The Keeper dsc-2

by Luke Delaney

  ‘Anna Ravenni-who?’ said Sean. ‘Look, boss, I really don’t have time to babysit some civi-scientist so she can make a name for herself and get her face on the telly.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sean, but the decision’s been made — it’s out of my hands. I know it’s bullshit, but you’ll just have to put up with it.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially: ‘Listen, my advice — give her the mushroom treatment: keep her in the dark and feed her shit as much as you can. Just don’t get caught doing it, eh?’ He winked and then added cheerily, ‘I’ll send her over in the next day or so.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sean reluctantly agreed, knowing he had no choice. ‘But if she gets in my way or interferes with this investigation, I’ll personally throw her out on her ear.’

  ‘Have you considered that she might actually be able to help you?’ Featherstone asked.

  ‘No,’ Sean told him bluntly. ‘That’s not something I have considered and it’s probably not something I will consider. All she needs to do is keep out of my way.’

  Louise Russell lay on the filthy mattress inside her cage, the dirty light bulb hanging from the ceiling painting everything in the cellar a miserable yellow. She’d felt so alone since he took Karen away; alone and afraid. A terrible anxiety and sense of panic had gripped her, sending her heart racing and making her stomach tighten painfully. She sensed she was on the verge of totally losing control and descending into madness if she didn’t find some way of combating the dread that was engulfing her. So she tried to fill her head with thoughts of home, her comfortable house, the things inside it that suddenly meant so much to her — her pictures, her clothes, her own bathroom and real toilet, warmth and safety. Her mind drifted to her husband, strong and quiet, kind and reliable, moral and loyal, the sort of man she’d always planned on settling down with, the sort of man she wanted to have children with — a happy little suburban family.

  All too soon other thoughts forced their way into her consciousness. What had he done to Karen? She was sure he hadn’t simply released her. He couldn’t risk letting her walk away to tell the world what he had done. Maybe he’d just moved her to another place, to keep them apart? She hoped so, but somehow she doubted it.

  Dear God, she thought, why had he taken her, why was she the one lying on a filthy mattress in a wire cage? What had drawn this beast to her? She hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t hurt anyone, she had no enemies, so why her? And why Karen? Images of Karen being abused and violated flashed behind her eyes, his words as he left her ringing inside her head — Everything can be replaced. Even you, Sam. Even you. The inevitability of what was to come consumed and terrified her, the rising sense of panic once again overwhelming her, as if the cage had already become her coffin, the worms and maggots writhing over her skin, spiders crawling across her slowly decaying body. She could feel them and knew she had to escape her crypt.

  She launched herself at the cage door, bouncing off it to the floor, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and launching herself again with the same result, tears of pain mixing with tears of frustration and abject terror, as if she only now realized the full extent of her predicament. Again she rammed the door with her shoulder, and again, until finally she could stand the pain no more, falling to the floor sobbing, scratching and digging at the unyielding concrete like a trapped dog trying to escape, her fingernails splintering and bleeding, the futility of her actions increasingly obvious until she finally rocked back on her haunches, hands fallen at her side, her head lolled backwards, staring at the heavens she imagined somewhere above the cold cellar’s ceiling. ‘God,’ she pleaded. ‘Please help me. Dear Jesus, please help, I’m begging you, please help me.’ Her quiet prayers suddenly turned to desperate screams. ‘Jesus Christ help me. Please, anybody help me, please, for God’s sake somebody please help me. Somebody!’

  But her prayers, both whispered and screamed, were met with silence. She crawled to her mattress, curled into a tight ball and waited, waited for the sound of the heavy metal lock being knocked against the steel door and then the footsteps, the soft footsteps as he descended towards her.

  Mid-morning Friday and Sean and Sally waited impatiently outside Karen Green’s house for her brother Terry to show. Sally sensed Sean’s bad mood. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Something seems to be bothering you.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he dismissed her concern. ‘I could just do without other people sticking their noses into my business.’

