The Keeper

by Diane Saxon

  There was no other way to do it. Domino was a big boy. Impossible for the slight vet to carry out of there. The location of his body had hindered any equipment being brought in to help either. Vets weren’t known to carry stretchers in their vehicles and speed was essential. They needed to get the dog tended to as soon as possible.

  Mason’s short puffs of breath became louder as he approached the van and Jenna wondered if her partner’s legs would hold up. At the end of his strength, he managed to place Domino with such tenderness in the rear of the vet’s van that tears pricked the back of Jenna’s eyes and she could only hope the stifled sob that escaped her wasn’t heard by anyone else. Mason curled his body over Domino’s and smoothed the grime and blood from the dog’s head, smearing it down Domino’s neck with his filth-slicked hands.

  Jenna crawled inside the van and sank to her knees beside Domino, her head close to Mason’s. Her heart squeezed hard in her chest while she pressed her face into the dog’s neck and sobbed for him, for Fliss, for herself, knowing Mason would say nothing, would never judge.

  Stoic, Mason withdrew, leaving Jenna to cradle Domino while Sarah, the vet, got a line in. As she checked Domino’s vitals, Sarah glanced up at them and nodded. ‘He has a pretty strong heartbeat, all things considered.’

  In the brightness of several more dragon lights brought in by the newly arrived back-up, bright crimson stood in stark contrast against Domino’s white fur. Horrified, Jenna’s searching gaze skimmed over the whole of him. His fine coat was no protection against the trauma he’d been subjected to. His skin had unzipped from shoulder to hip.

  Sarah gave a gentle prod. ‘He’s been caught on a protruding rock or branch.’

  Jenna exchanged a look with Mason, knowing Fliss’s situation was uppermost in his mind too. What if she’d slithered and slipped down too? What if she’d sustained injuries as life-threatening? Assumptions didn’t help. They needed stone-cold sober evidence. Evidence she’d rather not find if she was being truthful. She’d rather just find Fliss alive and well.

  Her attention on Domino, Sarah didn’t bother to glance up. ‘I think he’s broken his jaw.’ She took hold of his face with both hands to perform a gentle manipulation. ‘Yeah. Broken. Poor soul.’ She peered out of the van up at the now drenching rain. ‘I’d better get him out of here.’

  Jenna nodded as she stepped back. ‘I’ll ring you. Later. It may be much later.’ Relieved that she already knew the on-call vet, Jenna allowed Domino to be tended to, knowing he was in the best hands.

  Sarah climbed out of the vehicle and touched a gentle hand to Jenna’s cold arm. ‘I hope you find your sister soon, Jenna. I’m sure you will. Fliss won’t be far from Domino.’

  Jenna nodded, unable to push any reassuring words past the lump in her throat. She tossed a glance over her shoulder. ‘We need to get back.’

  Sparing Domino a last swipe of her hand along his warm body, Jenna turned, retracing her steps along the path to join the others.

  Shoulder to shoulder with Mason and Chris, Jenna peered into the depths of the old tunnel. Breath restricted, her chest burned.

  Two additional dog handlers and their dogs stood by, waiting for instructions. Jenna skimmed her gaze over them and the newly arriving PCs ambling towards them along the track.

  How stupid was she? Each one of them was appropriately dressed in padded vests and waterproofs while she and Mason were drenched to the bone through their fine suits only suitable for office work.

  She raised her hand, about to scrub it across her forehead when she remembered the mud and the blood from Domino smeared across it and dropped it back down to her side.

  Mason nudged her shoulder to grab her attention. ‘I know they couldn’t find another heat source, but we really need to do a fingertip search in there.’ He did rub his hand through his soaking hair and then stared at it as though he couldn’t believe what he’d done. ‘Where the hell else can she be?’

  Jenna’s heart fluttered in her chest and she took in snatches of cold air. She needed to take control. ‘Okay.’ She glanced around at the circle of faces, all fresh from the station having just started their shift. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘One moment, DS Morgan.’

  Jenna raised her head to look beyond the group. Through the murky light, a large man approached, his long stride measured and sedate. Relief washed over her as her inspector approached. ‘DI Taylor, sir.’

