He wondered if Addis already knew a child’s body had been found. He tried to clear his head of all the irrelevant crap that weighed him down, cluttering his mind and strangling his instincts. He needed to make a breakthrough, the sort of breakthrough only he could make – a leap across the existing evidence, one single piece of unique insightfulness that would set off a chain reaction of realization and finally put Sean on to the scent of the child murderer.
At last he released his breath and began to examine the boy, his beautiful, peaceful innocence momentarily swamping him with deep sadness like only the death of a child could, violent or otherwise. He quickly built brick walls in his mind to stop thoughts of his own children invading and overwhelming him, allowing him to look beyond his grief and do his job, although he knew the sadness he’d suppressed would return sometime in the future – when he was alone late in his office, or perhaps when he tiptoed into his daughters’ room to kiss them on the forehead.
He examined the blanket and the gravestone slab it lay upon, but could find no signs of blood, or even the slightest disturbance – nothing. Already he was sure the tartan blanket would have come from the killer’s home and would be a treasure chest of forensic evidence, possibly enough alone to convict the killer. But it was probably next to useless in his search to find his quarry. And there was no telltale sign of old blood seeping through the blanket where the base of the boy’s head lay. If he’d been hurriedly dumped on the stone or even thrown down, then the scalp would have probably split. He was convinced that the boy had been carefully placed on the stone, but why?
Look beyond what’s staring you in the face, Sean told himself. The killer’s trying to tell you something, even if he doesn’t know it himself. He almost began to speak out loud before he remembered the detectives standing behind him, watching his every move without speaking, unwittingly interfering with his train of thought, their mere presence disturbing him. If only he could be alone. But he couldn’t think of any logical reason to send them away and instead had to do his best to block them out – to pretend they didn’t exist, that only he and the little broken body of whoever this was were in the cemetery together – alone.
So what are you trying to tell me? he asked, his eyes still fixed on the boy’s face. Is it something about the body, something you’ve done to the body that will lead me to you? He could barely resist unwrapping the blanket and examining the body himself, right here and now, but the risk of losing invaluable forensic evidence stopped him. Besides, his instincts told him the body would be unharmed – undamaged. But what if the killer had left something wrapped in the blanket – something he wanted Sean to find. How badly he wanted to unwrap that blanket, but with Donnelly and the others standing so close he daren’t, no matter what. Best to unwrap it under controlled conditions in the morgue, remove each piece of evidence hair by hair, fibre by fibre. The body as it was told him nothing other than that the killer had cared about its disposal – had wanted to ensure the boy suffered no more – had felt guilt for what he had done?
You left him here, where you knew he would be found. Why? Because you couldn’t bear to dump him where he might not be found – to bury him in a shallow grave or leave him in the woods at the mercy of scavenging animals. Why did you care what happened to him after death so much? Because you wanted to show the world you’re not a monster? And why here, in a cemetery – so he could be with his own kind – the dead – to give him some peace?
Donnelly’s voice all but collapsed the house of cards he was building in his mind. ‘You found something, guv’nor?’
‘No,’ Sean snapped back before mellowing his tone, looking sheepishly at the detectives who were still strangers to him. ‘Nothing yet.’ He quickly turned away and tried to descend back into the world he’d just been dragged from – to be alone with the man he had to hunt. In leaving the body here you’ve already told me so much, but there’s more, isn’t there? Something right here, right in front of me. But I can’t see it, can I? For some reason I just can’t … He suddenly stopped his own thoughts, his head slowly turning towards the gravestone, as if some unseen force was twisting him towards it, opening his eyes for him, enabling him not just to look, but to see. He found himself reading the words carved into the pristine gravestone − yet the stone the body lay on was obviously over a hundred years old. ‘The gravestone’s new,’ Sean called to the others without looking away from the stone, ‘but the grave’s old.’
‘I suppose the family had it replaced then,’ Donnelly offered. Sean ignored him and continued to read.
‘I know this name,’ Sean said quietly. ‘How could I know this name?’
‘Maybe it just sounds familiar?’ Donnelly unhelpfully suggested.
‘I remember now,’ Sean told them, still not looking away from the stone, reading the story of the grave’s most decorated occupant. ‘Robert Grant was awarded the Victoria Cross while serving in the British Army during the Indian Mutiny in 1857.’
‘The Indian what?’ McInerney asked. Everyone ignored him.
‘He returned to Britain and joined the Met,’ Sean continued. ‘He was a cop for ten years before he died of TB and was quickly buried here along with seven others who died the same way in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. Just a few months ago the Commissioner at the time found out about Grant’s story and had this new gravestone erected so others would know too.’
‘Nice way to treat a hero,’ Rogers pointed out, ‘stick him in an unmarked grave with seven others, half of whom were probably local scum. How d’you hear about it anyway?’
‘It was on the news. But why here – why specifically choose to leave the boy’s body here – on this grave?’
‘He clearly wanted us to find the body and now we have. Does the actual grave matter?’
