The Keeper

by Diane Saxon

  Jerking up, Fliss wrenched her hand away from the source of pain only to pull up hard against the restraints around her wrists. Confused, she stared down at the police issue handcuffs tethering her wrists to the thin metal frame of the camp bed she lay on. She turned her head, stared into the eyes of the man sitting on a chair next to her. Eyes reflecting the dead expression of a shark.

  ‘That’s better,’ he soothed. ‘You’ll soon feel the benefit of the painkiller I administered.’

  He smoothed his fingers across the back of her hand, smiled sweet and sickly to make her stomach lurch as nausea clawed its way up her throat.

  ‘Did you know I was meant to be a doctor? My mother told me if I worked hard, that’s what I’d be. And I worked so hard.’ He nodded and gave the impression it wasn’t Fliss he spoke to as his gaze centred on the wall behind her.

  Fliss tried to concentrate. The information he gave her might prove useful if she escaped. When she escaped.

  He blinked and moved his attention back to her. ‘I tried so very hard, but they wouldn’t let me. Even the paramedics didn’t want me.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I think they were jealous because I had more experience. That I’d completed a year of doctors’ training when I came to them.’ His distant expression cleared, and he smiled again, baring crooked teeth. ‘You’re in such pain, my dear. We can’t have that now, can we? It’s my duty to take care of you.’ He rubbed his thumb in a hypnotic circular motion against her skin, which only served to increase the sick feeling roiling in her stomach. ‘I think it must be my lot in life to keep you.’ He shook his head. With a rueful smile, he sat back in his chair and gave a vague wave of his hand over her body. ‘A replacement for the loss I’ve suffered. Fate plays a funny part.’

  He raised his hand to his own face. The dull rasp of his fingers rubbing against the whiskers on his chin drew her attention. Everything he did was methodical, repetitive, deliberate.

  ‘She was very ungrateful, you know. My previous wife. And then she was gone. Fate certainly played a part there.’

  Fliss closed her eyes and drifted up, up, away, his voice a thin, reedy sound. ‘You were very heavy. I hadn’t expected to have to toss you in the boot of my car. Mary was much smaller and lighter.’ The bitter sigh he let out echoed around her mind. ‘You’ve caused me so much inconvenience. I was there for Mary, not you. It’s your fault I had to leave her behind. You gave me no choice. If we’re lucky, nobody will have taken any notice of your attention-seeking and I’ll be able to return tomorrow. I don’t think anyone will find her. She was quite well hidden, if you didn’t look too closely, and let’s face it, who does?’

  Fliss couldn’t stop the flinch as he stroked his fingers along her cheek.

  ‘When you’re feeling stronger, we’ll have to clean you up a little, but I think you’ll be fine for now. After all, if you didn’t die of a broken neck, then you’re not going to succumb to some silly little infection, are you?’

  She strained her neck to raise her head enough to peer down the length of her prone body while her mind drifted a mile above her. Her coat had been removed and she lay on her back. From what she could see, her upper body appeared to have been fairly well protected by her fleece-lined coat and long-sleeved T-shirt, but from her waist down, her jeans had been viciously ripped and lay in tatters around her limbs. The hot burn of scratches pulsated across her skin, but at least she knew the cause.

  Memory flooded back. Beneath the thick layer of dried mud, Fliss could make out the congealed mass of blood where brambles and tree branches, stones and undergrowth had ripped into her as she had tumbled down the steep incline of the Ironbridge Gorge in the same direction as her dog. Domino.

  She flopped her head back onto the thin pillow, all the time keeping her gaze steady on him. After all, she needed to know for sure.

  ‘Domino.’ She forced the dry rasp from her engorged throat.

  The man’s eyebrows shot up; his brow crinkled. ‘Yes, well. Unfortunate, but we had to dispose of him, didn’t we?’ His voice gained the sing-song pattern he’d used before, more to soothe him, she decided, than herself. ‘We couldn’t risk getting bitten, now could we?’

