The Keeper (54 page)

‘No,’ Sean insisted. ‘For all we know it could be another part-time address. I’ll check it out first – quietly. Once I know he’s there, I’ll call you – then we’ll think about the TSG.’

Donnelly didn’t believe a word of it. ‘OK, guv’nor. If that’s how you want to play it.’

‘It is,’ said Sean, and hung up. He sensed Sally by his side. ‘We’ve got his address.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll explain on the way,’ he promised and strode towards their car.

‘On the way to where?’

‘Where d’you think?’ he asked, oblivious to her fears. ‘To Keller’s home address, of course.’

‘Just the two of us? Shouldn’t we wait for the TSG or at least have some of the team meet us there? We know he has access to electrical weapons and he lives on a farm – God knows what else he’s got down there.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her, ‘we’re not going to arrest him. We’re checking out the address, that’s all.’

She watched him duck inside the car, leaving her with a sickness deep in the pit of her stomach – a feeling of dread that he was leading her towards places in her own soul and consciousness she wasn’t ready to go to yet. But she could see he had the taste for the hunt and his quarry was close. Like an out-of-control freight train, nothing could stop him now.

The pain had been almost as unbearable as the humiliation – his stinking, sweet breath panting in her ear, her body too racked with exhaustion and pain to resist after he’d stabbed her with the cattle prod again and again until she’d finally succumbed. At last her torture was over and he crawled from the cage, dragging her filthy mattress with him and all of her clothes except her underwear. She reached down and pulled her knickers up as best she could with one hand, sobbing a tearless cry – his voice behind her, out of breath and merciless.

‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, you little whore? Feel better now, don’t you? You fucking whore – you disgust me.’ He slammed the cage door shut and locked it with the padlock, gathering up the mattress and clothes. ‘I need to have a shower,’ he told her. ‘I need to wash your filth off my body. The smell of your cunt makes me feel sick.’ He headed for the stairs, stopping and looking back at her lying on the cold stone floor. ‘I thought you were different to the others,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I thought you were her, but you’re not. You lied to me – you tricked me. You’ll fucking pay for trying to make me look like a fool. You’ll all pay.’

With that he tugged the cord, turning off the electric bulb, and slowly climbed the stairs walking through the streams of sunlight that flooded into the cellar, his body cutting a silhouette into the light.

‘Don’t get too close,’ Sean warned Sally as they drove along Shire Lane towards the outcrop of buildings they could see one hundred metres ahead. ‘I don’t want to spook him. Pull over here.’ Sally let the car roll silently to a standstill at the side of the dirt road, the surrounding trees and hedges camouflaging them well enough. ‘We’ll walk from this point,’ he said, ‘follow the treeline and double back around on ourselves. That’ll bring us right on top of the place – we’ll be able to see anything moving.’

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Sally argued. ‘We should wait for assistance, or better still let someone else take him out. Once we know he’s secured we can search the place safely.’

‘No,’ he insisted. ‘I want some time alone with him first.’

‘You’ll have time with him when you interview him. You can ask him anything you want.’

‘What, when he’s surrounded by solicitors, appropriate adults and the Mental Health team? I can’t talk to him then – not properly. I need to be alone with him.’

‘I don’t under—’

‘I have to know why. Why he did it.’

‘You already know,’ Sally argued. ‘You know more about why he’s doing it than he probably knows himself.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Sean was adamant. ‘I can get close, but I can’t think like him. Not all the way. I need to know how he thinks.’

‘But what does it matt—’

‘For Christ’s sake, Sally, don’t you understand? It matters for the next time and the time after that and the time after that. I need to know what makes them feel alive – what they’ll do to feel alive – to feel something.’

‘What makes
them
feel alive?’ she queried. ‘
Them,
Sean?’

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he snapped, opening his door and trying to escape. Strong fingers around his forearm stopped him.

‘I’m scared, Sean,’ she admitted. ‘You think I’m ready for this, but I’m not. I’m scared of how I’ll react if we find him – if we find Deborah Thomson. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. And I’m scared for you, Sean. I’m scared what you might do.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘When Donnelly found you with Lawlor, on the railway bank, he told me Lawlor said you were trying to kill him.’

