The Toy Taker

by Delaney, Luke

  ‘What if I say no?’ Sean suddenly asked. ‘What if I say I don’t want to do it?’ Images of his wife, Kate, flashed in his mind, smiling and clutching her chest with relief as he told her he’d quit the Murder Team.

  ‘And what else would you do?’ Featherstone answered. ‘Go back to division and rubber-stamp search warrants, oversee endless dodgy rape allegations? Come on, Sean – it would kill you.’

  ‘Flying Squad? Anti-Terrorist?’

  ‘They’re plum jobs, Sean. You know the score: everyone leaving a central or area posting has to go back and serve time on division before getting another off-division posting. And like I said – just in case you weren’t listening – Addis is not a man to piss off.’ Kate’s smiling face faded to nothing. ‘Besides, this is where you belong. I’m not blowing smoke up your arse, but seriously, Sean, you’re the best I’ve got at doing this – the best I’ve ever seen, always one step ahead of everyone else, sometimes two steps, three steps. I don’t know how you do what you do, but I know you can use it to catch some very bad people, and maybe save a few lives along the way.’ Sean said nothing. ‘What’s done is done. Now get yourself and your team over to NSY and set up shop. Your new home awaits you.’

  The discussion over, Featherstone stood and walked backwards towards the door. ‘We’re done here. I’ll drop in and see you in a couple of days, see how the move’s going. Who knows, you might have a special case by then. Just what your troops need to take their minds off being moved – and you too. Good luck, and remember, when you make it to the Yard be careful: Addis has eyes and ears everywhere. Loose lips sink ships.’

  With that he turned on his heels and was gone, leaving Sean alone, staring at the space he’d left. A special case, Sean thought to himself. Such a neat, sterile way to describe what he had seen and would see again: women and men mutilated and abused before death finally claimed them. What would be next?

  Celia Bridgeman checked her watch as she searched through the under-the-stairs cupboard for her training shoes and realized it was almost eight fifteen a.m. She needed to be at the gym by nine a.m. At thirty-five it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain her sleek figure, no matter how little she ate; the hairdressers by ten thirty a.m and then she had a lunch date with some of the mums from school at twelve thirty p.m; grilled chicken salads, no dressing, all round. At least the nanny was here to get the kids fed and dressed and off to school, even if her soon-to-be-sacked cleaner was late again. She found her trainers just as she heard footsteps above her rattling down the stairs, at which she pulled her head from the cupboard in time to see her six-year-old daughter jump the last three stairs into the hallway. She flicked her perfectly dyed blonde hair from her face and spoke to her through straight, shining white teeth. ‘Sophia, have you seen George yet?’

  ‘No,’ Sophia replied, sounding more like a teenager than a six-year-old. ‘He’s probably playing with his toys in his bedroom – as usual.’

  ‘Yeah, well he’s going to be late for school.’

  ‘Nursery, mum,’ Sophia corrected her. ‘George goes to nursery, not school. Remember?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, Sophia and go and tell Caroline what you want for breakfast.’ Sophia tossed her head to one side to show her dissatisfaction and headed for the kitchen, her mother’s genes already shaping her face and body for a life at the top table. Celia pursed her lips and shook her head as she watched daddy’s little princess swagger towards a health-conscious breakfast before looking at the flights of stairs above her and calling to the heavens. ‘George. Stop playing with your toys and come and get breakfast.’ She waited for an answer, but none came. ‘George.’ Again she waited. Nothing. Caroline, the nanny, had arrived while she was still in the shower. Perhaps she’d already fed and dressed George? She looked at her watch again, the increasing concern she was going to be late for the gym urging her to speak to Caroline and save herself a trip up two flights of stairs. She followed Sophia’s route to the kitchen and found the nanny slicing apples and bananas for her daughter’s breakfast. ‘You should have some toast or something as well,’ she reprimanded her.

  ‘I don’t want to get fat,’ Sophia answered. Celia almost argued with her but remembered why she was there.

  ‘Caroline. Have you seen George yet this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Mrs Bridgeman,’ she answered. ‘Not yet. I thought maybe he’d already had his breakfast.’

