The Keeper

She picked up the plastic mug and looked at it suspiciously, trying to detect any scent that didn’t belong in an innocent drink of water. Finally she sipped it, a sense of relief soon overtaken by the clean, cold taste of fresh water. Suddenly aware how thirsty she was, she gulped it down quickly.

‘Good, eh?’ he said. ‘Don’t drink too much too quickly though, it might make you feel sick.’

Louise stopped drinking and began to dab some of the water around her lips and face, pausing as she remembered the woman locked in the other cage. Was she strong enough to speak to him yet? She decided she needed to try, do something to establish a relationship. She’d seen a programme about a kidnapped woman who’d built a bond with her captor that ultimately saved her life when he could no longer bring himself to kill her as he’d planned. ‘What about her?’ she managed to ask, barely recognizing her own weak, scratchy voice.

‘Who?’ he asked, his smile twitching now, blinking on and off.

Louise looked towards the other animal cage then back to him. ‘Her. Karen. She said her name was Karen.’

He stared coldly into Louise’s face, his smile nothing more than a memory now. ‘You mustn’t talk to her. She’s a liar and a whore. She made me think she was you, but she isn’t.’

Louise watched his face contorting with hatred, his lips pulled back over his teeth like a hyena laughing, the veins in his neck swollen and blue with anger. Sensing that she had put Karen in real and immediate danger, she hurried to undo her mistake. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘She hasn’t said anything, I promise. I made her tell me her name. It wasn’t her fault. Please, there’s too much water here for me. You can give her the rest of this. Please.’

Her desperate attempts to calm his anger towards the woman cowering and whimpering in her cage on the other side of the room seemed to go unheard. He was stalking across the floor, his eyes fixed on Karen.

‘The whore gets nothing!’ he shouted, his voice echoing hollowly in the brick tomb. ‘The whore gets nothing, except what all whores really want.’

Louise covered her ears with her hands, instinctively curling herself into a tight ball pressed against the wire mesh, watching in horror as he drew closer to the only person in the world who shared her nightmare.

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ she forced herself to call out, somehow certain his anger would not be turned on her. ‘Leave her alone, please. She’s done nothing wrong.’ Tears slid down her cheeks, salty through dehydration. Strands of dry, sticky saliva stretched across her mouth like a spider’s web as she silently pleaded with him to stop.

He fumbled in his trouser pocket, trying to remove an object that was bulkier than the keys he had produced earlier. Whatever it was caught on the fabric of his pocket and he tugged violently to free it, his eyes never leaving Karen Green’s cage. ‘I’ll give you what you fucking want, whore.’

Louise tried to close her eyes, tried to look away as Karen desperately pushed herself into the wire at the back of her cage, trying to find a way to escape the approaching madness. She could see what he was holding now. It was the strange box he’d touched her with when she’d first opened the door to him – the thing that had left her paralysed and helpless.

Almost dropping the key in his fury and excitement, he struggled to unlock Karen’s cage, his words slurred and incoherent. Finally he opened the hatch and leaned into the cage. Karen’s scream pierced through the hands that covered Louise’s ears and penetrated into every millimetre of her body.

Karen was pressed hard against the wire, the skin on her face patterned with the squares of the wire cage, blood running down her chin from the split lip that opened raw and painful as she tried to push her body through the tiny holes, all the time imploring him to stop in her faint, defeated voice. ‘Stop. Please stop.’ But he didn’t. Instead he kept getting closer to her, inch by inch. Moving cautiously, as if she was a wild animal that might turn on him, he stabbed out at her with the stun-gun. He repeated the action several times, missing his target and then backing away, extending her misery and dread, until finally he struck her at the base of her spine.

For a split second Karen’s body went rigid and as hard as mahogany, then she collapsed in a jerking, convulsing wreck. Still he maintained his distance, watching her agony with a slight smile spreading across his lips until her convulsions began to subside. Then he moved in, rolling her on to her back and pulling her legs straight. Louise again tried to look away, but couldn’t, any more than she could have looked away from a crystal ball showing her own future. She watched as he tugged and wrenched at his tracksuit pants, exposing his white buttocks, then his long fingers reached for Karen, pulling her filthy knickers down to her knees and shuffling forward as he lay on top of her. Louise heard him moan as he entered Karen, his buttocks moving rhythmically, slowly at first then quickly, brutally, guttural animalistic noises filling the room. Karen, who had stopped convulsing, was lying under him motionless, sobbing, her eyes wide and staring at Louise, accusing her.

