The Keeper (34 page)

‘I’m not mad, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Of course you’re not. It’s just … you’ve been down here for days. You’ve been through so much. The things that bastard did to the other—’

‘Karen. Her name was Karen.’

‘Sorry, the things he did to Karen. The things you saw him do. It must be difficult to keep it all together. I don’t think I could have.’

‘If it doesn’t work out,’ Louise told her coldly, ‘you’ll find out. But now, now you need to put the clothes on, or he’ll know something’s wrong.’

Deborah didn’t answer, but she leaned forward and tentatively took hold of the pile of clothes he’d stripped from Louise, the very act of touching them making her feel complicit in his abuse of her fellow captive. She pulled them towards her and slowly, reluctantly, she began to dress.

Sean’s universe was a room, inhabited only by himself, an out-dated computer system and the forty-three crime reports of people who rightly or wrongly believed they’d been stalked. At that moment nothing else existed: no family, no friends, no past, no future, just the reports and him. Most he’d been able to dispel quickly enough: ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends intent on giving their old partners as hard a time as possible, many had form for other types of petty crime and were not what he was looking for, not the one he was waiting for – not the one he expected to jump from the screen and solve the puzzle for him in one moment of perfect realization. Others, but only a few, had drawn him in further, made his heart skip a beat and his eyes narrow: men who had started with flattery, then flowers, moving quickly to over-familiar love letters, too many unannounced visits to the women’s homes and places of work, devoted affection turning to vile threats and desperate pleas for love and acceptance once the inevitable rejection of their advances occurred. The majority of these had been easily scared off by a visit from the police, although a handful had gone on to stalk new victims, victims who looked nothing like Karen Green or Louise Russell.

Sean read through the last of the reports, but soon realized it was petering out to nothing, just like all the others. The man he was looking for wasn’t here. ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered under his breath. He was sure Karen Green’s killer would have pursued the woman he was now trying to replace with substitutes. But the reports said otherwise. He stared at the screen, waiting for answers and ideas, considering the possibility that the killer might have recently moved to South London from further afield, but he doubted it. He was sure the killer was local, staying in his comfort zone. So what was he missing?

‘Christ,’ he muttered, rubbing his hair in frustration, tapping his knuckles on the desk, feeling as if he already knew the answer, that it was inside him somewhere, but he just couldn’t dig it out. He slumped in his chair and spread his arms, talking to himself, theorizing where he might be going wrong. ‘Maybe she never reported it? Maybe she didn’t even know he existed, that he was watching her, always thinking about her.’

The ringing of his phone slowly pulled him back into the wider world. He wearily picked up the receiver. ‘DI Corrigan.’

‘Hi, I’m Rebecca Owen, calling from the lab.’

‘Go on.’

‘You submitted samples of moisturizer and perfume, some from a house and some from a murder victim’s body?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘The samples from the body swabs don’t match any of the cosmetic items taken from the house. They’re not the same.’

So Karen Green wasn’t the woman he sought replacements for, she was herself a replacement.

‘Do you know what the samples from the body are?’ Sean asked.

‘Yes. They’re significantly more exotic and expensive than anything submitted from the house, although still not unique or handcrafted, so you won’t be able to narrow them down to a single retail source.’

‘I understand, but can you tell me the brands?’

‘Of course. The moisturizer is Elemis body cream and the perfume is Black Orchid by Tom Ford.’

‘How long have these products been available?’

‘The cream’s been around for a good few years, but the perfume’s only been on the market for a couple.’

Sean looked back at his computer. The last of the stalker reports still flickered on the screen. His search had gone back three years, yet the perfume only two, so his timelines were right.

‘You sure the perfume’s only been out for two years?’ he asked.

‘Certain,’ came the reply. ‘We’ll dispatch the report to you straight away.’

