Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

“But you’re being naïve, Connie. Even assuming a European could get close to an Iraqi woman without being spotted-which I don’t believe-who’s going to report it? Some parts of Baghdad are so dangerous that the Iraqi journalists won’t go into them-it’s not as if the bombing and shooting have stopped-so how’s the death of a single woman going to grab anyone’s attention?”

I knew she was right, so I don’t know which of us was more surprised when we came across the first story. It was headlined “Rape on the Increase” and was a statistical account of how the rape and/or abduction of women had risen from one a month before the war to some twenty-five a month afterwards. Based on a Human Rights Watch report, it pointed to the dangers women face when the moral and ethical bases of society are shattered by war.

“It says that rape was rare under Saddam because it was a capital offence,” Salima told me, “then suggests it was the disbanding of the police force at the start of the occupation that put women’s safety in jeopardy. This will interest you.” She followed the text with her finger. “ ‘With thugs and bandits running lawless districts, women are forced to cower in their homes for fear of their lives and honour. Disgracefully, this is no protection. Fateha Kassim, a devout young widow, was found raped and murdered in her home last week. Her father, who discovered her body, said it was the work of animals. They destroyed her beauty, he said.’ ” She looked up. “Is that the kind of thing we’re looking for?”

I nodded. “It sounds like a carbon copy of the Sierra Leone killings.”

“But how could he have got at her?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s part of the excitement. If he was in the SAS, he’d have been trained to move around without attracting notice. Perhaps he goes in at night. Alan Collins said the crime scenes in Sierra Leone suggested the women had spent some time with their killer before he took the machete to them.”

The second story, the only other one we found, was from a different newspaper, dated a month later. It was buried in the middle pages under the headline “Mother Dies in Sword Attack,” and was very short. Salima translated: “ ‘The body of Mrs. Gufran Zaki was discovered by her son on his return from school yesterday. She was brutally slain by blows and cuts to her head. The attack was described as frenzied. Police are looking for her husband, Mr. Bashar Zaki, who is said to suffer from depression. Neighbours say he had a sword, which is missing from the house.’ ”

We looked for a follow-up to see if Bashar Zaki had been arrested, but the story had been overtaken by the events at Abu Ghraib jail and there were no further references to it. Nor did the murder of Fateha Kassim feature again. It was difficult to know what to do after that. There was no mileage in the women from an international point of view, so I didn’t mention them or my suspicions of MacKenzie to Dan Fry, the Reuters bureau chief in Baghdad. We were snowed under with more immediate disasters, and shortly afterwards Salima, the only other person interested, was sent south to Basra with another correspondent.

More out of frustration than with any real expectation of a response, I unearthed my two pieces from Sierra Leone and had them delivered, along with Salima’s translations of the articles on the Baghdad murders and a covering letter, to Alastair Surtees at the Baycombe Group. I also emailed them to Alan Collins via the Greater Manchester Police website. Surtees’s only reply was a printed compliments slip, acknowledging receipt of the documents. Alan’s, a week later, was rather more encouraging.

“My best suggestion,” he wrote in his email, “is to contact DI Bill Fraser or DS Dan Williams in Basra. They’re doing a similar training job to the one I was doing in Freetown. I’ve forwarded your email and attachments to Bill Fraser to bring him up to speed, and will add his e-address at the bottom. No guarantees, I’m afraid. If the coalition sectors are acting independently, it will be difficult for Bill to intervene in Baghdad, but he should be able to give you some useful names higher up the chain of command. Meanwhile, be a little wary who you talk to. MacKenzie’s inside the loop if he is/has been working with the police, so he’ll have no trouble finding out who’s accusing him. And even if your suspicions are wrong, you already know he reacts violently when he’s crossed.”

His advice came too late. By the time I received it, I’d changed my hotel twice and my bedroom three times in as many days. It’s hard to explain how the constant invasion of your space can destroy your equilibrium…but it does and it did. The door was always locked when I returned, and nothing was stolen, but the deliberate rearrangement of my possessions frightened me. On one occasion I found my laptop open with my letter to Alastair Surtees on-screen.

I had no proof it was MacKenzie-although I never doubted it-but I couldn’t persuade the hotels to take me seriously. It was impossible for a non-resident to enter guests’ bedrooms, they said. And what was I complaining about, anyway, when no thefts had occurred? It was simply the chambermaid doing her job. My colleagues merely shrugged their shoulders and quoted the “thief of Baghdad” at me. What else could I expect in this god-awful city?

The only person who might have taken my fears seriously was my boss, Dan Fry, but he’d chosen that week to go on R &R in Kuwait. I thought about phoning him and asking if I could transfer to his flat, but I was afraid I’d be even more isolated there than in a hotel full of journalists. There was no point in going to the police. Obsessed with suicide bombers and hostage-takers, they wouldn’t have given me the time of day. And in any case, I thought Alan Collins was right. The police were the last people to talk to.

I didn’t sleep. Instead I lay awake, clutching a pair of scissors, and watching the door with burgeoning paranoia. After four nights of it I was so exhausted that, when I returned to my room after a press conference to find my knickers with the crotches cut out, my nerve snapped completely and I applied for immediate sick leave on the grounds of war-induced stress and mental breakdown.

I hadn’t spent more than two months in the UK since I’d left Oxford in 1988, but in Baghdad in early May 2004 all I could dream about was soft summer rain, green grass, narrow hedge-lined lanes, and fields and fields of ripening corn. It was an England I barely knew-drawn as much from fiction and poetry as real life-but it was the safest place I could think of.

I can’t imagine why I was so stupid.

›››Associated Press

›››Sunday, 16 May 2004, 07:42 GMT 08:42 UK

›››Filed by James Wilson, Baghdad, Iraq

Reuters Correspondent Snatched

Just three days after Adelina Bianca, a 42-year-old Italian television reporter, was taken hostage by Muntada al-Ansar, an armed terrorist group, it’s feared that Connie Burns, a 36-year-old Reuters correspondent, has suffered the same fate. Snatched while on her way to Baghdad International Airport yesterday, Connie Burns’s whereabouts are unknown. Her Reuters car was discovered, burnt out and abandoned, on the outskirts of the city. As yet, no group has claimed responsibility for her kidnapping.

Muntada al-Ansar, believed to be led by Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qaeda operative, was responsible for the savage execution on video of American civilian Nick Berg. They have now posted video footage of a distressed and blindfolded Adelina Bianca on the same website, with threats to behead her if Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister, continues to support the coalition.

In the wake of these atrocities, Amnesty International has issued the following statement. “The killing of prisoners is one of the most serious crimes under international law. Armed groups must release immediately and without any precondition all hostages, and should refrain from attacking, abducting and killing civilians.”