The Keeper

by Luke Delaney

  Sean and Donnelly pulled up outside Deborah Thomson’s home, finding a parking space squeezed between the gathering forensic vehicles, little white car-vans fully loaded with everything Roddis and his team would need to sweep the scene clean. They walked towards the cordoned-off area and ducked under the blue-and-white police tape, flashing their warrant cards at one of the uniformed officers Roddis had drafted in to guard his precious exclusion zone. As they approached the house, Sean saw Sally standing at the end of the drive talking with Anna. Roddis was close to the front door with two of his team, already resplendent in their dark-blue paper forensic suits, preparing plastic and brown paper bags to receive their anticipated exhibits from inside the house. Sean acknowledged Sally and Anna, but kept walking towards Roddis.

  ‘Mr Corrigan,’ Roddis greeted him. ‘I hope you don’t expect to be allowed in the house dressed like that? You shouldn’t even be inside the cordon.’

  ‘My apologies,’ Sean answered. ‘And no, I don’t need to go inside, not this time.’ He scanned the house in front of him, a near identical property to the other two scenes. ‘Anything for me yet?’ He made no apologies for his impatience.

  ‘We’ve had a poke around. There are traces of chloroform on the hallway floor and a couple of full ident fingerprints on the inside door handle which appear to be the same as the ones we took from the other two abduction sites.’

  ‘How do you know they’re the same?’ Sean quizzed him. ‘They haven’t been to Fingerprints yet.’

  ‘I keep my own copies on the laptop – the digital age is a wonderful thing. To my untrained eye, I’d say they were a match, but I imagine you already knew it was the same man, yes?’

  Sean didn’t answer. ‘I need you to liaise with the door-to-door teams,’ he said. ‘If anyone in the street’s had junk mail pushed through their front doors in the last couple of days, I want them to seize it and hand it all over to you for fingerprinting. I’m assuming you’ve worked out why?’

  ‘Probably,’ Roddis confirmed. ‘So you think your man’s been posting stuff through other doors, no doubt trying to blend in while he scouted the area?’

  ‘I do.’ Sean’s iPhone vibrated in his coat pocket. He wrestled it free of the resisting material and touched his finger on the screen to answer. ‘Sean Corrigan.’

  ‘Inspector Corrigan. How are you this fine day?’ He recognized Dr Canning’s voice immediately.

  ‘I’ve been better.’

  ‘Never mind. Thought you’d like to know that I’ve released Karen Green’s body into the care of the Coroner’s Officer. The family are due to formally identify her at 2 p.m.’ Sean glanced at his watch – it was already 1 p.m. ‘Her body has been moved to the chapel of rest. Better for the family to see her there. We’ll make her look as presentable as we can.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sean, ‘and thank you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. By the way, I’ve also identified what made the rather mysterious circular bruises we found all over her body.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Sean encouraged, unaware that he’d stopped breathing while he waited for what could be the breakthrough piece of the puzzle he’d been searching for.

  ‘He used an electric cattle prod. We tested a fair few instruments of torture, but only the prod gave us an exact match.’

  Sean breathed again. ‘Son of a bitch. Question now is, where the hell did he get it from?’

  ‘A farm,’ Canning offered. ‘Maybe he keeps his victims on a farm?’

  ‘Not many farms in south-east London.’

  ‘Perhaps he lives further afield than you thought?’

  ‘No,’ Sean dismissed the suggestion. ‘He’s no farmer coming up from the sticks to snatch his victims. This one likes to stay close to what he knows.’

  ‘Well, I know better than to argue with you.’

  Sean had already moved on. ‘I need you to do something else for me.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Run a full screening for toxins in her blood.’

  ‘No doubt you’re going to ask me if she has traces of anything that could be used as an anaesthetic or a pre-anaesthetic, something that would make a person compliant but not technically unconscious?’

  Sean’s eyes darted from side to side, uncomfortable with having anybody one step ahead of him, even Dr Canning, a man he trusted more than most. He suddenly realized what must have happened. ‘You’ve already run the tests, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Canning answered, the satisfaction in his voice barely concealed.

  ‘And you found traces of alfentanil.’

  The satisfaction in Canning’s voice turned to disbelief. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Sean promised. ‘Could you inform the Coroner’s Officer that I’ll be there to meet the family at the identification.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Canning.

  Sean hung up and turned to Sally. ‘The formal identification of Karen Green will be at Guy’s at two. I could do with you there.’

  Sally’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Anna jumped in. ‘I’d like to go. I want to go.’

  ‘This won’t be fun,’ Sean assured her. ‘Sally has experience with this. You don’t. Sally?’ She looked at the floor rather than answer. He saw she wasn’t ready yet.

  ‘Besides,’ Anna continued, ‘if I see the victim’s body and meet with some of her family, it may help me with profiling the offender. And there’ll be a Family Liaison Officer with them too, correct?’

  ‘There will be,’ Sean agreed. ‘DC Jesson.’

  ‘Then I can’t see a problem.’

  Recognizing her noble intent, Sean decided that if it gave Sally an easy out then he’d take it. ‘OK, but follow my lead and don’t say a damn thing without checking with me first. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ she promised. Sean began to walk towards his car, continually shaking his head. He realized Anna wasn’t following and turned back.