‘Yes,’ Sean answered slowly. ‘With this one it matters. It means something. It has to mean something.’
‘So he felt guilty about murdering him and somehow, in his sick mind, leaving him where he could be found relatively quickly was his effort to …’
‘Just,’ Sean almost shouted at Rogers as he cut him off, ‘just wait a minute – I just need a minute.’
Donnelly slightly raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes a little at the other two detectives, his way of explaining that Sean was perhaps a little different from what they were used to, and that they needed to be patient.
Why here? Sean spoke to himself, no longer wanting or willing to share his thoughts with strangers or even Donnelly. They talked too much, continually breaking into his mindset, snapping any connection he was beginning to make with the man who’d taken the children – with the man who’d killed the boy. You didn’t just want us to find him, did you? You wanted to show me something – wanted to tell me something about yourself – something you want me to know. Sean hurriedly began to search with his eyes, only his head moving as he scanned the around the blanket holding the body, around the stone it lay on, the ground underneath and the inscription on the headstone, but he saw nothing he hadn’t already. The sudden silence in his head was matched by the silence in the cemetery as he stared at the words on the headstone, an idea germinating slowly in his mind, like a shattered mirror reflecting a thousand different images, all different, but somehow part of the same picture, until at last they came together to form a solid pattern. You wanted him to be protected, even in death. You wanted him to be cared for. So you sought out a protector. And what greater protector could you find than a police officer – one who’d been awarded the Victoria Cross. Did you believe he would guide the boy’s soul to a better place?
He turned to the waiting, watching detectives. ‘He left the boy here not just to ensure he was found, he left him here because it’s the grave of a cop. That was what was so important to him. That’s why here.’
‘Why does he care?’ Donnelly asked.
‘Because he wanted to leave the boy with someone who’d look after him.’
‘He’s dead,’ Donnelly adde
d coldly. ‘Too late to care for him now.’
‘But when he was alive,’ Sean tried to explain, ‘did he take him for the same reason? Is he trying to protect them?’
‘Protect them from what?’ Rogers joined in.
‘I don’t know,’ Sean admitted. ‘Some danger he thinks they’re in.’
‘Thinks or knows?’ Rogers continued.
‘If he knows, then he knows more than us,’ Sean admitted. ‘We checked out the families and found nothing of concern.’
‘Something else then?’ Rogers offered.
‘The children weren’t in any danger,’ Donnelly interrupted. ‘And if he wants to protect them he’s got a funny way of showing it – snatching them from their beds and murdering them.’
‘We don’t know he’s killed before,’ Sean reminded him.
‘Of course he has. We all know it. We just haven’t found the bodies yet,’ Donnelly insisted.
‘No,’ Sean told him calmly, assuredly. ‘He hasn’t killed before and I don’t think he meant to here either.’
‘Oh come on, guv’nor,’ Donnelly could barely disguise his disgust. ‘He’s a child murderer and probably a paedophile too. The body hasn’t even been examined properly yet – God knows what evidence of abuse we’ll find.’
‘Maybe we should take a look at the body now?’ Rogers suggested. ‘Just in case.’
‘No,’ Sean snapped, warning them all away from the body, as if they intended to snatch it from him. ‘We unwrap the blanket out here we could lose whatever evidence is trapped inside. We wait until he’s moved to the mortuary.’
‘That could be hours – will be hours,’ Donnelly argued. ‘If we take a look now at least we’d know.’
‘Maybe we would – maybe we wouldn’t,’ Sean half agreed, ‘but I’m not going to risk losing critical evidence.’
‘Maybe you just don’t want to see?’ Donnelly accused him, turning the atmosphere poisonous. Sean’s dark anger rose in his throat like hot bile as he rounded on Donnelly, the sudden, shrill chirping of a mobile phone in the silent cemetery stopping him as he moved forward threateningly. Rogers searched himself until he recovered the phone from his raincoat pocket.
‘DS Rogers speaking.’ He listened for a second before interrupting. ‘Let me hand you to the man in charge,’ he told the caller as he stretched the phone out to Sean, who accepted it suspiciously. ‘CID from Camden. You need to speak with them.’
‘DI Corrigan, Special Investigations Unit,’ Sean introduced himself before listening silently for what to the others seemed an age until he finally spoke again. ‘I understand. Can you email the photo to this phone? Good. I’ll be waiting for it.’ He hung up, his face expressionless.
‘Well?’ Donnelly prompted him, reminding Sean they were there.
‘A boy matching the description of our victim was apparently taken from his home a few hours ago – from Primrose Hill, not far from where we are now. The parents heard someone in the house, but by the time they realized what was happening the boy had already been taken.’ Rogers’s phone vibrated in his hand and he almost dropped it before he gathered himself and opened up the email without asking permission, the attachment revealing a picture of a young boy, smiling, dressed in his infant school uniform, his hair combed neatly for the photograph. Sean moved back to the body in the blanket and held the phone next to the lifeless face, the difference between the living and the dead as striking as it always was, making the boy, to the untrained eye, unrecognizable. Sean struggled to compare and match the features of the two, but ultimately came to the conclusion he’d already arrived at in his heart and gut – the boy in the cemetery was the boy taken from his home in Primrose Hill – Samuel Hargrave, only five years old. ‘From the cradle to the grave,’ Sean unconsciously whispered.
