The Keeper

by Luke Delaney

  ‘My, my,’ she joked, ‘who is this handsome stranger standing before me?’

  ‘A stranger, I’m afraid so. Handsome, I’m not so sure about that,’ he replied, pulling out a chair and sitting heavily.

  ‘Anyway, what brings you to my neck of the woods, Inspector?’

  ‘That missing woman I told you about.’

  ‘You found her? She’s here in Guy’s?’ Kate asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, unwrapping the sandwich he already knew would taste of nothing. ‘We were looking for one woman and found another.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The woman we were looking for wasn’t his first,’ he told her in a hushed voice, checking there were no eavesdroppers. ‘The woman we found – he’d already taken her.’

  ‘So now she can tell you where the other woman is?’

  ‘I’m afraid she won’t be able to do that.’

  Kate immediately understood the inference. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it.

  ‘Me too.’ They sat in silence for a moment without pretending to be interested in their lunch.

  ‘So I guess I won’t be seeing much of you for a while then?’

  Sean shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes, Sean,’ she sighed, her frustration at having to share him with so much horror and misery making her sad, ‘I know how it is.’

  ‘Things just got a lot worse than I expected. What can I do?’

  Kate pulled in heavy lungfuls of air and puffed her cheeks. The coming days, probably weeks, would be hell as she tried to juggle her work and children with little or no support from Sean, but she understood the importance of the job he had to do. She thought of her own two girls and what she would expect of the police if either of them were missing: she would expect them to work without end, without sleep, without food or rest until her child was found. She wouldn’t let herself be a hypocrite. ‘What can you do?’ she replied. ‘You can catch the bastard, that’s what you can do.’

  Sean actually managed a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So where you going after our luxurious meal?’ she asked.

  ‘Over to see Dr Canning for the post-mortem.’

  Kate slouched in her chair and smiled without joy. ‘Well, I suppose I should feel honoured. I mean, how many wives are squeezed in between a murder scene and a post-mortem?’

  ‘I’m doing the best I can.’

  ‘That’s what worries me.’

  ‘You never know, I might get this one wrapped up sooner rather than later. Whoever I’m looking for has been leaving a lot of evidence behind – fingerprints, DNA – and he takes them in broad daylight. He’ll make a mistake soon enough, then the evidence will hang him.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ he said, glancing at his watch and standing, taking half the sandwich and leaving everything else. ‘I’ve got to go. Dr Canning’ll be waiting for me.’

  ‘Well, that was short and sweet,’ Kate said. ‘Is there any chance I might see you at home later?’

  ‘Maybe, but don’t wait up. I’ll try and call you.’ He leaned across the table and kissed her lightly on the lips, embarrassed even by such a small show of public affection. She watched him walking quickly across the concourse, weaving his way through the other pedestrians, torn between her attraction to his intensity and the fear that one day she might lose him to his job. It left her feeling melancholy.

  Sean pushed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and at the same time felt his phone vibrating in his jacket pocket. He forced the dry bread down his throat and checked the caller ID. It was Sally. He tapped the answer key. ‘Sally – you got something for me?’

  ‘Karen Green’s Micra just turned up in a car park in Mazzard’s Wood, Bromley Common, secure and undamaged.’ An image of tall trees leaning in the wind jumped into Sean’s mind.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘send someone to babysit the car until forensics can get to it, and make sure they give it a good once-over before taking it off to Charlton.’ He swerved to avoid bumping into an elderly couple passing him in the corridor. ‘I’ll be at Guy’s for another hour or so. Keep me informed.’ He hung up and immediately searched for another number in his phone, tapped ‘call’ and waited for an answer.

  ‘Hello,’ DC Zukov answered.

  ‘Paulo, how are you getting on with the tattoo inquiry? Any luck?’

  ‘Nothing yet. I’ve checked the Internet for the design and drawn a blank. And I’ve emailed a picture of the tattoo to most of the tattoo parlours in the area in the hope someone may recognize their own handiwork.’

