The Keeper

by Luke Delaney

  He slid the top drawer open and was relieved to see his prize waiting for him – Sean’s leather-bound journal, the type of thing you buy someone for Christmas when you can’t think of anything else. But Sean had put his to good use and Donnelly knew it. ‘And what secrets will you reveal today, my old friend?’ he asked the book in his hands as he placed it on the desk and began to flick through the pages, skipping past things he’d already read, until he found scribbles and text he didn’t recognize. ‘Well hello and what do we have here?’ It was as if he was partially entering Sean’s mind, a conduit straight to his secret theories and innermost thoughts about this and other investigations. A baffling array of circled names, others crossed out, words of varying sizes, written in different styles as if a dozen people had contributed to the journal, strong, emotive words scrawled in different-coloured pens: love, anger, hate, jealousy, greed, possession, passion, fear, some circled and joined together with lines that snaked across the pages.

  ‘You’re either a madman or a genius,’ Donnelly spoke to the absent Sean while turning the pages, finding the names of the victims, Louise Russell and Karen Green, one dead, one still missing, Green’s name circled in a mixture of blue and red ink, Russell’s circled in blue only. A myriad of words and colours, names and places squeezed themselves into every millimetre of the pages, almost completely indecipherable. Short questions covered other pages: Why six/seven days? Why keep them? Why rape? Why violence? Why victs look same? Why same houses? Why kills? Why dump bodies naked? Why no remorse or compassion? Why woods? Why wooded car parks? Comfortable in woods? Lives in woods? Staying in comfort zone? Failed relationship? Covets them? Loves them? Motivation? Motivation? Motivation?

  ‘Jesus,’ he said to himself, flicking through pages and pages of the rambling notes of an obsessed man on the edge. It crossed his mind Sean might be laying the groundwork for manufacturing early retirement on the grounds of a stress-related illness, but he knew the man better than that and he’d seen his manic scribbles in the past, usually just before he led the team to the man they were after. But they’d never been this frantic, this desperate.

  A noise coming from the corridor on the other side of the double swing doors startled him. Hurriedly he replaced the journal in the drawer and slid it silently shut, turning the master key and locking it, then ghosting from the room back into the main office.

  He managed to be a few steps clear as the double doors swung open and Anna walked in looking unreasonably fresh and alert, considering she could have had no more than three or four hours’ sleep. He welcomed her with a broad smile, his moustache bending up at the ends. ‘Good morning. Nice to have another early bird on the team.’

  ‘I’ve always liked this time of day,’ she said. ‘It’s quiet and peaceful – gives me the time and space I need to think.’

  ‘And I thought it was because you were trying to impress me.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ she answered with a falsely suggestive smile.

  ‘Or maybe it’s someone else you’re trying to impress? Someone a little higher in rank?’ She didn’t answer. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘you’re a what … a criminal psychiatrist?’

  ‘I certainly hope not,’ she answered, ‘and I’m sure you’d arrest me if I was.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘No, I’m a psychiatrist and a criminologist, specializing in offender profiling. The FBI have been doing it for years, but it’s relatively new to the police here. They’ve been somewhat resistant to the idea.’

  ‘That sounds like us,’ Donnelly teased her. ‘So away you go then: impress me – tell me all about the man we’re looking for.’

  ‘It’s too soon to be accurate. I need more information, more time to study the case and previous case histories before I’d be willing to commit to a profile.’

  ‘Come on,’ Donnelly encouraged, ‘it’ll be between the two of us, nothing official.’

  ‘OK,’ she agreed with a sigh. ‘Based on what we know so far, I believe he’s white, probably small or slight – that’s based on the fact he uses drugs to subdue his victims, which suggests he’s not physically confident. He has a troubled past and was almost certainly abused or abandoned as a child, possibly both. I understand he appears to have no previous convictions, but I’m convinced he would have committed residential burglaries and other serious sexual assaults; perhaps he’s just never been caught.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Donnelly partially agreed.