‘What was that?’ Rogers asked.
‘This is him,’ Sean answered. ‘This is the missing boy from Primrose Hill: Samuel Hargrave.’ He gave them all a few seconds to absorb the news – the name − before snapping himself them all back into action. ‘OK, make sure your local uniforms keep this place locked up nice and tight. No one in without clearing it with me or Dave first, and speak with the groundskeeper – if the grave was selected as carefully as I think, then maybe our killer had been here before, maybe numerous times. Ask the groundskeeper if he’s noticed anyone hanging around it more than usual.’ Rogers nodded his acceptance. ‘Dave – get hold of the local Murder Squad and tell them we need to borrow their Forensic Team.’
‘What about Roddis’s team?’ Donnelly asked.
‘I haven’t sorted that yet,’ Sean told him, ‘and I don’t have time now. We’ll have to go with the one for this area. I’m sure they’ll be fine. Get the body removed directly to the mortuary. I’ll make sure Dr Canning knows it’s on its way.’
‘You want it taken to Guy’s? That’s out of this area’s jurisdiction,’ Donnelly reminded him.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sean told him. ‘It’s still within the Metropolitan borders. If there’s a problem I’ll have Assistant Commissioner Addis sort it out.’
‘If you say so,’ Donnelly submitted.
Sean was already searching his mobile for the number. After six rings he heard the familiar voice at the other end.
‘Hello, Dr Canning speaking. How can I help?’
Douglas Allen knelt in front of the old, inexpensive sideboard in his first-floor living room. It looked more like a shrine than a piece of furniture – a shrine to his dead wife and the God he believed she’d gone to the side of. Old photographs of his one and only love were neatly arranged on the tabletop, mostly of her alone, her eyes increasingly lifeless as age and then cancer took its toll – her inability to have children weighing her down, dragging her deeper into unhappiness. He only appeared in two of the pictures – a fading colour photograph of their wedding day, standing outside the church with the vicar, and a small gathering of mostly family and one or two like-minded friends, all dead or moved on now. But the centre of the table was reserved for something else: an ancient and almost worn-out postcard-sized print of Da Vinci’s painting of the Head of Christ, the once vivid colours and tones now mere shadows of what they had been. Above the picture, hanging from the wall, the same Christ was displayed nailed to the cross on which he died to save mankind – to save Douglas Allen, so that he in turn could save others.
Allen whispered his prayers, his voice fast and intense, eyes squeezed tightly shut, palms pressed together, his lips barely parting. The pain in his head beat fiercely to the rhythm of his muttered words. ‘Dear Lord, help me understand why the boy had to die. Why did you take the life of an innocent? Help me understand, Lord. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. But why the boy? I thought I was supposed to save him – isn’t that what you wanted? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. I’ve tried, dear God, tried to understand why you took the boy, but I … I … He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Help me. Help me find the right path and do what is right.’
But he heard no reply, no answers to his questions. ‘Iris,’ he whispered his dead wife’s name. ‘The Lord has forsaken me in my darkest hour. I need to know what to do. I need you to tell me what to do.’ The pain in his head was beginning to make him feel nauseous and weak, close to passing out, until suddenly he heard her voice, soft and comforting, as if she was kneeling next to him, an arm around his shoulders, guiding his prayers. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. ‘Iris? What should I do, Iris? I killed a child, Iris.’ It was an accident, his dead wife reassured him. You were trying to do the right thing. You were doing God’s work. ‘But I killed a child – an innocent child.’ You were trying to save the child. ‘And now he’s dead, by my hand.’ Not your hand. You are but a vessel – a tool to be wielded by the hand of the Lord. ‘But why? Why did he have to take the boy?’ Ours is not to
question his will. Ours is not to doubt his grand design. ‘But they’ll call me a murderer or worse.’ Because they don’t understand you are doing God’s work. ‘Why don’t they understand?’ Because they serve another Lord. They have wandered from the flock and can’t find their way back. ‘Are they my enemies? Should I fear them?’ Thou prepare a table for me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over. ‘Then I shouldn’t fear them?’ The Lord will protect you and I will always be here, watching over you. ‘What should I do now?’ You must carry on with the work God has given you, blessed you with. ‘More children? I don’t know if I can.’ You must. The Lord has chosen you to save them; Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
Tears flowed down his face and dripped on to his hands, tightly clenched in prayer under his chin. The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not be in want. ‘Guide me, dear Father. Tell me what to do and it shall be done.’ A sudden presence behind him made him spin around. George Bridgeman stood staring at him still dressed in his pyjamas, his tired eyes trying to blink away his sleepiness.
The Toy Taker Page 30