  ‘Good. Keep at it,’ Sean told him.

  He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket as he exited the main entrance. Cutting across the front car park, he turned left and out of the main flow of pedestrians and headed towards the oldest part of the hospital. He passed the department marked clinical waste, with ominous-looking fluorescent wheelie bins waiting outside and walked through the swing doors discreetly signed ‘Pathology’. Pushing his way through the thick rubber strips that hung from ceiling to floor, he entered the autopsy suite.

  Sean looked around the large room. Two bodies lay covered, awaiting attention while Dr Canning busied himself with the body of Karen Green. She was laid out on the examination table, a cold stainless steel surface with a shallow channel running along its middle that drained into a plughole, enabling the removal of blood and other fluids. He could see that Canning had already cleaned the body up in an effort to distinguish haemorrhaging from dirt.

  At the sound of Sean snapping on a set of surgical gloves, Canning looked up. ‘Afternoon, Inspector.’

  Sean ignored the nicety. ‘Any trouble moving the body from the scene?’

  ‘No,’ Canning replied. ‘I carried out a close examination of the area around the body, but didn’t find anything startling. I should think the evidence we’re after will be on or in her body.’ Sean nodded his agreement. ‘Aside from the throat, I haven’t opened her up yet, but I don’t expect to find any significant internal injuries other than the crushed trachea I’ve already discovered, which was almost certainly what killed her.’

  ‘What about the head wound?’

  ‘The skin on the back of her head has been split by a blow from a blunt, cylindrical object, but the wound’s not nearly significant enough to have contributed to her death.’

  ‘Could it be post-mortem?’ Sean asked. ‘The killer for some reason trying to draw us away from the real cause of death?’

  Canning shook his head. ‘No, there was too much bleeding from the wound for it to be post-mortem, although it was inflicted very close to the time of death, which was about twenty-four hours ago. Perhaps your killer wanted to knock her senseless before committing the terrible deed.’

  The image of the faceless man standing behind Karen Green in a dark forest raced into Sean’s mind, the blunt, heavy object being raised above his shoulder and then brought down hard on the back of her head, pitching her forward to the soft, wet ground. ‘Any signs of sexual assault?’

  ‘Numerous,’ Canning answered, ‘and probably committed over a period of time – a few days at least. She has semen in her vagina, upper and lower, as well as her anus. Both vagina and anus show extensive bruising consistent with non-consensual intercourse and there are signs of some tearing at the entrance to her anus that are consistent with the same. It would appear you are looking for a rather unpleasant individual.’

  ‘That much I already know,’ said Sean.

  ‘Just as you knew I would soon have a female body recovered in woodland to examine.’ Canning locked eyes with Sean, waiting for him to blink first. ‘I reckon it would take a sharper scalpel than mine to dissect that brain of yours.’

  ‘I’m not as insightful as you think,’ Sean confessed. ‘This isn’t the woman I was expecting to find.’

  Canning raised an eyebrow. ‘Then am I to expect more ladies of the forest?’

  �
��At this stage, all we can do is hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.’

  Eager to conclude the autopsy and get back to the office, Sean directed Canning’s attention back to the body on the table. ‘When I had a cursory look at the scene, I saw a tattoo on the underside of her right forearm – a phoenix, I think.’

  ‘You mean this?’ Canning rotated her forearm to expose the garish little picture. ‘Not a tattoo, Inspector – a transfer. Common enough, but not usually found on an adult. Did she have any children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps she worked with children, a nursery or infant teacher?’

  ‘No,’ Sean repeated. ‘Children weren’t a part of her life.’

  ‘Then you have another mystery on your hands.’

  Sean thought for a moment. ‘She was about to go travelling, to Australia and possibly beyond. Maybe she wanted to appear more exotic, but didn’t have the courage to get the real thing?’

  ‘That I wouldn’t know, Inspector. Conjecture is your field of expertise, not mine.’

