Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, you little whore? Feel better now, don’t you? You fucking whore — you disgust me.’ He slammed the cage door shut and locked it with the padlock, gathering up the mattress and clothes. ‘I need to have a shower,’ he told her. ‘I need to wash your filth off my body. The smell of your cunt makes me feel sick.’ He headed for the stairs, stopping and looking back at her lying on the cold stone floor. ‘I thought you were different to the others,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I thought you were her, but you’re not. You lied to me — you tricked me. You’ll fucking pay for trying to make me look like a fool. You’ll all pay.’

With that he tugged the cord, turning off the electric bulb, and slowly climbed the stairs walking through the streams of sunlight that flooded into the cellar, his body cutting a silhouette into the light.

‘Don’t get too close,’ Sean warned Sally as they drove along Shire Lane towards the outcrop of buildings they could see one hundred metres ahead. ‘I don’t want to spook him. Pull over here.’ Sally let the car roll silently to a standstill at the side of the dirt road, the surrounding trees and hedges camouflaging them well enough. ‘We’ll walk from this point,’ he said, ‘follow the treeline and double back around on ourselves. That’ll bring us right on top of the place — we’ll be able to see anything moving.’

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Sally argued. ‘We should wait for assistance, or better still let someone else take him out. Once we know he’s secured we can search the place safely.’

‘No,’ he insisted. ‘I want some time alone with him first.’

‘You’ll have time with him when you interview him. You can ask him anything you want.’

‘What, when he’s surrounded by solicitors, appropriate adults and the Mental Health team? I can’t talk to him then — not properly. I need to be alone with him.’

‘I don’t under-’

‘I have to know why. Why he did it.’

‘You already know,’ Sally argued. ‘You know more about why he’s doing it than he probably knows himself.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Sean was adamant. ‘I can get close, but I can’t think like him. Not all the way. I need to know how he thinks.’

‘But what does it matt-’

‘For Christ’s sake, Sally, don’t you understand? It matters for the next time and the time after that and the time after that. I need to know what makes them feel alive — what they’ll do to feel alive — to feel something.’

‘What makes them feel alive?’ she queried. ‘ Them, Sean?’

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he snapped, opening his door and trying to escape. Strong fingers around his forearm stopped him.

‘I’m scared, Sean,’ she admitted. ‘You think I’m ready for this, but I’m not. I’m scared of how I’ll react if we find him — if we find Deborah Thomson. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. And I’m scared for you, Sean. I’m scared what you might do.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘When Donnelly found you with Lawlor, on the railway bank, he told me Lawlor said you were trying to kill him.’

Sean froze, icy fingers stretching into his mind and wrapping themselves around hundreds of dark memories he tried so hard to conceal from himself as much as anyone else. He said nothing, eyes unblinking and staring into Sally’s.

‘Well, Sean, is it true? Were you?’

He managed to shake his head and even fake a slight smile. ‘Someone’s talking shit,’ he lied. ‘Canteen chatter, that’s all.’

‘Are you sure about that? Because, if there’s more to it, then maybe you should think about taking a break from … from this — the madmen and the carnage, the sadness they leave behind that only we and families of their victims see. If something happened out there, maybe you should step away.’

‘Look,’ he tried to reassure her, ‘Lawlor is scum. He pissed me off and I wanted to scare the shit out of him — that’s all, I promise.’ She watched him for a while, reading him as she had a thousand suspects before — judging him. ‘Come on, Sally,’ he said. ‘I need you to do this with me. All we’re going to do is follow the treeline until we can see the buildings better — then we watch and wait. No more, I promise.’

In the end she agreed, even though she knew he would never be able to just watch and wait, not with his prey so close. She released his forearm and they climbed from the car together, easing the doors shut. Sally followed Sean, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief at what she was doing and where she was. When Sean found a natural break in the trees they headed deeper into the woods that surrounded the ramshackle collection of ugly buildings until they came to a low wooden fence that formed a perimeter. Like the buildings below it had been neglected and was rotting in several places. The panels would be easy to pry away from the holding frames. On the other side there was another line of trees, but smaller and younger than those in the woods behind them. Beyond was a grassy bank leading to the buildings, which were arranged in a circular valley. Sean prised one of the panels away and peered down. He saw nothing moving, but his view was partially restricted. He looked through the gap to his right and saw a better position to spy from.

‘We need to keep moving,’ he told Sally. ‘About fifty metres further round there’s a better place. We can watch from there — anything moves, we’ll see it.’

‘OK,’ Sally whispered. ‘Lead the way.’

He nodded once and headed off. The sharp fallen branches breaking under his feet and the whip-like limbs of the saplings reaching out for his face made him think of the madman’s victims being marched barefoot into the woods in the middle of the night, their feet cut to ribbons, their soft skin scratched and slashed at. And always the faceless, hooded man walking behind them, protected from the elements and the fury of the woods by his shapeless clothing. Soon the madman would have a face and Sean would be staring straight into it. He felt a surge of excitement and adrenalin surge through his body. It was all he could do not to smash through the wooden fence, charge down the grassy hill and flush out Thomas Keller — the hunter becoming the hunted as he finally cornered him and then …

He reached a place he guessed would be near enough the vantage point and began to ease another panel from the frame, the rusty nails pulling free from the damp wood easily. He propped the panel against the fence and looked through, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as he realized he’d stopped at almost exactly the place he’d intended to, the buildings below being no more than forty metres away and washed in spring sunshine. He could see pretty much everything.

‘Take a look,’ he whispered, moving aside to let Sally peer through. She took a quick glance then handed the vigil back to him. ‘This is our man,’ he added, never taking his eyes off his quarry. ‘This place is perfect for him — the woods, the isolation. He keeps them here too — close at hand for when he needs …’ Just in time he remembered Sally was standing next to him … ‘to go to them. He doesn’t want to keep them miles away, having to get into his car and drive to see them — he covets his collection too much. He needs to be able to see them instantly, as soon as he wants to.’

‘His collection?’ Sally queried.

He was about to answer until a movement caught his eyes, a change in the shadows of an open door leading into a small brick building.

‘Someone’s moving,’ he whispered. As he looked on, the shadow in the doorway stepped into the light and turned into a man. ‘He’s carrying something …’