The Takers and Keepers

by Ivan Pope

  ‘Where does he keep them?’ the controller asked.

  ‘Down in the cellar, of course,’ Mrs Standen said.

  ‘Look, I’ll pass it on to a car. Ask them to drop by and have a look around. It won’t be very quick. But they’ll be there as soon as they can.’

  To the old woman, the PCs who eventually turned up at her door looked about fifteen. By that time, though, she had worked herself up into a frenzy of fear and anticipation. Her nephew hadn’t returned, and this behaviour was so unlikely that she suspected the worst. He did travel abroad, sometimes for long periods, but he never, never left the house without telling her. In fact, he never did anything without making sure she knew where he was. He had no vices that she knew of, except those darned lizards, which she considered an abomination. He spent a lot of time on them, too much, she considered. Still, he did look after her and provided company in her old age. He was a good boy, really. She told herself not to burst into tears again, that these police officers would find him. Maybe he’d had a funny turn. Maybe he’d slipped and hurt himself and couldn’t climb back up the stairs.

  ‘He keeps creatures,’ she said, ‘down in the cellar.’ Come in, come in. She led them through the large house, towards the back. ‘There’s a staircase here,’ she said, pointing to a wooden door at the end of a corridor. The woman police officer opened the latch. There was no lock. She peered in, looking for a light switch.

  ‘When did you say he went down there?’ she asked.

  ‘About seven o’clock last night,’ Mrs Standen said. ‘He always goes down around that time, it’s his hobby.’

  ‘And you haven’t been down, to have a look?’

  ‘I never go down there,’ the old woman said. ‘I don’t like the dark and I certainly don’t like snakes.’

  The officers made their way down. There was a light and a steep staircase that wound its way down past a basement room which contained hundreds of cardboard boxes and into a sub-basement below that. Now they were far under the house, deep in the London clay. The lower basement was divided into two equal-sized rooms. One was a built-in workshop with workbenches and saws, a pillar drill, vices and multiple racking systems. The second was a storeroom which contained shelving on which was stacked a variety of packaged food and plastic containers.

  The two police officers looked at each other and smiled. There were no reptiles, no snakes or lizards. No cages, nothing that would indicate such a hobby, nothing that fitted the woman’s description of why her nephew spent time in the cellar. The WPC raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘He’s up to something he doesn’t want his aunt to know about.’

  ‘Either that, or she’s not well,’ her partner said.

  The continued to walk slowly around the room, lifting a few items and shoving boxes aside. There was really nothing to search, nowhere else to examine. Now they convinced themselves that this was a fool’s errand. Whatever was going on in this household, whether or not someone was missing, this basement didn’t seem to offer a solution. They drifted back through to the workshop and onto the staircase. As the policewoman stepped onto the first tread they thought they heard a noise, a slight clang which emanated somewhere in the depths of the space, somewhere off behind them. They both froze, silent, waiting to see whether it repeated.

  ‘Did you …’ the leading officer said. And then they heard another, softer sound. They both turned and looked back into the space they were vacating, and through into the storeroom. Some notion from their training, some idea that you should discount the obvious, believe the unlikely, came to mind and they dismounted the staircase and, walking slowly and carefully, both re-entered the second space and walked slowly around it in opposite directions.

  ‘What do you think that was?’

  ‘Probably nothing.’

  He moved a container on a shelf and looked behind it. She stared at the ceiling, then at the floor. She sniffed. ‘Can you smell something, something stale, a bit rank?’

  He sniffed ostentatiously. ‘Maybe. Not sure.’ The room itself smelled of underground spaces.

  They continued their circumnavigation. He tapped the floor with his foot.

  She opened a cupboard. Ropes. She opened the next. Sanitary towels. She eyed the dusty floor.

  ‘Oh, come on, nothing here,’ he said. They turned again and clang. Louder this time, unignorable.

  ‘What the fuck,’ she said. They held their breath, motionless, willing their ears to pick up more sound. ‘Behind those shelves,’ he said. They both took a couple of steps forward and grasped the end shelving unit, trying to pull it forward. It didn’t budge, it seemed to be attached to the wall, as if with springs. They pulled, then stopped, then she reached under a shelf and tried to lift it and the entire unit moved upwards, away from the wall. Hinged like a garage door, it swung upwards and upwards until it rested parallel to the ceiling. They stared at it in amazement, then slowly lowered their gaze to the wall which had a rough opening through brickwork into the darkness beyond.

  Climbing out of the window and dropping down into the grass, Allen looked quickly around for a tool. He found a fencing post in the long grass and he held it full length above his head as a battering tool.