  Sean took a long hard look at the body, noting the injuries he’d already observed when he’d first seen her lying in the woods – the split lip showing signs of healing, the grazing and bruising on her fingers and knee – none of which required Canning’s skill to explain. But there were other bruises too, more clear now her flesh had been cleaned: small, round injuries that looked as if they had tiny burns at their centres.

  ‘What are these?’ he asked, his finger hovering over the strange marks. ‘They look like bruises with burns in the centre.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to fathom out what those are,’ said Canning. ‘Almost like cigarette burns surrounded by a cylindrical bruise. I’ll have to run some simulation tests and see if I can reproduce the effect, find out what caused them.’

  Sean pointed to a square-shaped bruise that also showed signs of burning. ‘Any ideas what made that mark?’

  ‘It’s an older injury,’ Canning explained, ‘at least a week or so. I’ve seen it before, although not very often.’

  ‘Then you know what it is?’

  ‘That, Inspector, if I’m not mistaken, is an injury caused by a stun-gun.’

  ‘Caused at the same time as she was abducted?’

  ‘More or less – best as I can tell.’

  ‘So that’s how he incapacitates them: as soon as they open the door, he hits them with the stun-gun and then goes to the chloroform?’

  ‘It’s quite possible,’ Canning agreed. ‘Will that narrow the field for you? The sale and ownership of such an item in this country is highly restricted.’

  ‘I doubt he obtained it legally – probably picked it up on the Continent and smuggled it into the country, but we’ll check. Anything else for me, other than the superficial stuff? Anything I can use straight away?’

  ‘Well …’ Canning began, pricking Sean’s interest, ‘when I was swabbing the body I could smell traces of cosmetics. I took a closer look and, although it’s too early to say, I believe she had recently applied both cream and perfume to her body. Looking at the general state of her, I would say she hasn’t been allowed to bathe for several days, which is why the traces remain, but still, cosmetics of this type generally don’t stick around for more than four or five days. I noticed the police report said she’d been missing for eight to nine days, which means—’

  Sean cut across him, his head flooding with thoughts and images that made almost perfect sense, yet contradicted so much. ‘Which means they were applied while she was being held captive. He made her put them on.’

  ‘Or he put them on her,’ Canning offered.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sean dismissed the suggestion. ‘Clearly she didn’t have access to washing facilities for at least the last few days, but if the cream and perfume aren’t fresh it could mean that round about the same time he stopped allowing her to wash he also stopped giving her them to use.’

  Canning opened his mouth to speak but Sean raised a hand to silence him, his fickle brain dangling the answers tantalizingly close before snatching them away. He slowed his mind, relaxing and concentrating at the same time, clearing the fog of a thousand unrelated thoughts to allow the answers to come.

  ‘He treated her well at first,’ he began, ‘gave her food and water, somewhere to wash. She was special to him, so special he gave her body cream and even perfume, as if she was his, his lover, but then something changed. Something changed and she became nothing to him, nothing more than a problem to be removed. He didn’t feed her any more, or allow her to wash or even wear clothes, and there was no more pampering with cosmetics, just rape and torture. And when he couldn’t stand the sight of her any more he took her into the woods and killed her like a farmer would kill an old sheep dog that couldn’t earn its keep, without feeling or remorse. And then he left her cold and unclothed in the woods and went back to the woman he’d taken to replace her. He went back to Louise Russell and the cycle started all over again. But who did Karen Green replace? Or was she the one you coveted above all others, the one you fantasized about for years before taking her?’ He froze for a few seconds, then turned back to Canning. ‘The swabs you took from her body, with the cream and perfume samples – can I take them with me?’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Canning asked, perplexed by the break with procedure.

  ‘I need to know if she’s the one that triggered his behaviour.’

  ‘How will the swabs help you know if she was the one who caused him to behave in this extreme way?’

