Cold Killing

by Luke Delaney

  The judge considered asking Gibran if he understood, but realised the contradiction before doing so. ‘Your barrister, Mr Dolby will explain things more fully in time. However, I have noted that the Probation Service has expressed serious concerns about you being both a danger to yourself and to the public.’ Sean’s emptiness left him as quickly as it had arrived, squeezed out by the excitement again spreading through his core. He didn’t care who the turnkeys were, prison officers or nurses, just so long as Gibran was locked away behind bars, forever. The judge continued. ‘I can’t ignore the risk you represent and must balance that with your need to receive treatment. Therefore you will be detained under the Mental Health Act in a secure Psychiatric Unit for an indefinite period. Should you in the future be deemed to have made sufficient progress towards recovery then it will be considered again as to whether you should stand trial or indeed be released back into the community. Very good.’ With that the judge stood to signify an end to proceedings. Everyone in the court stood simultaneously to show their respect.

  Sean was the last to his feet, a suppressed smile thinning his lips as he looked to the dock and Gibran who sensed Sean’s attentions and returned his look. The two men stared at each other, Sean resisting the temptation to blow Gibran a kiss. Instead he whispered under his breath ‘Have fun in Broadmoor, you fuck.’ The two men’s eyes remained locked together as the guards led Gibran from the dock towards the holding cells that lay under the old court. Sean knew it would almost certainly be the last time he ever saw Sebastian Gibran.

  The past few months raced through Sean’s mind as he gathered his files, stuffing them into his old, worn-out briefcase that looked more like a child’s oversized satchel. He headed for the exit, keen to avoid the few journalists who had been allowed into the court, stopping en route to quickly shake the prosecuting counsel’s hand and to thank him for his efforts, as unimpressive as they had been. He walked from the court room at a decent pace, scanning the second-floor hallway for journalists or family members of Gibran’s victims, neither of whom he wanted to speak to now, at least not until he’d spoken to one of his own. He walked through the main part of the court open to the public and into the bowels of the Bailey, a labyrinth of short airless, lightless corridors that eventually led him to a Victorian staircase that he climbed until he reached an inconsequential looking door. Sean pushed the door open and entered without hesitation, immediately hit by the noise of the police chitter-chatter that could barely be heard on the other side of the door.

  The little ‘police only’ canteen had long been part of police myth and legend, as well as serving the best carvery meat in London. It didn’t take long for Sean to find Detective Sergeant Sally Jones sitting alone in the tiny, warm room, nursing a coffee. She sensed Sean enter and looked straight at him. He knew she would be reading his face, seeking answers to her questions before she asked them. Sean weaved his way through the tightly packed tables and chairs, apologising when necessary for disturbing the rushed meals of busy detectives. He reached Sally and sat heavily opposite her.

  ‘Well?’ Sally asked impatiently.

  ‘Not fit to stand trial,’ Sean told her.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Sally said, loudly enough to make the other detectives in the canteen look up, albeit briefly. Sean looked around the room, a visual warning to everyone not to interfere. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sally continued. ‘What’s the fucking point?’

  Sean noticed Sally unconsciously rubbing the right side of her chest, as if she could feel Gibran hammering the knife into her all over again. ‘Come on, Sally,’ Sean encouraged. ‘We always knew this was a possibility. Once we’d seen the psychiatric reports it was more of a certainty.’

  ‘I know,’ Sally agreed with a sigh, still rubbing her chest. ‘I was fooling myself that common sense might break out in the judicial system. I should have known better.’

  ‘It is entirely possible he is actually mad,’ Sean told her.

  ‘He is completely fucking mad,’ Sally agreed again. ‘But he’s also absolutely capable of standing trial. He knew what he was doing when he did what he did. There were no voices in his head. He’s as clever as he is dangerous, he’s faked his psych results, made a joke out of their so-called tests. He should stand trial for what he did to…’ Her voice tailed away as she looked down at the cold coffee on the table in front of her.

  ‘He’s not getting away with it,’ Sean assured her. ‘He’s been detained under the Mental Health Act at Her Majesty’s pleasure, indefinitely. He’s never coming out, Sally. While we’re sitting here he’s already on his merry way to the secure wing at Broadmoor. Once you go in there you never come out.’ The faces of some of England’s most notorious murderers and criminals flashed through Sean’s mind: Peter Sutcliffe aka The Yorkshire Ripper, Michael Peterson aka Charles Bronson, Kenneth Erskine aka The Stockwell Strangler, Robert Napper the killer of Rachel Nickell – all inmates of Broadmoor. Sally’s voice brought him back.

  ‘Gibran killed a police officer and damn nearly killed me. He’ll be a bloody God in there.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure,’ Sean argued. ‘I went to Broadmoor once to interview an inmate. That place scared the hell out of me, I don’t mind telling you or anyone else. The rest of his life is going to be hell on earth.’

  Sean’s phone began to vibrate silently in his jacket pocket. The number was withheld, meaning it was probably someone calling from their Murder Investigation Team Incident Room back at Peckham Police Station. Sean answered without ceremony and recognised the voice of the caller immediately with its strange mixture of Glaswegian and cockney. DS Dave Donnelly only ever called for a good reason.