  Sally intended to pry further, but Sean was saved by Terry Green’s car pulling on to the driveway. He climbed out quickly and almost tripped as he staggered towards them, his face riddled with anxiety.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he panted breathlessly.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sally replied, ‘and thanks for coming.’

  ‘When you said it was about Karen I came straight away. Has something happened to her? Have you found her? Is she all right?’

  Sean flashed his warrant card. ‘DI Corrigan. Are you Terry Green?’ His mood and the urgency of the situation made him abrupt.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need to establish when you or anyone else last saw Karen and I need to do it quickly.’

  ‘Why? What’s happening?’

  Seeing that Green was becoming flustered, Sally pushed her own feelings of anxiety to one side and stepped between him and Sean, protecting him from an onslaught of blunt questions.

  ‘I’m Sally, we spoke on the phone, remember?’

  ‘Of course. You asked me to meet you here. You said it was about Karen.’

  ‘It is,’ she told him, ‘and if there was any other way of doing this, believe me we would have, but the urgency of the situation meant we had to meet you here and we have to ask you some questions straight away.’

  ‘But what about Karen?’ Green asked, concerned.

  ‘I have to be honest with you, Terry. I have to tell you something that’s not going to be easy to hear, but it’s only fair you hear it now.’ She waited for signs that Green had braced himself for the worst. When she was sure his lungs could inhale no more air she rested a hand on his shoulder and continued. ‘We found the body of a young woman this morning and she matches the description of your sister.’ His lungs deflated instantly and he seemed to sway, his eyes closing for a second before slowly flickering open. She knew his body had dealt with the blow well, but his mind had gone into temporary shock. Resting her other hand on his opposite shoulder, ready to steady him if his swaying threatened to topple him, Sally continued: ‘She matches the description of your sister, but we can’t be sure it’s her until she’s formally identified.’

  ‘When will that be?’ Green managed to ask.

  ‘A little later,’ Sally told him, ‘as soon as we can get it organized. But right now we need to know when was the last time anyone saw Karen.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted. ‘It was probably me, what, last Wednesday, in the evening sometime, the night before she was due to fly to Australia. I was picking up a set of keys for her house and taking care of some other stuff I told her I’d do while she was away.’

  ‘Australia?’ Sean queried.

  ‘She was going travelling, looking for something she said she couldn’t find here.’

  ‘Was she going with anyone?’ Sean asked, excited by the prospect of identifying a now missing travel companion, especially if that companion was a new man in her life.

  ‘No,’ Green ended the possible line of inquiry. ‘She wanted to go alone, which is pretty typical of her. She has a spirit of adventure, you know. She makes friends easily. She had no fear of going by herself.’

  Sean had no interest in her personality at this moment. His priority was gathering hard facts he could use to find Louise Russell. ‘So as far as you’re concerned she’s been missing for nine days?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t report her missing until yesterday because you thought she was travelling around Australia, yes?’

  Green no
dded, still looking dazed.

  ‘So what happened? You tried to call her and couldn’t get an answer? Then you called around her friends and they all told you the same thing — nobody had heard from her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Green answered, struggling to gather his thoughts. ‘So I phoned the airline she was flying with and they said she never boarded the flight. That was when I knew for certain something was wrong, so I reported her missing.’

  Sally could see Green needed a softer approach. ‘You did the right thing, Mr Green. Checking with the airline was a smart move,’ she reassured him, flashing a look at Sean that warned him to ease off, at least for a while. ‘You look as if you could use a cup of tea, so how about I nip across to that café over the road and get us a drink, then we can get started with the questions?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  ‘Did you bring keys for the house?’ Sean asked. ‘I need to take a look inside.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Green, fishing in his pocket and handing over two keys.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sean examined the keys that he could see fitted quality locks — so Karen Green hadn’t been flippant about her home security. ‘Have you been inside, since you reported her missing?’

  ‘I checked it out this morning — it was as quick as I could get here. As soon as I found her backpack and travel documents I told the same police I’d first reported it to. That was when they said you’d be taking over the investigation. I should have checked the house as soon as I thought something was wrong — shouldn’t I?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Sean told him. ‘You did everything you could. You wait here. I’m just going to take a look around.’

