble for you and Mum, and I don’t blame you in the least for being a grouch. I’ve sweated buckets trying to put an explanation into words, but I can’t do it. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m exhausted so, instead, I’m attaching some pieces I wrote and my correspondence with a Manchester Inspector called Alan Collins. It’s fairly self-evident. FYI: The conclusions in Alan’s last email (yesterday) are spot on. He’s obviously a very good policeman.

  Lol, C xxx

  PS: I do NOT need sympathy, so please don’t offer it. I shall refuse to discuss this again if you go tearful on me. You know I don’t mean that unkindly, but the milk’s spilt and there’s no point crying over it.

  13

  IN RETROSPECT, I’m sure my primary reason for keeping quiet was because I knew how difficult it would be to accept support. Perhaps I’m a deeply contrary person but I started to see everything as a control issue—advice or offers of help were euphemisms for “I know better”—and I struggled with anger in a way I hadn’t before. Yet it was never directed where it should have been, at MacKenzie.

  I was still obsessed with the fear that he’d come looking for me, but my new objects of suspicion and dislike were Alan, Peter and my father, who in their various ways spent the following week urging me to step up to the plate. The only one who put it so baldly was Dad, but when I accused him of trying to exorcize his own demons through me, he retired hurt from the battle. Which increased my irritation, because I saw it as a ploy to make me feel guilty.

  My mother tried to breach the gap by leaving messages of love on the answerphone; Alan sent well-argued emails, appealing to my intellect, which sat in my inbox; and Peter brought me piles of research until I bolted all the doors and refused to answer the bell. By the end of the week I was so stressed out that I was thinking of doing another vanishing act. In a grotesque way, their generosity and affection were more intrusive than MacKenzie’s sadism. I’d survived brutality, but I couldn’t see how I could survive kindness.

  Jess showed up for the first few days and stood around, saying very little, but she stopped coming when I started ignoring the doorbell. I left a message on her phone, saying it was Peter I was trying to avoid, but she didn’t reply or come to the house. It was one of the reasons why I thought about leaving. There seemed little point staying if the only person I felt comfortable with had lost interest. Even if the fault was mine.

  SHE FRIGHTENED the life out of me when she walked into my bedroom the following Saturday. It was seven o’clock in the evening and, as far as I knew, every outside door was locked. I hadn’t heard the green baize door open or close, nor her footsteps on the stairs, nor even had a suspicion there was anyone else in the house. It sent me scrabbling to the nearest corner. I’d had my back to the door, sorting clothes on the bed, and in the second between sensing a presence, turning and recognizing her, I thought it was MacKenzie.

  “Don’t go weak on me,” she warned, “because I’m not in the mood to play nursemaid. Supposing I’d been this bloke? Were you planning to cower in the corner and let him jump you all over again?”

  I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. “You gave me a shock.”

  “And you think this bastard won’t?” Her gaze shifted to the empty wine bottle beside the bed, her eyes narrowing in disapproval. “In your shoes, I’d have weapons stashed all over the house and a baseball bat to hand twenty-four hours a day. It’s not you who should end up on the floor, it’s him…preferably with his brains smashed out.”

  I nodded to the carving knife on the bed. “I’ve been carrying that.”

  “Then why didn’t you use it?”

  “I recognized you.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she answered bluntly. “You were backed into the corner before you knew who it was…and you never even thought about reaching for the knife.” She stepped into the room and picked it up. “It’s a useless weapon, anyway. He’ll have it off you as soon as you get close enough to stab him.” She balanced it on her palm. “It’s too light. You won’t be able to put enough weight behind it…assuming you have the balls to stick it in, which I doubt. You need something longer and heavier that you can swing”—she stared at me—“then it won’t matter if you’re drunk. You’ll still have a fifty-fifty chance of hitting him.”

  I steadied myself against the wall. “I’ll get a baseball bat on Monday,” I said.

  “You’ll have to be sober to do that.”

  It was a good thing I wasn’t as drunk as she thought I was, otherwise I might have reacted more aggressively. I’d never met anyone who was quite so self-righteous. To a teetotaller like her, a tablespoon of wine represented ruin and perdition; to a hard-headed hack like me, it took several bottles to close me down completely. But in one way she was right. I might not have been paralytic, but I certainly wasn’t sober. The tranquillizing effects of alcohol were easier to come by than Valium or Prozac. As long as I paid by credit card to an anonymous call centre, it was delivered by the caseload to my door.

  It didn’t stop me having a go at her. “You’re such a puritan, Jess,” I said tiredly. “If you had your way, we’d all be walking around with steel rods rammed up our back sides. There’s no joy in your world at all.”

  “I don’t see much in yours either,” she said dismissively.

  I shrugged. “There used to be, and when I’m feeling optimistic there still will be. Can you say that? Will you ever unbend enough to accept someone else with all their frailties?” I stared into her strange eyes. “I can’t see it myself.”

  It was like water off a duck’s back. “I’m helping you, aren’t I?” she said impatiently. “I helped Lily. What more do you want?”

  What more indeed? Approval? Encouragement? Sympathy? The very things I was rejecting from everyone else, but they seemed more desirable from Jess because they weren’t on offer. Perhaps there’s always a gap between what we want and what we know we can take for granted. “Nothing,” I told her. “This is as good as it gets.”

  She studied me closely for a moment. “When did you last eat? You haven’t been out of the house all week, and your fridge was empty when I last put some eggs in it.”

  For someone who didn’t want to play nursemaid, she was giving a good impression of one. I wondered how she knew I hadn’t been out. “Have you been watching me?”

  “Just making sure you were still alive,” she said. “Your car’s growing moss on its wheels because it hasn’t moved, and you spend so much time checking your doors and windows that anyone can see you…particularly at night when you have all the lights blazing. There might be better ways of saying, ‘I’m here, I’m alone, come and get me,’ but I can’t think of one off the top of my head.”

  Belatedly, I asked the obvious question. “How did you get in if all the doors are locked?”

  She fished a key-ring from her pocket and held it up. “Spares to the scullery. Lily was worried about falling down and breaking her hip so she put them on a hook behind the oil tank in the outhouse.” She shook her head at my expression. “But, if they hadn’t been there, I’d have come in through the downstairs loo. That’s the easiest window to open from the outside. You just need one of these”—she dropped the knife back on the bed—“to ease up the catch. Any moron can do it.”

  I surprised her with a laugh, although her puritan streak blamed the alcohol and not the absurd waste of time of checking locks every two hours. “There’s not much hope then, is there? What do you suggest I do? Use the knife on myself and save MacKenzie the trouble?” I lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry. That wasn’t a dig at you…just tasteless gallows humour.”

  “You can start by eating,” she said severely. “I’ve brought some food. If nothing else, it’ll help you think straight.”

  “Who says I want to?” I asked, sinking onto the en
d of the bed. “You don’t get panic attacks when you’re pissed.”

  “Too bloody right,” she muttered grimly, pulling me to my feet for the second time in ten days. “If you carry on like this, you’ll be mincemeat for this animal.” She shook me angrily. “It won’t stop you hurting, though. You’ll be sober as a judge the minute he shoves your head in a bucket…but by then it’ll be too late. He won’t be playing with you…he’ll be killing you.”

  IT WAS an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. I’d mentioned drowning to Peter but it was Alan who’d suggested that MacKenzie “played” with his victims. All Jess should have known—assuming the Hippocratic oath and police confidentiality stood for anything—was what I’d told her and Peter in the kitchen ten days before. My abductor was British, I’d unearthed his story, it hadn’t surfaced because he was under investigation for serial rape and murder and the reason for the abduction was to warn me off.