Luke Delaney - The Keeper

He hesitated at the entrance to her cage, expecting her to thank him or tell him she looked forward to seeing him again, but to his disappointment she said nothing.

‘OK, well …’ he said, to cover his embarrassment, ‘I’ll see you later.’

Turning the main light off, he scampered up the stairs, slamming and locking the door behind him.

Neither woman said anything. They waited, listening to the quiet sounds of the cellar, praying he wouldn’t return. Louise knew his habits well by now — if he didn’t come back immediately, he would be gone for hours. When she felt it was safe she exhaled a long slow breath, stale air she’d been holding in her lungs for what seemed like hours finally escaping.

‘Deborah … Deborah you need to listen to me.’

‘He’s a fucking lunatic,’ Deborah whispered.

‘Yes, he is,’ Louise agreed. ‘He’s a lunatic who’s going to kill us both if we don’t help each other escape.’

‘You’ve said all this already. You want me to attack him when he lets me out of his fucking cage and grab his key and let you out. Overpower him together, right?’

‘Yes. It’s our only chance. You have to believe me.’

‘It won’t work. And then it’ll be worse for me.’

Louise fell silent, thinking of a way to cut through Deborah’s self-preservation instincts.

‘I was you,’ she said. ‘Just a day or so ago — I was you. He gave me a mattress and a duvet, he let me clean myself and gave me food and drink. He gave me those clothes, Deborah. Those same clothes he’s given you — he made me wear them.’

Deborah looked at the clothes on the floor of her cage. ‘These?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

Deborah picked up the pile of laundered items and threw them against the wire, kicking them away with her feet. ‘I won’t be part of this sick fucker’s fantasy,’ she said loudly, unconcerned who heard her, her South London accent as thick as her anger.

‘No!’ Louise tried to calm her. ‘No, don’t do that. We need the clothes, you have to wear them.’

‘No fucking way.’

‘We have to play along with him, make him think everything is exactly how he wants it to be. That’s the only way he’ll relax, so we can catch him by surprise.’

‘You mean long enough for me to catch him by surprise and risk my neck.’

‘We have no choice.’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Deborah, and looked away, signifying an end to the discussion.

There was another silence, then Louise spoke again.

‘Soon he’s going to start coming down here, Deborah, he’s going to start coming down here and he’ll come into my cage and he’ll beat me and rape me — and you’re going to have to watch, you’re going to have to listen to me scream while he holds me down and … Soon after that he’ll come and take me away, and you’ll have to listen to me beg him not to take me, beg him not to kill me. And when I don’t come back, you’ll know what’s happened. Then, soon after I disappear, he’ll come down here and he’ll come to you, Deb-’

‘Stop it!’ Deborah pleaded. ‘I don’t want to-’

‘He’ll come to you and he’ll take those clothes off you and he’ll take your duvet and your mattress. And then, when he brings another woman down here and puts her in this cage, you will become me, Deborah. You will become me.’

Louise could hear sobbing coming from the other cage. Knowing that the next words had to come from Deborah, she waited.

‘All right,’ Deborah finally said. ‘What do we do?’

Louise felt a flutter of nervous excitement for the first time since he’d taken her, the chance to regain control of her own destiny suddenly thrilling, giving her hope that she would escape the darkness and find her way back to the light that was home and her husband and their plans for an unremarkable, happy life with each other and the children they were yet to have. ‘Next time he comes, he’ll let you out to have a wash. You’ll need to wear the clothes or he could get angry and not allow you out. He’ll bring you a tray of food and drink that he’ll leave behind the screen. After you’ve washed he’ll tell you to carry the tray yourself and that’s when you have to do it.’

‘Do what?’ Deborah asked.

‘Throw whatever’s on the tray in his face, in his eyes. Then, as many times as you can, as hard as you can, hit him with the tray, scratch his eyes — if he has the stun-gun, grab it and use it on him. While he’s disorientated, get the key. He always seems to keep it in his trouser pocket — the left one, I think. If he starts to fight back before you have the key, kick and punch him, keep kicking him, keep punching. You can do this, I know you can.’

‘I went to school in New Cross,’ said Deborah. ‘I know how to kick and punch, believe me.’

‘Good,’ said Louise. ‘Once you’ve got the key, slide it along the floor towards my cage and I’ll let myself out — I can get my hand through the wire and reach the lock, I’ve already tried it. Once I’m out, I’ll join you and we’ll kick the bastard to till he’s almost dead, agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘Then we drag him into one of these stinking cages and lock him in.’

‘As easy as that,’ Deborah mocked.

‘No,’ Louise answered. ‘But if I’m going to die, if I’m never going to see my husband again, when the truth of what’s happened here comes out, I want him to know that I tried, I fought back, I wasn’t meekly slaughtered like some farmyard animal. I want him to be proud of me. I want him to know.’

‘OK,’ Deborah agreed. ‘So once we’ve got him locked in a cage, then what?’

‘We leave him,’ said Louise. ‘We leave him there. For ever. Let the bastard starve to death.’

‘But the police — what about the police?’

‘We tell them nothing about this place. We tell them he kept us in a dark place somewhere we didn’t know. Then he blindfolded us and drove us back to our homes and let us go. We can’t help them find him, we don’t know anything about him. And all the while he’s down here, rotting in this cellar, screaming for help that never comes.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Deborah. ‘We should tell the police.’

‘So he can be locked up in some cushy prison for a few years and then they let him go? No, he deserves more than that.’

‘Then we’d be murderers.’

‘No. We’re not going to kill him, we’re just not going to keep him alive.’

‘It won’t work. Someone will miss him, his work — his family. They’ll find him before he dies and no one will know what he’s done. He’ll be free. He knows where I live. He’ll come after me — and you too.’

Louise thought for a while, refusing to abandon her revenge. ‘No, you’re right. We can’t leave it to chance.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When he took your clothes, soon after I could smell fire.’

‘Huh?’

‘I think he burned your clothes, somewhere close by.’

‘So?’

‘So he must have petrol or something.’

Neither woman spoke for a while, each alone in their own thoughts of fire and screaming, the smell of burning flesh and acrid smoke swirling around in their dark dreaming.

‘I can’t do that,’ Deborah shuddered.

‘You won’t have to,’ said Louise. ‘I’ll do it. I want to do it. I want to hear him scream. I’ll make sure the fire’s burning well and then I’ll close the door. If the fire doesn’t kill him, the smoke will.’

‘And when they find him?’

‘We tell the police he said he was going to kill himself. When he let us go, he told us he was going to punish himself, take his own life. That’s why he was locked in the cage, to punish himself. He was looking for redemption.’