‘Dave,’ Sean turned to Donnelly, ‘take Paulo and whoever else you need and get started on the door-to-door, but keep it local and as quiet as you can – we don’t want to start a parental panic across North London.’ Donnelly didn’t reply; resigned to his fate, he simply reached for his jacket and indicated for Paulo to do the same. ‘Alan, find out which Forensic Support Team cover Hampstead for Major Inquiries and get them to examine the house.’ DC Alan Jesson, tall and slim, nodded as he scribbled notes. ‘Maggie, I need you to go Family Liaison on this one.’
‘Not again, guv’nor,’ DC Maggie O’Neil pleaded in her Birmingham accent.
‘Sorry, but I need someone with experience to keep an eye on the family and report anything out of the ordinary.’
Donnelly’s ears pricked up. ‘Are the family suspects?’
‘Too early to say yes – too early to say no,’ Sean answered, ‘but if it turns out they aren’t involved then someone came to their house, got in and took the boy all without breaking a single door or window. And what’s more, they locked up behind themselves.’
‘Then they must have had keys,’ Goodwin deduced.
‘Possibly.’ Sean frowned, picturing the front door and its four locks. ‘But if they didn’t, then they must have somehow come through the locked door and secured it behind them when they left.’
‘Why not a window?’ DC Fiona Cahill asked.
‘Because I checked the windows,’ Sean answered. ‘There’s no way they can be shut properly and locked from the outside, leaving only the front door as a possibility.’
‘What about the back door – if there is one?’ Cahill continued, undaunted.
‘There is,’ Sean explained, ‘but it was secured with old-fashioned bolts, top and bottom. You can’t do those up from outside.’
The office felt silent as the detectives pondered the puzzle.
‘So what does this mean?’ Donnelly finally asked. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘We discount nothing yet,’ Sean warned them, ‘but if he was taken by a stranger then it’s safe to assume he could have been taken by a known sex offender or someone who’s gravitating towards it.’
‘Then why not just snatch a child off the street?’ O’Neil asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Sean admitted. ‘Perhaps because they thought it was too dangerous.’
‘More dangerous than breaking into someone’s house in the middle of the night?’ Zukov queried, disbelief evident in his voice.
‘We’re just exploring possibilities here,’ Sean reminded them, ‘but if someone did go through the front door then it’s possible they picked the locks.’
‘Picked the locks?’ Donnelly asked disbelievingly. ‘Criminals smart enough to pick locks are about as rare as hen’s teeth.’
‘And that’s exactly what I’m banking on,’ Sean told him. ‘That’s our advantage. Sally, have the surrounding stations search their intelligence records for anyone with previous for using lock-picking to commit residential burglaries. If by some miracle you get more than a few, look for those who also have previous for sexual assault – ideally on children, but any type of sexual assault makes them a suspect. If you get no joy then check the local Sex Offenders Registers and see if anything takes your fancy.’
‘No problem,’ Sally assured him.
‘OK, good,’ Sean told his assembled team. ‘Now you all know what you need to be getting on with, so let’s get this show on the road. Dave—’
‘Aye, guv’nor?’
‘Get HOLMES up and running ASAP – make it a priority. We’re gonna have a lot of names and information coming our way soon. Without the database we can’t cross-reference a damn thing, and that’s when we’ll miss things – important things.’
‘It will be done,’ Donnelly promised.
‘As soon as anyone has anything, let me know – I’ll be in my office for the next few hours making the usual endless phone calls and God knows what else, so dust off the cobwebs, people, and let’s get on with it. Remember, a four-year-old boy is apparently missing and if we don’t find him – no one will.’
3
George Bridgeman sat on the bed in the room where he’d woken up cuddling his teddy – a floppy grey and pink elephant he called Ellie that had been his constant companion since the day he was born. He looked around the strange room the man had brought him to in the middle of the night, his wonderment at the myriad of toys that surrounded him only matched by his fear at being seemingly alone in an unfamiliar house. On the opposite side of the room he could see another child’s bed, but the covers remained unruffled and pristine, the stuffed toys untouched.
