Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘You’re either a madman or a genius,’ Donnelly spoke to the absent Sean while turning the pages, finding the names of the victims, Louise Russell and Karen Green, one dead, one still missing, Green’s name circled in a mixture of blue and red ink, Russell’s circled in blue only. A myriad of words and colours, names and places squeezed themselves into every millimetre of the pages, almost completely indecipherable. Short questions covered other pages: Why six/seven days? Why keep them? Why rape? Why violence? Why victs look same? Why same houses? Why kills? Why dump bodies naked? Why no remorse or compassion? Why woods? Why wooded car parks? Comfortable in woods? Lives in woods? Staying in comfort zone? Failed relationship? Covets them? Loves them? Motivation? Motivation? Motivation?

‘Jesus,’ he said to himself, flicking through pages and pages of the rambling notes of an obsessed man on the edge. It crossed his mind Sean might be laying the groundwork for manufacturing early retirement on the grounds of a stress-related illness, but he knew the man better than that and he’d seen his manic scribbles in the past, usually just before he led the team to the man they were after. But they’d never been this frantic, this desperate.

A noise coming from the corridor on the other side of the double swing doors startled him. Hurriedly he replaced the journal in the drawer and slid it silently shut, turning the master key and locking it, then ghosting from the room back into the main office.

He managed to be a few steps clear as the double doors swung open and Anna walked in looking unreasonably fresh and alert, considering she could have had no more than three or four hours’ sleep. He welcomed her with a broad smile, his moustache bending up at the ends. ‘Good morning. Nice to have another early bird on the team.’

‘I’ve always liked this time of day,’ she said. ‘It’s quiet and peaceful — gives me the time and space I need to think.’

‘And I thought it was because you were trying to impress me.’

‘Maybe I am,’ she answered with a falsely suggestive smile.

‘Or maybe it’s someone else you’re trying to impress? Someone a little higher in rank?’ She didn’t answer. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘you’re a what … a criminal psychiatrist?’

‘I certainly hope not,’ she answered, ‘and I’m sure you’d arrest me if I was.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, I’m a psychiatrist and a criminologist, specializing in offender profiling. The FBI have been doing it for years, but it’s relatively new to the police here. They’ve been somewhat resistant to the idea.’

‘That sounds like us,’ Donnelly teased her. ‘So away you go then: impress me — tell me all about the man we’re looking for.’

‘It’s too soon to be accurate. I need more information, more time to study the case and previous case histories before I’d be willing to commit to a profile.’

‘Come on,’ Donnelly encouraged, ‘it’ll be between the two of us, nothing official.’

‘OK,’ she agreed with a sigh. ‘Based on what we know so far, I believe he’s white, probably small or slight — that’s based on the fact he uses drugs to subdue his victims, which suggests he’s not physically confident. He has a troubled past and was almost certainly abused or abandoned as a child, possibly both. I understand he appears to have no previous convictions, but I’m convinced he would have committed residential burglaries and other serious sexual assaults; perhaps he’s just never been caught.’

‘It’s possible,’ Donnelly partially agreed.

‘This type of offender usually takes trophies from victims, but I believe that in this case the women themselves are his trophies, albeit perishable ones, ones he tires of and then disposes of with no regrets, pity or remorse — by then they are just objects to him.

‘I imagine him to be a bit of a social misfit who lives alone. I can’t see him forming any lasting relationships or tolerating an invasion into his private life, and his lack of confidence means he’ll very much stay in his comfort zone, which in turn means he’s almost certainly local. He knows these areas well. He sees them every day. They are his world and he’s not going to start operating outside of that world.

‘The fact the victims look very similar is interesting. I think they remind him of somebody, somebody he has genuine hatred for, possibly his mother, possibly because she failed to stop whatever abuse was happening to him — maybe it was his father who abused him or the mother’s boyfriend.’

‘Why doesn’t he project his hatred directly to the abuser? Why the mother?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Transferred hatred or blame is not uncommon. He probably loved his mother, but had no relationship outside of the abuse with his abuser. To him, hating the person who actually abused him would be as pointless as you or I hating the wasp that stung us — there’s no emotional attachment there. Love and hate are dangerously close to each other.

‘There is of course a sexual element to his attacks, that I believe he displays all the common traits of those who commit such acts, in as much as it makes him feel powerful and in control, something he rarely is in the real world. His normal everyday life is a bit of a struggle for him. Not one of life’s winners, you might say.’

Donnelly mimed applause. ‘Very impressive. It’s amazing what you can learn from books these days.’

‘Actually most of my observations are based on my own clinical studies of serious offenders. Interviews with sexual predators and murderers. Some sane, some not.’

‘Funnily enough, I’ve had a bit of experience of that myself.’

Their conversation was interrupted by Sean clattering through the double doors, a look of surprise and disappointment that he wasn’t the first to arrive etched on his face.

‘You two are early. Trying to impress someone?’

Donnelly and Anna almost laughed. The doors clattered again, kicked open by Sally, her hands full of bags and a tray of coffee in polystyrene cups. She dropped her bags on the floor and slid the tray on to the desk closest to their gathering.

‘I didn’t know who would be here yet so I bought a few,’ she said, slumping into a chair.

‘Nice one, Sally,’ Donnelly said.

‘Thank you,’ Anna added.

‘You look a little rough around the edges there, Sally,’ Donnelly told her.

‘Thanks. I love you too.’

‘Just saying.’

‘We’re all going to look a lot worse by the time this is over, so put your collective vanities to one side if you can,’ Sean rescued Sally. He helped himself to a coffee off the tray, unconcerned whether it was black, white, sweetened or otherwise, and took a swig. ‘OK, while everybody’s here who matters, we might as well catch up on where we are.’

‘That’d be nice,’ Donnelly chipped in.

‘The way I see it, we have two, maybe three days before Louise Russell will be killed.’ The coldness of the fact made even Sean uncomfortable with what he was saying. ‘And when she dies I think it will only be a matter of days before he takes another.’

‘A replacement?’ Anna asked.

‘I think so. We already know he’s kept two hostages at the same time. It seems to be part of his modus operandi. It’s reasonable to suppose he will want to again.’

‘That would make some sort of sense,’ agreed Anna.

‘Hold on a minute,’ Sally interrupted. ‘If he replaces the ones he kills, then why hasn’t he taken someone to replace Karen Green? She was killed almost thirty-six hours ago now.’

‘He might have,’ Sean confessed. ‘All surrounding stations have been asked to report any missing persons of similar descriptions straight to us. If he’s already taken someone and they get reported missing, we’ll soon know about it.’