  He inclined his head and handed her a padded jacket, passing another one to Mason. ‘You’ll need these.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve been appraised. Let’s get on with it.’

  Unquestioning, Jenna hauled the oversized jacket on over her damp clothing, grateful for the protection it could provide against the wet and the downward draught from the helicopter.

  Mason shrugged into his jacket and stepped across the divide, backtracking to where they’d discovered Domino, while Chris let the straining dog off the lead again to continue the search, shining his dragon torch into the pitch blackness so Jenna could step across.

  Her heels slithered in the sticky mud, threatening to give out under the strain. Jenna puffed out a breath, making a promise she would never leave herself unprepared for such an eventuality again.

  Arms wrapped around her waist to generate as much warmth as possible, she pushed forward, Chris’s strong hand under her arm to support her.

  As Mason slid further down the slippery slope, radio in hand, Blue let up three further short sharp yips and had Chris scrabbling in the undergrowth to reach him.

  Four feet further on and under the brick archway, Chris turned the dragon light to banish the darkness and, in the illumination, caught the empty eye sockets of a cold, dead woman staring straight back at them.

  6

  Friday 26 October, 22:15 hrs

  ‘Felicity Sophia Morgan! What did your mother tell you?’ The strident tones of Felicity’s ten year old sister rang out. ‘Never, ever, ever…’ Jenna wagged her index finger in Fliss’s face, leaned in closer. ‘… ever, put anything around your neck. You could very well have choked yourself, my dear.’ The supercilious tone of her four years older sister did nothing but soothe as Jenna loosened the death grip of their father’s necktie from around Fliss’s neck and let her breathe again.

  She’d only thought to try it on, but when she tugged the thinner end, it just became tighter, tighter, tighter until little black dots flashed behind her eyelids and the spit dried in her mouth as the breath lodged in her chest, unable to escape.

  Jenna ruffled the blonde curls on Fliss’s head, then ran her hand down the side of her neck to the painful burn encircling it. With a gentle touch, she smoothed her thumb over the injured area, pure sympathy welling in her huge, clear green eyes before she lifted her hand and gave a sharp, shocking tap to the end of Fliss’s nose.

  ‘You should always take notice of what your mother tells you.’

  Fliss struggled to peel open her gritty, thick eyelids. The skin on her neck throbbed, swollen and painful. The air she dragged into her lungs stuck around the thickness of her tongue and the blockage in her throat. The echo of her older sister’s voice still ran through her sluggish mind.

  ‘You should have died.’

  She blinked, wallowing in confusion at the dark bitterness of the voice penetrating her consciousness. She fluttered open eyelids too heavy to comply.

  ‘Why aren’t you dead?’

  Shock reverberated through her system as brown eyes filled with bitter hatred peered past thick glasses into Fliss’s face.

  Who the hell was he?

  Wild brown and grey eyebrows drew down as the stranger frowned at her, fury flashing to send blazes of fear dashing to her heart.

  She whimpered as the stiffness of her neck restrained her from looking around to check out her surroundings.

  ‘I heard your neck break.’

  She was sure he was wrong. Her neck was stiff, but it wasn’t broken. She’d know if it was broken. Wo
uldn’t she?

  ‘It sounded like the crack of a dry stick. Like the one I belted your dog with.’

  Her heart contracted with the memory. Domino! Grief zoned her out for a long moment.

  His mouth pursed as he breathed out through his nose, making a faint whistling noise. ‘You should be dead,’ he insisted. ‘Of course, it’s my own fault, I should have hit you with the branch as well. It killed your dog.’ He said it in a matter-of-fact, sing-song tone, sending terror rippling through her and, from his tight smile, he seemed to be well aware of the shaft of pain slicing through her heart. ‘But I didn’t want to hit you with a broken branch. It would have been so untidy. A broken neck would have been so neat, but it’s not. It can’t be broken.’

  He slumped back in the wooden chair, making it creak in protest at his rude treatment. Disappointment wreathing his features.

  ‘I was so sure.’

  He folded his arms across his chest, his brow wrinkling in deep furrows as he continued to stare at her. There was nothing she wanted to say to him, nothing she could say, as fury burned deep in her chest and her throat closed even tighter to send a wave of panic shuddering through her lungs. He’d killed her dog. Her baby. Her Domino. He’d killed him. He was probably about to kill her.