  ‘Not caused,’ Sean corrected him, ‘triggered. The cause of his behaviour has its roots deep in his past. God only knows what’s happened to him during his life to make him what he is now, to make an angry boy grow into a dangerous man. Maybe Karen Green showed him some kindness or affection that drew him to her, but he misinterpreted her, made more of it than there was and so she pushed him away. He couldn’t handle the rejection, so he did something about it. He did this. If the swabs contain cream and perfume that we also find at her house, then I’ll know they were hers and therefore that she could well be the one he’s always coveted. But if they’re not, then he made her use them because he was trying to make her someone else.’

  Canning lifted several plastic phials from the portable table he kept his tools on and handed them to Sean. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take them, if you think it will help.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sean slipped them carefully into his breast pocket. ‘They will. I look forward to your report.’

  ‘You should have it in a couple of days, but you already know the main findings.’

  ‘Anything else? Anything at all?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Perhaps one last thing,’ said Canning. ‘I took scrapings from under her finger and toe nails, which of course contained soil and dirt, but at a first look under the microscope they appear to contain something rarer. I’ll have to send them to the lab for a proper examination, but my guess would be coal dust. I’ll know for sure after it’s properly analysed.’

  ‘Coal dust?’ Sean’s dancing eyes reflected his racing thoughts. ‘Coal dust?’ he repeated.

  ‘At a first guess, yes.’

  ‘He kept her underground. Before he killed her, he kept her underground – in an old cellar or coal bunker.’

  ‘That’s a logical suggestion,’ Canning agreed.

  Sean nodded, turned and headed for the exit, his mind already swimming with images of cold, stone dungeons underground.

  Sally was pacing up and down in front of Karen Green’s house, still waiting for forensics to arrive. She’d finished interviewing Terry and sent him on his way almost an hour ago, and was beginning to feel as if she was being deliberately isolated from the rest of the team and excluded from the main body of the investigation, but couldn’t be sure if her feelings were manifestations of paranoia or real. One thing she knew that was real was that cops looked upon colleagues who were struggling mentally as if they had an infectious disease that could spread to t
hem. It was like failure, always deserted, always an orphan – a mandatory sentence of solitary confinement. It reinforced her conviction to hide her troubles as best she could and mention them to no one. The phone she clutched in her palm made a noise like a small hungry animal and vibrated. She saw it was Sean. ‘Guv’nor!’

  ‘Have forensics got there yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Listen, I need you to go inside the house and gather up any moisturizers, creams, lotions and perfumes you can find. Check out the cabinet in the bathroom – that’s where I remember seeing them when I took a look around this morning. Once it’s all been bagged and tagged, bring them straight to the lab at Lambeth. I’ll meet you there – understood?’

  ‘Understood, but …’ he hung up before she could ask for an explanation, doing little to lessen her paranoia.

  Shrugging her doubts away, Sally looked at the two keys she held in her non-phone hand, turning and lifting them towards the locks. Anxiety rushed at her, paralysing her, refusing to let her move no matter how hard she tried. She surrendered and lowered the keys, despondent to have been seemingly defeated by a task she would have given little or no thought to before Sebastian Gibran attempted to tear her life away.

  She managed to stop the tears before they grew too heavy and rolled from her eyes. She took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Come on,’ she whispered, ‘just fucking do it.’ Her hand began to rise, slowly, nervously, wary that at any second the anxiety could return and seize control of her body. She jiggled the mortise lock until she felt it smoothly slide from its secure position with a satisfying heavy click. Then she recovered the key and swapped it for the Yale key, again jiggling it into the precision-made slot, but with more difficulty this time, haunted by memories of the night when she’d fumbled with her own keys, at her own door, panicked by some sense of fear, some sense of being watched – and she’d been right, her primal instincts had been spot on, but she’d ignored them, with almost fatal consequences. As her memories threatened to incapacitate her, the door suddenly popped open and she found herself stepping inside, the silence and stillness within foreboding and oppressive. She thanked God it was daytime and closed the door behind her, looking along the simple, bright hallway with dread.