The Keeper (13 page)

A loud rap on the window put her heart into her mouth. It was Zukov. She wound the window down.

‘You OK?’ he asked, registering the glassiness in her eyes.

‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Just knackered, that’s all.’

Zukov offered his packet of cigarettes to her. ‘Smoke?’

‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘I quit. Remember?’ It wasn’t true entirely. The fact was she’d been unable to smoke after the attack, lying for weeks in a medically induced coma, then weeks more of drifting between this world and another few would ever see. By the time she could make her own way from her bed to the hospital garden she’d broken the physical habit, but the psychological addiction still burned strongly, only the pain in her chest stopping her from reaching for a packet. ‘I need to get back to the office,’ she told him, winding up the window and starting the engine. ‘I’ll see you later.’

She drove away leaving Zukov standing alone, cigarette in mouth.

‘Nice speaking to you too,’ Zukov called after her, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He reminded himself to speak with Donnelly about Sally. No one wanted someone who was going to lose it on the team. The poison of their inability to cope would affect them all. He was young, but old school. He liked everyone around him to be solid and predictable, to pretend everything was fine even if it wasn’t. All troubles, be they domestic, health, financial or other, should be left at home, not brought to work. The job took precedence over everything. If Sally couldn’t handle it any more, then maybe it was time she was moved on. He dragged on his cigarette and wondered whether they would make him acting sergeant if Sally went. He saw no reason why not.

Louise Russell sat in the gloom of her cage dressed in the clean clothes he’d brought her, but despite their pristine condition they made her skin crawl with revulsion. These weren’t her clothes and no matter how much she tried to quieten her mind, it kept asking her the same question. Whose clothes are they? Whose clothes were they? She looked across at the shape she knew was Karen Green and remembered what she had told her: the first few days he’d let Karen wash and then he’d given her some clean clothes to wear, but the night before he’d taken Louise, he’d made Karen remove the clothes, his false affection towards her replaced by violence and lust, an outlet for his sick frustrations. Was she about to become what Karen was already? And if so, what was he going to do to Karen?

Desperation to survive forced her into action. ‘Karen,’ she whispered, just loud enough to be heard, a barely audible echo reverberating around the hard walls of their prison. No answer. ‘Karen,’ she said a little louder. ‘We have to help each other. We can’t just wait for someone to find us.’ Still no movement. ‘I think he leaves the door open,’ she explained. ‘When he comes down here, I think he leaves the door open. The door to this cellar or wherever we are.’ Karen moved a little on the floor of her cage. ‘Please, I’m not your enemy,’ Louise promised. ‘I know it probably feels that way, but that’s what he wants. He does it on purpose, to stop us helping each other.’

‘How do you know?’ Karen broke her silence with a quiet, defeated voice.

‘How do I know what?’

‘How do you know he leaves the door open?’

‘Because the last time he came here there was daylight. I heard him opening the door and then there was daylight and the light stayed, even once he was down here, the light stayed. Next time one of us is out of these cages we have to try and free whoever isn’t. Together I think we can overpower him.’

‘How would you get the key to open the cage?’ Karen asked, already doubtful and afraid of the consequences of any attempt to rescue themselves.

‘Take him by surprise,’ Louise explained. ‘Throw the tray in his face and kick him where it hurts. Just keep hitting him until he’s the one cowering on this stinking floor. Take the keys off him while he’s still confused. Then open the cage and free whichever one of us is locked in. Then we can both kick the bastard to death.’

‘It won’t work,’ Karen argued. ‘And if we try, it’ll only make things worse. He’ll be so angry, it’ll just make things worse.’

‘How could things be worse?’ Louise asked, exasperated.

‘We could be dead.’

Karen’s response silenced Louise for a moment while she tried to come up with another way to reach her. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘Sorry. Stupid question. You must be. I have some food left, maybe I could get it over to you.’

‘No,’ Karen snapped. ‘If he sees you’ve tried he’ll blame me and then you know what he’ll do. You’ve seen it.’

They both sat in silence for a long while before Karen spoke again. ‘I was supposed to be going to Australia. The day he took me. I had everything packed, everything arranged. Six months of travelling, maybe longer. I might even have stayed there. But he took me and brought me here. Jesus Christ, why is this happening to me?’