Sean froze, icy fingers stretching into his mind and wrapping themselves around hundreds of dark memories he tried so hard to conceal from himself as much as anyone else. He said nothing, eyes unblinking and staring into Sally’s.

‘Well, Sean, is it true? Were you?’

He managed to shake his head and even fake a slight smile. ‘Someone’s talking shit,’ he lied. ‘Canteen chatter, that’s all.’

‘Are you sure about that? Because, if there’s more to it, then maybe you should think about taking a break from … from
this
– the madmen and the carnage, the sadness they leave behind that only we and families of their victims see. If something happened out there, maybe you should step away.’

‘Look,’ he tried to reassure her, ‘Lawlor is scum. He pissed me off and I wanted to scare the shit out of him – that’s all, I promise.’ She watched him for a while, reading him as she had a thousand suspects before – judging him. ‘Come on, Sally,’ he said. ‘I need you to do this with me. All we’re going to do is follow the treeline until we can see the buildings better – then we watch and wait. No more, I promise.’

In the end she agreed, even though she knew he would never be able to just watch and wait, not with his prey
so close. She released his forearm and they climbed from the car together, easing the doors shut. Sally followed Sean, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief at what she was doing and where she was. When Sean found a natural break in the trees they headed deeper into the woods that surrounded the ramshackle collection of ugly buildings until they came to a low wooden fence that formed a perimeter. Like the buildings below it had been neglected and was rotting in several places. The panels would be easy to pry away from the holding frames. On the other side there was another line of trees, but smaller and younger than those in the woods behind them. Beyond was a grassy bank leading to the buildings, which were arranged in a circular valley. Sean prised one of the panels away and peered down. He saw nothing moving, but his view was partially restricted. He looked through the gap to his right and saw a better position to spy from.

‘We need to keep moving,’ he told Sally. ‘About fifty metres further round there’s a better place. We can watch from there – anything moves, we’ll see it.’

‘OK,’ Sally whispered. ‘Lead the way.’

He nodded once and headed off. The sharp fallen branches breaking under his feet and the whip-like limbs of the saplings reaching out for his face made him think of the madman’s victims being marched barefoot into the woods in the middle of the night, their feet cut to ribbons, their soft skin scratched and slashed at. And always the faceless, hooded man walking behind them, protected from the elements and the fury of the woods by his shapeless clothing. Soon the madman would have a face and Sean would be staring straight into it. He felt a surge of excitement and adrenalin surge through his body. It was all he could do not to smash through the wooden fence, charge down the grassy hill and flush out Thomas Keller – the hunter becoming the hunted as he finally cornered him and
then
…

He reached a place he guessed would be near enough the vantage point and began to ease another panel from the frame, the rusty nails pulling free from the damp wood easily. He propped the panel against the fence and looked through, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as he realized he’d stopped at almost exactly the place he’d intended to, the buildings below being no more than forty metres away and washed in spring sunshine. He could see pretty much everything.

‘Take a look,’ he whispered, moving aside to let Sally peer through. She took a quick glance then handed the vigil back to him. ‘This is our man,’ he added, never taking his eyes off his quarry. ‘This place is perfect for him – the woods, the isolation. He keeps them here too – close at hand for when he needs …’ Just in time he remembered Sally was standing next to him … ‘to go to them. He doesn’t want to keep them miles away, having to get into his car and drive to see them – he covets his collection too much. He needs to be able to see them instantly, as soon as he wants to.’

‘His collection?’ Sally queried.

He was about to answer until a movement caught his eyes, a change in the shadows of an open door leading into a small brick building.

‘Someone’s moving,’ he whispered. As he looked on, the shadow in the doorway stepped into the light and turned into a man. ‘He’s carrying something …’

‘What?’ Sally managed to ask, her heart pounding, wanting to be anywhere but there.

‘… a mattress and … and clothes – some sort of clothing. Here,’ he said, his excitement matching her anxiety.

Sally took a peep. ‘Looks like an outside toilet to me.’

