AC05 - Death Mask by Kathryn Fox Page A

water.For a moment she understood what the Lilliputians felt like in
Gulliver’s Travels
.
    Anya knew that members of all the league’s teams throughout the country had been sent to this summit. She asked Linda which particular teams were staying at the hotel where the woman claimed she was assaulted.
    ‘The players Kirsten identified came from the New Jersey Bombers.’
    Anya glanced around. No one in the room appeared nervous or scared. There was no overt sign that some of them may have just committed a violent crime. She decided to look for scratches on any of their hands or forearms, anything to suggest the victim fought back. Many of them had earphones in and iPods playing. Others spoke incessantly on their phones, while a small number played video games. All in a fifteen-minute break.
    Experience and research showed that ten percent of people in groups like these were leaders who initiated aberrant behaviour. An amazing eighty percent, like sheep, followed. That left only ten percent who were strong or capable enough to dissent. They would be the conscientious objectors in the group.
    She wondered which personalities here were dominant enough to start trouble and which were strong enough to end it. Anya turned back to Linda and explained that they would run through the video scenarios and she’d ask what the players thought had happened.
    ‘The next session is good timing then. We can run through the DVD scenarios and maybe get some insights into the group’s response.’
    Anya had sent Linda a copy of the DVD along with the study results when they were published. She was grateful that she could get such an experienced prosecutor’s valuable input and insights into the group.
    ‘We could turn the main lights on as soon as each scenario is done. That way you can steer the questions depending on the response we get,’ Linda suggested.
    ‘We think alike,’ Anya smiled. The more they could see of the players, the more they might learn.
    Back inside the ballroom, Anya played the first of the scenarios. It began with a woman at a bar laughing and drinking with a group of men. She was particularly flirtatious with one man, who asked if she’d like to go back to his place. By the way the pair interacted, the attraction was mutual. The man explained that he shared a flat with a male friend.
    The girl didn’t object, and the pair shared a taxi. The couple began kissing in the back seat. Once at home, they had a couple of drinks and laughs with the flatmate before retreating to the man’s bedroom and closing the door.
    The sound of a couple making love would have followed the quiet, but the audience began to cheer and whoop. Then, on-screen, the man came out of the bedroom and the flatmate went inside, into the unlit room.
    There were more sexual noises, and the sound of some kind of struggle, and then the woman screamed. She hurried out of the room dressed only in a large T-shirt and ran out of the front door.
    Anya paused the DVD and turned to the players. ‘What just happened?’
    There was a prolonged silence.
    ‘You edited out the best bit?’ someone shouted.
    More quiet, until they realised the question was serious.
    One volunteer spoke. ‘They went back, had sex, then she left in a hurry. Who knows why. Maybe she sobered up and saw what the men really looked like.’
    Anya looked around for someone to explain the problem. Nothing.
    ‘She stole his shirt?’ someone else attempted.
    The group’s response was not a surprise, but was more disturbing given the alleged events of the previous night.
    ‘Can anyone think of a good reason why she ran out the door as if something terrible had just happened?’
    Her question was met with more uncomfortable silence.
    ‘What if I told you that she went straight to the Emergency department to report a rape?’
    ‘That’s bullshit. She went back to that place willingly,’ someone else proclaimed.
    From the back of the room came Linda’s voice. ‘I’m a sex