Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather

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 what 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-”