  Fliss gave a small jerk of her head to indicate he should come nearer. As he leaned in close, she opened her dry lips and ground out through clenched teeth. ‘I’ll never forgive you!’

  8

  Saturday 27 October, 02:00 hrs

  The drizzle had started hours earlier. Exhaustion had set in not long after. Having already been on duty since six the previous morning, Jenna barely had the energy to drag her body up the empty, brightly lit staircase of Malinsgate Police Station. Her footsteps echoed in unison with Mason’s. Her quick survey of him told her he didn’t look any fresher. Not even his normally boyish humour could overcome the deep worry lines that appeared, bracketing his mouth and deepening around his eyes to give him a haunted look of such aged weariness, Jenna couldn’t help but wonder how hard her sister’s disappearance had affected him.

  Chief Superintendent Gregg came to his feet as they entered the conference room and crossed straight over to Jenna, reaching out his hands to take hold of hers. A large man with a broad chest, he towered over Jenna. Approaching retirement, his years of experience sat comfortably on his shoulders. His steel-grey hair had been swept straight back from a high forehead. His bright hawk-like gaze drilled into hers.

  ‘Jenna, I’m sorry. I’m sure this is a terrible shock for you. I’m informed your sister is missing.’

  Leading her over to one of the small, uncomfortable, brown leather armchairs, Gregg guided her into it, taking the seat next to her without letting go of her hands.

  A petite woman in uniform placed a cup of hot black coffee on the table in front of her. Jenna glanced from the coffee to the police officer and back to Gregg. She didn’t recognise her. Raven black hair scraped back in a neat bun, chocolate eyes and smooth coffee toned skin. A newbie who looked no older than twelve. A lifetime ago since Jenna had been so young.

  Jenna’s lips moved. No sound came out and she shook her head. Pulling her fingers out of Gregg’s gentle grasp, she raised her hand to her mouth, closed her eyes and allowed the intense feeling of helplessness to wash over her. Just for a moment.

  The chair groaned as Gregg settled himself in it, and Jenna’s eyes shot open to watch as his large body spilled over the top of it. Blinking back the tears, Jenna leaned over and picked up her coffee. She blew across the top of it and watched the ripples form and steam puff upwards.

  ‘Report.’ Gregg’s strong tone, filled with command, resonated in the large conference room. She suspected he had a strong desire to keep her from falling apart so she could deliver her report and concentrate on the most important element: her sister’s disappearance. Not her own feelings.

  Jenna nodded abruptly. She needed normality. He gave it to her.

  ‘We responded to a call at approximately 16:35 hours.’

  She glanced up at Mason, who leaned against the wall by the door, for verification. At his nod, she took a sip of the hot, weak coffee and continued.

  ‘Dog walkers in Dale End Park – the twilight walkers – called in the sound of a woman screaming on the south side of the Gorge. After liaising with PC Ted Walker, we met with the dog handler, sir, Sergeant Chris Bennett, with his dog, Blue. We called in Air One.’

  ‘On what grounds?’ Gregg’s bright gaze pierced hers as the vertical furrow on his forehead deepened.

  Fear, instinct. Neither of which were professional enough answers. Mason shuffled his feet while he paced across the room, coffee cup in hand, to loom over the back of her chair.

  ‘We deployed them because of the information received. The woman’s screams, combined with several other factors, such as my sister’s car in the car park and a number of walkers saying they heard the name of Fliss’s dog being called. Domino. The woman screamed Domino.’ She clamped her lips together for a moment as the shake in her voice threatened to spill into sobs. ‘We carr
ied out an instant risk assessment and made a decision based on facts. Time of night, resources available, risk. It’s all recorded, sir.’

  Jenna flicked a worried glance at Mason.

  Instinct. For her, it still boiled down to instinct.

  Jenna waited for Gregg to call her on it, but instead, he dipped his head, the steel grey of his hair shimmered under the electric lights. ‘I’ve already listened to the recording. I’m comfortable that you made the right decision under the circumstances.’ He paused. ‘Fliss. Your sister?’