  Turning his back on Green, he walked towards the front door, already struck by the similarities between Louise Russell’s house and this one — small, modern townhouses in quiet, anonymous streets, the dog-leg design of the garage and house frontage meaning the front door could not be seen until you were very close. Sean imagined the faceless killer approaching the property, feeling safe and comfortable with it, the type of house he would stick to now, never changing his approach, never changing his method even though it clearly marked his crimes.

  Sean moved around the outside of the building, checking the windows at the front, sides and back for signs of forced entry or disturbance without expecting to find anything. He couldn’t imagine the killer searching for a weak entry point, it just didn’t feel right — too clumsy and random, too likely to give himself away, to be heard or seen by a nosy neighbour. He moved back to the front of the house and stood by the front door with its opaque glass arches in the higher section. The killer would have been able to see Karen Green approaching, would have been able to hear her, sense her. This was his way into the house, he was sure of it. He walked in straight through the open front door. But had he waited outside for the random opportunity of the door being opened for some reason, or had he caused the door to be opened?

  Sean thought about the entrances to this and Louise Russell’s house, the privacy they provided, and decided it would have been possible for the killer to hide in the alcove, concealed from both the road and anyone inside casually looking out. But if they were looking hard, searching for the source of an unfamiliar or suspicious noise, he could have been seen. No, Sean told himself. Too risky. It didn’t fit the way this one operated. This one hit fast and hard, sticking to a plan, silent and unobserved, his escape and the transfer of his victims from car to car seamless and unseen. No, this one strode up the drive and rang the doorbell almost without hesitation, pausing only for a second to run through the plan in his mind one last time.

  But that didn’t explain why both women had opened the door to this monster. Were they so secure in their own homes they didn’t think to check who was on the other side of the door? Or had he appeared to be something he was not — something they saw every day that they trusted, that they would never consider a threat? Artifice, Sean decided. The bastard used artifice to get the door open. But if he’d gone to the lengths of planning Sean was increasingly sure he had, then he wouldn’t simply knock on the door and tell them he was from the gas board, he wouldn’t risk that.

  Sean thought for a second, not wanting to chase the answer too hard, afraid if he tightened his grip too quickly the truth of what had happened would ooze between his fingers and be lost. This one wore a uniform, a uniform people trusted: a council worker, a meter reader, a postman or maybe even a police uniform. No, Sean told himself, not a police uniform, people remember the presence of a cop. The man he was looking for would have chosen something bland, a profession people took for granted.

  He realized he’d been standing only inches from the front door staring into the warped glass arches for an unnatural length of time. The voice of Terry Green from somewhere behind him further dragged him back to the world of the living and sane. ‘Is everything all right?’ Green asked. ‘Are you having trouble with the keys?’

  ‘No,’ Sean called over his shoulder without turning to face him, looking down at the unused keys in his hand and lifting them to the first lock. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. Wait here for DS Jones.’

  Unlocking the door as swiftly as he could, he stepped inside, braced for an onrush of senses and images of both the victim and violator, but little came. He eased the door shut and took a deep breath, relieved to be alone, away from the confused, concerned gaze of Terry Green. He stood with his back to the door looking around the hallway, waiting for his projected imagination to be kick-started by some sight or smell, but still little happened. The scene was old now, cold and lifeless. No one had been inside the house for the last nine days. How quickly a home becomes a shell, deprived of the ebb and flow of people that keeps it alive. Still he needed to glean from it what he could, find some trace of what had happened, some imprint of the man who came through the front door nine days ago and shattered the life of Karen Green and everyone who cared about her.

