by Caz Frear
Thug life, with a squeeze of lime.
Keefe appears barefoot on the bottom stair within seconds, tying his long brown hair into a spindly topknot, his expression wary but unsurprised. While the years haven’t been unkind, as such, they sure have been different. No longer the apple-cheeked cherub resplendent in university cap and gown, whose photo accompanied the Mail piece, this Brandon Keefe looks like his heart never left Woodstock. A thin, almost concave figure in frayed, flared jeans and a white linen shirt unbuttoned three buttons too far.
And beads. Rivers of hippie beads trickling down to his navel.
“I’ve seen the news,” he says heavily. “I don’t suppose there’s any point asking what this is about?”
Parnell speaks before I can. “We want to talk to you about Christopher Masters, Brandon.”
A mirthless laugh. “Who doesn’t? That’s all anyone ever wants. The media lost interest after a while, but it doesn’t stop every other sticky-beak asking, ‘What was he like?’ ‘Did you suspect anything?’ Well, I tell them, ‘He was fine’ and ‘No, I didn’t’ and I daresay I’ll tell you the same.” He turns on the stair. “Still, you might as well come up.”
We follow him up an uncarpeted staircase, where the walls are covered with posters advertising clubs that closed decades ago. Keefe’s hovel is on the right. The floorboards tremor with the sound of hip-hop from downstairs.
“Sorry,” he says, stamping his foot—universal code for “turn that fucking thing down.” “It’s because you’re here. He’s actually an OK bloke, but his brother got sent down earlier this year—a terrible miscarriage of injustice, apparently—so you aren’t exactly his favorite people.” He does a 360, sweeping an arm around the pigsty of a room with the air of the dissolute thespian. “Anyway, sit yourselves down. I can offer you the armchair, although Nimbus might have something to say about that, or there’s the bed or the bongos.” Nimbus, a fluffy white cat, stretches her claws and says nothing. Keefe walks over to a loaded clotheshorse. “And if you don’t mind, I’m going to pair my socks while you ask whatever it is you have to ask. I get quite stressed talking about Chris, even after all this time, so it’s better if I have something to do.” He smiles. “And I’ll need socks for church later.”
The mention of church brings a few things into focus. A book, I Hear His Whisper, on a nightstand, next to a statue of Jesus and some loose change. A wooden cross on the wall, the centerpiece among a collage of photos—Keefe in various bear hugs and headlocks with two burly, smiling men.
“My big brothers,” he explains, catching me looking. “My best friends, really. I’ve opened my heart to God and the goodness of others in recent years, but they were the only people I trusted, apart from my parents, after that debacle with the newspaper.”
“We’ll come back to that.” I pull up a bongo. I don’t fancy my chances against Nimbus and there’s something odd about sitting on a strange man’s bed, even with Parnell leaning against the wardrobe. “First, we want to go over a few things. Things you won’t think are relevant. Things that probably aren’t relevant. But we owe it to Holly Kemp to try and get as clear a picture as possible of what happened to her, OK?” He shrugs, tossing a pair of socks into an open drawer. “So how long had you worked for Masters before his arrest? And how did you come to work for him?”
“Around six months. I’d just graduated with a First in art history, which I soon realized qualified me for nothing, and I needed money fast. See, there was this girl I was keen on—really keen—and she wanted to go traveling and I was working up to suggesting we go together. I didn’t have time to be going through lengthy interview processes and I didn’t want to commit to anything long-term, so I lowered my expectations. Thought some money was better than no money.” He talks quickly, almost harried, matching and balling socks with lightning efficiency. Anything to avoid eye contact. “Anyway, I saw the ad and I went in to see Chris. He said he was getting more and more renovation work and he needed someone to keep the shop ticking over. We talked for about twenty minutes and he offered me the job on the spot, subject to references, of course. I said I’d get back to him because I had another interview the next day. I got offered that job too. Data entry stuff.” He finally stops moving, turning to face us with just about the saddest expression I’ve ever seen. “Do you know why I took Chris’s offer? I could leave at five p.m., whereas the other job was five thirty p.m. Wanting to get to the pub half an hour earlier ruined my life.”
