The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [132]
Sent:
Thur 26/08/04 10:12
To:
connie.burns@uknet.com
Subject:
Your extraordinary resilience
* * *
Dear Connie,
I’m impressed by your resilience, though not as impressed as Nick Bagley seems to be. After what you’ve been through, he’s astonished by your determination to stay put and carry on. I explained that you’ve been in worse situations and survived them but with MacKenzie still on the loose, Nick feels you should be more afraid. Your response appears to be “out of character for a woman.” I might have cast aspersions against Dorset ladies, but he says your friend Jess is being equally bullish.
I’ve had several conservations with Nick re MacKenzie’s disappearance. He tells me there’ve been a number of sightings across the south-west although none is reliable. He’s interested in MacKenzie’s alleged SAS training (still to be corroborated) and asked if I thought it possible/likely that the man never left Winterbourne Valley. I said I thought it unlikely as I understand the entire area was swept twice and no trace of him was found. I hope I’m correct, Connie. If not, please take extra precautions. The consequences could be extremely serious for you if MacKenzie is still in the vicinity.
I was sorry to hear that one of Jess’s mastiffs died trying to protect you. It’s not a breed I know much about except that they’re large and extremely powerful. Nick tells me the “Hound of the Baskervilles” was a mastiff—he referred to it as “a huge beast that hunted men and ripped their throats out”—and I know he views Jess’s pack with the same alarm. He keeps a close eye on them, although he’s surprised they’re now confined to their enclosure when Jess’s previous routine was to exercise them daily across her land.
Finally, Nick is surprised that you didn’t destroy the DVD of your captivity when you had the chance. From the concerns you expressed both to me and Dr. Coleman about being filmed (and Dr. Coleman’s description of what he saw), Nick wonders why you seem so indifferent to the fact MacKenzie still has it. I presume you aren’t, and that you’re still anxious about it?
Yours as ever,
Alan
DI Alan Collins, Greater Manchester Police
From:
connie.burns@uknet.com
Sent:
Fri 27/08/04 08:30
To:
alan.collins@manchester-police.co.uk
Subject:
My extraordinary resilience
* * *
Dear Alan,
Thank you. I deeply appreciate the thoughts behind your email.
So…for your reassurance…
Nick Bagley would have been no less suspicious if Jess and I had folded ourselves into heaps and demanded 24-hour protection. Peter Coleman’s evidence about our courage was so OTT that a sudden collapse afterwards would have looked very odd. We can only be what we are, Alan, and there was no sense assuming different personas to satisfy Bagley’s view of how women ought to behave. You know very well I could have kept up a sham for as long as I liked—I’ve done it successfully in the past—but Jess is too honest.
I took your Thucydides quote to heart. “The secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom, courage.” I’ve tried to explain to Bagley that merely confronting MacKenzie was a liberation. I saw him for what he was—not what my imagination had made of him—and I’m a great deal happier for it. I can’t, and won’t, pretend a fear I don’t feel anymore. Bagley’s given me a panic alarm, but I’m sure MacKenzie won’t come back. He seemed far more frightened of me that night than I was of him.
In so far as anyone can guarantee anything, I guarantee that MacKenzie is NOT in the valley. Dorset police searched it twice from end to end, and there was no sign of him on either occasion. He may have holed up somewhere else but I’m sure the more likely explanation is that he left the country under a different passport. He seems to have unlimited access to them.
FYI, Dan has requested a filter on all Reuters files to pull out anything relating to unexplained murders, so if MacKenzie starts again somewhere else we may be able to spot him.
Re the Hound of the Baskervilles. Conan Doyle describes it as a mastiff/bloodhound cross,