Louise waited for the crying to stop, then asked, ‘Is there anyone special in your life?’

‘No,’ came the answer, followed by more silence.

‘I’m married. My husband’s name is John. We were going to start a family. My God, John. He must be beside himself. Blaming himself. I miss him so much. Please, God, let me see him again.’ She felt sorrow and loss threatening to engulf her. It wasn’t what she needed now and she pushed all thoughts of home and lovers away. ‘Karen, I need to ask you something …’

‘What?’

‘These clothes I’m wearing – are they the same clothes he made you wear? Are these the clothes he took from you before I got here?’ There was no answer. ‘Please,’ she tried. ‘I need to know.’ She waited, dreading the answer.

‘I can’t be sure,’ Karen lied. ‘They look the same, but I can’t be sure.’

‘They are, aren’t they?’ Louise pressed. ‘Aren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ Karen almost shouted before returning to a whisper. ‘Now you know. Now you know what’s going to happen to you.’

Trying to comprehend the enormity of what she was being told, Louise looked across the cellar at the wretched creature in the opposite cage, filthy and bruised, covered in his foul scent, with his diseased seed forced inside her. She wouldn’t let it happen to her. She couldn’t let it happen to her.

She tried to imagine Karen away from this hell, in Australia somewhere, on a beach, happy and tanned, her attractive young body drawing attention from the men showing off on the beach. No cares, no worries, young and alive, enjoying the adventure of a lifetime. The image almost made her happy, but then it made her sad, replaced by thoughts of herself at home, cooking something in the kitchen while John tried to help but only succeeded in getting in the way. Herself happy and looking forward to having a bump in her belly and shopping for tiny clothes. Feeling safe. Above all else, she feels safe.

What wouldn’t she give to feel safe again? Louise closed her eyes, promising herself that she would never undervalue that feeling ever again, just so long as she could live through this.

Karen’s voice broke the silence. ‘When he takes away your clothes, when he comes to you the way he comes to me, if he offers you drugs, take them. It makes it easier. You’ll feel less.’ Then she rolled over so her back faced Louise, leaving her alone in the silent darkness, happy thoughts of her home and husband chased away by the gathering demons of things yet to come.

Sean paced the floor of his office, listening to Donnelly updating him on the progress of the forensic examination of Louise Russell’s car. Roddis’s team had searched the area around the vehicle, but found nothing. The car had then been loaded on to a flat-back lorry, covered in a plastic tarpaulin and carried off to the forensic car-pound at Charlton, where it would be minutely examined inside and out. By the time they had finished it would be little more than a shell, but any evidence would have been carefully and meticulously bagged and tagged before being sent off to the various private forensic laboratories that had taken over from the once fabled do-all government-funded lab at Lambeth. Another stroke of genius from the powers that be, granting access to highly sensitive material to commercial enterprises all for the sake of saving a few pounds.

His eye was drawn to movement in the main office: Sally had come in and was making her way to her desk. He summoned her with a jut of his chin. She dropped her computer case on her chair and headed straight for them, eyes down and shoulders slumped. Watching her, Sean was again reminded how much he missed the person she used to be. She walked into his office and sat without being asked. ‘What’s happening?’ she demanded.

‘Not enough,’ Sean replied.

‘Whatever that means,’ she said, oblivious to her own mood. Sean let it slide.

‘We’ve been on this for twenty-four hours. He snatched her in broad daylight in her own car. He’s a planner and he’s organized. He would have checked her house before he took her, made sure he couldn’t be seen.’

‘So he’s been there before,’ Donnelly surmised.

‘Yes, but when?’ Sean asked. ‘Sally, have the door-to-door team ask neighbours to think back at least a couple of weeks for sightings of strangers hanging around.’ She scribbled something in her notebook. Sean took it as a sign she understood.

‘What else?’ said Donnelly. ‘Any insights?’ Sean knew the question was directed solely at him.

‘No,’ he answered, not entirely truthfully. ‘Other than I believe he’s local and probably lives alone in a decent-sized house or maybe somewhere reasonably isolated. He needs space and privacy.’

‘For what?’ Sally joined in.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Sean answered, ‘but I know it’s bad. Sorry.’ Sally looked at the floor again. Sean wanted to bring her back. ‘But you’re right. We need to work out why he takes them. When we understand that, we’ll be that much closer to catching him.’

