The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [57]
Jess was right about my appearance. I did look like shit. Red-eyed and haggard, and easily as old and desiccated as a ninety-eight-year-old virgin. As I washed my face and tugged a brush through my hair, I asked myself what I was thinking of. I’d hardly written anything since I’d arrived—except emails to Alan and Dan—and the only people I spoke to on a regular basis were my parents, Jess and Peter. My days were spent surfing the net, researching information on psychopaths and deviants. My nights were spent dreaming about them.
“Stalker types: The delusional stalker often has a history of mental illness which leads him to fantasize that his victim is in love with him. The vengeful stalker—the most dangerous—seeks revenge…”
“Sadist Rapist: One who seeks to punish a woman by the use of violence and cruelty. The victim is typically only a symbol of the source of his anger. He is usually very deliberate in his rapes and plans each one carefully. The victims are often traumatized, suffer extreme physical injuries and, in many cases, are murdered…”
“Torturer: One who inflicts extreme physical and mental pain for the purpose of punishment or obtaining information. Abuse may include: blindfolding; enforced constant standing or crouching; near drowning through submersion in water; near suffocation by plastic bags being tied round the head; rape…”
When John Donne wrote “no man is an island, entire of itself” he can’t have known about genuine introverts like Jess or sociopaths like MacKenzie. Such people might live within communities—albeit on the fringes—but their reclusiveness, their reticence, even their indifference to what others think, means, at best, that they’re only semi-attached to the “continent” of mankind. If they engage with the rest of us at all, it’s on their own terms and not on ours.
MacKenzie’s isolation had turned him into a predator, although it’s arguable which came first—his sadism or his alienation. It’s unlikely he was born with sadistic fantasies—what baby is?—but a harsh childhood might have led to them. By contrast, Jess’s introversion seems to have been inherited from her father, although the tragedies in her life may have exacerbated it. Sometimes, particularly when she refused to speak, I felt there was an autistic element to her personality. She was certainly a gifted artist and gave the same obsessive commitment to her work that savants show.
In her own way, she was charismatic. She inspired affection and loyalty in those who chose to interact with her, and a disproportionate dislike among those who didn’t. There was no middle ground with Jess. You loved her or loathed her, and in either case accepted her detachment as part of the package.
All of which persuaded me back downstairs within the half-hour limit because I needed her a great deal more than she needed me.
Extracts from notes, filed as “CB16–19/05/04”
…The police in Baghdad suggested that my alleged “ignorance” might be due to Stockholm Syndrome—I’d developed a bond with my captors to stay alive and was withholding information out of gratitude for my release. They told me it was nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to most hostages because their lives depend on their captors, and it’s a classic self-protection measure to befriend the one who threatens you. When I denied it, they lost sympathy with me.
…The only bond I developed was with the footsteps. I longed for them because I was afraid I’d been left to die of slow starvation and dehydration…and feared them because it meant I’d be taken out of the crate. I certainly developed a psychological attachment to sounds. I was owned for three days—and still am.
…I was never going to give details of what happened. How could I explain my smiles to strangers? Did I ever say no? Did I ever think about saying no?
…Do all sadists understand the power they wield? Are all victims programmed to respond in the same way to fear and pain?