Less than a minute later, screams of joy and pleasure signified his climax. His cries faded away to silence. No one spoke and no one moved for what felt like hours, then he tugged at his trousers until they covered his buttocks and still swollen genitals. He backed out of the cage without a word, replacing the lock and bolt, coughing to clear his throat before speaking. He was calm now, but appeared embarrassed, his eyes avoiding Louise’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that, but that’s what she does. She tricks me. She makes me do it. She knows I don’t want to. She knows I don’t like being with her. She makes me feel dirty. I won’t let her trick me again. Not now you’re here, Sam. I promise,’ he told her. ‘I have to leave you for a while. I’ll come back later for the tray. Try to eat something.’

He turned off the light and moved to the staircase, head bowed as if ashamed. She listened to the slow, soft footsteps as they climbed the unseen staircase and then the clank of metal as the unseen door was unlocked. Again there was a flood of daylight that stung her already sore, red eyes. Then gloom once more as the door gently closed.

Louise peered through the gloom towards the figure lying motionless on the concrete floor of her cage making no attempt to cover herself with the little clothing she had. She whispered into the darkness: ‘Karen. Karen. Are you all right? Please, Karen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

But there was no reply. Instead Karen curled into a tight ball, hugging herself, and began to sing a barely audible song. Louise struggled to make out the words. When she did, she realized it wasn’t a song Karen was singing, it was a nursery rhyme.

Sally and Sean pulled up outside 22 Oakfield Road, the home of Louise and John Russell, early on Wednesday evening. Sally saw an ugly but practical modern townhouse. Sean saw much more – a concealed front door providing privacy from neighbours and passers-by, state-of-the-art double-glazed windows that were virtually impossible to break in through, a street full of near-identical houses inhabited by neighbours who never spoke to one another, a street where only men who lingered too long and youths clad in hooded tracksuits would draw attention.

‘Why’s this place not been preserved for forensics?’ he demanded.

‘No one’s saying anything happened here,’ Sally told him, defending someone else’s decision as if it were her own. ‘This is just the last place anyone saw her.’

‘“Anyone” meaning her husband?’

‘Apparently.’ Only day one of the investigation and Sally already sounded weary.

They abandoned their car at the side of the road and walked the short distance to the driveway of the house. Sean stopped and looked around, silently surveying every inch of the house and street, looking up as well as at eye level. Only cops looked up as they walked. Many of the surrounding houses had lights on although it wasn’t fully dark – people still used to the habits of winter. Sean searched the windows without thinking, his eyes waiting to be attracted to something they hadn’t yet seen. Across the street a curtain twitched as his eyes passed – a neighbour who’d been spying on them guiltily trying to disguise their curiosity. Good, Sean thought, nosy neighbours were often the best witnesses. Sometimes they were the only witnesses. He made a mental note to shake up the neighbour’s world as soon as he’d finished with Russell.

He turned towards the house and saw Sally was already waiting for him at the front door. Impatience was not a trait he’d associated with Sally until Gibran almost ripped the life from her. He reasoned that, like most people who’d sailed too close to death, she could no longer bear to waste a second of life. He strode to the front door faster than he wanted to and reached for the bell before hesitating and using his fist to pound on the door instead.

‘That doorbell must have been pressed a hundred times since she was taken,’ Sally told him. ‘If indeed she was taken. Any forensic use it might have had is long gone.’

‘Good practice is good practice,’ was all he said.

A silhouette inside the house moved quickly to the door and opened it without caution. A tall slim white man in his early thirties stood in front of them. He looked tired and despondent. Everything about him reeked of desperation, not least the way he rushed to the door. He looked disappointed to see them. Sean knew he’d been hoping it was his wife, coming home to beg forgiveness for her infidelity, forgiveness he was all too willing to offer. ‘Yes?’ he said, his voice no less strained than his body and face.

‘John Russell?’ Sally asked.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed.

