Luke Delaney - The Keeper

Sean dumped his car in the ambulance bay at Guy’s Hospital and tossed the police logbook on to the dashboard to warn the hospital’s private security guards not to clamp it. He then used his usual entrance to the giant building, walking through the Accident and Emergency Department doors clearly marked ‘Hospital Staff Only’, nodding at the few faces he recognized and ignored by the rest who rightly assumed what he was. He headed for the main body of the hospital and the relatively new shopping-foodhall complex that was open to staff, public and patients alike. He entered the concourse and searched for his wife, who he’d arranged to meet for a rushed late lunch before he went to see Dr Canning for the post-mortem of Karen Green. He passed the ubiquitous chain cafés and found Kate sitting in Starbucks as they had planned, her head buried in clinical data reports. She hadn’t waited for him before grabbing a sandwich and coffee. He considered not bothering to get himself anything, but the service queue was mercifully short so he grabbed something that he wouldn’t have to wait to be toasted, ordered the simplest coffee he could find on the overhead menu-board and headed for his wife who hadn’t yet seen him arrive. ‘Excuse me. Is this seat taken?’

‘My, my,’ she joked, ‘who is this handsome stranger standing before me?’

‘A stranger, I’m afraid so. Handsome, I’m not so sure about that,’ he replied, pulling out a chair and sitting heavily.

‘Anyway, what brings you to my neck of the woods, Inspector?’

‘That missing woman I told you about.’

‘You found her? She’s here in Guy’s?’ Kate asked.

‘No,’ he said, unwrapping the sandwich he already knew would taste of nothing. ‘We were looking for one woman and found another.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The woman we were looking for wasn’t his first,’ he told her in a hushed voice, checking there were no eavesdroppers. ‘The woman we found — he’d already taken her.’

‘So now she can tell you where the other woman is?’

‘I’m afraid she won’t be able to do that.’

Kate immediately understood the inference. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it.

‘Me too.’ They sat in silence for a moment without pretending to be interested in their lunch.

‘So I guess I won’t be seeing much of you for a while then?’

Sean shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Yes, Sean,’ she sighed, her frustration at having to share him with so much horror and misery making her sad, ‘I know how it is.’

‘Things just got a lot worse than I expected. What can I do?’

Kate pulled in heavy lungfuls of air and puffed her cheeks. The coming days, probably weeks, would be hell as she tried to juggle her work and children with little or no support from Sean, but she understood the importance of the job he had to do. She thought of her own two girls and what she would expect of the police if either of them were missing: she would expect them to work without end, without sleep, without food or rest until her child was found. She wouldn’t let herself be a hypocrite. ‘What can you do?’ she replied. ‘You can catch the bastard, that’s what you can do.’

Sean actually managed a smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘So where you going after our luxurious meal?’ she asked.

‘Over to see Dr Canning for the post-mortem.’

Kate slouched in her chair and smiled without joy. ‘Well, I suppose I should feel honoured. I mean, how many wives are squeezed in between a murder scene and a post-mortem?’

‘I’m doing the best I can.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

‘You never know, I might get this one wrapped up sooner rather than later. Whoever I’m looking for has been leaving a lot of evidence behind — fingerprints, DNA — and he takes them in broad daylight. He’ll make a mistake soon enough, then the evidence will hang him.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘I hope so too,’ he said, glancing at his watch and standing, taking half the sandwich and leaving everything else. ‘I’ve got to go. Dr Canning’ll be waiting for me.’

‘Well, that was short and sweet,’ Kate said. ‘Is there any chance I might see you at home later?’

‘Maybe, but don’t wait up. I’ll try and call you.’ He leaned across the table and kissed her lightly on the lips, embarrassed even by such a small show of public affection. She watched him walking quickly across the concourse, weaving his way through the other pedestrians, torn between her attraction to his intensity and the fear that one day she might lose him to his job. It left her feeling melancholy.

Sean pushed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and at the same time felt his phone vibrating in his jacket pocket. He forced the dry bread down his throat and checked the caller ID. It was Sally. He tapped the answer key. ‘Sally — you got something for me?’

‘Karen Green’s Micra just turned up in a car park in Mazzard’s Wood, Bromley Common, secure and undamaged.’ An image of tall trees leaning in the wind jumped into Sean’s mind.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘send someone to babysit the car until forensics can get to it, and make sure they give it a good once-over before taking it off to Charlton.’ He swerved to avoid bumping into an elderly couple passing him in the corridor. ‘I’ll be at Guy’s for another hour or so. Keep me informed.’ He hung up and immediately searched for another number in his phone, tapped ‘call’ and waited for an answer.

‘Hello,’ DC Zukov answered.

‘Paulo, how are you getting on with the tattoo inquiry? Any luck?’

‘Nothing yet. I’ve checked the Internet for the design and drawn a blank. And I’ve emailed a picture of the tattoo to most of the tattoo parlours in the area in the hope someone may recognize their own handiwork.’

‘Good. Keep at it,’ Sean told him.

He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket as he exited the main entrance. Cutting across the front car park, he turned left and out of the main flow of pedestrians and headed towards the oldest part of the hospital. He passed the department marked clinical waste, with ominous-looking fluorescent wheelie bins waiting outside and walked through the swing doors discreetly signed ‘Pathology’. Pushing his way through the thick rubber strips that hung from ceiling to floor, he entered the autopsy suite.

Sean looked around the large room. Two bodies lay covered, awaiting attention while Dr Canning busied himself with the body of Karen Green. She was laid out on the examination table, a cold stainless steel surface with a shallow channel running along its middle that drained into a plughole, enabling the removal of blood and other fluids. He could see that Canning had already cleaned the body up in an effort to distinguish haemorrhaging from dirt.

At the sound of Sean snapping on a set of surgical gloves, Canning looked up. ‘Afternoon, Inspector.’

Sean ignored the nicety. ‘Any trouble moving the body from the scene?’

‘No,’ Canning replied. ‘I carried out a close examination of the area around the body, but didn’t find anything startling. I should think the evidence we’re after will be on or in her body.’ Sean nodded his agreement. ‘Aside from the throat, I haven’t opened her up yet, but I don’t expect to find any significant internal injuries other than the crushed trachea I’ve already discovered, which was almost certainly what killed her.’

‘What about the head wound?’

‘The skin on the back of her head has been split by a blow from a blunt, cylindrical object, but the wound’s not nearly significant enough to have contributed to her death.’

‘Could it be post-mortem?’ Sean asked. ‘The killer for some reason trying to draw us away from the real cause of death?’