Luke Delaney - The Keeper

Sean moved around the outside of the building, checking the windows at the front, sides and back for signs of forced entry or disturbance without expecting to find anything. He couldn’t imagine the killer searching for a weak entry point, it just didn’t feel right — too clumsy and random, too likely to give himself away, to be heard or seen by a nosy neighbour. He moved back to the front of the house and stood by the front door with its opaque glass arches in the higher section. The killer would have been able to see Karen Green approaching, would have been able to hear her, sense her. This was his way into the house, he was sure of it. He walked in straight through the open front door. But had he waited outside for the random opportunity of the door being opened for some reason, or had he caused the door to be opened?

Sean thought about the entrances to this and Louise Russell’s house, the privacy they provided, and decided it would have been possible for the killer to hide in the alcove, concealed from both the road and anyone inside casually looking out. But if they were looking hard, searching for the source of an unfamiliar or suspicious noise, he could have been seen. No, Sean told himself. Too risky. It didn’t fit the way this one operated. This one hit fast and hard, sticking to a plan, silent and unobserved, his escape and the transfer of his victims from car to car seamless and unseen. No, this one strode up the drive and rang the doorbell almost without hesitation, pausing only for a second to run through the plan in his mind one last time.

But that didn’t explain why both women had opened the door to this monster. Were they so secure in their own homes they didn’t think to check who was on the other side of the door? Or had he appeared to be something he was not — something they saw every day that they trusted, that they would never consider a threat? Artifice, Sean decided. The bastard used artifice to get the door open. But if he’d gone to the lengths of planning Sean was increasingly sure he had, then he wouldn’t simply knock on the door and tell them he was from the gas board, he wouldn’t risk that.

Sean thought for a second, not wanting to chase the answer too hard, afraid if he tightened his grip too quickly the truth of what had happened would ooze between his fingers and be lost. This one wore a uniform, a uniform people trusted: a council worker, a meter reader, a postman or maybe even a police uniform. No, Sean told himself, not a police uniform, people remember the presence of a cop. The man he was looking for would have chosen something bland, a profession people took for granted.

He realized he’d been standing only inches from the front door staring into the warped glass arches for an unnatural length of time. The voice of Terry Green from somewhere behind him further dragged him back to the world of the living and sane. ‘Is everything all right?’ Green asked. ‘Are you having trouble with the keys?’

‘No,’ Sean called over his shoulder without turning to face him, looking down at the unused keys in his hand and lifting them to the first lock. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. Wait here for DS Jones.’

Unlocking the door as swiftly as he could, he stepped inside, braced for an onrush of senses and images of both the victim and violator, but little came. He eased the door shut and took a deep breath, relieved to be alone, away from the confused, concerned gaze of Terry Green. He stood with his back to the door looking around the hallway, waiting for his projected imagination to be kick-started by some sight or smell, but still little happened. The scene was old now, cold and lifeless. No one had been inside the house for the last nine days. How quickly a home becomes a shell, deprived of the ebb and flow of people that keeps it alive. Still he needed to glean from it what he could, find some trace of what had happened, some imprint of the man who came through the front door nine days ago and shattered the life of Karen Green and everyone who cared about her.

He walked deeper into the house, keeping close to the walls, staring hard at the hallway carpet, though he doubted there would be much to see. This one didn’t spill blood at the scene. The best they could hope for was that the forensic team would find a shoe imprint in the carpet or more traces of chloroform. He took a moment or two to look around the hallway, simply and tastefully decorated, the walls adorned with framed colourful prints and multiple photographs of the victim with people he assumed were her friends and family, trapped behind the glass of cheap clip-frames. The door leading into the lounge was already open as he stepped across the threshold. It was decorated in the same simplistic way: prints and photographs on walls, although fewer than in the hallway, a comfortable set of modern chairs with a sofa, a decent television with accompanying electronic adornments, thick cotton blinds instead of curtains. So far the house was providing no real sense of its owner. Disappointed, he moved on to the kitchen, the heart of any home, even one belonging to a person who lived alone.

On re-entering the hallway he found the kitchen door ajar. He paused for a second. Where had she been when the killer came calling — in the kitchen? No. The door would have been fully open if she’d come from there. The lounge then? Again no — it was pristine, no signs of recent use, no indentation on the chairs or sofa, no TV or music playing. He thought for a moment. She was due to fly to Australia the morning she was taken, so she would have been too excited to sit and watch TV, there’d have been last-minute packing to do and arrangements to take care of. So she’d have been upstairs when he called, Sean was sure of it. For a brief moment he felt the panic that had gripped the killer when she took longer to answer the door than he’d anticipated, finishing whatever task she was in the middle of before making her way downstairs. But his connection with the madman faded as quickly as it came.

His thoughts and senses returned to the kitchen he found himself standing in, but it looked and felt like a show kitchen, everything scrubbed clean and put away, its sterile surfaces and unused cooker revealing nothing about her. ‘I’m wasting my time here,’ he told himself, aware he was speaking out loud. ‘Time I haven’t got.’

He left the kitchen and headed upstairs, unconcerned about stepping on any unseen forensic evidence, utterly convinced that the killer had never been near the stairs. At the top of the stairway he was confronted by three doors, two partially open and one fully so. He went through the fully open door first and found exactly what he had expected — a brand-new, fully loaded backpack lying on the stripped double bed next to the last few items waiting to be packed away. Alongside the backpack was a larger than normal travel wallet that drew him to it. He flicked it open with one finger and studied the contents: a passport, Australian dollars, travellers’ cheques and insurance documents. She’d been well prepared and organized, clearly she’d lived an orderly life, as did Louise Russell. Was that important to the man who took them? Did his knowledge of them go beyond where they lived, encompassing how they lived — and if so, how did he come by this information? What was his window into their lives?

Another question hit him. Why hadn’t her brother checked inside and found what he had found? He considered Terry Green for a while, trying to remember what he had felt when he’d first seen him, whether he’d missed something. Could it be that Terry had killed his own sister and then taken Louise Russell in some twisted attempt to replace her, to avoid feelings of guilt and remorse, loss and sorrow? The replacement angle felt right, but everything else felt wrong.