‘Police,’ Sally informed him bluntly. ‘We’re here about your wife.’

Sean saw the blood drain from Russell’s face and knew what he was thinking. ‘It’s all right,’ he tried to explain. ‘She’s still missing.’ He watched Russell start to breathe again and held his warrant card at eye level so that even through his panic Russell could see it clearly. ‘Detective Inspector Corrigan and this is Detective Sergeant Jones.’ Sally’s face remained blank. ‘May we come in?’

Locked in his moment of private torment, Russell took a few seconds to react and step aside. ‘Sorry. Of course. Please, please come in.’ He closed the door behind them and led the way to a comfortable kitchen-diner.

Sean glanced at the bric-a-brac of the couple’s lives: photographs of holidays together, more elaborately framed photographs of their wedding taking the prime spots on side tables and hallway walls. They looked happy living their unextraordinary lives, content with their lot, blissfully ignorant of the things he saw every day. He guessed they were planning to have children soon.

‘Would either of you like a drink?’ Russell offered.

‘No thanks. We’re fine.’ Sean spoke for both of them. ‘We just wanted to ask you a few questions about your wife, Louise.’

‘OK,’ Russell agreed. Sean could tell he was nervous, but not in a way that suggested guilt.

‘When did you last see her?’ Sean asked.

‘Tuesday morning. I left for work at about eight thirty and she was still here, but when I got home she wasn’t.’

‘And that was unusual?’

‘She nearly always got home before me. I work longer hours.’

‘Did she say she was going out after work? Maybe you didn’t hear her when she told you. Maybe you were distracted. We all live busy lives, Mr Russell,’ Sean suggested. ‘My wife reckons I only hear about a third of what she actually says.’

‘No,’ Russell insisted. ‘We don’t live like that. If she’d been going somewhere or if she was going to be late she would have made sure I knew and I would have remembered. This is all a waste of time anyway. She didn’t go out for a night out with her friends and she hasn’t run off with another man. If you knew her, you wouldn’t think that, you’d be looking for her.’

‘We are looking for her,’ Sean reassured him. ‘That’s why we’re here and that’s why I have to ask some difficult questions.’ Russell didn’t respond. ‘Even the people closest to us sometimes have secrets. If we can find out any secrets Louise had then maybe we can find her.’

‘Louise didn’t have secrets from me,’ Russell insisted.

‘What about you from her?’ Sally asked clumsily. It was a question that needed to be put, but not now. Not yet.

Sean swallowed his frustration with Sally. ‘Maybe something that seemed innocent to you, but that you didn’t want her to know, something that might have upset her enough to make her want to be alone for a few days?’

‘Such as?’ Russell asked.

‘Anything,’ Sean answered. ‘An old girlfriend contacting you or a large bill you’ve been hiding from her because you didn’t want her to worry about it. Maybe she thought it was a breach of trust.’

‘No,’ Russell slammed the door of possibility shut. ‘There are no old girlfriends, no money worries. We’re careful.’

Sean took a few seconds to consider before making his final judgement. Russell had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance and couldn’t help Sean find her. There would be no secret lover and she wasn’t going to return in a couple of days telling anyone who would listen that she’d needed a little time alone. Something terrible had happened to her, something beyond her husband’s imagination, beyond almost everyone’s imagination. But not Sean’s.

Despite the warmth of the central heating Sean felt the hairs on his arms and neck begin to tingle and rise. He found himself looking back towards the front door. He saw the faceless silhouette of a man coming through the door, knocking Louise Russell to the ground, somehow overpowering her and taking her, dragging her from her own home, the place she felt safest.

He didn’t know how many seconds he’d been absent for when Sally’s voice dragged him back.

‘Guv’nor?’

‘What?’ he replied like a man caught daydreaming.

‘Anything else we need to know?’

‘Yes …’ Sean turned to Russell. ‘You said her car was missing too?’

‘That’s right,’ Russell answered. ‘That was when I realized something was wrong, when I saw her car wasn’t on the drive. I just had a bad feeling. Then I came inside and found her handbag and phone, but she wasn’t here. I’ve already given your colleagues a description of her car and registration number.’ Sean glanced at Sally, who confirmed with a quick nod of her head. ‘Is there anything else you need?’ Russell asked tiredly.

