Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘That’s enough of that, boys. Turn off the showers, get dried, put your towels in the used towel basket and get dressed. If I hear any of you were late for your next class you’ll be in detention.’ The boys’ laughter turned to moans and protests as they begrudgingly did as they were told.

Thomas Keller waited for the boys to leave the shower before pulling himself to his feet and heading for the exit, but as he reached the gap that led to the changing room, the teacher’s arm stretched across his escape and blocked his path.

‘Not you, Keller,’ said a low voice. ‘You’re not dry yet.’

He looked up at the man in front of him. One of the much feared PE teachers, dressed in a green tracksuit, whistle around his neck on a ribbon, stared back at him with the same look in his eyes as he’d seen in the past, when others had made him do things he didn’t want to do. ‘Hurry up, you lot,’ the teacher shouted over his shoulder to the rest of the boys. ‘I want you all out of here in two minutes flat.’

Thomas stood in front of the man, shivering, one arm across his chest and the hand of the other cupping his undeveloped genitals. ‘Please, sir, I’m cold. Can I get dressed?’

‘Of course, Thomas,’ the teacher agreed, but he stepped in front of the boy before he could pass. ‘First, there’s something I want you to do for me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he lied, all too familiar with the lascivious look in the man’s eyes and what it meant.

The teacher stretched out a hand, making the boy take a step back.

‘Don’t worry, Tommy,’ he reassured him. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’m here to protect you, to keep the other boys away from you — you’d like that, wouldn’t you, to have someone to look after you?’

‘Please, sir,’ the boy pleaded, ‘I’ll be late for my next class.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble.’ Again he stretched his hand out, but this time the boy didn’t move away, even though all his instincts told him to run. The promise of having someone to protect him, an adult to trust, overwhelmed his instinct to survive the moment. The teacher gently stroked his hair before allowing his hand to drift downwards, caressing the side of the boy’s face. ‘But first there’s something I want you to do for me. You understand, don’t you?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘No, sir. What do you want me to do?’

The teacher’s hand followed the curve of the boy’s slim shoulders and slid down his arm, taking Thomas’s hand in his own and pulling it towards the elasticated waistband of his tracksuit.

‘Take it out,’ the teacher ordered.

‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ the boy pretended.

‘Yes you do,’ said the teacher, still smiling, still holding the boy’s hand. ‘If you want me to help you, you’ll have to do this for me first.’ He let go of the boy’s hand and rested both of his own on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Now do it.’

Tears of self-loathing began to sting the boy’s eyes as he reached inside the teacher’s tracksuit bottoms, feeling the warmth, the coiled pubic hairs scratching and itching his hand as his fingers found the teacher’s rapidly swelling penis. ‘Take it out,’ he commanded, and the boy did as he was told. ‘Move your hand up and down,’ said the teacher between moans of pleasure, his head lolling backwards as his eyes began to close. The boy continued almost frantically pulling at his abuser’s penis, experience telling him that the faster he did it, the sooner his humiliation and degradation would be over. ‘Too fast,’ the teacher managed to say. ‘Do it slowly.’ The boy obeyed. ‘Good. Good. That’s better. You know what to do next.’

‘No,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ snarled the teacher. ‘You don’t think I know? You’d better do as you’re told, you little slut, or I’ll have to tell the children’s home how I caught you stealing from the other boys’ bags — then you’ll be fucked, won’t you, you little slut. When the grown-ups come on visiting days, when they come to find someone to adopt and take back to a proper home, they won’t take you, will they? Not after the staff let them know you’re a thief. Now, do as you’re told.’

The boy felt sick, constricting convulsions in his chest and throat making him gag, but he knew he had no choice. If he ever wanted to be loved again, accepted again, he had no choice. He shuffled forward on his knees and did what the teacher wanted, the man’s ecstatic moans drowning out the sound of his weak sobs. ‘Yessss,’ the teacher hissed, ‘yessss, that’s good, oh you little slut — you little fucking whore. You fucking whore, yes.’

Keller’s body suddenly remembered it hadn’t breathed for minutes, not since the memory returned to haunt and torture him. He breathed in as if he’d just broken through the surface of water he’d been trapped beneath, held under by an invisible force trying to drown him, his eyes springing wide open, the water from the shower washing over his eyelashes like tiny waterfalls. He buried his face in his hands and began to cry like he’d cried when he was thirteen or fourteen years old, alone in the shower with a man who’d promised to look after him. But the man hadn’t protected him, he’d used him over and over again until he grew bored of him, his eyes turning to other vulnerable boys — boys living in care, boys whose parents couldn’t cope with another mouth that needed feeding — and then he’d given Thomas to other men, all of whom had the same special name for him — The little whore. He slid down the wall of the shower and cowered on the floor, mumbling as the water filled his mouth. ‘Mummy. Mummy, why did you leave me? You said you’d come back for me, but you didn’t, you fucking bitch. Why did you leave me?’ He curled into a tight ball and waited for the other boys to start kicking and punching him — to start tearing at his skin with their whip-like towels.

Sean and Donnelly pulled up outside Deborah Thomson’s home, finding a parking space squeezed between the gathering forensic vehicles, little white car-vans fully loaded with everything Roddis and his team would need to sweep the scene clean. They walked towards the cordoned-off area and ducked under the blue-and-white police tape, flashing their warrant cards at one of the uniformed officers Roddis had drafted in to guard his precious exclusion zone. As they approached the house, Sean saw Sally standing at the end of the drive talking with Anna. Roddis was close to the front door with two of his team, already resplendent in their dark-blue paper forensic suits, preparing plastic and brown paper bags to receive their anticipated exhibits from inside the house. Sean acknowledged Sally and Anna, but kept walking towards Roddis.

‘Mr Corrigan,’ Roddis greeted him. ‘I hope you don’t expect to be allowed in the house dressed like that? You shouldn’t even be inside the cordon.’

‘My apologies,’ Sean answered. ‘And no, I don’t need to go inside, not this time.’ He scanned the house in front of him, a near identical property to the other two scenes. ‘Anything for me yet?’ He made no apologies for his impatience.

‘We’ve had a poke around. There are traces of chloroform on the hallway floor and a couple of full ident fingerprints on the inside door handle which appear to be the same as the ones we took from the other two abduction sites.’

‘How do you know they’re the same?’ Sean quizzed him. ‘They haven’t been to Fingerprints yet.’

‘I keep my own copies on the laptop — the digital age is a wonderful thing. To my untrained eye, I’d say they were a match, but I imagine you already knew it was the same man, yes?’