  He walked deeper into the house, keeping close to the walls, staring hard at the hallway carpet, though he doubted there would be much to see. This one didn’t spill blood at the scene. The best they could hope for was that the forensic team would find a shoe imprint in the carpet or more traces of chloroform. He took a moment or two to look around the hallway, simply and tastefully decorated, the walls adorned with framed colourful prints and multiple photographs of the victim with people he assumed were her friends and family, trapped behind the glass of cheap clip-frames. The door leading into the lounge was already open as he stepped across the threshold. It was decorated in the same simplistic way: prints and photographs on walls, although fewer than in the hallway, a comfortable set of modern chairs with a sofa, a decent television with accompanying electronic adornments, thick cotton blinds instead of curtains. So far the house was providing no real sense of its owner. Disappointed, he moved on to the kitchen, the heart of any home, even one belonging to a person who lived alone.

  On re-entering the hallway he found the kitchen door ajar. He paused for a second. Where had she been when the killer came calling — in the kitchen? No. The door would have been fully open if she’d come from there. The lounge then? Again no — it was pristine, no signs of recent use, no indentation on the chairs or sofa, no TV or music playing. He thought for a moment. She was due to fly to Australia the morning she was taken, so she would have been too excited to sit and watch TV, there’d have been last-minute packing to do and arrangements to take care of. So she’d have been upstairs when he called, Sean was sure of it. For a brief moment he felt the panic that had gripped the killer when she took longer to answer the door than he’d anticipated, finishing whatever task she was in the middle of before making her way downstairs. But his connection with the madman faded as quickly as it came.

  His thoughts and senses returned to the kitchen he found himself standing in, but it looked and felt like a show kitchen, everything scrubbed clean and put away, its sterile surfaces and unused cooker revealing nothing about her. �
��I’m wasting my time here,’ he told himself, aware he was speaking out loud. ‘Time I haven’t got.’

  He left the kitchen and headed upstairs, unconcerned about stepping on any unseen forensic evidence, utterly convinced that the killer had never been near the stairs. At the top of the stairway he was confronted by three doors, two partially open and one fully so. He went through the fully open door first and found exactly what he had expected — a brand-new, fully loaded backpack lying on the stripped double bed next to the last few items waiting to be packed away. Alongside the backpack was a larger than normal travel wallet that drew him to it. He flicked it open with one finger and studied the contents: a passport, Australian dollars, travellers’ cheques and insurance documents. She’d been well prepared and organized, clearly she’d lived an orderly life, as did Louise Russell. Was that important to the man who took them? Did his knowledge of them go beyond where they lived, encompassing how they lived — and if so, how did he come by this information? What was his window into their lives?

  Another question hit him. Why hadn’t her brother checked inside and found what he had found? He considered Terry Green for a while, trying to remember what he had felt when he’d first seen him, whether he’d missed something. Could it be that Terry had killed his own sister and then taken Louise Russell in some twisted attempt to replace her, to avoid feelings of guilt and remorse, loss and sorrow? The replacement angle felt right, but everything else felt wrong.

  He moved slowly around the bedroom, but again could get no sense of her, no trace of her perfume or shampoo, her body or hand cream. Her house was a desert to him. He checked the other bedroom as a matter of course and found she’d been using it mainly as a storage room; it was full of neatly piled cardboard boxes that had once contained the items now spread around the house, although there was an unmade single bed pushed into the corner for the use of overnight guests who didn’t share her bed.

  Sean slipped from the bedroom and quietly crossed the hallway to the bathroom, beginning to feel more like an intruder than a cop. The bathroom was little different from the rest of the house, sterile and unyielding, everything cleaned and tidied away before she left for her adventure of a lifetime. He opened the large mirrored door to her oversized bathroom cabinet, looking for some hint of her life before the madness came, and was confronted by a multitude of bottles and jars, lotions and potions that only women would ever consider covering themselves in. Most of them had been at least partially used, seals broken and bottles half-emptied of their strange-coloured liquids. He examined them closely, absorbing their pleasant clinical fragrances, moving things around so he could see deeper into the cabinet and her life now past. She clearly cared for herself, but there was nothing exotic here and most of the brands were familiar to him as they would be to almost anybody: Nivea, Clarins, Radox, Chanel and dozens more, all left behind because they’d been used — people liked to take unopened toiletries when they headed off on a long journey and she’d clearly been no different.