‘No,’ Sean told him. It was obvious the guy had had enough of giving the same answers to the same questions. ‘You’ve been really helpful, thanks.’ Russell said nothing. ‘If I could just ask you to try and avoid the hallway by the front door as much as possible until I can get our forensics people to have a look at it.’ Russell looked at him accusingly. ‘I like to be sure,’ Sean reassured him. ‘Check every possibility.’

‘If you think it’s necessary,’ Russell agreed.

‘Thank you,’ Sean said. ‘And one last thing, before I forget. Who is her best friend? Who would she confide in?’

‘Me,’ Russell told them. ‘She would confide in me.’

Sean and Sally heard the door close softly behind them as they walked down the Russells’ driveway without looking back. Sally spoke quietly: ‘Well?’

‘He’s got nothing to do with it and he can’t help us find her any more than he already has. We both know she hasn’t run away, not without her bag and phone.’

‘We’re not all addicted to handbags,’ Sally reprimanded him, holding out her arms to indicate the absence of a bag.

‘Phone?’ Sean asked, indicating the mobile clutched in Sally’s guilty hand.

‘OK,’ Sally conceded. ‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Sean answered. ‘He either did her in the hallway by the front door and took her body away in her own car, or he took her alive.’

‘He?’ Sally challenged. ‘You sound like you already know him.’ Sean merely shrugged in reply. ‘So what next?’ she continued.

‘I need you to get hold of Roddis. Have him examine the house properly, concentrating on the hallway, front door, etc. The scene, if it is one, has been well and truly trampled, but you never know your luck. And make sure her car details are circulated if they haven’t been already, then get them marked for forensic preservation – that won’t have been done yet, you can put your mortgage on it.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ Sally assured him while following his eyeline across the street to the house he was staring at. ‘Something I should know?’

‘A twitching curtain,’ Sean told her. ‘When we first pulled up, someone was watching us. The question is, why?’ He started walking towards the house, offering no explanation. Sally followed.

Sean used the doorbell this time and waited impatiently – he already knew someone was at home. There was no glass in the front door, just a spyhole. Clearly the occupier preferred security to natural light. Sean noticed the pristine Neighbourhood Watch sticker attached to the inside of the front-room window. He went to press the doorbell again, but delayed when he felt a presence on the other side of the wooden barrier. They listened as at least two good, heavy deadbolts were withdrawn. Not many people used security like that when they were at home and awake.

The door fell back into the warm house revealing an elderly man in his late sixties or early seventies. He was still quite tall, about Sean’s height, and he held his back straight military-style, although Sean doubted he’d ever actually been a soldier. He wore smart grey trousers and a brown cardigan over a blue shirt that contrasted with the reddening skin pulled over his bony, angular face. His hair was grey and wavy, but still had traces of the blond that had only recently deserted him. He knew who they were but asked them anyway: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

Sean had already formed a dislike to him. Sally had no opinion; to her he was one more face, one more witness to be spoken to, assessed and categorized before she could escape to the solitude of her own home, away from prying eyes and stupid questions about how she was coping.

Holding up his warrant card for the wannabe soldier, Sean announced: ‘DI Corrigan and this is my colleague DS Jones. We’re making some local inquiries about a missing person. Mind if we ask you a couple of questions?’

‘Do I know this missing person?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sean answered. ‘Do you? Louise Russell, she lives across the road, number twenty-two?’ Sean didn’t let him answer. ‘Do you mind if we come inside? This inquiry’s at a sensitive stage, you understand.’

The man stepped aside reluctantly. ‘Fine, but this won’t take too long, will it?’

‘No.’ Sean passed by him into the neat and orderly house, immediately looking around, his eyes studying every detail. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ Sean prompted as Sally entered the hallway, making a little too much of checking her watch.