  ‘He’s hardly going to get it himself,’ Sophia unhelpfully added.

  ‘Don’t be rude, Sophia,’ Celia silenced her.

  ‘Maybe he’s not feeling very well,’ Caroline suggested. ‘D’you want me to go and check on him?’

  ‘No,’ Celia snapped, a sudden unexplained feeling of anxiety creeping through her like a grass fire. George had been late before – many times – quietly playing in his bedroom with his toys, unwilling to join the family rituals that his young mind knew would be being played out two floors below, but this felt different somehow. ‘I’ll go,’ she said.

  Her daughter and the nanny exchanged bemused looks as she turned her back on them and walked quickly to the stairs, climbing them two at a time, her slim body and athletic legs making her progress rapid, but the closer she got the slower she seemed to move, until she was only feet away from his bedroom door, the silence from within drowned out by the relentless beating of her heart, all thoughts of the gym and lunch gone from her head.

  As she eased the door open she could see the curtains were still drawn and the blue night-lamp was still on – not unusual for George, but it meant no one else had been in to see him that morning. ‘George?’ she softly called into the room as the door opened wider, as if she didn’t want to startle him if he was still sleeping, especially if he was unwell – another fever perhaps. ‘George?’ She moved into the room, the sickness in her stomach growing as she approached his bed, the thick duvet and plump pillows making it difficult to tell whether he was there or not, but as she closed the distance the realization dawned on her that the bed was empty, making her sprint the last few steps to where her son should have been. Pointlessly, desperately, she patted the bedclothes, pulling the duvet back and tossing it on the floor, even looking under the pillows, feeling increasingly dizzy. Quickly she pulled the heavy blackout curtains open, almost pulling them from their rail, flooding the room with bright orange light, the late autumn sun still low in the sky, barely clearing the adjacent houses.

  She stood in the centre of the room, her eyes desperately searching for signs of life – a slight movement or a giggle coming from a hiding place. For a second she laughed at herself, realizing she must be in a game, a game to find a hiding boy. She dropped to her knees and peered under the bed, about to say the boy’s name when she’d discovered him, but the words never came out and her smile was vanquished as she stared into the empty space, the panic returning – stronger now.

  ‘Where the hell are you, George?’ she asked the emptiness, pushing herself back to her feet and pacing the room, opening the wardrobe and searching places that in her heart she knew he couldn’t be: his drawers and toy boxes, even under the mattress, until she had to admit he couldn’t be in the room. For a moment she felt her throat swell and close, as if she was about to start crying, before she convinced herself it was only a matter of time before she found him.

  She walked quickly from room to room, searching every wardrobe and cupboard, behind every curtain and under every table, checking every window was still locked from the inside, constantly calling the boy’s name – threatening and encouraging him to reveal himself. But something in her soul told her the rooms were empty: the way the silence felt so still and lifeless. In the middle of her desperate search she suddenly stopped for a second, the memory of how the very atmosphere of a space would change when the boy was in it and the sudden fear she would never feel it again making her so nauseous and light-headed that she had to lean against the wall and try and control her breathing, swallowing gulps of air until the
floor she was looking down at came back into focus. As quickly as she dared, Celia walked downstairs, her outstretched hand sliding along the wall for support until she reached the kitchen, her softly tanned skin pale now and her lips a little blue. The nanny saw her first. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Bridgeman?’

  Celia spoke without answering the question, her eyes growing ever wilder with thoughts and fears she’d never once in her life imagined having. ‘Have you seen Mr Bridgeman this morning?’

  ‘No,’ the nanny answered, confusion spreading across her face. ‘I thought he was away on business last night?’

  ‘He was,’ Sophia answered for her mother.

  ‘Be quiet, Sophia,’ Celia snapped. ‘Are you sure he didn’t come back very early this morning? Maybe he …?’ Celia suddenly didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say.

  ‘He wasn’t here when I arrived,’ the nanny told her, ‘and his car wasn’t here either. Is something wrong?’

  ‘The front door,’ Celia asked, ‘was it locked when you arrived?’

