Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘I won’t, but don’t underestimate her.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Listen, I appreciate the time out and the heads-up about Sally, but as you know, I’m standing in the middle of a storm here.’

‘And you need to get back to work.’

‘Sorry.’ He stood to leave, then paused, remembering the thing that had been playing on his mind since they’d first met. ‘I almost forgot — there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’

‘I’m intrigued.’

‘Did Sebastian Gibran ever discuss James Hellier with you? His real name was Stefan Korsakov, but Gibran would have known him as Hellier.’

‘He did. Hellier was the one he blamed his crimes on — said he’d set him up, that he’d obviously spent years studying him so the police would think it was him and not Hellier who was the killer. Hellier seemed to be the focal point of his paranoid delusions.’

‘Clever bastard,’ Sean told her. ‘He switched the truth around. It was him who was using Hellier.’

‘So the police reports said.’

‘You mean what my report said?’ She didn’t answer. ‘He was an interesting character, James Hellier. I bet you would have liked to have had a chance to interview that one. You could have written a whole book about him.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about him?’

‘I can tell you that when I first met him I hated him. Then I was scared of him. But ultimately he saved my life …’ As if realizing he had let down his guard and come close to confiding, he broke off. When he spoke again, it was in his usual clipped, businesslike tone. ‘Truth is, I don’t really know how I feel about him. Time to go.’ He stretched out a hand to pick up the bill from its china plate, but Anna made a grab for it.

‘I’ll get this,’ she insisted, their fingers touching as they reached the plate at the same time, their eyes simultaneously flashing towards each other. Sean remained expressionless despite the sudden excitement he felt stirring inside him. He pulled his hand away, taking the bill with it.

‘My treat,’ he told her.

As Thomas Keller descended the stone stairs the syringe containing the alfentanil rolled from side to side on the tray. Keeping his thumb pressed on the precious transfer to prevent it from slipping away, he gave Louise Russell’s cage little more than a cursory glance as he crossed the room and crouched down beside Deborah Thomson. ‘I think it’s time, Sam,’ he said. ‘We’ve both been patient long enough.’ He placed the tray on the floor and picked up the transfer of the phoenix, showing it to her, anticipation and excitement coursing through him, and pride, pride at having rescued her from all the liars and manipulators. ‘This is for you,’ he continued, rolling up his sleeve to show her his identical tattoo, shaking the paper the transfer was stuck to, ensuring she was looking at it. ‘This isn’t a permanent one — you can have that done later, but this will do for now. Once you have this, we can be together, properly together.’

Her eyes moved from the ugly transfer to the syringe containing the clear liquid. Louise had told her he might use some type of anaesthetic on her. And then he’d apply the transfer to her arm, and then he’d come into her cage and he’d do things to her, things that horrified her, just as Louise had told her he would. She looked at the amount of liquid in the syringe, her nursing experience telling her it was almost certainly not enough to fully anaesthetize her, meaning he wanted her conscious. She forced herself to speak. ‘I need to get washed first,’ she said. ‘If we’re going to be together, then I want to be clean, for you.’

His eyes dilated fully before shrinking to black holes, his body shaking, almost unable to deal with her sudden acceptance of him. He frantically scratched at his forehead with the fingernails of his right hand, biting his bottom lip hard enough to draw a little blood that seeped into the tiny lines of the thin skin. ‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘Of course, but forgive me, I need to make you safe first, for your own protection, you understand.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘I’m going to protect you,’ he said, a confused look on his face, as if he couldn’t understand why she sounded so concerned and afraid. ‘I would never hurt you, Sam.’ She accidentally looked past him towards Louise, and his head whipped around to catch what she was looking at. Louise quickly looked away, hoping he hadn’t noticed the silent communication between them. ‘What’s she been saying?’ he asked Deborah, his lips pale, eyes burning with hatred. ‘She’s been poisoning you against me, hasn’t she? Fucking with your head, filling it with her lies.’

‘No,’ Deborah told him, ‘she hasn’t said anything and I wouldn’t believe her anyway. This is about us, not her. Forget her, please.’

‘I know how to punish dirty little whores like her.’ His words made Louise shrink into the furthest corner of her cage, her lips beginning to tremble as he moved towards her, fumbling in his tracksuit trousers for his stun-gun.

‘Forget her,’ Deborah called to him. ‘It’s me you want to be with and I want to be with you. She’s nothing to us.’ He stopped and turned back towards her, the fire of anger dampened by the expression of affection and desire.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘She’s nothing.’

‘Good,’ Deborah encouraged him like an obedient dog. ‘You were going to let me out, remember, so I can wash.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He took the key from his pocket, moved to her cage door and began to unlock it, then stopped short, years of self-preservation kicking in, saving him. ‘I’m sorry. I almost forgot. Before I let you out I need you to do one thing for me.’

‘What?’ she asked nervously, too many horrifying images flashing through her mind to focus on one in particular. She swallowed the vomit rising in her mouth.

‘I need you to put your hands through the hatch.’

‘Why?’

‘You have to trust me, Sam. You have to learn to trust me.’ He opened the hatch and waited for her to obey him. She knew she had to do it, or soon she would become Louise and then she would become Karen Green — nothing but a memory to those who loved her. Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes, but she managed to stifle her sobbing and hide her fear of him as she slid her hands through the hatch. She fought the desperate desire to look away, instead staring into his eyes, trying to push her mouth into a smile. He smiled back as he took a length of nylon wire from the pocket of his tracksuit top. She watched as he wound the wire around and around her wrists, tightly enough so she could feel the blood welling in her hands, but not so painful as to make her struggle and betray herself. Once the wire was wrapped around her wrists several times he twisted the loose ends as if he was securing a freezer bag. ‘There,’ he announced. ‘Not too tight is it?’

‘No,’ she forced herself to say. ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’

He wiped the sweat from his hands on to the back of his trousers and moved slowly to the cage door, turning the key that he’d left in the lock and swinging it open, one hand lifting the tray from the floor while the other snaked inside, offering her assistance. She placed her hands on his and let him guide her from the cage, praying that Louise was watching and ready as she allowed him to lead her across the room. She followed him behind the screen to the sink, his hand uncoiling from hers, placing the tray with the syringe on the little table as he stepped back, but only a few feet, watching her, licking the drying blood from his swelling lips. She looked away from him and turned the tap on, the screeching of the old metal soon replaced by the sound of running water. ‘I don’t want to get my clothes wet,’ she said.