Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘No.’ Sean snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘If he’d been disturbed we’d have known about it by now. Uniform would have come poking around and found the car. No. He left the keys behind because he’s beginning to lose control, lose patience. He knows where all this is leading — maybe only subconsciously, but he knows.’

‘You still think he’s going to blow up?’

‘Yes,’ said Sean grimly, pulling the handle on the passenger’s side door and slowly easing it open a couple of inches, his body tense as he prepared for the onslaught of scents that were about to rush from the car. The fragrance of a pine air freshener washed over him first, quickly followed by traces of perfume and make-up. He tried to remember the smell of Black Orchid and was as sure as he could be that this was not the same. What did that mean? Confirmation the killer made his victims wear the perfume of his choice? He tried to pick up a trace of Elemis body cream, but could not. He eased the door open wider and pushed his head into the space, recoiling at a smell he recognized — the same animalistic, musky scent he’d detected on other killers, other criminals he’d dealt with in the past — a smell of fear and desperation, guilt and excitement, a smell all good cops knew meant they had the right man. A scent he often feared oozed from his own skin pores. The madman had been here less than a day ago. His presence remained strong, almost as if he was still there inside the car.

Sean found himself staring at the driver’s seat, unmoving, unblinking, watching as the shape of a man formed in his imagination, a dark hooded top covering his head. As he concentrated, the head slowly began to turn towards him, but the spectre had no face, just darkness where it should have been. In an instant the spectre faded, a solid image turning to gas before disappearing completely.

With a sigh Sean pulled himself out of the car and walked around to the boot, popping the hatch open, giving the door an initial pull, then allowing the pneumatics to do the rest. Once the hatch was fully open he placed his face as close as he dared to the carpeted floor of the boot and inhaled deeply. Anna saw how pale he looked.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Chloroform. He took her all right.’ He looked around at the trees hissing conspiratorially in the wind, unspeaking witnesses to the beginning of Deborah Thomson’s nightmare. Did the man he hunted see the trees as his allies, hiding him from the people who chased him — hiding him from Sean? ‘Always the woods,’ he said to himself.

‘Sorry?’ said Anna.

‘Always the woods. Always the trees. It’s the city he knows, but it’s the woods where he’s most comfortable. Wherever he lives will be surrounded by trees.’

‘That doesn’t narrow it down much.’

‘No. No, it doesn’t,’ he admitted and started walking back to his own car. Anna rolled her eyes and followed him, feeling like a lost dog following its adopted owner, half-expecting Sean to try and chase her away at any time. ‘Wait here until forensics arrive,’ he instructed one of the uniformed officers as he walked briskly past them. The officer nodded his reply.

As they reached the car, Anna managed to slow Sean down by taking hold of his arm. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk about me,’ his eyes moved to the hand wrapped around his forearm and she released her grip.

‘Nor do I.’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘I need to talk to you about Sally.’

‘What about Sally?’

‘She needs help. She needs counselling. I’d like to help her and I think she wants me to, but she could use a push from someone she trusts.’

‘Meaning me?’ Anna shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can’t do that. Sally’s a cop, she wouldn’t want anyone to know, including me. If she thought for a second anyone on the team knew she was getting counselling, she’d be destroyed.’

‘Why?’

‘Like I said, she’s a cop.’

‘I think Sally may be above the stereotypical macho image of a police officer.’

‘Because she’s a woman? Trust me, she’s a cop before she’s a woman, and that means she knows the score.’

‘What on earth does-’

‘We don’t admit to needing help, even when we do. Being physically broken is fine, but mentally …? No one would work with her again.’

‘That’s pathetic.’

‘I didn’t say it was right, I just said that’s the way it is. If you can persuade her to see you, fine, but for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone else know.’

‘Jesus, you’re a strange bunch. Cops, I’m beginning to think you’re all crazy.’

‘We’re crazy — what about you? One minute you’re helping the man who almost killed her, next you want to help her. Do you really know what happened to Sally? That night when Gibran broke into her home?’

‘Of course. I read the reports before interviewing Sebastian.’

‘The reports? And what did the reports say?’

‘That she was attacked in her own home and seriously injured by two knife wounds to the chest.’

‘That’s nice and neat. Doesn’t tell you how he stood over her while she was bleeding to death on her own living-room floor. Doesn’t tell you about how she watched him searching through her kitchen knives for one to finish her off with. Doesn’t tell you about the four different surgeries she had to keep her alive. Doesn’t tell you about months of breathing, eating and drinking through plastic tubes. Doesn’t tell you about the nightmares.’

‘She told you all of this?’

‘Christ, she didn’t have to tell me, I saw it.’ Neither spoke for a while. ‘Listen, Anna, I like you, but you’ll only ever be an outsider to us. You’ll never be a cop. You stick around long enough, you’ll learn more than most, but you’ll never be one of us. You’ll never really see what we do.’

‘I know,’ she admitted, ‘and frankly I wouldn’t want to be. Working with almost no sleep day after day, hardly eating or drinking, trying to think straight when your mind and body are exhausted … I admire you. I didn’t think I would, but I do. And I admit it, I had no idea it would be like this.’

‘You get used to it. I’ll keep going, without sleep or rest if necessary, until I find this bastard and bury him. You never know, I might get lucky — he may blow up and top himself.’

‘But not before he kills the women he’s taken. And according to your theory, not before he goes on a spree, settles a few old scores, real or imagined.’

‘He’s heading that way,’ said Sean. ‘Leaving the car open, with the keys inside — his control is slipping. Soon the women won’t be enough.’

‘I disagree,’ said Anna. ‘You’re reading too much into the keys. If you want to catch him quickly you need to stick with local criminals, ones with juvenile convictions for residential burglaries, particularly ones with a history of defecating inside the houses they broke into. As they grew older there’ll have been a progression to minor sexual offences, gradually becoming more serious. Possibly even rape.’

‘No,’ Sean snapped. ‘He’s beyond that. Besides, he’s got no previous convictions, remember?’

‘Then the police have missed something or the offender is incredibly lucky. Either way, he’s showing all the signs of a sexual predator progressing from burglary to rape and murder. His crimes are a classic expression of power and anger, probably brought on by some cataclysmic rejection. The actual women mean little or nothing to him. The similarities in their appearance is due to the fact they remind him of the person who rejected him, most likely his mother or even grandmother, yet despite her rejection he still loves her and wants to be with her, hence he takes the women who remind him of her.’