‘Levy,’ the man answered. ‘Douglas Levy.’ Sean’s eyes turned from scanning the house to surveying the occupier, dissecting him layer by layer. Was this the man responsible for Louise Russell’s disappearance? Had he watched her every day from behind his twitching curtain, fantasized about her, about having her, taking her, doing things to her that no woman would ever let him do to them? Had he masturbated while thinking about her, did he take himself in hand while he watched her from the window, ejaculating embarrassingly into his own hand, too overcome by his excitement to fetch tissues from the bathroom before he started? And then, after months, maybe even years, had he decided he needed more? Maybe just to touch her once, maybe a kiss, an innocent kiss on the cheek, something to add spice to his fantasies and masturbating. Had he gone too far, touched her in the wrong place, tried to kiss her too hard until she started to scream and fight, and he panicked, hit her, hit her hard and all the time the excitement rising in his groin, the material of his underpants tightening uncomfortably around his swelling penis and then she was unconscious and he was inside her, grunting and rutting like a pig until all too quickly it was over and then he had to kill her, he didn’t want to, but he had to, to stop her telling everyone what he had done, his hands closing around her throat, her eyes bulging, the whites turning red as a thousand unseen capillaries ruptured. Sean found himself studying Levy’s hands for scratch marks. There were none, but Sean knew he was at least partly right about him.

‘Do you live alone, Mr Levy?’ Sean asked.

‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything,’ Levy responded, indignant.

‘No,’ Sean agreed, his question unwittingly answered. ‘I see you’re a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch.’

‘Actually, Inspector, I’m the coordinator of the Neighbourhood Watch. You can check with the local police if you don’t believe me.’

‘Why wouldn’t I believe you?’ said Sean, enjoying the discomfort creeping over Levy’s features.

Sally looked on, disinterested and excluded, already convinced Levy was a waste of time as a witness or a suspect.

‘As coordinator of the Neighbourhood Watch, you no doubt keep an eye on things, look out for strangers in the street, keep a watch on your neighbours’ houses when they’re at work and you’re at home alone … I’m sorry,’ Sean finished with an insincere smile, ‘I’ve made an assumption you’re retired.’

‘I am,’ Levy told him, straightening his back as if he was proud of his retired status, although Sean could tell it was killing him, knowing that he’d passed his usefulness sell-by-date.

‘And did you?’ Sean asked.

‘Did I what?’ Levy was struggling to keep up with the conversation, his pink face growing redder with anger and frustration.

‘See anything or anyone in the street the last few days that made you suspicious?’

‘I don’t spend all my time looking out of the window,’ Levy protested.

‘But when you hear something, like a car coming or going, you do,’ Sean suggested.

Levy grew more flustered. ‘Sometimes … maybe … I don’t know, not really.’

‘But you heard us arrive earlier and you watched us through the window. So you like to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the street, yes?’

‘What’s the point of all of this?’ Levy snapped. ‘I know nothing about the woman across the street’s disappearance. I didn’t hear anything and I didn’t see anything.’

Sean studied him in silence for as long as he felt Levy could stand. ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Just one more thing. Did anyone ever arrive at the Russells’ house after Mr Russell had left for work but before Mrs Russell set off?’

‘Not that I noticed.’ Levy answered with his eyes closed as if he could somehow block Sean out of his consciousness.

‘Did they ever argue or fight that you know of?’ Sean continued.

‘No,’ Levy insisted. ‘They’re a decent, quiet couple who keep themselves to themselves. Now please, I’m very busy and I think I’ve helped you as much as I can so—’

‘Of course,’ Sean agreed. Levy opened the door a little too quickly and moved aside, waiting for them to leave. ‘Thanks for your time.’

They walked past him and into the growing darkness. The street was quiet with the onset of night and their words would travel too far if they spoke outside, so they waited until they were back in the car. Sally spoke first.

‘Do you mind telling me what that was all about?’ she asked. ‘Given that I doubt even you are seriously considering Levy as a suspect.’

‘Why not? Lives alone, bored out of his skull, nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. The devil finds work for idle hands. He watches her, fantasizes about her until finally he can’t resist it any more so he waits for the husband to go to work and decides to pay Mrs Russell a little visit. But he goes too far and before he knows it he’s a killer. It’s nothing we haven’t seen.’

‘Christ!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘Even if he did fantasize about her – which I doubt – he would never have the balls to try and do something about it. If there’s one thing that terrifies the likes of Levy it’s change. He would never risk upsetting his pointless life.’