  The window frame was heavy, old-fashioned, properly constructed wood. A piece of work, he thought, a proper piece of work. He hit it, then again and again until it splintered, breaking away from the surrounding stonework. He smashed it out piece by piece, opening up a small dark hole in the wall almost level with the ground. Allen stuck his head in. He’d done this before. It was an entrance to something, some sort of space under the house. He wasn’t sure quite what. The trick now was to get in as quickly as possible. He pushed himself in head first, not caring about the jagged edges to the hole he’d created, and, dropping onto outstretched arms, he fell and rolled forward into the darkness. He sat up and looked around. He was in a short corridor. To his right a wooden door would lead back outside and right in front of him, a heavy wooden door right under the house. This is it. The thought swept clammy sweat through his body immediately. This is a fucking hole hidden under his house in the middle of London. And I found it. Breathing deeply, he reached for the handle and pulled but the door was locked. A wave of claustrophobia swept over him. He started to sweat wildly.

  Out of nowhere a voice came back to him, the sergeant shouting.

  Get in there, you stupid. cowardly cunt. Get your stupid arse in there.

  The blackness reared in front of him. The dank dark smell washed over him.

  But sarge, there are people in there. Bodies in there. Something bad has happened. Blood in there.

  Get in there, you dumb moron, get in there before I smash your stupid arse.

  They are moving in there. Moaning.

  Pushing his back against the wall behind him, Allen lifted a leg and kicked solidly against the door. One … Two … Three … and it started to go. Four … Five … and the door flew open and a damp, acrid cloud flew out and enveloped him, catching at the back of his throat and making him cough wildly. A shaft of light from the window behind him illuminated millions of fragments of dust. He breathed the stale air and looked into the space. A large, dry cellar stretched back under the house.

  ‘Emily,’ he shouted. ‘Emily.’ There was silence in the space. He could see a dust-covered workbench and an old bicycle. Tools hung on the walls and there were boxes on the floor, but nothing more. He ran into the darkness, moving from corner to corner, but it was clearly an empty space. He pushed into several small rooms, straining to see in the dark, but encountered nothing but junk.

  Behind him, then, he heard a voice, plaintive but getting louder.

  ‘Hello. Excuse me, old chap. Hello.’

  He looked around to see the round face of a fat, balding man looking at him through the broken window. They stared at each other in incomprehension for a few long moments. Allen felt the adrenaline dissipate rapidly. He lost his momentum, his anger and his urge to fight. He stared up, realising what he’d do
ne, what it meant, how lost he was, how lost Emily was, somewhere, somewhere else, not here. He was wrong, he was chasing shadows. This was never Roger’s address. Roger was cleverer than that and he was stupid. A strangled sob escaped from his throat.

  ‘What are you doing in my cellar, you silly fucker,’ said the stranger. ‘I’m calling the police.’

  Emergent

  PC Jamie Harrison had joined the force to become a detective but was happy to work his way up the ranks. He enjoyed being a constable, liked the random nature of the work, the day-to-day encounters with members of the public. He didn’t even mind the occasional blood and gore, the distressed children or severely damaged adults. To him they were all of a muchness, an essential part of the job.

  That day the first call was made back to the West Hampstead police station by Samirah Salib. ‘Requesting support for incident at 37 Chilcot Road.’ When asked the nature of the incident she could only repeat, ‘People, people, in the cellar.’ She also asked for an ambulance with the comment, ‘There’s a man here too, but he’s gone’.

  Within half an hour it was clear to the news teams of London that a major incident was developing in North London. They dispatched outdoor-broadcast vans with elevating satellite dishes on the roof and news reporters to the scene and jostled for position outside the house where a succession of police, medical and other, unidentified vehicles were converging.

  In the early evening twilight the first people were led out with blankets over their heads and, although the police tried to keep a lid on information, reporters on site were quick to establish for themselves some facts. These were soon spreading fast through the wilder reaches of the Internet.

  -Scenes of horror in hidden chamber

  -Abducted persons held on site

  -Multiple persons including children

  -One person believed deceased at scene

  There was a lot more though.

  By midnight an early stage report was on the area commander’s desk.

  The dead man was named as Roger Standen, the owner of the house, who was now believed to be responsible for the historic abduction and incarceration of his cousin eighteen years previously. There was a strong possibility that he had accomplices and a fast-moving investigation was underway with more arrests expected imminently.

  During the night the reports were updated regularly as the picture became clear.

  The woman, who had been in the cellar for eighteen years and long presumed dead, was Abigail Standen, a cousin of the dead man.

  She had given birth multiple times. Three of her children had survived. They were the product of rapes by her abductor.

  The fifth person in the chamber was Emily Morgan, who had gone missing sixty days previously.

  The incident was being presumed to be part of an escape attempt by the abductees.

  Standen’s aunt, who lived in the house and who was present at the time of discovery, had suffered a major medical incident and was in intensive care at an unnamed hospital.

  Across the world, word spread fast between taker and keeper. Roger is dead. Roger has gone. In dark cellars and damp basements, in vaults and sealed units, in underground car parks and cells built high above ground, captives passed another dark endless day with no change, but for their captors, things were moving. Nobody knew what Roger had written down, nobody knew what he had left behind.