  ‘Guv’nor. Superintendent Featherstone wants to see you back here asap. Apparently something’s come up that requires our specialised skill set.’

  ‘Meaning we’re the only soldiers left in the box.’

  ‘So cynical for one so young, guv.’

  ‘We’ll be about an hour, travelling time from the Bailey,’ Sean informed him. ‘We’re all finished here anyway.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘I’ll explain when I see you.’ Sean hung up.

  ‘Problem?’ Sally asked.

  ‘When is it ever anything else?’

  Louise Russell’s eyes began to flicker open, her mind desperately trying to drag her from the chemically-induced sleep that held nothing but nightmares of smothering and darkness, of a monster in her own home, of fear and confusion. She tried to see into the gloom of her surroundings, the blinking of her eyes beginning to slow until finally they remained frozen wide open with terror. My God, he had taken her, taken her away from her home, her husband, her life. The fear fired through her like electricity, making her want to jump up and run or fight, but the after effects of the chloro-form weighed her down. She managed to push herself onto her hands and knees before slumping onto her side, using her forearm as a makeshift pillow. Her breathing was too rapid and irregular, her heart beat the same. She tried to concentrate on conquering her fear, to slow the rise and fall of her chest. After a few minutes of lying still and calm, her breathing became more relaxed and her eyes better able to focus on her new surroundings.

  There were no windows in the room and she couldn’t see a door, only the foot of a flight of stairs she imagined would lead to a door and a way out. One low-voltage bulb hung from the high ceiling, smeared with dirt, its light just enough for her to see by as her eyes began to adjust. As far as she could tell the room was little more than thirty feet wide and long, with cold unpainted walls that looked as if they’d been white washed years before, but now the reds and greys of old bricks were showing through. The floor appeared to be solid concrete and she could feel the cold emitting from it; the only noise in the room, water running down a wall and dripping onto the floor, amplified by its harshness. She felt like she must be underground, in a cellar or the old wartime bunker of a large house. The room smelt of urine, human excrement and unwashed bodies and, more than anyt
hing else, absolute fear.

  Louise pulled the duvet that covered her up to her neck against the coldness of her discoveries, only to add to her chill. She looked under the duvet and realised all her clothes had been taken. The duvet smelt clean and comforting against the cold stench of the room, but who would do this, take her clothes but care enough to leave her a clean duvet to cover herself and keep out the cold? Who and why? She closed her eyes and prayed he hadn’t touched her, touched her in that way. Her hand slowly moved down her body and between her legs. She felt no pain, no soreness and she was dry. She was sure he hadn’t raped her. So why was she here?

  As her eyes adjusted further to the gloom she discovered she was lying on a thin single mattress, old and stained. He had left a plastic beaker of what looked and smelt like fresh water, but the thing she noticed most, the one thing that brought tears stinging to her eyes, was when she realised she wasn’t just in this terrible room, she was locked in a cage inside the room. All around her was thick wire mesh interwoven through its solid metal frame, no more than six feet long and four feet wide. She was locked inside some sort of animal cage, which meant there were only two possibilities: he’d left her here to die, or he would be coming back, coming back to see the animal he’d caught and caged, coming back to feed his prize, coming back to do to her whatever he wanted.

  She wiped her tears on the duvet and once again tried to take in all her surroundings, looking for any sign of hope. She realized that one end of her cage must be the way out as it was blocked with a padlocked door. She also noticed what appeared to be a hatch in the side, presumably for safe passage of food between her and her keeper. Fear swept up from the depths of her despair and overwhelmed her. She virtually leapt at the door, pushing her fingers through the wire mesh and closing her fists around it, shaking the cage wildly, tears pouring down her cheeks as she filled her lungs ready to scream for help. But she didn’t. She’d heard something, something moving somewhere in the room. She froze. She wasn’t alone. She looked deep into the room, her eyes almost completely adjusted to the low light levels now, listening hard for more sounds, praying they wouldn’t come. But they did, something moving. Her eyes focused on where the sounds had come from and she could see it now, on the far side of the room, another cage, as far as she could tell identical to the one she was locked inside. My God, was it an animal in there? Was she being kept with a wild animal? Was that why he’d taken her, to give her to this animal? Driven by panic she started shaking her cage door again, although she knew it was futile. The sound of a voice made her stop. A quiet, weak voice. The voice of another woman.

  About the Author

  Luke Delaney joined the Metropolitan Police Service in the late 1980s and his first posting was to an inner city area of south-east London notorious for high levels of crime and extreme violence. He later joined CID where he investigated murders ranging from those committed by fledgling serial killers to gangland assassinations.

  Cold Killing is his first novel.

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

  Copyright © Luke Delaney 2013

  Extract from The Keeper © Luke Delaney 2013

  Luke Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Source ISBN: 9780007486069

  EPub Edition © January 2013 ISBN: 9780007486076

  Version 1

  FIRST EDITION

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