Luke Delaney - The Keeper

Dear God, she thought, why had he taken her, why was she the one lying on a filthy mattress in a wire cage? What had drawn this beast to her? She hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t hurt anyone, she had no enemies, so why her? And why Karen? Images of Karen being abused and violated flashed behind her eyes, his words as he left her ringing inside her head — Everything can be replaced. Even you, Sam. Even you. The inevitability of what was to come consumed and terrified her, the rising sense of panic once again overwhelming her, as if the cage had already become her coffin, the worms and maggots writhing over her skin, spiders crawling across her slowly decaying body. She could feel them and knew she had to escape her crypt.

She launched herself at the cage door, bouncing off it to the floor, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and launching herself again with the same result, tears of pain mixing with tears of frustration and abject terror, as if she only now realized the full extent of her predicament. Again she rammed the door with her shoulder, and again, until finally she could stand the pain no more, falling to the floor sobbing, scratching and digging at the unyielding concrete like a trapped dog trying to escape, her fingernails splintering and bleeding, the futility of her actions increasingly obvious until she finally rocked back on her haunches, hands fallen at her side, her head lolled backwards, staring at the heavens she imagined somewhere above the cold cellar’s ceiling. ‘God,’ she pleaded. ‘Please help me. Dear Jesus, please help, I’m begging you, please help me.’ Her quiet prayers suddenly turned to desperate screams. ‘Jesus Christ help me. Please, anybody help me, please, for God’s sake somebody please help me. Somebody!’

But her prayers, both whispered and screamed, were met with silence. She crawled to her mattress, curled into a tight ball and waited, waited for the sound of the heavy metal lock being knocked against the steel door and then the footsteps, the soft footsteps as he descended towards her.

Mid-morning Friday and Sean and Sally waited impatiently outside Karen Green’s house for her brother Terry to show. Sally sensed Sean’s bad mood. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Something seems to be bothering you.’

‘I’m fine,’ he dismissed her concern. ‘I could just do without other people sticking their noses into my business.’

Sally intended to pry further, but Sean was saved by Terry Green’s car pulling on to the driveway. He climbed out quickly and almost tripped as he staggered towards them, his face riddled with anxiety.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he panted breathlessly.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sally replied, ‘and thanks for coming.’

‘When you said it was about Karen I came straight away. Has something happened to her? Have you found her? Is she all right?’

Sean flashed his warrant card. ‘DI Corrigan. Are you Terry Green?’ His mood and the urgency of the situation made him abrupt.

‘Yes.’

‘I need to establish when you or anyone else last saw Karen and I need to do it quickly.’

‘Why? What’s happening?’

Seeing that Green was becoming flustered, Sally pushed her own feelings of anxiety to one side and stepped between him and Sean, protecting him from an onslaught of blunt questions.

‘I’m Sally, we spoke on the phone, remember?’

‘Of course. You asked me to meet you here. You said it was about Karen.’

‘It is,’ she told him, ‘and if there was any other way of doing this, believe me we would have, but the urgency of the situation meant we had to meet you here and we have to ask you some questions straight away.’

‘But what about Karen?’ Green asked, concerned.

‘I have to be honest with you, Terry. I have to tell you something that’s not going to be easy to hear, but it’s only fair you hear it now.’ She waited for signs that Green had braced himself for the worst. When she was sure his lungs could inhale no more air she rested a hand on his shoulder and continued. ‘We found the body of a young woman this morning and she matches the description of your sister.’ His lungs deflated instantly and he seemed to sway, his eyes closing for a second before slowly flickering open. She knew his body had dealt with the blow well, but his mind had gone into temporary shock. Resting her other hand on his opposite shoulder, ready to steady him if his swaying threatened to topple him, Sally continued: ‘She matches the description of your sister, but we can’t be sure it’s her until she’s formally identified.’

‘When will that be?’ Green managed to ask.

‘A little later,’ Sally told him, ‘as soon as we can get it organized. But right now we need to know when was the last time anyone saw Karen.’

‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted. ‘It was probably me, what, last Wednesday, in the evening sometime, the night before she was due to fly to Australia. I was picking up a set of keys for her house and taking care of some other stuff I told her I’d do while she was away.’

‘Australia?’ Sean queried.

‘She was going travelling, looking for something she said she couldn’t find here.’

‘Was she going with anyone?’ Sean asked, excited by the prospect of identifying a now missing travel companion, especially if that companion was a new man in her life.

‘No,’ Green ended the possible line of inquiry. ‘She wanted to go alone, which is pretty typical of her. She has a spirit of adventure, you know. She makes friends easily. She had no fear of going by herself.’

Sean had no interest in her personality at this moment. His priority was gathering hard facts he could use to find Louise Russell. ‘So as far as you’re concerned she’s been missing for nine days?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And you didn’t report her missing until yesterday because you thought she was travelling around Australia, yes?’

Green nodded, still looking dazed.

‘So what happened? You tried to call her and couldn’t get an answer? Then you called around her friends and they all told you the same thing — nobody had heard from her.’

‘Yes,’ Green answered, struggling to gather his thoughts. ‘So I phoned the airline she was flying with and they said she never boarded the flight. That was when I knew for certain something was wrong, so I reported her missing.’

Sally could see Green needed a softer approach. ‘You did the right thing, Mr Green. Checking with the airline was a smart move,’ she reassured him, flashing a look at Sean that warned him to ease off, at least for a while. ‘You look as if you could use a cup of tea, so how about I nip across to that café over the road and get us a drink, then we can get started with the questions?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

‘Did you bring keys for the house?’ Sean asked. ‘I need to take a look inside.’

‘Of course,’ said Green, fishing in his pocket and handing over two keys.

‘Thank you.’ Sean examined the keys that he could see fitted quality locks — so Karen Green hadn’t been flippant about her home security. ‘Have you been inside, since you reported her missing?’

‘I checked it out this morning — it was as quick as I could get here. As soon as I found her backpack and travel documents I told the same police I’d first reported it to. That was when they said you’d be taking over the investigation. I should have checked the house as soon as I thought something was wrong — shouldn’t I?’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Sean told him. ‘You did everything you could. You wait here. I’m just going to take a look around.’

Turning his back on Green, he walked towards the front door, already struck by the similarities between Louise Russell’s house and this one — small, modern townhouses in quiet, anonymous streets, the dog-leg design of the garage and house frontage meaning the front door could not be seen until you were very close. Sean imagined the faceless killer approaching the property, feeling safe and comfortable with it, the type of house he would stick to now, never changing his approach, never changing his method even though it clearly marked his crimes.