‘Them?’ Sally stopped him. ‘You said
them
.’

‘I meant her,’ he lied again.

‘No you didn’t,’ Sally insisted. Sean didn’t reply.

‘Oh, bloody marvellous,’ Donnelly exclaimed. ‘You mean there’s going to be more?’

‘Only if we don’t stop him in time,’ Sean pointed out.

‘But surely we have to consider the possibility this is a one-off, that for whatever reason Louise Russell was special to him?’ Donnelly insisted. ‘Special enough to make him want to take her.’

‘She was special to him,’ Sean agreed, ‘but not because of any relationship between them. She was a stranger to him and he to her. He chose her quite deliberately, maybe because of the way she looked or maybe just because of the type of house she lived in – I don’t know yet. But whatever he saw in her, he’ll see in others. That much I’m sure of. If we don’t find him, there will be others.’

Sally came back to them. ‘There was no forced entry,’ she pointed out. ‘So maybe she knew whoever took her.’

‘She was young and strong and in her own home. She had no reason to be fearful of a knock at the door. Do you only open the door to people you know?’ Sean regretted his question as soon as it was out of his mouth. Sally unflinchingly held his gaze, her misting eyes accusing him. His desk phone saved him from making it worse by ringing before he had a chance to say sorry, the last thing Sally wanted to hear. He snatched it like a drowning man reaching for a life-jacket. ‘DI Corrigan.’

‘Andy Roddis here,’ announced the forensic team leader. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. No match on file for the prints we lifted from the Russell home. Sorry.’

‘Damn it,’ Sean said calmly, despite the twisting in his guts. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Nor me,’ Roddis confided.

‘What about the car? Anything yet?’

‘Too soon to tell, but I expect to at least find his prints. They won’t help us identify him prior to his arrest, but once we have him they’ll certainly help get a conviction.’

‘OK. Thanks, Andy. Keep me posted.’ He hung up and turned to the others. ‘His prints aren’t on file.’ They knew what it meant – the man they were looking for had no convictions.

‘I was bloody sure this one would have previous, even if it was just a bit of flashing on Bromley Common,’ Donnelly said.

‘It’s unfortunate,’ Sean agreed. ‘But there must be something in his past. He may not have been convicted, but you can bet he’ll have been arrested and charged somewhere down the line. This guy is in our records, we just need to dig around till we find him: run checks on local sexual offenders who’ve come to our notice but have never been convicted of anything. And let’s check on any local stalkers – top-end only though, not ones who’ve gone after celebrities and footballers. Concentrate on the care-in-the-community types. Our boy hasn’t just jumped in at this level, he’s been building up to this for years, convictions or no convictions. Anything else?’

‘Sounds straightforward enough,’ Donnelly said. ‘All we need now is about another hundred detectives and we’ll have him nicked by lunchtime tomorrow.’

‘Well, that ain’t going to happen,’ Sean confirmed what he already knew. ‘So let’s do the best we can with what we’ve—’

A ripple of disturbance from the main office caused him to break off and look through the Perspex that separated him from his team. Featherstone was making his way across the main office, stopping periodically, handing out pep talks to one and all en route.

‘Heads up, people,’ Sean warned Sally and Donnelly. A few seconds later Featherstone was knocking on his office door frame and entering without being invited.

‘Afternoon, boss,’ Sean said. ‘Only a step backwards since we last spoke, I’m afraid.’

‘How so?’

‘It appears whoever we’re looking for has no previous. Prints found at the Russells’ house came back “no match”.’

‘That sounds unlikely.’ Featherstone raised an eyebrow.

‘Unlikely or not, it’s a fact. And any DNA we find will go the same way.’

‘So,’ Featherstone continued, ‘we’ll have to find him by old-fashioned means – shoe leather and hard work, folks.’

‘With respect, sir,’ said Sally, ‘we’re going to need more than that if we want to catch him quickly.’

‘Agreed,’ Featherstone contradicted himself. ‘Which is why I’ve sorted out a media blitz. ITV and BBC will put out an appeal for information on their local channels tonight, with a special appearance by yours truly. I’m still working on Sky, but they’re holding out for more details than we want to give them at this time.’