Sean peered back through the gap in time to see the man place the items on the ground and lock the door with a padlock before recovering the clothing and mattress and heading off across the forecourt towards a dilapidated bungalow he guessed was his living quarters. ‘That’s no outside toilet,’ he said. ‘You don’t padlock an outside toilet. And the mattress and the clothes – it must be the entrance to an old bomb shelter or cellar.’ He filled his lungs and pushed himself away from the fence. ‘He keeps them in there,’ he told himself as much as Sally. ‘Deborah Thomson’s down there.’

‘Are you sure it’s him?’ Sally asked. ‘Thomas Keller?’

Sean pulled up the image in his mind: the employee photograph of Thomas Keller that Leonard Trewsbury had shown him little more than an hour ago. ‘Hard to tell – he’s older now and we’re too far away. But yes, I think it’s him.’

‘Fine,’ said Sally. ‘Let’s call in back-up and take him down.’ Her head was beginning to pound as the sickness in her stomach started to spread to the rest of her body. She wanted to run – run back to the car and drive away, keep driving and leave the madmen to it.

‘OK …’ Sean appeared to relent, but immediately went on to confirm her worst fears: ‘You sort out the back-up and wait here until it arrives. I’m going to fetch the car and drive up to the front of his house. Keep watch and cover my back. If the shit hits the fan, stay put and wait for back-up. Call for urgent assistance if you have to – but only if you have to.’

‘This is a really bad idea,’ she warned him.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve got my ASP and CS spray. If he tries to get the jump on me, I’ll give him a full canister in the face.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘You know why,’ he answered. ‘Because I have to. I have to fill in the blanks.’

Sally nodded. She didn’t like it, but she understood. He was the animal that he was and no one could change him.

‘Here—’ he handed her a standard-issue radio. ‘Take this. You’ll need it more than I will.’

She slowly took it from him as if it was some precious parting gift, handing him the keys to the car in exchange. He began to walk away.

‘Wait,’ she stopped him. ‘How will I know you’re OK?’

‘I told you, I’ll be fine. I’m going to keep him talking until the troops arrive. As soon as they do, just come charging in.’

‘But what if this isn’t where he’s keeping Deborah Thomson?’

‘It is,’ he insisted. ‘Trust me.’

Determined not to give her another chance to stop him, he strode into the woods, moving quickly and quietly, becoming more accustomed to his rural surroundings, more comfortable amongst the trees – just like the man he hunted. He reached the car and climbed in, fumbling with the keys as his hands shook with anticipation of what was soon to come. Finally he got the car started and headed slowly towards the farm and Thomas Keller, swallowing drily, his mouth parched and sticky. He pulled the CS spray from its leather holster on his belt and slid it into his right-hand coat pocket where it would be easier to reach in a desperate moment. The car passed through the tumble-down gates and rolled to a gentle halt in front of the breezeblock bungalow.

Sean took a moment to compose himself before getting out of the car. The realization that he’d reached the end of the deadly game brought a sudden peace and calmness to him. It was over – almost. Gently closing the car door behind him, he spent a few seconds looking around, vivid images of Karen Green and Louise Russell being marched from the cellar before being driven away to their deaths played in his mind, but nevertheless he remained icy calm. Images of Thomas Keller heading towards the cellar armed with his cattle prod and alfentanil, intent on the rape and murder of innocent women, followed, but still Sean remained calm. When he was ready, he walked purposefully to what appeared to be the front door, his warrant card already in the palm of his left hand while his right rested on the CS canister in his coat pocket. There was no doorbell, just a thin door with a plain sheet of glass covering the top quarter. He tapped gently on the window and called into the house. ‘Hello. Is anyone home? It’s the police.’ He stood back from the door and watched through the glass, listening for sounds of life, imagining the jolt of panic his voice must have delivered to the man he knew was lurking somewhere inside. Imagining Keller breaking out in a cold sweat of terror, he savoured his own moment of cruelty before stepping forward and tapping on the glass again. ‘Hello. Police.’ This time he stayed close to the door, pretending to be looking away, in case he was being watched, using his peripheral vision to look through the window. He saw a shape dart across a doorway inside, on the other side of what looked to be the kitchen. ‘Come on, you son-of-a-bitch,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Open the fucking door and let me see your face.’