Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘I think it’s important,’ Sean pushed. ‘It could stir something in a witness that they haven’t even considered.’

‘Sorry, Sean, but it can’t happen. Anything else? Anna?’

‘I’m absolutely certain he’s a local man, or at least someone who knows the area well or visits it regularly, so I recommend you continue with the roadblocks and door-to-door inquiries. Also, I agree with DI Corrigan that he needs somewhere relatively secluded to keep them, so concentrate your searches around farms, wasteland, derelict buildings, anywhere he could conceal the women, particularly anything underground.’

‘Round here or Central London that wouldn’t take long,’ Featherstone replied, ‘but once you start getting into Bromley and the Kent borders, near where the women were taken from, there’s bloody thousands of places he could keep them. They don’t call it “the sticks” for nothing.’

‘Publicize what you’re doing,’ Anna continued. ‘It may panic him into moving the victim, increasing the chances he’ll make a mistake or that someone will see them and call the police.’

‘If you reckon it’s worth trying,’ Featherstone agreed before turning to Sean. ‘What about this suspect I hear you arrested? Judging by the fact you haven’t mentioned it to me, I take it you don’t think he’s our man?’

‘No,’ Sean answered quickly, ‘he’s nothing to do with this. We won’t be looking at him any further.’

‘Shame,’ Featherstone said. ‘Well, must get on. The telly people want to film me standing outside Scotland Yard, next to that bloody rotating sign. Call me if anything new comes up.’ And then he was gone, leaving them sitting in an uncomfortable silence until Anna spoke.

‘You didn’t tell him that you never considered Lawlor responsible.’

‘How d’you know I didn’t?’

‘I’ve watched you work, Sean. If I could tell he wasn’t our guy, then so could you. The question, is why did you go after him, knowing that?’

‘Because he filled some gaps,’ Sean confessed, ‘allowed me to see some things I was struggling to understand.’

‘To understand or …?

‘To feel.’

‘What did he help you feel?’

‘Things that were already in me, but buried too deep to use.’

‘And he unburied those feelings?’

‘No,’ Sean answered. ‘He just helped me bring them to the surface. Gave me the taste for what he feels when he’s doing what he does.’

‘What does he feel? What do you feel?’

‘Right now I feel hungry.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Grab your coat and I’ll take you for brunch. There’s a half-decent café not too far away. We’ll walk there. The air will do us both good. Just promise me one thing …’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t try and analyse me,’ he warned her. ‘If I want your help, I’ll ask for it. Understood?’

‘Sorry. Occupational hazard.’

‘Fair enough. Now, let’s go get something to eat.’

The silence in the kitchen was becoming oppressive, allowing his mind too much room to wander to old, bitter memories of his childhood, the faces of people he hated, past and present, refusing to let him be at peace, even for a second. He hurriedly searched through the shambolic kitchen drawer that held, amongst other things, the CD of a rock band with his favourite song on it. He remembered the first time he’d heard it, years before and how the lyrics seemed like they must have been written for him, giving him hope that somebody understood him — understood what he would eventually do. But unlike the words of the song, the hope faded and died. Fumbling the disc from its scratched and cracked cover, he loaded it into the portable CD player he’d bought himself as a Christmas present, back in the days when he was still trying to cling on to the belief he could one day live as others did.

Selecting the track he needed to hear, Thomas Keller sat back and waited for the music to carry him away, the vocals kicking in soon after the intro, his eyes closing as the beautiful images raced through his mind, a feeling of indestructible power tightening his every muscle while his heart pumped to the beat of the song, the singer telling the tale of a boy despised by his mother and rejected by his father — ignored and ridiculed by the other children at school and detested by the teachers — just as he had been. He began to lose himself in the song, seeing himself walking through his old school cutting down all who’d humiliated him — reaping the sweetest and cruellest revenge as the dead mounted at his feet. He smiled gently as he mouthed along to the words of the song until a sudden noise from outside startled him from his dreaming: a car’s wheels moving across the rough gravel, towards his house. He searched for the off switch to stop the music, accidentally hitting the volume control in his panic, his favourite song betraying his presence to anyone close enough to hear. He covered his ears with his hands in a childlike attempt to pretend it wasn’t happening before yanking the plug from the socket. The silence that followed felt more deafening than the music had been.

He listened, senses alert like a trapped rabbit listening to the fox scratching around the entrance to its burrow, at first sure he’d been mistaken. But as the ringing and buzzing cleared from his ears the sound of the approaching car returned, prompting him to cross the kitchen and carefully peek through the curtainless window, just able to make out the markings on the police car through the grease and dirt on the glass. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, immediately clamping his own treacherous mouth shut with his hand, the fear in his belly making his eyes fill with water. This can’t be happening, he told himself. It’s too soon. Not yet. I’m not ready. He crawled across the floor of his kitchen like a lizard, reaching into the cupboard for the sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun, snapping it open at the breach, breathing deeply with relief when he saw it was already loaded with twelve-gauge rounds — if there were two of them in the car he could kill them both before they even opened their lying pig mouths.

He walked in a crouch back across the kitchen, rising to glance at the police car that pulled to a halt some twenty feet from his front door, the two uniformed figures stepping simultaneously from the vehicle and beginning to search the area with their eyes without moving from the car. ‘Fuck,’ he swore again as he ducked away from the window, whispering to himself repeatedly. ‘What do I do? What do I do? What do they know? Maybe they don’t know anything. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’ He exhaled and tried to steady himself, calm down enough to be able to think. After a few seconds he crept to his front door and propped the shotgun up against the inside wall, within reaching distance of the entrance. He took a breath and opened the door, the two police officers immediately turning towards him, apparently unconcerned.

‘Can I help you?’ Keller managed to ask without stuttering or blurting.

The officers looked at each other before answering, the taller, slimmer one speaking first.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said, ‘we’re just checking on some reports that a prowler was seen around here earlier this morning. Have you noticed anything yourself, sir?’

‘No,’ Keller answered, a little too quickly and surely, while trying to work out if the policeman was lying. He thought he was but couldn’t be sure. Not sure enough to reach for the shotgun only inches away.

‘You haven’t seen or heard anything?’

‘Not around here, no.’

‘Is this your place?’ the shorter, more heavily muscled one asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Does anyone else live here?’

‘No. I live alone.’ He watched the taller one surveying the grounds, noting the outbuildings and debris, nodding to himself as he did so while the heavier one began to approach him. Panic rising in his stomach with every step the policeman took, Keller stepped from his house and walked towards him.