  ‘This type of offender usually takes trophies from victims, but I believe that in this case the women themselves are his trophies, albeit perishable ones, ones he tires of and then disposes of with no regrets, pity or remorse – by then they are just objects to him.

  ‘I imagine him to be a bit of a social misfit who lives alone. I can’t see him forming any lasting relationships or tolerating an invasion into his private life, and his lack of confidence means he’ll very much stay in his comfort zone, which in turn means he’s almost certainly local. He knows these areas well. He sees them every day. They are his world and he’s not going to start operating outside of that world.

  ‘The fact the victims look very similar is interesting. I think they remind him of somebody, somebody he has genuine hatred for, possibly his mother, possibly because she failed to stop whatever abuse was happening to him – maybe it was his father who abused him or the mother’s boyfriend.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he project his hatred directly to the abuser? Why the mother?’ Donnelly asked.

  ‘Transferred hatred or blame is not uncommon. He probably loved his mother, but had no relationship outside of the abuse with his abuser. To him, hating the person who actually abused him would be as pointless as you or I hating the wasp that stung us – there’s no emotional attachment there. Love and hate are dangerously close to each other.

  ‘There is of course a sexual element to his attacks, that I believe he displays all the common traits of those who commit such acts, in as much as it makes him feel powerful and in control, something he rarely is in the real world. His normal everyday life is a bit of a struggle for him. Not one of life’s winners, you might say.’

  Donnelly mimed applause. ‘Very impressive. It’s amazing what you can learn from books these days.’

  ‘Actually most of my observations are based on my own clinical studies of serious offenders. Interviews with sexual predators and murderers. Some sane, some not.’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’ve had a bit of experience of that myself.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by Sean clattering through the double doors, a look of surprise and disappointment that he wasn’t the first to arrive etched on his face.

  ‘You two are early. Trying to impress someone?’

  Donnelly and Anna almost laughed. The doors clattered again, kicked open by Sally, her hands full of bags and a tray of coffee in polystyrene cups. She dropped her bags on the floor and slid the tray on to the desk closest to their gathering.

  ‘I didn’t know who would be here yet so I bought a few,’ she said, slumping into a chair.

  ‘Nice one, Sally,’ Donnelly said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Anna added.

  ‘You look a little rough around the edges there, Sally,’ Donnelly told her.

  ‘Thanks. I love you too.’

  ‘Just saying.’

  ‘We’re all going to look a lot worse by the time this is over, so put your collective vanities to one side if you can,’ Sean rescued Sally. He helped himself to a coffee off the tray, unconcerned whether it was black, white, sweetened or otherwise, and took a swig. ‘OK, while everybody’s here who matters, we might as well catch up on where we are.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Donnelly chipped in.

  ‘The way I see it, we have two, maybe three days before Louise Russell will be killed.’ The coldness of the fact made even Sean uncomfortable with what he was saying. ‘And when she dies I think it will only be a matter of days before he takes another.’

  ‘A
replacement?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I think so. We already know he’s kept two hostages at the same time. It seems to be part of his modus operandi. It’s reasonable to suppose he will want to again.’

  ‘That would make some sort of sense,’ agreed Anna.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ Sally interrupted. ‘If he replaces the ones he kills, then why hasn’t he taken someone to replace Karen Green? She was killed almost thirty-six hours ago now.’

  ‘He might have,’ Sean confessed. ‘All surrounding stations have been asked to report any missing persons of similar descriptions straight to us. If he’s already taken someone and they get reported missing, we’ll soon know about it.’

  ‘And if no one reports them missing?’ Donnelly asked.

