The Keeper (38 page)

Deborah burst into the light, temporarily blinded by the bright sunshine, unable to see the sharp stones beneath her bare feet that cut through her thin skin. She staggered forward, her broken knee suddenly collapsing, her outstretched hands breaking the fall. As her vision returned she searched the door for a lock, but found only a flapping latch, the padlock that locked it missing, still down there, in the darkness with him, the darkness where she had abandoned Louise Russell to her fate. She slammed the door shut anyway and tried to run across the littered courtyard, unfamiliar objects making her trip and stumble. A jagged lump of concrete protruding from the ground caught the foot of her injured leg, sending a jolt of pain up through her bones and into the knee, dropping her to the floor. Barely able to see for tears, she searched the ground for a makeshift weapon or a crutch. Finding neither, she looked back to the cellar door. Despite all the pain and effort, she’d travelled less than twenty feet. Her scream shattered the quiet of the spring morning as the door burst open and her captor fell into the light, the syringe still obscenely protruding from his neck as he shook his head violently from side to side, trying to dispel the effects of the anaesthetic.

Squinting against the effects of the alfentanil and the sunlight, Keller steadied himself, his eyes drawn by the sudden movement of Deborah scrambling to her feet. He lunged towards her, swaying from side to side as he used the oil drums to steady himself, his prey little more than a hazy figure that seemed to his confused mind to be moving in slow motion, as if they were both trapped in a nightmare where they were running through treacle or glue.

But the gap between them was shrinking. Deborah’s injured knee couldn’t support her weight, so she hobbled, dragging it after her, on feet that were cut and bleeding from the stones and broken glass that littered the yard. Her eyes were frantically scanning the area for help, but there was no road with passing traffic, no neighbouring houses, just an ugly cottage that she instinctively knew was his home. She decided her only hope was to carry on along the uneven dirt road and hope that it would lead her away from this hell, but he was gaining on her, his unsteady footsteps louder. Still she kept moving, tears streaming from her eyes, until finally she sensed he was right behind her, fingers like tendrils reaching out to grab her.

Filling her lungs, Deborah readied herself for one desperate scream, but the searing pain that ripped into the base of her spine stole the last of her resistance and sent her crashing to the stony ground, the electricity from the stun-gun reverberating through every sinew of her body.

Hands clutched at her clothes and pulled her over on to her back. Her unblinking eyes fixed on the face hovering above her, contorted in a grimace of agony as he tugged at the syringe, the skin of his neck stretching until at last the metal spike came free. He threw it as far as he could, the momentum of his swinging arm throwing him off balance as the alfentanil continued to impede his motor-skills. He screamed a primeval yell into the bright, clear sky and dropped to his knees next to her, resting his head on her chest, his hand gently stroking her hair as he sobbed. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Sam,’ he whispered. ‘You shouldn’t listen to their lies. I’m the only one who really loves you. I’m the only one who really knows you. This is your home.’

The convulsions of the body underneath him gradually slowed, her arms and legs beginning to bend and move slightly as they came back to life, but her muscles were exhausted. She tried to push him off her, but her weak limbs made it seem more like an embrace. He lifted his head from her chest and moved towards her face. He wiped her tears and mucus away with his thumbs and began to kiss her face softly, each kiss lingering on her skin as if it would be the last kiss he ever gave, the salt of her sweat and tears making his bloodied lips sting and effervesce exquisitely, a sensation he’d never experienced before, except with her, except with Sam, so long ago he’d almost forgotten.

Pushing himself away, he slipped a hand under her and draped her arm over his shoulder, hauling her to her feet, but he had to bear most of her weight along with his own, dragging her back towards the cellar, her injured leg trailing behind them as they walked like two injured soldiers, one helping the other. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘before anyone sees you. Hold on to me. I won’t let you go. I promise I’ll never let you go.’ She wanted to push him away, to knock him to the floor and cave his skull in with the nearest brick or rock, but she couldn’t; her body was too weak from her injuries and the after-effects of the brutal electric shock, her adrenalin spent.

