Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

I shrugged. “I asked the academy twice if I could do an interview with him-once that afternoon and again a couple of days later when I got through to their press office. On neither occasion was I told that Kenneth O’Connell wasn’t employed there any more…which I should have been if he was transferred a month ago.”

Surtees shook his head. “Then they haven’t kept their records up to date. As I’m sure you’re aware, everything’s fairly chaotic in Baghdad at the moment.” He closed the lid of his laptop. “We’re meticulous about our records, so you can rely on the information I’ve just given you.”

I drew a Pinocchio doodle on my notepad so that he could see it. “Where’s O’Connell now? What’s he doing?”

“I can’t answer that. Company policy re our employees is no different from Reuters’. Complete confidentiality. Would you expect anything less?”

“Then talk generally,” I encouraged him. “What qualifies a man to teach restraint techniques to raw recruits in the most dangerous capital in the world? Knowledge of the law? A long and honourable career with Scotland Yard? A period in the military police, even? He appeared to be instructing dog-handlers, so I assume he has experience in that field? What sort of qualities does it need? Patience? A good control of his temper?”

He folded his hands on the table. “No comment.”

“Why not?”

“Because your questions relate to a specific individual and I’ve already described the sort of people we recruit.”

I extended Pinocchio’s nose. “You must think very highly of O’Connell, Mr. Surtees. He’s one of your few employees who’s not working in the private sector…or wasn’t until a week ago. I’m assuming the coalition only takes consultants with scrupulously clean records?”

“Of course.”

“So you checked O’Connell thoroughly?” Surtees nodded. “What’s his background? Where was he born? Where did he grow up? With a name like that he ought to be Irish.”

“No comment.”

I watched him for a moment. “When I knew him in Sierra Leone, he said he’d been with the SAS unit that stormed the Iranian embassy in London. Is that what he told you?”

Surtees shook his head.

“I knew it was a load of baloney,” I said amiably. “That embassy siege was twenty-four years ago and the unit was chosen for its experience. O’Connell would be a good fifty now if he’d been one of them…unless the SAS was recruiting teenagers in the late seventies.”

“I’m not denying or confirming anything, Ms. Burns”-he tapped his watch-“and you’re running out of time.”

I turned over a page of my notebook and did a quick sketch of MacKenzie’s feathered scimitar, showing it to Surtees. “He told one of my colleagues that the tattoo on the back of his head is a symbolic interpretation of the SAS winged dagger…it’s his personal tribute to a crushing victory over Islamic fundamentalists. Do you think it’s appropriate for a man who holds views like that to train Iraqi policemen?”

Surtees shook his head again.

“Meaning what? That he never trained them…or it’s not appropriate?”

“Meaning, no comment.” He unbuckled his watch and laid it on the desk. “Time’s up,” he said.

I tucked my pencil behind my ear and reached for my kitbag. “He’s working in a sensitive area. Control and restraint techniques are used to immobilize dangerous or violent suspects, and we’ve seen some graphic images of what happens when uneducated sadists end up in charge of detainees. I’m sure you recall that dogs were used to terrorize the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. It may not bother you if we have a repeat of it-you’ll wash your hands of it with some creative record-keeping-but it’ll bother me.”

The man smiled slightly. “I’ll leave the creative side to you, Ms. Burns. I’m afraid I’m too slow-witted to follow your imaginative leaps from the misidentification of one of our employees to my being personally responsible for what went on in Abu Ghraib.”

“Shame on you,” I said lightly. “I’d hoped you had more integrity.” I stuffed my notebook and pencil into my kitbag. “MacKenzie’s a violent man. When he was in Sierra Leone he couldn’t restrain himself…let alone teach others how to do it. He had a Rhodesian ridgeback patrolling his compound which was even more aggressive than he was. He trained the dog to kill by throwing stray mongrels at it.”

Surtees stood up and held out his hand. “Good day,” he said pleasantly. “If there’s anything else I can help you with, feel free to phone.”

I pushed myself to my feet and shook the proffered hand. “I can’t afford the time,” I said equally pleasantly, tossing my card onto the table in front of him. “That’s my mobile number in case you feel like talking to me.”

“Why would I want to?”

I rested my kitbag on my hip to fasten the straps. “MacKenzie broke a drunk’s forearm in Freetown. I saw him do it. He took it between his hands and snapped it against his knee like a piece of rotten wood.”

There was a short silence before the man gave a sceptical smile. “I don’t think that’s possible, not unless the bone was so brittle that anyone could have done it.”

“He wasn’t prosecuted,” I went on, “because the victim was too frightened to report him to the police…but a couple of paratroopers- your regiment-forced him to pay some hefty compensation. You don’t get broken bones set for free in Sierra Leone…and you sure as hell don’t get benefit if you can’t work.” I shook my head. “The man’s a sadist, and all the ex-pats knew it. He’s not a type I’d choose to instruct raw recruits in Baghdad on how to do their jobs properly…certainly not in the present climate.”

He stared at me with dislike. “Is this a personal thing? You seem very intent on destroying a man’s reputation.”

I walked to the door and flipped the handle with my elbow. “Just for the record, MacKenzie’s victim was a half-starved prostitute who weighed under six stone…and I bet she did have brittle bones, because every cow in the country had been slaughtered for food by the rebels and calcium-rich milk was a luxury. The poor kid-she was only sixteen years old-was trying to earn money to buy clothes for her baby. She was tipsy on two beers which another customer had bought her, and she jogged MacKenzie’s elbow by accident. As retribution, he dislocated hers and fractured her ulna by wrenching her arm open and snapping it backwards across his leg.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you have a comment on that?”

He didn’t.

“Have a nice day,” I told him.

IN THE END I never wrote the piece. I managed to get an interview with a bodyguard from a different security firm, but he’d only recently left the army and Iraq was his first freelance operation. As my original idea had been to show how demand for mercenaries far outweighed supply, with compromises being made in the vetting of recruits if numbers were to be met, a single novice didn’t make a story. Also, the public appetite for “war” stories was wearing thin. All anyone wanted was a solution to the mess, not more reminders that the coalition’s grip was slipping.

With the help of a translator, I toured Iraqi newspaper offices and went through three months of back copies, looking for stories about raped and murdered women. Salima, the translator, was sceptical from the outset. “This is Baghdad,” she told me. “The only thing anyone’s interested in is death by suicide bombing or, better still, acts of sadism on the part of the coalition. Women are raped all the time by husbands they never wanted to marry. Does that count?”

I pointed out that it would take twice as long if she conducted a running commentary all the way through.