George dropped his bare feet carefully over the side of the bed, fearful of what might be hiding underneath, and padded towards the empty bed, still clad in the pyjamas his mother had dressed him in only the night before. As he drew closer to the tempting toys, he was distracted by sounds coming from somewhere deeper in the house – voices, a man and a woman talking – deep, muffled voices he couldn’t understand. Instinctively he looked for a window, but the only source of natural light came from the two skylights high in the ceiling, impossible to reach even if he wanted to, and escape wasn’t yet on his mind. Why would he want to escape from the things the man had promised?
He moved towards the door to better hear the sounds coming from the other side: gentle music leaking through the wooden panels, mixing with the unfamiliar voices, making him swallow hard as his tiny hand reached for the door handle and began to turn it, first one way and then the other. But the door wouldn’t open – he was locked in. He pressed his ear to the door and listened harder, trying to focus on the voices. The sudden scream of a distant child made him recoil from the door, his eyes wide and pupils dilated with sudden, unexpected terror. The woman’s voice was raised now as the man’s faded to nothing, then silence for a few seconds before they started talking again, quieter than before, barely audible. The sound of what he believed was a door closing heavily made him run back to the bed and jump under the covers, waiting – waiting for the voices to start coming upstairs towards him, ready – ready to scream like he’d heard the other child scream, his frail little body beginning to shake. He pulled Ellie close to his chest and cuddled her tightly – tighter than he’d ever held anything in his short life.
Sean sat in his office alone, his ear warm and sore from having the phone pressed to it too long and too hard, his eyes aching from staring at his newly connected computer screen. One minute he’d be thinking about the missing boy, his house and family, and the next he’d be on the phone to the stores trying to beg, steal or borrow the basics for the office and his team: paper, pens, more chairs and the forms of all kinds they needed for daily policework and to run an investigation. A loud double knock at his open door made him jump and look up as a smiling Featherstone entered without being asked and sat heavily in the one spare chair in the office. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Sean replied. ‘The investigation or the move?’
‘The investigation,’ Featherstone clarified. ‘You found the missing kid yet?’
‘No,’ Sean told him.
‘Shame,’ Featherstone continued. ‘Would have made life a lot easier if you had.’
‘Why are you here, sir? You’re a long way from Shooters Hill.’
‘ACC wants an update,’ he admitted. ‘Wants to know how you’re getting on.’
‘We’ve only just started looking.’
‘I appreciate that, Sean, but you know what assistant commissioners can be like – updates, updates, updates.’
‘Then why didn’t he just come down here and ask me himself?’
‘Mr Addis likes a chain of command, when it suits him. A buffer-zone, if you know what I mean. It would appear I am that buffer-zone – so try not to drop me in it.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Sean assured him without conviction just as Sally hurried from her office and into Sean’s, her body language making him sit bolt upright in antic
ipation. ‘What you got?’
‘Mark McKenzie,’ Sally began without ceremony, ‘male, IC1, twenty-three years old, last known address in Kentish Town where he’s also a fully paid-up member of their Sex Offenders Register. He has previous for residential burglary, some of which he committed at night while the occupants were inside sleeping. And if that wasn’t enough, he also has previous for sexual assault on minors.’
Sean felt his heart rate suddenly increasing as a picture of McKenzie began to form in his mind – climbing the stairs to little George’s bedroom, moving silently past the room where his mother peacefully slept. ‘And …?’ he hurried Sally.
‘And,’ she continued, ‘he’s previously used lock-picking as a method of entry.’
‘Jesus,’ Sean said. ‘How far’s Kentish Town from Hampstead?’
‘Not my neck of the woods,’ Sally answered, ‘but I think it’s close.’
‘It is,’ Featherstone joined in. ‘No more than a couple of miles.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Sean said. ‘Does he come gift-wrapped as well?’
‘Think he’s your man?’ Featherstone asked.
