Luke Delaney - The Keeper

‘No,’ said Featherstone. ‘Not yet.’

‘Uhhm, I was thinking — on reflection, it’s probably better if she reports to me directly. There’s no need to create unnecessary … bureaucracy. Don’t you agree?’

‘I understand.’

‘Good. One last thing …’ Addis said. ‘Does he suspect anything?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Excellent,’ said Addis. ‘Make sure it stays that way.’

Featherstone heard the line go dead and found himself staring at his phone. For a second he considered calling Sean and warning him to tread carefully, but he knew he couldn’t trust his own phone not to betray him, not now Addis and his people were involved.

With a shrug of his shoulders he tossed the phone on to the passenger seat. Maybe he’d still make it home in time for his Sunday roast.

Sean and Sally drew closer to the sorting office in South Norwood where they had arranged to meet Leonard Trewsbury, the depot supervisor. They’d travelled in almost complete silence, Sally driving while Sean spent most of his time nervously cradling his phone, waiting for Donnelly to call back. It had rung several times during the journey, making them both jump, but he’d answered only once, when the caller ID showed it was DS Roddis from the forensic team. Sally wondered who the other calls were from.

‘Something bothering you?’ she asked. ‘Aside from the usual.’

‘That CRIS search I had Dave run,’ he told her. ‘I did the same search myself, several times, only I never thought about changing the dates of the offence by more than a couple of years. If I’d only changed the dates, moved them back further, then Louise Russell would be alive.’

‘Fuck sake, Sean — how could you possibly have known to move the date back sixteen years? How could anyone have known to do that?’

‘I should have,’ he snapped. ‘As soon as I saw that tattoo, as soon as we discovered it was only a transfer, I should have checked back further — much further.’

‘Hey, give yourself a break. We don’t even know if this guy Thomas Keller has got anything to do with these murders.’

‘It’s him,’ Sean assured her. ‘I know it’s him. He’s coveted her for sixteen years — planned this for sixteen years — and now at last, finally he’s making it all come true. When we meet Trewsbury, he’ll confirm that Keller works from the Norwood sorting office and then there’ll be no doubt he’s our man. Then this’ll be over.’

‘There’s something else,’ Sally probed. ‘Something you’re not telling me.’

‘It’s that name — Thomas Keller. I’ve heard it before somewhere, or dealt with him in the past. Christ, I don’t know, maybe I nicked him when I was still in uniform or interviewed him someplace, sometime. Ever since Dave said his name it’s been driving me mad trying to remember — where have I heard that name?’

‘You’re knackered,’ Sally reminded him. ‘It’s probably just déjà-vu. By the time your tired brain processes a new piece of information your memory has already logged it, hence the information appears strangely familiar to you. It’s a case of the memory overtaking the conscious thought process.’

Sean looked at her with eyebrows raised. ‘I know what déjà-vu is.’

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘Of course you do.’

Sean’s phone rang again. He checked the caller ID and answered. ‘Dave. What have you got for me?’

‘First off, we drew a blank on Thomas Keller. No address, no intelligence, no nothing. Anything created as a result of the sexual assault and subsequent stalking has been deleted from our intelligence records a long time ago and it appears he’s kept himself clean since. The Shaws still live at the same address, but Samantha flew the nest a few years back and now lives with her boyfriend at 16 Sangley Road, Catford. I’ll text you the address and her phone number, unless you want me to call her?’

‘No,’ Sean insisted. ‘No phone calls. I need to see her face to face. I have to know how she feels about him.’

Donnelly didn’t argue. ‘Fair enough. Is there anything else you want me to do?’

‘No,’ Sean answered. ‘Hold fire with the team until I get an address for Keller. I’ll call as soon as I have it.’ He hung up.

‘You’re not going to call him are you?’ Sally said. ‘If we get an address for Keller — you’re not going to call anyone.’

Sean ignored her and pointed to the side of the road next to the sorting office. ‘Pull over here. That’s our man.’ He almost jumped out of the car while it was still moving, desperate to quiz Leonard Trewsbury, desperate for confirmation.

The two men had already shaken hands by the time Sally joined them. Sean didn’t bother introducing her. ‘Thanks for meeting us,’ he said.

‘You didn’t give me much choice, Inspector,’ Trewsbury replied. ‘Another young woman found murdered — what could I say? I’ll probably lose my job and most of my pension too, but at least I’ll be able to look myself in the mirror.’

‘If there’d been any other way, I wouldn’t have asked,’ Sean assured him. ‘I had no alternative, not while there’s still a chance to save another.’

‘The third woman he took?’ Trewsbury asked, his eyes narrowing.

‘There’s no reason to believe he’ll treat her any differently,’ Sean warned him.

‘So what is it you want from me that you couldn’t ask over the phone?’

‘Thomas Keller — does that name mean anything to you?’

Trewsbury’s lips went a strange shade of grey. ‘Tommy, yeah, sure, he works here, but he couldn’t be involved in this — he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. He’s a good kid, you know, hard worker, keeps himself to himself. He gets hassled by the other guys sometimes, but never caused me no trouble.’

He was unaware he was describing exactly the sort of man Sean was looking for, causing his heart to flutter as all his theories began to fall into place. How the killer had been able to walk around residential areas without drawing attention to himself, dressed in the urban camouflage of his Post Office uniform, selecting his victims, intercepting their mail to learn about their lives, tricking them into opening their front doors and snatching them from their own homes — it was all coming true.

‘I need his address,’ he told Trewsbury without trying to justify why he suspected Thomas Keller.

‘I don’t have it,’ Trewsbury answered.

‘I know. That’s why I wanted to meet you here, so we can check the employment records. You said it yourself, Leonard, two young women already murdered and one missing, presumed alive — for the time being.’

‘But Tommy …’ Trewsbury struggled. ‘I don’t suppose you have a Production Order?’

‘No,’ said Sean. ‘By the time I get one, it’ll be too late for Deborah Thomson. I’m sorry, Leonard, but it’s him, I know it’s him and I need his address now.’

Thomas Keller awoke from his nightmares shortly before 11 a.m., his clothes and bedding soaked with sweat, his eyes instantly wide open and bloodshot. He rolled out of bed as if he was escaping a torture rack and landed hard on the floor, scrambling and crawling to the corner of the littered room, eyes darting from side to side looking for danger — children from the home, colleagues from work, the police. Finally he remembered where he was, in time and place, and allowed his tensed body to relax, his shoulders falling away from his neck as he slowly exhaled, the bright sunlight pouring through his improvised curtains and making him blink repeatedly. He stayed sitting in the corner for almost fifteen minutes, trying to fully orientate himself with the world around him, a million confused messages and ideas swirling inside his head, each telling him to do a different thing — kill the woman in his cellar and then himself. Kill himself and spare the woman. Find his mother and kill her. Kill his mother and run. Kill his work colleagues and himself. Go to the children’s home and kill everyone there — his old school, all the potential adoptive parents who’d rejected him, everyone who’d ever rejected him — not accepted him. Kill as many as he could — kill them all.