Luke Delaney - The Keeper

He closed the door behind him even more carefully than he’d opened it, slipped his shoes off and tiptoed to the kitchen, where he turned on the lights of the overhead extractor-hood to help him navigate his way around. Next he emptied his pockets on to a newspaper on the kitchen table, its density nullifying the sound of his phone, keys, wallet, warrant card and assorted coins as they hit the surface. He hung his raincoat and jacket over a chair, loosened his tie even more than it already was and headed for the cupboard where he knew he’d find a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a short, fat glass. He poured himself what he thought he could get away with and still be able to drag himself out of his bed in little more than three hours’ time and sat at the table, sighing loudly as he felt the pain in all his joints at once.

Three hours’ sleep wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough to allow his body and mind to regroup. He tried to work out how many hours he’d been awake for, but exhaustion made the problem almost impossible to solve and he soon gave up. The clock hanging on the kitchen wall warned him it was nearly 2.30 a.m. He gave another sigh and stared into the drink in his hand, the bourbon the only thing he could think of that was going to slow his thoughts enough to allow any sort of sleep to come. He drank it in one go, burning his throat and chest as it headed for his empty stomach, the lack of food making the effects of the alcohol instant and satisfying.

He heaved himself out of the chair, left the kitchen and climbed the stairs. As he passed his daughters’ bedroom, he tried to resist peeking in through the gap in the door but failed, the faint blue light from their night lamps somehow making them look even more alive than they did in natural light, although he could barely remember the last time he’d seen them in daylight. Two little girls who before he knew it would become young women — just like the young women the madman had taken. His eldest daughter even had the same name — Louise.

Sean chased the thoughts away as quickly as they’d come — they had no place in his home. He eased his head back through the gap and sneaked into his bedroom, Kate’s shape clear underneath the duvet, still and silent. He undressed in the dark, draping his clothes over the only chair in the room, and slipped into bed, the bourbon acting like an anaesthetic, like the chloroform the madman used on his victims. Again he chased the thoughts away, thoughts that had no place in his bed as he lay next to his wife.

Kate’s voice startled him — not the voice of someone who had been asleep and then woken, but the voice of someone who hadn’t been able to sleep — the voice of someone who had been waiting for him. ‘If you’re home, then I assume you haven’t caught him yet. You haven’t found the women.’

‘No.’ His heart was still racing from the surprise. ‘Not yet, but it won’t be long. I’m sure of it. We’re coming to the end. I’ll be meeting him soon.’

‘How d’you know? Have you found something?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘but I will. The answer’s there, just waiting for me to see it.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she said, giving him an idea.

‘Kate.’

‘Uhhhm.’

‘What do you do when you’ve got a patient who is critically ill, one you’ve tried everything on, done everything to try and save them, everything that should have helped them recover, yet their condition goes on getting worse and worse? What would you do?’

She thought in silence for a while before answering. ‘In that scenario I would assume I’d missed something. I’d go back over everything I’d done and double-check I hadn’t missed anything.’

‘And if you hadn’t?’ he asked. ‘What then?’

Kate rolled over to look at him, her face little more than a silhouette. ‘If that was the case,’ she said, ‘then the patient would die and we’d all feel really bad, even though there was nothing we could have done.’

She kissed him on the cheek and rolled over to sleep, leaving him to stare at the ceiling in the darkness. Alone.

She stumbled through the trees, arms wrapped around her torso in a futile effort to keep out the cold, her only clothing the same soiled underwear he’d given her days before — how many days she couldn’t be sure of any more. Her bare feet stepped on sharp stones and thorns as she stumbled, her arms untwisting from her body as she tried to steady himself, her head occasionally turning to look at the hooded figure who followed close behind, a stumpy baseball bat in one hand and the cattle prod in the other. Whenever she slowed too much she felt the bat being jabbed into her spine, driving her on to a fate he had decided for her, the alfentanil’s effects making her too weak and uncoordinated to either run or fight. All she could do was beg for her life.

‘Please,’ she sobbed. ‘You don’t have to do this.’ Her words were slurred but clear enough. ‘I won’t tell anyone. I promise.’ Another stab in the back propelled her on, the cold breeze feeling like a gale on her exposed skin. She stumbled again, gathering more lacerations to her feet and body, as if the trees were his accomplices, cruelly bending to lash her with their thin branches. ‘I have a husband,’ she pleaded. ‘My children need me,’ she lied, desperate to try and reach the man trapped inside the monster.

‘Liar,’ he said. ‘You don’t have children. You shouldn’t lie about things like that. If you do, I’ll know.’

‘You were watching me,’ she accused him. ‘You’ve been watching me for weeks.’ She stopped and turned to face him, expecting the stab of the bat in her spine, but it didn’t come.

‘I thought you were the one,’ he told her. ‘I thought you were her, but I was wrong. I have no need of you now. You were a mistake.’

‘No,’ she tried to reach him. ‘Maybe I am her? You need to help me be her. I can be her. I know I can — for you.’

‘No,’ he barked. ‘It’s too late. Keep moving.’

‘I can’t,’ she pleaded, leaning with her back to a tree. ‘No more, please. No more.’

‘Just a little further and you can go,’ he promised. ‘I’m not going to kill you. Just a little further and you can go.’

She knew the hope he had given her was a false hope, but it was all she had and she clung to it. ‘You’ll let me go?’ she asked breathlessly. He nodded in the moonlight. ‘You promise?’

‘Just a little further.’ He pointed deeper into the woods with the bat.

Louise pushed herself from the tree, brushing the thin branches away from her face with her outstretched arms, closing her eyes in silent prayer, feeling her way through the trees until she sensed she was in a clearing, the ground softer under her feet where invading sunlight had allowed grass to grow and all around her an eerie flapping sound, as if hundreds of birds were trapped in the surrounding trees, unable to escape, not matter how hard they beat their wings. She opened her eyes and walked into the open space, looking for the source of the strange sound, but couldn’t see it in the darkness, feeling him behind her, getting closer, and she knew, she knew this would be where he killed her. If he was going to let her go, he would have melted back into the woods by now, a ghost disappearing into the waiting shadows, but he hadn’t. He’d known this clearing was here and he’d known this was where he was going to bring her. This would be the place where she took her last breath.

Panic and the animal will to survive swept away most of the effects of the anaesthetic, her body becoming aware and alert. She sprang forward into the clearing, her bare feet pushing off the soft ground strongly, but he was ready, as if he’d anticipated she would try to run. Within four strides she felt her legs kicked from under her, sending her unsupported body flying through the air until it crashed hard into the ground, knocking the wind and fight from her, leaving her disorientated and confused. She gave herself a few seconds then rose to her knees, looking around, trying to get her bearings, a new direction to run in, but before she could do either the dark figure stepped in front of her, each hand still clutching a weapon. She gazed up at him, blinking, trying to focus on the blackness inside the hood where his face should have been. ‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘Please.’ He tossed the bat to one side and slipped the cattle prod inside his trouser pocket, still standing above her, staring down.