Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘Their eyes,’ he said to himself as the image of Louise Russell sank into the blackness of the screen and disappeared. ‘You both have green eyes. He wouldn’t change that, not the eyes.’

He added the eye colour to the descriptive search page and ran the inquiry again, the excitement mounting within him. Eyes nervously fixed in the top right-hand corner, he waited until the screen blinked once indicating that the search had been completed. The number of hits had been reduced to forty-three. It was still more than he’d bargained for, but manageable. He brought up the first crime report and began to read.

Thomas Keller stood at the top of the flight of stairs that led down into the darkness of the cellar. Barely able to control his excitement, he paused in the open doorway, listening for signs of danger, watching for a threatening shadow moving across the floor that could mean one of them was out of their cage and waiting for him. They were both strong, athletic young women — if they caught him by surprise they could do him serious harm, and he knew it — he feared it. Satisfied all was well, he began his descent, carefully balancing the food and drink on its tray, clean pressed clothes draped over his free forearm.

As he stepped into the room he only had eyes for the cage that held Deborah Thomson, a happy smile spread across his lips as he peered through the gloom at the shaking figure cowering under the filthy duvet he’d left for her. But he didn’t see her terror, he saw Sam, safe now, safe in his care.

Sliding the tray on to the table behind the screen that he used to hang her new clothes over, he greeted her. ‘Good morning. Do you mind if I put the light on?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Good,’ he continued, ‘I can’t really see what I’m doing without it.’

He reached out and pulled the cord, flooding the cellar with weak yellow light. Then he walked slowly towards Deborah, his hand held out in front of him, palm up to convince her he was no threat, and crouched next to her cage, still smiling as she pushed herself into the furthest corner, the duvet pulled up to her chin, her eyes wide open with incomprehension, like a deer just before the car that’s going to kill it hits.

‘Did you have a good sleep?’ he asked. ‘I hope the chloroform didn’t make you feel too sick. I’m sorry I had to use it, but it was the only way to get you safely and quickly out of there. I know you’ll forgive me, in time.’ He rubbed his hands together nervously. ‘Anyway, you’ll probably want to clean yourself up and maybe try to eat something. You’ll feel better if you can manage it. OK? Let’s have you out of there then.’

He spoke as if they were on an awkward first date, but his words made her recoil, her feet desperately trying to push her further away, the wire of her prison imprinting a pattern of squares in her back.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ he tried to soothe her, ‘you won’t have to stay in here too long, I promise. It’s only to keep you safe until you’re stronger, until you understand. We have to be careful because they’ll be looking for you, trying to take you back, make you believe you’re someone you’re not. In time you’ll understand what I’ve done for you — for us.’

Deborah’s throat fluttered and pulsed as she repeatedly tried to swallow non-existent saliva, fear and nausea straining every muscle taut to the point where it felt as if they would snap, shock drawing the blood away from her non-vital organs, redirecting it to her brain in an effort to keep her conscious, turning her lips almost white and her skin grey.

Oblivious to her terror, he unlocked the cage door, swinging it open carefully so as not to alarm her. His face reddened slightly with excitement and anticipation, his lips swelling plump and purple as his eyes moved over the shape under the duvet, the familiar tightness returning to his groin as he remembered her shape and warmth — the soft skin of the woman under the bedding. Without thinking he found himself moving into the cage, his eyes growing larger and larger as the tightening in his trousers grew more and more uncomfortable, suddenly snapping out of his trance as instinct kicked in, warning him he was being reckless, putting himself in danger. He checked his hands and realized he was unarmed.

In a panic he stumbled backwards out of the cage, tugging at the stun-gun that was tangled in the pocket of his tracksuit, ripping the material as he finally pulled it free, panting and smiling with relief, looking back into the cage, seeing the recognition of what he was holding in her eyes. The feeling in his groin had faded away and again he felt in control of the woman and himself. He looked down at the stun-gun and back to her. ‘Don’t be afraid of this,’ he said. ‘It’s not to hurt you, it’s to keep you safe.’

‘I don’t want you to keep me safe. I want you to let me go.’

He hadn’t been expecting her to speak and her words momentarily shocked him into silence, the smile still fixed on his face like a painted doll’s. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, Sam. I’m here to look after you.’

‘I don’t need anyone to look after me,’ she answered, the aggression and bitterness in her voice obvious. ‘All I need is for you to let me out of here and stop calling me Sam — my name is Deborah, Deborah Thomson.’

‘No,’ he insisted, trying to restrain his anger, ‘that’s what they want you to believe, but it’s all lies. Your name is Sam. Don’t you remember? It’s me, Tommy. I told you I’d come back for you. So that we could be together, like we’re supposed to be.’

‘I don’t know you,’ she yelled, tears of anger and fear bursting through her frustration. ‘My name is Deborah Thomson and I want to go home.’

‘Shut up!’ Face twisted in rage, he advanced towards her holding the stun-gun in front of him. ‘Shut the fuck up! That’s just their lies. You have to clean yourself of their lies and then you’ll remember.’

Louise Russell watched from her cage, eyes darting between the two unevenly matched combatants, praying that Deborah would do as she had asked, knowing that his anger would be redirected to her, the way it had been when Karen Green was occupying the other cage. She remembered unwittingly playing a dangerous game with Karen’s safety, and now Deborah was doing the same thing, pushing him ever closer to venting his anger on Louise. She prayed for Deborah to stop, her eyes never leaving him while her heart punched against her ribs, the sound echoing deafeningly loud in her head. ‘Please stop, please be quiet,’ she silently pleaded with Deborah, unaware that she was mouthing the words as she said them over and over again, waiting for Deborah to respond to his accusations. After a few seconds she realized Deborah had fallen silent, the relief causing her body to slump as she drew in a long, staggered breath. She listened to the silence, her eyes once again darting between the two of them, as something like calm spread through the cellar.

Finally he spoke. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told Deborah. ‘I forgot: you’ve been through a lot. You must be tired.’ He walked to the screen, his eyes never leaving her, and picked up the tray in his free hand, taking it back to the cage and sliding it in through the open door, then returning to the screen and, as carefully as he could, pulling her clothes from the metal frame, carrying them back across the room and placing them on the floor just inside the entrance to her wire prison before closing and locking the door. ‘It’s probably better if you get cleaned up a bit later, but you can wear the clothes — they’re yours, after all. Your real clothes, not the ones they made you wear.’ He searched her face for some sign of approval, but she merely stared back at him with unblinking bright green eyes. ‘I’ll leave you to get some rest.’