  Jenna nodded, every drop of saliva in her mouth had deserted her. While she met his eyes, she took another sip of coffee, dropping her gaze so she no longer had to meet his.

  He drew in a breath through his nose. ‘Continue.’

  She wrapped her fingers around the coffee mug to disguise the shake in them, but not for one moment was she mistaken to think he’d missed it.

  ‘We discovered a badly injured dog…’ she stopped, the air stuttered at the back of her throat. ‘Domino… and the body of a woman.’

  ‘The dog is your sister’s?’ Gregg enquired.

  ‘Yes, sir. Our… her Dalmatian.’ A shudder rippled through her.

  ‘The body is not your sister.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘No.’ Thank God. She clipped her cup onto the desk, placed her hand over her mouth and breathed deeply.

  ‘Has the victim been identified?’

  She met his gaze again. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Was it the victim who screamed?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, Jenna hauled herself upright in the chair, only just noticing how damp her clothes were, how filthy her skin was. ‘She’d be hard-pushed to. The body had been there for some time. SOCO are talking ballpark figure of twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Rigor mortis had started to relax, particularly in the face. Eyes missing. No evidence they’d been taken pre-death, but the probability is they were taken post-mortem.’ Not usually given to squeamishness, she had to swallow past the bile in her throat. ‘By animals.’ She grimaced at the thought of the woman’s eyes being plucked out. The woman who could have been her own sister.

  Jenna rolled her shoulders. The damp had soaked through her clothes to make her skin itch. ‘The victim was female. Short. A little underweight. Estimated age range at this point, around thirty-five. More information when the post-mortem has been carried out.’

  Jenna huffed out as she glanced up at Mason, who’d moved to lean against the meeting table, cradling his coffee, she assumed, to pull in as much heat as possible. He looked like shit. His smart suit, since he’d removed the squad jacket, soaked through, muck and blood covering his entire upper body. Smudges of dried mud smeared up his face and into his hair. If it had been any other case but this, she’d have taken the piss at his loss of composure, but she had everything to be grateful to him for.

  Guilt riddled her, but she had a job to do. She had to find her sister. She bowed her head and stared at the blank screen of her iPhone. There was no use pestering the vet, she’d said she’d have Domino in surgery for some time. Still, the need to phone rose as Jenna’s breath quickened. If only Domino survived, it would mean Fliss still had a chance. They were connected.

  She pulled herself back to the present and realised Gregg waited with patience for her to continue. Picking up her cup, she took another gulp of sweetened, black liquid, and relieved her dry throat before she continued.

  ‘Domino was removed by the vet. SOCO arrived, cordoned off the area. Two lines, an inner, around the victim’s body and where Domino was. They covered the area in a tent to stop the rain from washing away any forensics. The outer cordon is keyhole-shaped. There’s evidence both the dog and possibly my sister slid down from the upper pathway. There seem to be several slide marks. SOCO followed them up the hillside to a point almost directly above the body. They must have gone straight down. Through everything. Rocks, branches, brambles. We have no idea what would have caused them both to take the dive.’

  She closed her eyes, pictured Domino’s split skin and felt her stomach pitch. She’d caught sight of a bone protruding through the flesh and sinew. His body had hundreds of other smaller lacerations. Crimson daubed his beautiful white coat in crude abandon, highlighted by the overpowering white lights hastily erected by the team.

  It was difficult not to think her sister had suffered the same fate. Jenna shook her head, covered her mouth with her fingers and rubbed her numb lips. Where the hell was she? Where was Fliss? Why hadn’t she been at the bottom of the incline alongside Domino and the dead woman?

  Jenna’s stomach clenched. Where are you, Fliss?

  The firm squeeze of Mason’s hand on her shoulder helped her to centre herself and continue. ‘The cordon goes twelve feet above the upper path and either side of the slip marks at present. They can’t do an awful lot more until daylight in looking for further evidence. We’re due to meet there at 07.00 hours. We left them to remove the victim’s body. They’ll be some time, forensics have to do their thing.’