  Sometime around eleven that night Allen flipped open his laptop and glanced at the screen.

  Family emerge from underground hell prison

  And he knew.

  Release

  Allen lay full length on the bed in a chilly room which, although sparsely furnished, was decorated with a certain elegance. He hadn’t wanted to come out here, to this refuge on the far northern coast run by a released keepen that Jenkins had told him about. She can help you, he said. Eventually, beaten down by grief and loneliness, he’d given in.

  The television blared in front of him as he drifted in and out of sleep, desperate not to miss what he was waiting for. His evening proceeded in jumps, programmes seemed to start and then be over without him seeing anything. Finally, what he was really waiting for but also dreading came, and he forced himself back into the waked world, holding his eyelids up manually.

  The announcer started up in the hyperventilated manner common to cheap television.

  And now, in a coda to one of the most disturbing stories of recent times, we are pleased to bring you The Jenni Ransome Show.

  What guests can you offer up to an escaped girl, to someone who learned their trade locked into a cell for their whole childhood, he wondered.

  The titles flashed and the camera panned across a studio. There was Jennifer, sitting on a bright upholstered chair in the manner of every chat show host, smiling, bright-eyed and nervous. She had been groomed extensively. She’s had surgery, he thought, her face isn’t quite moving properly. She held a clip board and Allen felt a flash of pride as she launched into her introduction, telling the world how she’d dreamed of this moment every day of her captivity. And this, he thought, is what The Prick had wanted. This is what he had trained her for, had implanted in her head almost from the first day. The announcer had started up again, almost screaming his autocue as a wiry man bounded out from backstage and Jennifer rose to greet him, to kiss him on both cheeks and gesture him towards the large red sofa.

  We’re delighted to bring you our first guest, ladies and gentlemen, please, a big round of applause for the footballer of the year …

  Somewhere, in a grubby flat in a tower block in some third rank English city, a fat man was watching this as well, mouthing along and salivating as Jenni spoke her lines, as she turned first to this camera, then that, opening her eyes wide and leaning slightly forward to engage with her first minor celebrity.

  Allen was already asleep again.

  The next morning, he sat alongside a middle-aged woman in a good viewing position, high on the dunes above the flat, waveless water and shielded his eyes against the morning sun. The empty beach seemed to stretch for ever into the distance in both directions before losing its focus in a hazy afternoon light. Children’s voices shrieked from the waterline, pale white creatures running up and down and splashing excitedly at the water’s edge.

  Both the watchers looked worn and tired but, at the same time, dressed as if they were comfortable in their own skins, in their own personalities at their own time. The woman wore a long dress, light purple and white. Her hair was faded red, heaped up on her head and held with pins. Around her eyes deep lines carved into her face, but she retained some poise and beauty. She hugged at her knees as Allen turned back to talk to her.

  She smiled at him warmly and he looked into her eyes where he knew he could see her own prison. You can take the keepen out of the cell, he thought, but you can’t take the cell out of the keepen.

  ‘How was the show?’ she asked.

  ‘Didn’t you watch it?’

  ‘I don’t have a television, can’t watch it,’ she said.

  ‘She’s alright, she’s got what she wants. I guess she’s entitled to that, at least. I’m not sure what I got. I’ve lost Emily. I’ve lost everything.’

  ‘Well, at least Roger can’t hurt anyone else.’

  ‘Fuck Roger, Roger took her to hurt me. Now she’ll never come back to me.’

  ‘He was a very dangerous man,’ she said.

  She put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t let them shut you up.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘They tore his house apart, shredded everything. They found nothing. No sign, no links to the others. They’ve all gone into hiding, they all have keepen who won’t get out. I couldn’t find them. I’m not sure that I ever can now.’

  ‘His kind thought they’d beaten me into silence once,’ she said. ‘They thought that I would close my eyes and my ears, but here I am.’

  The figures from water’s edge approached noisily, the small ones running ahead, their mother lagging behind, picking her wa
y slowly up the beach. As they saw him the group became silent.

  Then the children ran ahead along the sandy path followed by their mother, leaving Allen and the woman standing on the dunes.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you back to your room.’

  About the author

  Ivan Pope is a writer, artist and long-distance cyclist who lives in Brighton. He graduated from Goldsmiths College Fine Art BA with the YBA generation and was involved with a number of early internet developments in the UK and across the world. He invented the cybercafe at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts and founded the world’s first web magazine, The World Wide Web Newsletter. He has taught at art colleges in London, Newport and Brighton. He is now a writer of fiction and psychogeographic non-fiction. He is currently undertaking a PhD in creative non-fiction at Plymouth University.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pope

  Copyright © 2021 by Ivan Pope

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Hookline Books, Bookline & Thinker

  www.hooklinebooks.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2021 More Visual

  The Takers and Keepers by Ivan Pope. – 1st ed.

  Cover Design: More Visual Ltd