  ‘Yes,’ the nanny answered.

  ‘All the locks?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Bridgeman. Is there something wrong?’ the nanny asked again.

  Celia’s voice almost failed her as she tried to speak, the words weak and wavering. ‘I can’t find George,’ she finally managed to tell them. ‘He’s gone. Someone’s taken him.’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ the nanny told her, her smile hiding her own rising fears. ‘He must be hiding somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ she answered, her voice growing ever weaker as she slumped to her knees on the floor. ‘He’s gone. He’s been taken. I can feel it.’

  The nanny came to her side and bent over her, trying to encourage her to stand. ‘Let’s look again – together. I know we’ll find him.’

  ‘No,’ Celia almost shouted, summoning the last of her strength, the tears rolling freely down her face now. ‘Listen to me – he’s gone. He’s been taken. We’ve wasted enough time. I need to phone the police.’

  ‘I’ll phone Mr Bridgeman,’ the nanny offered.

  ‘No,’ Celia spat, grabbing the phone. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Sean looked from his office into the main office outside and decided that enough of the team had gathered for the meeting to begin. He exhaled, took a deep breath and walked the few steps next door, suddenly aware of the relentless noise; the laughter and loud chatter mixing with the seemingly constant ringing of land and mobile phones. He caught Donnelly’s eye, but his other stalwart detective sergeant, Sally Jones, seemed to be holding a girls-only meeting with the other female detectives in the far corner next to the coffee- and tea-making facilities: a limescale-clogged old kettle and a fridge that smelled like something had died in it.

  Donnelly knew his job. ‘All right, all right,’ he boomed across the office in his Glaswegian-tinged-with-London accent. ‘This office meeting is officially open, so park your bums and listen up.’ He seemed to make eye contact with everyone in the room while he waited for total silence, not speaking again until he had it, turning to Sean. ‘Guv’nor – all yours.’

  But before Sean could start, a dissenting voice spoke up.

  ‘Guv’nor,’ DC Alan Jesson asked in his Liverpudlian accent, ‘when we gonna get a new case? I’m fucking skint. I need the overtime just to make ends meet here, you know.’ The murmur of approval from the others told Sean they were all feeling pretty much the same way.

  ‘Something will be coming our way soon enough,’ Sean tried to assure them.

  ‘How d’you know?’ Sally asked. ‘How can you be sure it’ll be sooner rather than later?’

  ‘Because the sea we fish in just got a whole lot bigger,’ Sean answered in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sally replied. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We’re no longer a south-east London Murder Investigation Team, we’re a London-wide Murder Investigation Team.’ He watched the silent, blank faces trying to understand what he’d just told them.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Donnelly finally broke the stunned silence. ‘We’re a what?’

  ‘We’ve just gone London-wide,’ Sean explained. ‘Express orders of Assistant Commissioner Addis. Featherstone told me earlier this morning – the Commissioner’s agreed to it, so that’s that. As of now, anything a bit special comes our way. Potential serial offenders, child murders by strangers, sexually motivated murders – all the good stuff’s going to land on our desk. It won’t be easy, but it will be interesting. Anybody not up for it needs to have the applications for a transfer on my desk by this time tomorrow. I’m sure HR can find you all suitable posts on division. You could even stay here at Peckham.’

  ‘Stay?’ Donnelly said. ‘Then by inference if we decide to stay part of this team we’ll be moving?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sean told him, beginning to enjoy the game.

  ‘D’you mind telling us where to?’

  ‘The Yard.’

  Donnelly closed his eyes and groaned as he leaned back in his chair so much he risked over-balancing. ‘Jesus. Not the fucking Yard. How am I supposed to get there from Swanley every day? And there’s nowhere to park.’

  ‘They’ve reserved us a few spaces in the underground car park.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Donnelly said sarcastically.

  ‘Sounds great to me,’ Sally chipped in with a mischievous grin, keen to kick Donnelly while he was down.

  ‘Aye,’ Donnelly continued. ‘It’s all right for you, living in Putney. Putney to Victoria every day – lovely.

  ‘Sorry, Dave,’ Sally told him, her grin turning into a fully fledged smile.