As they moved closer to the cellar door Deborah felt her numb body gradually coming back to life. Though still weak and slow to respond, her muscles were beginning to heed the commands of her mind. And while she was growing stronger, he was weakening, drained by the effort of dragging her. But if her recovery continued at its current pace she was afraid it would be too late to save her; she could picture the cage door slamming shut just as she felt strong enough to overpower him. As the doorway loomed in front of them, her jaw unfroze enough for her to mumble, ‘No,’ her free hand stretching out, fingers grasping and holding the door frame, jolting them both to a halt once the slack in her arm had been fully extended. ‘No,’ she repeated, her words becoming clearer. ‘Not down there, please.’ He pulled at her arm, but she wouldn’t let go, fear lending her strength.

Realizing he was running out of time and strength, but reluctant to use the stun-gun on her again and leave himself with a dead weight to carry down the stairs, Keller lashed out in blind panic, sinking his teeth into the fingers that were clutching the door frame. He bit hard and deep into her knuckles, the serrated ends of his sharp teeth gnawing at her skin and bones, the coppery taste of warm blood seeping across his tongue. The primal brutality of his actions seemed to fire life and strength into Keller. The louder she screamed, the harder he bit, his teeth struggling to find purchase on the slippery bones of her fingers, his throat pulsing as he swallowed the blood welling in his mouth.

Unable to hold on any longer, Deborah released her grip on the door frame, sending them both plunging through the doorway and down the first few stairs, their limbs tangled together like two erotic dancers, neither making a sound, neither calling out in pain as their bodies jarred and bounced off the hard steps that battered and bruised them as they fell. When they finally came to a stop, he was lying on top of her, his face millimetres from hers, their breath mixing together to make one sickly-sweet scent. For a second their eyes met, each as terrified as the other, an understanding between them that they were engaged in a fight for their lives.

Her blows came in a torrent, her legs and knees trapped under his, bucking and kicking as hard as they could, her weakly clenched fists pummelling the top and sides of his head, intermittently turning into scratching talons searching for his eyes. His skin burned with the searing pain of broken, jagged nails tearing at the soft flesh of his face. He squealed and screeched in pain, peering through the thin slits of his eyes, trying to catch her flailing arms by the wrists.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, not his beloved Sam, but she was clearly still full of their poison and her attempted escape and her renewed violence towards him had all but pushed his compassion away. It retreated into the depths of his soul, replaced by the anger that had always simmered so close to the surface. His fury gave him a new-found strength, his squeals turning into a roar as he gripped the hair on top of her head and dragged her mercilessly down the stairs, backwards and head first, her backbone and ribs crunching into the edge of each step until at last the ground beneath her flattened out. Tightening his grip on her hair, he hauled her across the cellar floor, her good leg desperately trying to find purchase, to resist their progress. Her struggling jerked his shoulder, the pain increasing his anger. He pulled his foot back as far as he could without overbalancing and kicked her in the spine halfway down her back, the agony making her entire body arch. Inch by inch he dragged her closer to the cage that she’d escaped from only minutes earlier.

Words spluttered from her mouth, minute flecks of her blood and spit leaving a treasure trove of forensic evidence on his skin, clothes and hair, evidence that might one day bury her executioner, but meaningless to her now. ‘Please, you fucking animal, let me go, please. I won’t tell anyone, please. I’ll kill you, let me go or I swear I’ll kill you. Let me fucking go.’

Breaking his own rules of self-preservation, he backed into the cage first. Too tired to pull her in one fluid motion, he tried to do it bit by bit, yanking her by the hair, as if he was shifting an old trunk that was too heavy for him, ignoring the sounds of her scalp beginning to tear away from her skull. As he pulled her across the threshold of the wire cell and collapsed into a sitting position, her hands suddenly flew out and gripped the sides of the cage’s entrance, her eyes clenched tight shut against the agonizing pain in her scalp.

‘I won’t go in there! I won’t!’ she screamed, her pitch so high her words were barely intelligible, her knuckles turning white she gripped the frame. ‘No. No,’ she cried as he jerked at her hair, the intense pain only strengthening her grip on the frame of the cage’s door, fear of sinking into the abyss driving her determination to survive.