  ‘Well, you coming or what?’

  She rested a hand on Sally’s shoulder and rolled her eyes before walking after him.

  ‘Women,’ Sean muttered to himself. ‘The one thing I’ll never understand.’

  The two women sat together but alone under the dull, jaundicing light of the low-powered bulb that hung above their heads, the sound of water trickling somewhere in the cellar as deafening in the silence as it was maddening. Deborah Thomson clutched her damaged knee and rocked backwards and forwards on the floor of her hellish prison. Her body was drained of adrenalin and she sobbed quietly from the pain and the fear, her last chance of escape and survival surely gone. She was going to die in this dark, damp cellar – or somewhere worse. He would eventually come to take her life. She saw his hands slipping around her throat, squeezing, pushing his fingers into her trachea until it was crushed, the pressure halting the flow of blood through her carotid arteries to her brain, unconsciousness and death soon following.

  Her rocking became increasingly frantic and her breathing on the verge of hyperventilation. She looked across the room to Louise Russell, lying silent and motionless but for her constant shivering, her near naked body coiled on the floor, her back towards her, the bones of her spine already becoming more prominent after just a few days without water or food. Deborah knew Louise was growing weaker and weaker – if he didn’t kill her she would probably be dead from hypothermia soon anyway.

  A trembling voice made Deborah jump with fright. ‘How could you leave me?’ the weak voice asked. ‘How could you do that?’

  It was a while before she could answer, the words stuck in her shrunken throat as if his fingers were already coiled around it.

  ‘I panicked,’ she managed to say. ‘I was scared, so scared. I saw the light and could smell the air from outside and I just … I just had to get away. I had to get away from here. I couldn’t think of anything else. My mind went blank … and I ran. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Her tears ran into the mucus trickl
ing from her nose, making her face shiny and slippery as she tried to rub it away with the backs of her hands. She inhaled deeply to clear her nose and control her crying. ‘If I get another chance I won’t leave you, I promise. I won’t panic.’

  ‘There won’t be another chance,’ Louise whispered calmly, as if she’d already accepted her fate. ‘You’ve killed us both.’ She rolled over slowly so she was facing Deborah, her eyes wide open and sparkling with life despite her exhaustion. ‘You’ve killed us both.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Deborah told her sharply. ‘You don’t know that.’ Louise didn’t answer, her green eyes staring in accusation.

  ‘We’d already picked names for them,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’ Deborah asked. ‘I don’t understand. Names for who?’

  ‘Our children. The children we were going to have. We’d already picked their names. If we had three boys we were going to call them John, Simon and David. If they were girls we were going to call them Rosie, Sara and Elizabeth.’

  ‘What if you had a mixture?’ Deborah asked, wishing she hadn’t.

  ‘We never talked about that. Somehow I knew we’d have three boys or three girls, so we never discussed it. Silly really.’ Deborah said nothing. Louise continued, her voice growing a little stronger as her mind temporarily freed her body from her hell. ‘I like the boys’ names – strong and simple, like my husband. He’s called John too.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Deborah.

  ‘His name suits him. Honest and strong. Not the most handsome, not the funniest or cleverest, but good and reliable. I don’t know how he’s going to be when he finds out what’s happened to me. I’m worried he’ll never forgive himself for not being there to stop it, for not being able to save me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t think like that,’ Deborah said, more because it was torture for her, having to listen to it, than out of any wish to help Louise.

  ‘I miss him so much,’ Louise continued. ‘I even miss the children – isn’t that ridiculous? I miss the children we haven’t even had. We talked about them so often I can see their faces, the shades of their hair, their freckles. I can smell them – somehow I can feel them, yet they don’t exist, and now they never will.’

  ‘Because of me,’ Deborah snapped. ‘That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? They won’t exist because of me.’

  ‘No,’ Louise answered, her dry, shrunken lips forming a tiny smile. ‘No matter what you did, you didn’t bring me here. He’s the one that did that.’

  ‘Listen,’ Deborah sighed, ‘I was brought up in New Cross, you know it?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Then you know what it’s like. I was the only girl with three older brothers and I had to fight for everything. Sometimes I even had to fight my brothers for food or go hungry. I had to fight the other kids at school or forever be picked on. Whatever I got, I got it myself. Where I grew up, there was only one rule – look after number one, because nobody else would. So when I saw my chance I took it, and I was wrong. I should have got the keys and let you out. I should have given you the same chance I had, but I didn’t. I’m ashamed of my instinct, but if your life had been like mine you’d have run too, no matter what you think you’d have done. I promise you, you would have run.’

  Neither spoke for a long while. Then Louise broke the silent tension.

  ‘Are you loved?’ she asked. ‘Like I’m loved by John. Does anyone love you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know … my mum, brothers.’

  ‘No, not like that. A man – a man who’s your soul mate. Or a woman?’

  ‘Maybe there’s a man. His name’s Sam. I haven’t known him long.’

  ‘Sam – that’s a good name.’