  ‘I’m all right, Jack, eh?’

  ‘All right,’ Sean broke it up, ‘enough of the table tennis. Let’s make this official – if you don’t want to come with me, put your hand up.’ He scanned the room, but saw no raised hands. ‘I promise you there’ll be no hard feelings. Many of you have wives, husbands, kids, so if the nature of the work or the travelling’s too much I’ll understand.’ Still no raised hands. ‘Dave?’

  ‘Aye, fuck-it – why not? But there’d better be plenty overtime.’

  ‘More than you could possibly spend.’

  ‘Aye, there better be.’

  ‘Right,’ Sean snapped to attention, ‘we’re moving today.’ The groans almost drowned him out. ‘So let’s get everything packed up and over to the Yard – Room 714, seventh floor in the North Tower. Take everything that’s not screwed down and even stuff that is, if it’s of any use. Take the computers, chairs, phones – everything we’ll need to be up and running straight away.’

  ‘Pickfords not moving us then, boss?’ Jesson asked.

  ‘Where d’you think you are, Alan – the City Police? This is the good old Met – remember? Pile everything into anything with four wheels that’s been left in the yard with keys in and let’s get out of this toilet.’ He still felt eyes upon him. ‘Well come on, then. What you waiting for?’

  As the detectives burst into action, Sean slipped quietly into his office, summoning Donnelly and Sally with a nod of his head. Within a few seconds they were all gathered together.

  ‘Problem?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ he told her as Donnelly caught up with them.

  ‘Not yet what?’ he asked.

  ‘A problem,’ Sally filled him in.

  ‘There’s a first!’ Donnelly replied.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Sean continued, ‘I’ve got a feeling we won’t have to wait too much longer before something comes our way, and when it does it’s clearly not going to be anything straightforward and not something we’ll be able to quietly get on with. The Yard’s full of senior officers with not enough to do who’ll be more than keen to stick their noses where they’re not wanted – and that means our business.’

  ‘So?’ Sally asked.

  ‘So we need to be ready for anything,’ Sean warned them. ‘Which is why I need you two to keep a fire burning under everyone’s arses until
we’re up and running at the Yard. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ Sally answered.

  ‘Whatever,’ Donnelly agreed unhappily.

  ‘I’m going to pack up some essentials and head over there ASAP – check out the lay of the land before anyone else gets there.’

  ‘Looking for anything in particular?’ Donnelly asked suspiciously.

  ‘No,’ Sean answered, too quickly. ‘But let’s just say I’d rather we used the phones we’re taking with us than the ones that will have been left for us.’

  ‘That’s a bit paranoid isn’t it, guv’nor?’ Sally asked.

  ‘It’s the Yard,’ Sean reminded her. ‘Being a little paranoid can go a long way to keeping you out of the brown sticky stuff.’

  ‘I’ve always avoided the place,’ Donnelly added. ‘Things can get very … political there very quickly. That’s why I always stuck with the Flying Squad – squirrelled away in Tower Bridge, out of sight, out of mind – beautiful.’

  ‘However,’ Sean interrupted Donnelly’s reminiscing, ‘the Yard it is, so just be mindful and be ready,’ he warned them. ‘I’ve got a feeling something really nasty’s heading our way, and heading our way very, very soon.’

  2

  Sean staggered along the seventh-floor corridor carrying a brown cardboard box that was heavy enough to make him sweat. The heating at the Yard was turned up high to please the ageing computers housed within. He checked the doors as he passed them – store rooms, empty rooms; occasionally a room with no sign, just a number and a few wary-looking people inside, silently raising their heads from their desks as he passed, disturbing their expectations of another day without change. He didn’t bother to introduce himself but just kept walking down the unpleasantly narrow corridor that was no different to all the other corridors at New Scotland Yard, with the same polystyrene ceiling tiles and walls no thicker than plasterboard, all painted a shade of light brown that blended into the worn, slightly darker brown carpet. ‘At least the floors don’t squeak,’ he whispered to himself, remembering the awful rubber floors back at Peckham as he arrived at Room 714 and its closed door.