  ‘Now what am I to do with you?’

  He shook his head, crouched over her. So close she could smell his mint-sweet breath, see the wispy curls of grey-coloured hair poking out of his nostrils.

  ‘Of course, it’s all your fault,’ he insisted. ‘If you hadn’t seen my face. If you had only carried on looking the other way. But I knew you recognised me. I could sense your recognition through the trees.’

  She frowned in confusion, shook her head in denial. No, no. It wasn’t true. She hadn’t even seen him in the hazy light. She hadn’t even seen his shadow until it was too late.

  ‘Now, now, it’s no good you telling me you didn’t. It won’t wash with me, young lady. It would have been stupid of me to have left you to identify me.’ He considered her, inspecting her neck, slowly panning the whole of the swollen area with his intense gaze. ‘If only you hadn’t found her. Sod’s law of course. How did you manage to slide your way straight into her?’

  His gaze clashed with hers and sent an icy chill down her spine. He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Why aren’t you dead?’

  He twisted his head like an enquiring bird.

  ‘Like my wife’

  Ripples of shock ran through her, but there was nothing she could do to stop the black clouds blooming in her vision, popping in puffs of white, just to form again and engulf her as the heavy weight of her eyelids proved too much for her to keep open.

  Oh dear God. He’d killed his wife, just as he was about to kill her.

  She needed to tell someone where she was. She needed to let Jenna know. Tell her the man had killed Domino. Tell her he’d killed his wife.

  Revulsion skittered over her flesh as storm clouds rolled in. She could do nothing to still the tender stroke of his hand over her forehead. The last sound she heard as she drifted was his voice, gentled now, soothing.

  ‘It looks like you were sent to me. Like Mary was. Sent for me to look after. Take care of.’

  His voice smoothed over her. ‘To keep.’

  He craned his neck, all the time studying the woman he’d just acquired. Seemed like a fair exchange for his poor, dead wife. Fate, it appeared, had been kind to him. He’d never done anything illegal in his life. Not until now. He couldn’t count his wife, everything that had happened to her had been her own stupid fault. He was a law-abiding citizen.

  The man gentled his fingers over the raised, red welts on the girl’s neck.

  ‘Silly cow.’ He scraped away blonde hair thickly coated in mud to reveal a face already starting to show dark purple bruising.

  She was a pretty woman, Detective Sergeant Morgan’s sister. He couldn’t quite place her name, but he remembered her, even if she pretended she didn’t know who he was.

  He broke into a smile as he smoothed the dirt away from her sleek, arched eyebrows, the left one with a large lump forming above. He pressed it and watched her face with studied interest. Not a flicker, not a flinch. She was too deep asleep to feel any pain. He’d seen to that.

  Proud of himself, he slipped the empty needle into a sharps box and placed it on the small medical trolley he’d brought into the cellar.

  He studied her face.

  Felicity.

  That was her name. Felicity Morgan. Unmarried as yet.

  He might rename her Joan. Perhaps, in time.

  His smile stretched even wider as he stroked her hair again. He’d obviously given her the right dose, possibly even a little too much, but she’d live if she was meant to live. After all, he’d broken her neck and she’d recovered. She’d not died.

  7

  Friday 26 October, 23:55 hrs

  ‘… Seven, eight, nine, ten. Coming, ready or not.’ Jenna’s bright voice invaded the quiet of the warm afternoon. Fliss smothered her laughter as she scrambled into the abandoned refrigerator. Mum had made Daddy haul it out of the house into the back yard for the council to send someone to dispose of the week before, but no one had taken it yet. Her mother had complained. She said she’d complained, but Fliss knew it would be with such gentleness, they’d ignore her. People often ignored her mother with her soft voice and her kind, lavender eyes.

  The door gave a gentle sucking noise as it closed behind Fliss. Oppressive silence engulfed her, drawing every sound from the world into the void, making her ears pop. No longer able to hear the gentle hum of the bees, the quiet twitter of the birds, her thrilled laughter dried up while she crouched in the bottom of the container and waited.