His strength was beginning to fail when he remembered that the stun-gun was still in his tracksuit pocket. Making sure that she was halfway inside the prison, he untangled his fingers from her hair and felt himself immediately being pulled towards the entrance, the woman’s strength surpassing his own now, inching them both back through the cage door. His hand thrust into his pocket and quickly found the small plastic box, euphoria and panic breaking over him in equal waves. There was no need to consider his next act. He knew this was his only chance. He pulled the stun-gun from his pocket and stabbed it into the side of her neck, pressing the dual control switches to fire the current into her body, forcing it against her skin far longer than he needed to subdue her as he watched her straight, stiff body convulse and writhe. Finally he stopped the flow of electricity and pulled the stun-gun away, thrusting it back in his pocket, no time to waste, letting go of her hair and grabbing her by the clothing around her shoulders. With one last effort he heaved her into the cage.

He slumped against the wire and wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve, smiling and quietly laughing to himself. As he studied the woman lying in front of him, the laughter turned to sobs. Blinking away heavy tears, he reached out to touch her convulsing body. Gently stroking her hair, he murmured ‘Look what they made you do.’ Then, as the stinging pain in his face reminded him of his own injuries: ‘Look what they made you do to me – trying to turn us against each other, just like they did before. Just like they’ll always try and do, Sam. But I won’t let them take you. I’ll never let them take you.’ She mumbled a reply, but he couldn’t understand the obscenities she tried to spit at him. ‘Rest,’ he told her. ‘You should rest now.’

He crawled from the cage and locked it behind him, pulling himself upright, heaving in lungfuls of air to feed his exhausted muscles before staggering to the stairs and beginning his ascent to the daylight, each step a mountain, until finally the cool spring air revived him sufficiently that he was able to snap the padlock into place and walk slowly, carefully across the courtyard.

Submerged in a tide of sorrow and loss, he couldn’t hold back the tears. When he made it to his ugly little cottage, he fell to his knees and crawled across the floor to the cabinet. He took out the shotgun and thrust the barrels between his teeth, resting his thumb across the double triggers, teeth clanking against the metal as he tried to control the terrible sound coming from deep within him. He bit down hard on the barrels and tried to force his thumb to press the triggers, but it refused to move. He screamed into the room, his words turned to an incoherent babble by the cold metal tubes obscuring the movement of his tongue, the meaning clear only inside his mind: ‘
Please. I can’t do this any more. I want to end this
,’
he pleaded with himself.
‘Just fucking do it, you fucking coward!
’

But he couldn’t, not yet. As much as he thought he wanted to take his own life, deep inside his tortured soul he wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t end it until they had suffered more, until they knew he had the power to shatter their lives, to make them pay for all the years he’d had to survive alone in the jungle of children’s homes and vast, anonymous London state schools, preyed upon by the strong, ostracized by the other children who treated him like a leper.

His thumb eased off the triggers as he slowly slid the barrels from his mouth, their ends wet and shiny from his saliva and tears. He uncocked the gun’s hammers with the barrels still pointing towards his face and threw it across the vinyl floor where it slid to rest under his kitchen table. He buried his face in his hands and keeled over on to his side, lying on the floor sobbing like an infant, overwhelmed by emotions he could neither understand nor control. In the midst of this self-loathing he drew a hand away from his face and down his shivering body, fingers working their way under his waistband and inside his underwear, his shrivelled member slowly swelling as his hand gripped it and began to stroke up and down, faster and faster, images of the women from the cages flashing in his mind, their lips, skin, breasts and pubic triangles – their scent. His snivelling turning to moans of pleasure as their images mixed with other scenes playing in his head, pictures inspired by his favourite song: the story of one boy’s bloody revenge.

Sean sat in his office poring over information reports gathered from roadblocks, open-ground searches and every other aspect of the investigation. Anna sat to his side having insisted on reading each piece of paper his eyes passed over, her presence tolerated only because she worked quickly and quietly, never interrupting him and thus derailing a train of thought. Instead it was the phone ringing loudly on his desk that made him jump and scramble back to the real world. Annoyed at the disturbance, he snatched it up and barked his name into the receiver. ‘Sean Corrigan. What is it?’ The voice on the other end didn’t seem to have taken offence.