  ‘We wait for a body,’ Sean answered – more cold truths. ‘In the meantime, we’re drawing on all the resources that can be spared. Featherstone’s arranged for extra detectives to be assigned door-to-door inquiries over an expanded area and uniform are carrying out roadblocks close to both abduction locations and the body drop site, checking for suspects and witnesses. We’ve even got India 99 up and about looking for whatever it is helicopters look for. Plus there are uniform patrols, both foot and vehicles, searching for the sort of locations our man could be keeping the victims at, old smallholdings, abandoned factories and particularly anything underground – coal bunkers, cellars, bomb shelters, anywhere remote or concealed, but within a few miles of the crime scenes – our boy doesn’t travel far.’

  ‘You think he keeps them underground?’ Anna asked, causing all eyes to fall on Sean.

  ‘Yes. Dr Canning discovered what appears to be coal dust under the victim’s finger and toe nails.’

  ‘Oh, how I would like a few minutes alone with this bastard,’ muttered Donnelly.

  ‘Save the tough talk for when we’ve found him,’ said Sean. ‘Everybody happy?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Sally answered tiredly.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Donnelly acknowledged. Anna said nothing.

  ‘One more thing,’ Sean continued hesitantly, afraid of too many awkward questions about how he came by the information, remembering his ruthless breaking down of Douglas Levy. ‘I think he’s disguising himself as a postie. That’s how he gets the doors open.’

  ‘I’ve not seen anything to suggest that,’ Sally argued.

  ‘A new witness,’ said Sean. ‘He mentioned something that suggested it.’

  ‘What?’ Sally persisted.

  ‘It’s a long and very uninteresting story. Just take my word for it, he’s pretending to be a postman, but let’s keep that between us for the time being – I don’t want to risk a detail like that leaking to the press, and let’s not forget we still have the forensics from five different crime scenes to chase and then we have to cross-reference DNA and fingerprints from all scenes to be sure that this is indeed the same man at each.’

  ‘It’s the same man,’ Anna said a little too loudly.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Sean said impatiently, ‘but courts are a real pain in the arse about something called evidence. Theories are fine in the classroom, but not out here.’

  Donnelly and Sally looked away, leaving Anna to her own private humiliation.

  Sean continued: ‘While we’re all here I might as well say it – this investigation is turning into a monster. We’ve got the world and his wife out there looking for Louise Russell, but it won’t feel like it to us. We’ll be the ones stuck here till all hours, fighting through piles of reports, making phone calls, chasing up forensics, pestering potential witnesses, reading fucking useless intelligence reports and trying to fend off every unsolved murder in the last decade the powers-that-be try to dump on us. But be mindful, and make sure everybody on the team is mindful, that this investigation will be under the national microscope. Which means everybody needs to be on their best, please – no smoking at the crime scenes, no laughing and joking when the cameras are around and be damn careful what you say when you’re talking on your mobiles – if we can eavesdrop on phone conversations, you can be sure the media can. If a conversation you had with the lab turns up in your favourite Sunday redtop, you’ll know where it’s come from. Everybody understand?’ His audience of three nodded and grunted their understanding. ‘Good.’

  He was about to head for his office when Sally stopped him.

  ‘What’s this one about? Why’s he doing it?’

  ‘It’s about acceptance,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘About finally having what he’s always wanted, but until now could never have. It’s about love – loving them and being loved by them.’

  ‘Love!’ Donnelly interrupted loudly and abruptly. ‘This doesn’t look like love to me – taking her out to the middle of some godforsaken wood in the middle of the night and squeezing the life out of her, then leaving the poor wee cow’s body lying naked for a fucking dog to find. Which bit of that sounds like love to you?’

  ‘I didn’t say he was rational,’ Sean explained. ‘His perception of love and what it means is completely different from yours, but it’s still ultimately about love. It’s the one thing he covets more than anything else and it’s the one thing he’s never had.’

  ‘Are we supposed to feel sorry for him?’ sneered Donnelly. ‘He’s just another sick pervert who needs to be locked up with the general prison population for a few nights before they stick him in segregation. The other prisoners will soon make sure he gets justice.’

  ‘Not sorry for what he is,’ Sean answered, ‘but maybe we should consider what may have happened to him to make him what he is now.’