  Time meandered by and still her sister never came. The stench of dirt and spiders rose to fill her nostrils while in the blackness, her body heated. She swiped her arm across her damp forehead and waited. In the dense quiet. So very quiet. She waited until the air became so thick, she sucked it in through parched lips in small panicked sips, her upper lip beading with sweat.

  In the black, she pushed against the door. Heart fluttering in her chest like a wild bird, Fliss pushed and pushed, but it wouldn’t give. She fisted her hands against the walls of the refrigerator, hammered so someone would hear. Pain burst through her arms, and no one came, but still, she banged.

  Jenna would hear. She had to.

  Tears streaked Fliss’s face, trickling down her scorched, burning cheeks. Blind panic filled her lungs and burst out in an ear-piercing scream reverberating around the walls of the hot, tight enclosure so only she could hear her cry for help.

  As the door burst open, Fliss fell forward into the cool, fresh air and the open arms of her older sister.

  She sobbed, hiccupping in great lungsful of air while her heart threatened to explode from her skinny chest. She burrowed her nose close into Jenna’s soft warm neck, inhaling the familiar scent of safety, relief turning her legs to jelly and even though she wanted to pee herself, she pressed her thighs together and kept it in.

  ‘What did your mother tell you?’ In a sly mimic of their mother’s voice, Jenna placed one hand on her hip. ‘Don’t go near the old fridge, girls, it’s dangerous.’ She waggled her finger in Fliss’s face, then smoothed away the tears from her cheeks. ‘And what did you do, Felicity Sophia Morgan? You didn’t take notice, did you?’

  Jenna’s cool fingers swiped the hair out of her vision, and she placed pecking kisses on the end of Fliss’s nose as she clucked her tongue and smiled down at her, waiting for the gulping sobs to subside. She stroked her forehead and leaned closer. Her breath held a strange hint of sweet mintiness.

  ‘You should always take notice of what your mother tells you.’

  Fliss’s eyes popped open as the systematic stroking continued. The dream burst in an explosion of bright white lights, which vaporised into the atmosphere to leave her weak, her mind sludging through thick cotton wool.

  Confused, she gazed strai
ght into myopic dark brown eyes hidden behind thick black-rimmed glasses, while she struggled to recall where she was.

  She blinked the man into focus. His mouth stretched into a sickly-sweet smile which oozed sympathy, while dead eyes gazed at her with idle curiosity. As she opened her mouth to speak, he centred his intense stare on her lips, willing her to make a noise.

  Nothing came out except a small expulsion of air. Not even a croak. Pain radiated through her entire body, setting her skin on fire.

  The man leaned out of her vision for a moment. When he returned, he held a glass of water in his hand. A pink candy-cane straw bobbed out of it. With the tenderness of a lover, he positioned the straw between her lips and nodded encouragement.

  ‘Drink, Felicity.’

  She took a cautious sip. The cool slide of liquid relieved her burning throat, while she made a slow, thorough inspection of the man’s features.

  Did she know him?

  She couldn’t recall him.

  She wanted to shake her head, rid herself of the thick clouds stopping her from thinking clearly. She didn’t understand. He seemed to believe she should know him. He knew her name and yet she had no recollection of him. Her brain was listless and vague and the harder she attempted to identify him, it seemed the more her head ached.

  Closing her eyes, she stopped sipping.

  ‘Just a little more.’ His voice nudged.

  His voice. There was something about his voice. A vague nasal whine to it. Something familiar, but she couldn’t place it. The effort was all too much.

  Her lethargic brain could no longer hold onto her thoughts and pain shoved thick black bubbles to wash away her vision. She heard the groan inside her own head but knew the sound had not escaped her heavily swollen throat.

  ‘Felicity Sophia Morgan, what did your mother tell you?’ Jenna grasped her hand a little tighter than she expected and Fliss reared up to look at her sister. Staring back down at her, Jenna smiled and as Fliss watched, the smile morphed from Jenna’s natural straight-toothed grin to something sweet and sickly. Jenna’s eyes, normally a beautiful clear green with a random scatter of dark hazel pigmented dots, became darker, almost black. Desperate, Fliss yanked her hand from her sister’s grasp, fear skittering across her skin to make her flesh crawl. She drew in her breath to scream. Jenna squeezed harder and then stabbed her nail with studied viciousness into the back of Fliss’s hand.