‘He couldn’t fit the profile more if he tried,’ Sean answered.
‘If the boy has been taken,’ Sally warned them. ‘Taken by a stranger.’
‘You’re right,’ Sean admitted. ‘You’re right. We should keep an open mind, but he looks good – he looks really good. Has he been keeping his appointments to sign the Sex Offender Register?’
‘As far as I know,’ Sally answered.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s not your man,’ Featherstone cautioned.
‘No,’ Sean agreed, ‘it does not. No amount of reporting to police stations could stop him entering a house in the middle of the night.’
‘Then I can tell the Assistant Commissioner you’re close to getting your man?’
Sean had seen Featherstone acting impulsively and impatiently before, but never to this degree. Clearly something or someone had given him an added sense of urgency. ‘I wouldn’t tell the Assistant Commissioner anything just yet,’ he warned Featherstone. ‘If he asks, just give him the generic bullshit and tell him we’re following a few lines of inquiry.’
‘But this McKenzie character looks good and Addis has been explicit about wanting a quick result. He doesn’t strike me as being a good man to fuck with.’
‘I’ll do the best I can, but you need to keep him at arm’s length – even if it’s just for a few days.’
‘A few days – I don’t know about that. Twenty-four hours maybe, but a few days—’
‘Fine,’ Sean told him. ‘I’ll take it, but I’ll need surveillance on McKenzie up and running within a couple of hours. I want to know where he’s going, what he’s doing, who’s he seeing—’
‘Surveillance?’ Featherstone stopped him. ‘No chance.’
‘Why?’ Sean snapped. ‘I need this bastard followed.’
‘Sorry, Sean,’ Featherstone explained, ‘but there’ve been too many cases in the media lately of the police acting too slowly – following people around while the suspect remains at large and the victims remain missing, only to turn up dead a few days later in the places we should have just charged into and searched from the off. So let’s not fuck about here. If you have a viable suspect – and you do – let’s get in there and nick the bastard, spin his gaff and anywhere else he’s known to have been. Our priority is to get the boy back – alive, preferably.’
‘But if we can follow him for a while, I’ll know,’ Sean argued. ‘I’ll know for sure before we even make a move.’
‘There’s nothing to be gained from surveillance,’ Featherstone reiterated. ‘Act decisively – that’s the way forward here. Now, you get on with what you’ve got to do while I go and see the Assistant Commissioner and spin him along for a bit. Hopefully the next time I see him I’ll be able to give him the good news, yes?’
‘Maybe,’ Sean answered sullenly.
‘Fine. Until then—’ Featherstone was already springing out of his chair and striding from the office. No one spoke until he disappeared into the corridor.
‘What’s got him so rattled?’ Sally asked.
‘Eighteen months from retirement with Assistant Commissioner Addis all over his back – you’d be rattled too,’ Sean told her. ‘Now, get hold of Stan and Tony and let’s pay McKenzie a visit.’
A few drops of sweat formed on Mark McKenzie’s forehead as he searched his newly acquired, second-hand laptop for pornography that suited his particular taste. Hard-core child pornography was hard to find on the Internet unless you’d had a tip-off from a like-minded friend, but his well-practised fingers danced across the keyboard entering the words that experience had taught him were the quickest way to find what he was after. He wiped the sweat away with the back of his hand and considered turning the heating down in the small, squalid flat he rented above a fried chicken takeaway franchise. But once he found what he was looking for it would be better to be warm for what he had in mind. He felt the old familiar excitement beginning to spread through his body as his testicles coiled and swelled, constant licking making his thin lips appear red and full, as if stained by wine. He lit another cigarette and tried not to let thoughts of the police and what would happen to him if he was caught downloading child pornography spoil his magical moment as he drew ever nearer to his prize.