It’s terrifying, the frivolous decisions that have earth-shattering consequences. You see the sliding doors in every case. The way grief could have been avoided if only the planets had aligned differently. If only fate had played fair.
If only the bus hadn’t been delayed, the girl wouldn’t have gotten bored waiting and accepted a lift from that guy who’d always slightly given her the creeps.
If only the guy hadn’t had one more pint to stop his mate from texting his ex, he’d have been tucked up in bed by eleven p.m., instead of walking into the path of a fatal mugging.
Parnell takes his glasses from one pocket, a notebook from the other. After a minute of flicking backward and forward, he says, “You said in your statement that Masters told you he was going to be at Valentine Street all day, the day Holly Kemp went missing.”
Keefe sits down, pulling Nimbus onto his lap, his right knee jigging like a jackhammer. “Actually, what I think I said was, ‘Chris said he’d be at the house.’ I didn’t know the address. He only ever referred to ‘the house.’”
“And you were at the store all afternoon?” I keep my voice light, cheerful. “Counting down the minutes till happy hour, am I right?”
He shifts a little. “Well, no. I shut early that day. It’d been dead since lunchtime . . . and well, I was feeling a bit down. The girl I liked had been flirting with someone in the pub the night before, and I’d mentioned it to Chris when he popped in unexpectedly that morning for tools, and he said that if the shop was quiet and I wanted to finish a bit early, go over to her place, have it out with her—basically tell her how I felt about her—I could.”
“And did you?”
“No. I went home and closed the curtains and played Call of Duty for eight hours.”
Which is an off-the-peg alibi. Then again, it could be the truth.
“Your parents must have been thrilled,” I say, masking the real question. Can anyone verify that?
“They wouldn’t have been if they’d been home, but they were in Venice. They go there every February for the carnival.” He gives a sad little shrug. “Honestly, I can’t believe what a video-game waster I was back then. No purpose, no energy. No wonder the girl I liked was shag— sleeping with someone else. Not that I bear her any ill will, of course. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God—James, chapter one, verses nineteen to twenty.”
I dart a look at Parnell, who usually gets fidgety around any kind of religious fervor, but he’s looking confused, not twitchy. Pulling on his right earlobe, his forehead more creased than Keefe’s shirt.
“The interview you did with the Mail, Brandon—you implied that you and Masters barely spoke, besides pleasantries, but you just said he knew how keen you were on some girl.” He adds a smile, making light of the statement, then points at me. “I mean, we’ve worked together for years and I still have to wrench that type of information out of this one.”
Keefe nods as if to say it’s a fair question. “Look, I was trying to dispel any false notion that Chris and I were mates. Can you blame me for that?” He looks down at Nimbus, rubbing and twisting her ears. “OK, we talked, but rarely about anything of substance. Just things that’d been on the news, or the weather, or bad drivers he’d encountered. Just chitchat, you know?”
“And your love life,” I remind him.
His head snaps up. “Look, we weren’t having heart-to-hearts. He just mentioned I seemed a bit quiet that morning and I ended up spilling more than I intended. He said he understood, that he
always wished he’d fought harder to keep his ex-wife. It felt weird, to be honest. I made sure I cheered up the next day and it was back to moaning about people driving with their fog lights on.”
“What about Cambridgeshire, or a village called Caxton? He ever mention them?” Keefe looks blank. An impatient tone creeps into my voice. “It was mentioned on the news, Brandon. We found Holly Kemp’s remains in Cambridgeshire. So did he ever mention any links to the area? Any desire to visit? Anything?”
To his credit, Keefe gives this a damn good think. Eyes narrowed, bottom lip protruding. If he had a beard he’d be stroking it right now, but in its absence, he strokes the cat.
“I don’t think so,” he concludes eventually. Strangely, I prefer this to an emphatic no. I’m more inclined to believe it, anyhow. “He loved carp fishing and he used to go away at weekends sometimes. Again, we didn’t get into details, he’d just say he’d been away. Could have been Cambridgeshire, could have been Cornwall. I just don’t know.”