He hung up, his mind already analysing the information from the lab, the names of the cosmetics etching themselves into his consciousness. He eased his eyes closed, allowing the images of the hooded man without a face to form behind the lids, going to the woman he’d taken, gently spraying the expensive perfume into the air close to her neck, the microscopic droplets drifting until they came to rest on the soft, taut skin of her throat. He saw the faceless man unscrewing the lid from the jar of Elemis body cream, thin fingers carefully scooping the moisturizer from within, spreading it over warm, olive skin, gently at first, then more firmly as the cream soaked in, his fingers and thumbs forming dimples and valleys as his hands moved across her body. Sean felt an awakening in his own sexuality and tried to remember the last time he’d made love to his wife, but couldn’t. His eyes opened as he chastised himself for allowing a physical want to break his concentration. Once the sexual desires had faded away he closed his eyes again and waited for the scene to return; he didn’t have to wait long, the woman with short brown hair lying on her back submitting to his touch as he massaged the Elemis into her body.

His eyes snapped open as he spoke to himself. ‘No. That’s wrong.’ He steadied his breathing and readied himself to try again, his eyes slowly closing, the image of the faceless man returning, but now not touching the woman, not using his own hands to apply the cream or holding the bottle of perfume close enough to spray her himself. This time he left the cosmetics for them to apply it to themselves. ‘Yes,’ he said to himself, ‘that’s what you did.’ A knock at his open door made him jump.

‘Not disturbing anything, am I?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes, but that’s never bothered anyone round here.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘Only if you want to.’

She took it as an invitation and stepped into his office, taking a seat. ‘Working on anything specific?’

‘Just trying to get inside this one’s head.’

‘Yes. I’ve been told that’s what you do.’

‘Oh? Someone been speaking out of school?’

She moved the conversation on without answering. ‘Is that how you’re able to catch them, by thinking like them?’

He shrugged, suspicious. ‘I suppose so. I don’t really know.’

‘How do you do it? How do you project your imagination so you see what they see?’

‘Who says I do?’

‘No one,’ she lied. ‘It’s something I’ve noticed from my own observations.’

‘You’re not going to start telling me I’m psychic, are you, because I can work a few things out other people can’t?’

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve seen a lot of weird things and interviewed a lot of interesting people with
unusual
gifts, but I’ve never come across anything that could be described as psychic, or even anything to support the possibility of it. I have however come across people with abilities similar to yours – able to turn their imagination into a tool they can control, almost as if they can just press a play button in their minds and see a scene exactly as it happened, despite not having witnessed it themselves. You often find it in talented filmmakers or writers.’

‘Well, let me tell you something, Anna. A lot of shit’s been said about my imagination – and most of it’s wrong.’

‘Who else has been asking about your imagination?’

He ignored her question, but wouldn’t forget she’d asked it. ‘Why are you really here?’ he demanded.

‘To help.’

‘And what is it you think you can help me with?’

‘Well, what is it you’re working on at this moment?’

He looked her up and down, uncertain whether he should let her into his world. But the opportunity to show her he was right and she was wrong was powerfully seductive. ‘OK, I’ve just heard back from the lab – the cosmetics found on Karen Green’s body don’t match any of the cosmetics we took from her house.’

‘Meaning he’s using them to make her more like the person he wants her to be,’ she pre-empted him.

‘Yes. That part’s straightforward enough. The point is, he didn’t apply the cosmetics to her body himself, although he would desperately have wanted to. So the question is why? Why deny himself that moment, a pleasure like that?’

It was her turn to shrug her shoulders.

‘Because he’s afraid of them,’ Sean continued. ‘To put the cream and perfume on them himself, he’d have to get close to them. He’d have to expose himself to possible danger, be close enough to have his eyes scratched out, to get a kick in the bollocks, even if they were tied up. Remember, he uses chloroform to dominate them. He’s not confident in his physical ability. But in that case, why doesn’t he use chloroform? Put them under and take his time, massaging the cream into their skin, watching the perfume make their skin shine. Why didn’t he just use the chloroform again?’

Anna shook her head. ‘You’re talking as if all this is fact, but it’s conjecture. For all you know, maybe he did use chloroform. Or maybe they were bound. At this stage—’

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘You’re missing the point. The question is why didn’t he just use chloroform?’