The very thought of the police, the entire criminal justice system, made him almost laugh out loud as he blew plumes of thick grey smoke at the computer’s screen. They thought themselves so clever, but so long as he kept signing their pathetic register on time and turning up for their pointless interviews they’d leave him alone – alone to do whatever he wanted. Thoughts of the police faded to nothing as he finally found what he was looking for and amateur pictures of young, naked bodies began to fill his screen. This one even had half-decent sound. He took one last, hurried drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out and loosening the belt around his grubby trousers.
Just as he was about to take hold of his penis, the flimsy door to his flat exploded inwards, sending splinters of wood flying almost the full length of the living room. He jumped off his chair in shock, taking temporary refuge under the flimsy table. As soon as he saw the people in raincoats and suits bursting through the hole where the door used to be, he knew they were police and not the local vigilantes – even before they started calling into the flat, ‘Police! Police! Stay where you are and stand still.’ In a millisecond he remembered the laptop sitting on the table above his head and the damning evidence it contained. The fear of it being discovered turned his legs to springs as he rolled from under the table, stood and reached for the computer – but before his fingers could touch a single key one of the bastard policemen had crossed the room and knocked him back to the floor with a two-handed push to the chest. By the time he recovered his breath and his senses, the cop was standing over him, holding a warrant card in his face.
‘DI Corrigan, you little prick. Consider yourself under arrest.’
McKenzie coughed violently before speaking, to the point where he almost vomited. ‘I haven’t done anything,’ he pleaded, almost out of habit.
‘Really,’ Sean snarled. ‘Then what the fuck is this?’ He grabbed McKenzie by the back of his head and pushed his face close to the screen.
‘I don’t know how that got there,’ McKenzie stammered, feigning amazement. ‘Swear to God.’
‘Don’t lie to me, you miserable little shit. You lie to me, it’ll only get worse for you.’
‘I’m telling the truth,’ McKenzie lied again. ‘It’s a second-hand computer – the download was already on it – I just found it when I was clearing its memory.’
‘Liar,’ Sean told him, his voice threatening as his hand slipped behind McKenzie’s neck and began to squeeze hard, the pain opening his mouth and making him whimper in pain. ‘You’re off to a bad start, McKenzie. Now it’s time to start telling the truth.’
The sweat on his brow
made the thin, brown hair of his long fringe stick to his forehead as his thin fingers tried to prise Sean’s iron grip from the back of his neck, his dirty, broken fingernails scratching and drawing lines of blood on the back of Sean’s hand. ‘I’m not saying anything until I speak to a solicitor,’ he managed to say between deep swallows. ‘I know my rights.’
‘Fuck your rights,’ Sean hissed. ‘The children you were convicted of assaulting – where were their rights when you were abusing them?’ He thrust McKenzie’s face closer to the laptop’s screen. ‘Where are their rights?’
‘Maybe you should take it a little easy, guv’nor?’ Keeping her voice low, Sally laid a hand on Sean’s arm. This was no game of good cop, bad cop – she’d seen Sean like this before and knew it could mean trouble – trouble for them all.
‘Anyone wants to leave, they can leave,’ Sean told Sally and the other two detectives. ‘Mark and I wouldn’t mind being left alone, would we, Mark? We could have a private chat – get a few things straightened out.’
Sally sighed inwardly, but said nothing.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ McKenzie sneered through his pain, the fear leaving him as his mind began to spin with the possibilities of his situation.
‘Wrong,’ Sean shouted in his ear. ‘Time to talk, McKenzie. Now, where’s the boy? Where are you keeping him?’
McKenzie shook his head, trying to assess the situation and play it to his own advantage – to turn the tables on the police at last, especially the one who held him by the neck as if he was nothing more than an unruly dog. He couldn’t stand any police, but this one was especially easy to hate. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he answered. A sickening smirk twisted across his face as he fed off Sean’s dark anger, sensing that he was the one in control, no matter how hard Sean squeezed his neck; no matter how much he might beat him or try to humiliate him. He held the power – for now.
‘The boy?’ Sean repeated. ‘You snatched him from his bedroom in Hampstead last night, but where is he now? What have you done with him? For your sake, Mark, I hope he’s all right.’
The Toy Taker Page 6