“Did he ever mention guns?” It’s a risk by Parnell, but one sanctioned by Steele—“Play it straight, but play it cool”—and in any case, I sense Brandon Keefe wouldn’t flirt with the media again, not after his last “debacle.” It gets less of a reaction than we expect, though. Another mull and then a slow shake of the head. Parnell nudges again. “Think, Brandon. You said you’d been working for Masters for around six months. You also said you used to talk about things in the news. Well, I don’t know if you remember, but guns were big news in the second half of 2011.” The shooting of a man in North London by police had sparked a series of riots across the capital, then the country. Looting, arson, the deaths of five more people. “There were riots in Battersea, less than half a mile from Masters’ store. Are you telling me he never passed comment on it, on what sparked it all off?”
For crying out loud, give us something. Anything.
“Can I honestly say, hand on my Bible, that he didn’t—no. Did he say anything notable enough that it’s stayed in my memory—no. Why are you asking about guns, anyway? Did Chris shoot Holly Kemp?”
He asks it calmly, reasonably. To Brandon Keefe, how “Chris” killed Holly isn’t of particular interest, and in fairness, why would it be? Keefe isn’t thinking about patterns, rituals, a killer’s modus operandi. He doesn’t have to consider the murky truth that wrapping your hands around someone’s throat and squeezing their life short over several adrenaline-fueled minutes provides a profoundly different pleasure to executing them with one bang.
I move on without answering. “Brandon, do you remember where Masters was the day following Holly’s disappearance? Friday the 24th.”
“Haven’t a clue.”
Parnell thumbs through his notebook again. “Well, in your statement you said he didn’t get in until ten that morning, but that he stayed in the shop until closing, only going out briefly at lunch to get chips for you both.”
“Well, if that’s what I said, that’s what happened. But, look, I can’t remember all the details now. A lot has happened since.”
Not helpful, but it sits better than Serena Bailey’s total recall.
“Did he say why he was late in that day?” I ask. “Where he’d been?”
He’s getting crabby now. “If he did, it’ll be in my statement. I can’t tell you anything more than what’s in there. Unless you’re implying I held something back?” He rises up in the chair, panicked. Nimbus jumps down and stalks off in search of a less stressful throne. “Is that what this is about? You think I withheld something? Why? Why on earth would I do that?”
That answer is for another day. A day where we have a scintilla of evidence, or at least a carefully thought out theory that wasn’t sprung on us in the pub.
Parnell’s voice is kind. “Hey, calm down, son. Like we said, we have to ask things that might not seem relevant.” He slides his notebook back in his pocket; a gesture that says “your grilling here is done.” “Why don’t you tell us about the newspaper article? You said it ruined your life.”
His face relaxes a little. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was part of God’s plan and I have to trust in that plan. I do trust in that plan. But the aftermath was terrible, I can’t deny that. It certainly wasn’t worth the £15,000 they paid me, but at the time I thought it’d help ‘get the girl.’ I thought I’d rock up at her house and say, ‘Ta-dah, want to book that round-the-world ticket?’ and she’d fall into my arms, happy-ever-after. What actually happened was that I rocked up at her house and that idiot guy from the pub answered the door in his boxers.” Second time he’s mentioned it—he bears her ill will, all right. Although all it does is make him human, rather than a sanctimonious prick. “It wasn’t just about the money, though. I was honestly so sick of journalists knocking on my door all day and night, and then there were my friends and their friends and their friends, and basically anyone I’d ever brushed past in the supermarket asking me about Chris. I thought doing the interview might put a stop to all that. Get it on record and move on.” He lets out a sharp laugh. “Well, that backfired, didn’t it? It was like pouring petrol on the flames. And I was ridiculed. How could I have worked with him and not realized? As if we stood around counting stock and talking about murder. And then there were the comments about me being in it with him. Strangers making vile accusations.” We smile sympathetically, like the two-faced swines we’re trained to be. “I should have listened to my brothers. They warned me not to do it. I usually listen to them but, you know, £15,000.”
“It’s a lot of money—don’t beat yourself up,” I say, meaning it.