  Nodding, Gregg narrowed his eyes and peered closely at Jenna. ‘And your sister?’

  Placing her cup on the table, Jenna gave her cold, damp thighs a vigorous rub, trying to get the circulation going. Lifting her hands, she gave a helpless shrug. ‘We don’t know, sir. We didn’t find her there and it was difficult in the fading light to track any evidence. Air One used up all its airtime and had to return to base not long after Domino had been evacuated. We have no idea where she could be.’

  Looking at Mason, her throat started to tighten up again. She wasn’t sure if she could even think about her sister as a victim at the moment. She couldn’t risk falling apart right now. She blinked away the sting of tears, watched as Mason placed his coffee cup on the table and straightened.

  ‘Sergeant Morgan phoned her sister’s mobile, sir. We heard it ring.’ Instantly recognisable as Fliss’s theme tune, ‘Cruella de Vil’ had blasted out into the night air, her iPhone lighting up from under the wet leaves. ‘Three feet from where we were standing, six inches from the dead body, sir.’

  Jenna had sunk to her knees to retrieve it and Chris had shouted to leave it until SOCO arrived. The pain had been unbearable to not pick up the phone, not touch what belonged to her sister.

  Both men had waited in silence for her to compose herself before she’d picked herself up out of the wet leaves for the last time that evening.

  Mason plucked a leaf from the collar of his jacket and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. ‘We’ve sent units around to Jenna’s house where she lives with Fliss. Nothing. Checked with hospitals. Nothing.’

  ‘Would she go to a friend’s house?’ Gregg enquired.

  Before Mason could answer, Jenna interjected.

  ‘No, sir. Fliss would always come to me. There is nowhere else she would go, no one else she would go to.’ She was adamant. ‘She has plenty of friends, but no one as close as us. The only priority for her would be to get Domino rescued. She loved… loves that dog. She would not have abandoned him willingly. Something else happened.’

  ‘What? Has she slid into the river?’

  At the shake of her head, Gregg reached out, touched her arm.

  ‘She couldn’t slip directly into the river from there. There was the main pathway first, then the bridge parapet. She would have literally had to climb over the wall. There was no reason for her to, and no evidence anything like that had taken place. The foliage doesn’t appear to be disturbed further down, although forensics will check there thoroughly in the morning. At the moment, the river is so swollen, there’s no footing down there. The towpath is entirely covered in water.’

  Gregg chewed on the corner of his mouth, his face twisted. ‘House-to-house?’

  ‘Yep, in progress. It didn’t take long to get through the first batch of houses closest to the bridge. I can’t see her going any further, she wouldn’t bypass the closest houses if she was in a panic to get to a phone for help, but the uniforms are workin
g their way up the bank on the other side. There’re only a few houses on the Benthall Wood side. One person thought they heard a scream, but sometimes kids run through the woods. It’s not unusual. Especially this time of year, with Halloween just around the corner.’

  There was a long pause, while Gregg took in the information. ‘Jenna, what do you think happened to your sister?’

  Seconds ticked by as they stared at her. Jenna choked back the bile that threatened to scald the back of her throat as the words she’d held back poured out thick and hoarse.

  ‘Assuming the naked woman has been murdered, I think whoever did that has her.’

  ‘You think we have a murderer out there?’

  Any hope she’d clung to of finding Fliss disappeared like thin tendrils of smoke.

  ‘Well, someone dumped a naked body at the bottom of the hill. I don’t think she got there under her own steam.’

  Silence blanketed the room.

  9

  Saturday 27 October, 07:00 hrs

  Anger churned with an acid burn in her stomach. She stared in the bathroom mirror at the deep lines of strain either side of her mouth, recognised the rage reflected in her own hard, glassy expression. She studied the fine lines surrounding her tired eyes, the vertical frown line which cut deep between her eyebrows, and the pale waxiness of her skin. She was going to look like a sullen, bad-tempered child if she didn’t do something about it.