  ‘How do we know anything happened to him?’ Donnelly persisted. ‘Perhaps he just enjoys it?’

  ‘This one’s no Sebastian Gibran,’ Sean spilled out, immediately glancing apologetically at Sally. ‘He’s a product of circumstance, not nature.’

  ‘Aye, maybe, but all this love nonsense, I don’t believe it and neither does she,’ said Donnelly, indicating Anna.

  ‘Really,’ Sean said. ‘Care to enlighten me?’

  Anna cleared her throat. ‘At this time it would be correct to say that I don’t see any particular signs of love from offender to victims. I see transferred expressions of revenge and the need to feel powerful, hence the acts of sexual aggression and abuse. But no signs of empathy or affection.’

  ‘What about the moisturizing cream and traces of perfume on the body? They were too fresh to have been applied before she was taken,’ Sean argued.

  ‘We don’t know that they weren’t the victim’s own cosmetics,’ Donnelly reminded him.

  ‘Even if they were the victim’s own, he still gave them to her or allowed her to have them. At the very least that shows a degree of empathy,’ Sean explained.

  ‘I don’t think they are the victim’s own cosmetics,’ Anna said. ‘I believe they’ll turn out to be the brands used by whoever it is he has this hatred for.’

  ‘Like his mother?’ Donnelly suggested.

  ‘Possibly his mother,’ Anna agreed.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Sean snapped at them. ‘Strands of what you’re saying are probably true, but you don’t understand him – you don’t understand what motivates him, why he has to do what he does.’ A tense atmosphere hung in the room until Sally broke the silence.

  ‘So what’s our next move?’

  ‘Chase forensics and the door-to-door and wait for the tidal wave of information that’s about to come our way,’ said Sean. ‘Speaking of which, I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.’ He regathered his coat and headed for his small, partitioned room. Donnelly shook his head before burying it in a pile of information reports.

  ‘I can’t stand drinking from these things,’ Sally told Anna, looking accusingly at her polystyrene cup. ‘Come on, let’s sneak off to the canteen and I’ll treat you to a decent cup.’

  Anna shrugged her shoulders. ‘Why not?’

  They made sure they were well clear of the inquiry office before speaking again, talking
as they walked.

  ‘So,’ Sally asked, ‘what do you make of Sean then? Intense, isn’t he?’

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of arrogant and rude,’ Anna replied.

  ‘He doesn’t do it on purpose,’ Sally assured her. ‘He can’t help himself, not when he’s absorbed in an investigation.’ They walked in silence for a while as they passed a steady flow of uniform officers heading away from the canteen. ‘He doesn’t approach investigations in a way I’ve ever seen before – he doesn’t rely totally on the tangible evidence laid on a plate for him. He’s more instinctive, intuitive.’ They entered the already busy canteen and found a couple of seats at the end of a long table, where Anna sat alone, feeling self-conscious until Sally returned from the counter with two porcelain mugs of coffee. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘You were telling me about Sean.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Sally remembered, ‘DI Corrigan.’

  ‘Do you like working with him?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Like isn’t necessarily the right word. It’s more a case of being interesting, I suppose.’

  ‘Because of his intuitions?’

  ‘He can think like them, you know,’ Sally blurted out. ‘Not just how and when and where, but really think like them, in every detail. He seems to be able to understand why they do whatever it is they’re doing. It can be a little unnerving at times, but he’s able to control it, to turn it off and on.’

  ‘Where is he, when he turns on this intuition? Can he be anywhere, or does he do it more often in certain places?’

  ‘I think he can do it anywhere, but mainly at the crime scenes. He seems to get a lot of information from scenes that nobody else notices. Like I said – details.’

  ‘Does he talk to himself when he’s examining a scene?’

  ‘That I haven’t seen, but if you’re there with him he’ll tell you what he’s seeing or feeling, like a kind of commentary.’