The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [69]
If I wrestled with anything, it was Peter’s all-too-accurate observation that MacKenzie controlled me. And through a video. I could have been as brave as a lion if it were my word against that of an ignorant Glaswegian rapist. I could have said anything. That I’d screamed, argued, refused consent, fought for my life. I could have pretended some dignity. Who was going to believe MacKenzie without pictures?
Me.
“They showed a clip of Adelina’s video on the television the other day,” I told Peter then. “They used a close-up of her face—with the black eyes—to give viewers a taste of what’s likely to happen to a Korean woman who’s been taken. I know Adelina quite well. She’s only about five feet three tall—rather like Jess—but she looked so…indomitable. How did she do that?” “She didn’t,” Peter said bluntly. “I saw that clip, too, and I saw a frightened woman. You’re imposing something from your imagination that wasn’t there. Adelina was terrified, and rightly so. She had no idea what was going to happen next, and it shows in her face.” He leaned forward. “Why would hostage-takers release a video showing a victim looking indomitable, Connie? Pictures are propaganda, and terrorists are only interested in portraying terror.”
“She makes jokes about it now.”
“Because she can. None of her worst fears materialized. In any case, a black eye is a visible badge of honour. It proves you’ve taken some punishment.” He pressed his forefingers together and pointed them at me. “Think how much easier it would have been for you if you’d come out with bruises. You might not have wanted to explain them—but they wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. The police would have insisted on a photographic record, and that evidence would have survived until you gave an explanation for them.”
I folded my arms across my chest and tucked my hands under my armpits to avoid lashing out at him. Why did he keep stating the obvious? Why keep implying that I was too stupid to think these things for myself? I thought him intolerably smug, but feared that any display of irritability would bring a self-satisified “I told you so.” The screams that swooped around my head were all about what I should have done.
“Say it,” Peter encouraged.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“I was thinking how debased language has become. ‘Collateral damage’ for civilian deaths, ‘shock and awe’ for relentless bombing, ‘coalition of the willing,’ ‘surgical strike’—that’s propaganda. It’s all designed to put a spin on the truth. Do you know that every time I wrote ‘Iraqi resistance fighters’ the subs changed it to ‘insurgents.’ The words are synonymous but the connotations of ‘resistance’ are laudatory. It makes people think of the French Resistance, and the coalition didn’t want that connection made.” I fell silent.
“Go on.”
“Words are meaningless unless you know why they’re being used. In the context of war, ‘collateral damage’ ought to mean the accidental killing of your own side, but the US military invented ‘friendly fire’ or ‘blue on blue’ for that.” I held his gaze for a moment. “MacKenzie’s favourite expression was ‘shock and awe.’ He defined it as ‘softening up’ and really loved the juxtaposition of the two ideas—terror linked to reverence. He felt it was the natural order of things that the weak should kow-tow to the strong.”
“And your role was to give him the illusion of strength?”
“It wasn’t an illusion,” I said. “It was a reality. I was his devil’s feather.”
“What does that mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean. That I was to blame…that I was crushable…that I was something of no account.”
Peter let a silence drift before he tried again. “You were a prisoner. The reality is that you were put in