‘Why is it so important for you to understand his reason for
not
doing something?’

‘Because I need to understand him. Everything about him. What he does isn’t enough. I need to know why.’

‘OK, then why didn’t he use the chloroform?’

Sean pressed his knuckles into his temples and pressed until he could almost feel bone grinding against bone. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, pressing harder and harder, the same question banging in his mind over and over again, making him forget he was not alone. Then suddenly the answer jumped into his head – an answer so simple he couldn’t believe he’d almost missed it.

‘He couldn’t use the chloroform because that would ruin everything. If he’d used it, he wouldn’t have been able to smell the cream, the perfume. The chloroform would have overpowered all other scents – and he couldn’t bear that. It’s not enough for them to look like her, they have to smell like her, taste like her. My God, it must have been heaven for him, watching her spreading the cream across her skin, the scent of her mixing with the perfume – and all the time he’s standing there, watching her, smelling her.’ The smile suddenly fell from his lips. ‘But how does he do that, if he’s afraid to be too close to them unless they’re drugged?’

Anna watched him without speaking, not wanting to break the spell he was under, analysing him as he worked, unwilling and unable to enter the world he’d retreated to. She resisted the temptation to make notes of what she saw, instead trying to memorize everything he did.

‘How did he watch them? He had to watch them. How did he get close enough to smell that sweet perfume?’ He stared into space, temporarily bewildered by his own question. ‘He can’t keep them locked in a cellar, because when he’s in there with them he’d be at risk, Our guy needs to stay in control, which means he must have them in chains or tied up. But then how would they apply the cream to themselves? When he first takes them, he adores them, he worships them. He wouldn’t want them in chains or bondage, so how does he manage them? How does he get close enough to have their scent make him feel alive, properly alive, wanted and accepted?’ He felt like slapping his own face, as if the pain would draw the answer. ‘Does the cellar have a window, so he can safely watch them, through it? In the door maybe? No. That wouldn’t be enough for him, because he’s more than just visually driven. Looking’s not going to do it for him, he needs it all – smell, touch … Does he speak to them as well? Of course he does. But how does he do all these things and stay safe?’ He put his hands together, the fingers touching his lips as if he was praying. ‘So he needs a barrier between them and him, but it can’t be solid, can’t be something that … that isolates them from him, so if it’s not a damn window or a wall then it has to be …’

His hands slowly fell from his mouth as he remembered the case of the estate agent from Birmingham, abducted and held captive inside a wooden cage inside a garage. A prison within a prison … ‘A cage! He keeps them in a cage, the cruel son-of-a-bitch. A cage inside a cellar or bunker somewhere. Any time he wants to feel alive he can just walk into that room and stroll around their cage in complete safety, watching them, inhaling their scent and dreaming about the day he’ll be with them. But when his illusions fall apart and he needs to punish them, to force himself on them, he has to go into the cage. He can’t use chloroform, not straight away, because he’d have to get too close, so what does he do?’

He thought back to the post-mortem, trying to recall the marks he’d seen on Karen Green’s sad, broken body, the multitude of superficial injuries, too many bruises to count. And then there were those strange little circular bruises, each with what looked like a burn mark at the centre. He chewed his bottom lip while Anna looked on, fascinated, aware that he had forgotten she was there and that he was now talking solely to himself, unpicking lock after lock, each answer leading to another question, his combination of logic and imagination leading him through the maze.

Sean’s middle finger rhythmically tapped on the desk, subconsciously keeping pace with his own heartbeat, waiting for the answer. ‘He used something to suppress them, something that meant he could keep his distance and still control them, something that left those marks.’ His finger continued to tap away on the desk, every implement of wounding, death and torture he’d ever seen moving through his mind on an imaginary conveyer-belt. ‘I need to know what made those marks.’

Anna broke his trance. ‘What marks?’

Sean turned to her, looking at her as if he was seeing a figure from a dream, something he didn’t believe was really there at all. He snatched the phone off his desk before she could say anything else and called Dr Canning’s office number. He got the answer machine.