  ‘I think he’s a good man, but I don’t miss him the way you miss John. I’m alone down here. You have John and your imagined children, but I’m alone. I can’t escape this hell, not even for a second.’ There was another lengthy silence between them. ‘I still keep thinking this has to be a nightmare – that I’ll wake up soon. But it’s been going on too long to be a nightmare, hasn’t it? And the pain, you don’t feel pain like this in nightmares, so I know it’s real, but I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘We’re here, aren’t we? And we’re real. Out there, people we’ve never met or known will be watching the news, following our story, looking at photographs of us, listening to our families appealing to this bastard to let us go unharmed. But you’re right, we won’t be real to them. They’ll feel nothing for us. To them, we’re light entertainment. We’re only real to the people who love us. No one else cares. Once we’re dead, so is the story and we’ll be forgotten by everyone but those who love us.’

  ‘Then those who love us won’t give up on us and we shouldn’t give up on them. And the police, they won’t give up on us. They’ll keep looking for us. They won’t stop. They can’t.’

  ‘The police? How could they possibly find us down here? What could lead them to … him. You’ve heard him, you’ve seen him. He’s completely insane. The police like things to make sense – a motive they can understand. Who could ever understand this lunatic?’ Louise laughed quietly and cynically, the effort making her cough. ‘What policeman on the face of God’s earth could ever understand this madman enough to find him? If there is such a man, then may God pity his soul.’

  11

  Sean and Anna entered the mortuary area in Guy’s Hospital and went straight to the chapel that was attached to the complex. He’d been tempted to enter via the autopsy area, to show his face to Dr Canning and to see how Anna would react to being in the company of the dead, but had decided her reaction to seeing Karen Green’s lifeless body would be enough. Inside the chapel was quiet and peaceful, feeling more like a church than a hospital, the walls painted a tranquil dark purple. Someone had even gone to the lengths of hanging long red curtains either side of the door the relatives would soon be brought through, despite the fact there were no windows. A crucifix bearing the body of Christ overlooked the scene below. A coffin-shaped, padded casket lay at the centre of the room on a low table that had been draped in red cloth that spread to the floor. Karen Green’s body lay within.

  Sean crossed the floor and looked into the long box. She’d been prepared well, as all murder victims were here, by Dr Canning’s assistant and a little technical help from a local undertakers. A purple satin sheet covered her body, leaving only her face on show. Canning’s team had worked miracles on her facial injuries and had even taken time to prepare her hair as best they could, brushing it neatly to one side so as not to obscure any of her once pretty face. He fought hard not to reach out and touch her face, as if somehow feeling her cold skin would connect him to the man who had ripped her young life away. Anna’s voice close behind him dragged him back.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting it to be like this.’

  ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just … not this.’

  ‘Did you think we were going to take her family into the main mortuary and slide her out of the freezer, pull back the green sheet and ask “Is this her?”’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ve been watching too many TV cop shows.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How many dead bodies have you seen?’ he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

  ‘None,’ she answered quickly and truthfully. He said nothing, but nodded his head knowingly.

  Anna could sense his slight hostility and disapproval, as if she hadn’t earned the right to be there in the same room as Karen Green or to be part of a murder investigation. He’d spent most of his adult life dealing with the unthinkable while she’d been cocooned in universities, giving lectures and writing books. She stepped forward and looked at Karen Green, her crystal green eyes now covered with dead eyelids. ‘She looks peaceful, despite everything she must have been through.’

  Sean looked away from the body to Anna, whose eyes were still fixed on Karen Green. He looked her up and
down while she wasn’t watching, judging her before responding to what she’d said. ‘She didn’t when she was lying in the woods. She didn’t look peaceful then. They never do. They look … broken, like their souls have been torn away against their will. Death brings no peace.’

  She looked at him from the corner of her eyes, feeling his cold blue stare. He was waiting for a reaction – a chance to study her the way she was used to studying others. The sound of his phone ringing made him look away.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Guv’nor, it’s Sally. Uniform have found Deborah Thomson’s car abandoned on Tooting Common, close to the outdoor swimming pool.’ He didn’t know the area, but the picture in his mind was vivid: a dirt-road leading to a secluded parking area, leafless trees bending slightly in the breeze as if reaching out for the car.

  ‘Shit,’ he cursed. ‘Have we got anyone left who can cover the scene?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sally told him. ‘That last box of soldiers you opened is just about empty. We’re running out of people faster than we can replace them. This guy is getting ahead of us, Sean.’

  ‘No he’s not. I’ll cover the scene myself. You stay with Roddis at her house and see what you can milk out of him. Call me if you find anything.’ Without waiting for an answer, he hung up.

  ‘Trouble?’ said Anna.

  ‘We’ve found Deborah Thomson’s car. Abandoned. Tooting Common. I need to take a look. You can come, if you want.’

  She nodded that she would. ‘Don’t you want to wait to see the family first?’

  ‘No time for that now,’ he told her, hoping she couldn’t see the relief in his eyes at not having to face them. ‘I need to check out the place her car was found as soon as possible.’ He glanced over at the body of Karen Green. ‘There’s nothing more I can do for her now other than catch her killer. Her family will have to wait.’