“It was. And it meant I could go traveling, get away from the girl I liked flaunting her new relationship, get away from all the questions. So I took the trip I’d been dreaming about—Tokyo, the Philippines, Bali, Singapore, Borneo, Vietnam. I wasn’t even gone six months. Didn’t stop some idiots claiming I’d ‘fled the country,’ though.”
“So what do you do with yourself now?”
He may snipe that his art history degree rendered him unemployable, but his graduate photo looked full of promise. And he’s clearly intelligent, with a supportive family to boot.
“What do I do? People always ask that question. Why do they never ask who you are?” I wait for a less esoteric response. “If you must know, I contemplate the meaning of life a lot. And I’m not being facetious when I say that—I’m heavily involved in the Alpha program. Are you familiar?”
“I am.” A nod to Parnell. “He’s probably not.”
“You’re not a religious man, Detective?” Parnell shakes his head. “So you never pray?”
“It’s been known before the odd penalty shoot-out.”
And when Maggie went into premature labor with the twins.
And when Steele found a lump in her breast a few years back.
Parnell’s no different from a lot of people; an atheist with a very small “a.” Happy to suspend disbelief when the stakes are sky-high.
“Well, you’d be very welcome within Alpha,” he says, addressing us both. “We’re an evangelical church who throw our doors open to everyone, all religious denominations. We run courses designed to foster discussion about the Christian faith—anything from ‘Who is the Holy Spirit?’ to ‘What would Jesus make of Instagram?’ There’s a common misconception that it’s all earnest debate, but we have lots of fun and great food too. I’m leading a meeting tonight.” He looks at his watch. “In half an hour, actually. Maybe you . . .”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask, cutting off the invitation.
He stands up suddenly, giving us a twirl and a sarcastic smile. “Oh, but of course. I’m such a catch, don’t you think?”
“How about a job?” asks Parnell.
He stops, shrugs. “Here and there. I look after a friend’s stall at Camden Market sometimes. I’ve been known to do the odd bit of decorating. I occasionally courier.” He peers at Parnell with concerned eyes. “You know, it’s not good for the soul to be so wrapped up in thi
ngs like jobs. How I pay my rent is the least interesting thing about me. It’s the least interesting thing about anyone, you included. All you need to know is that I’m a good person.” He reaches under the bed and scoops out Nimbus, who doesn’t appreciate the disturbance. “Nimbus here is the only rule I’ve ever broken in my life. We’re not supposed to have pets, see, but what harm is she doing? ‘For the fates of both men and beasts are the same: As one dies, so dies the other. Man has no advantage over the animals, since everything is futile.’ Ecclesiastes, chapter three, verse nineteen, if you’re interested.”
“Guilt?” Parnell’s buckling his seatbelt, staring up at Brandon Keefe’s open window. “The God thing, I mean.”
“Is that a conclusion or a question?” I snap.
In my defense, the car’s roasting and my seatbelt’s all twisted. I’m not in great humor.
“It’s an observation and a question.” He reaches over and sorts the problem with one hand. “What do you think?”
“I suppose it could be guilt. He’s looking to repent, be forgiven. It’s a tidy interpretation if we’re rolling with this accomplice theory.” I shift around in the passenger seat. “But it could also be loneliness, family background, too much time on his hands, illness—’cos he hardly looks healthy.”
“You’re telling me. A strong fart could knock him over.”
“It could be a need for security, control, a sense of belonging. Or it could be, have you considered this . . .” I perform a drumroll on the armrest, “faith, plain and simple. Honestly, I don’t think we should read too much into it. The whole Masters thing was bound to change his worldview somehow.”
Parnell offers a noncommittal grunt, then, “Religion doesn’t seem to have changed his life for the better, though, does it? Did you see all those photos on the wall? The ‘before’ photos. He looked happy then, smiley, well fed.”
“So does everyone on Instagram—well, maybe not well fed—but it doesn’t mean they’re not lacking something. Searching for something . . .” I draw a circle with my hands, attempt a silly, mystical voice. “Something bigger.”