The Toy Taker

by Delaney, Luke

  ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked Allen matter-of-factly, as if the answer didn’t really matter.

  ‘Because,’ Allen replied, ‘because I’m so happy.’

  ‘Why are you crying if you’re happy?’

  ‘Because I’m sad too.’

  ‘Why are you sad?’

  ‘Because something bad happened – something terrible.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing you need to know about,’ Allen told him, drying the last of the tears with a crumpled tissue he’d pulled from his trouser pocket. ‘Something the Lord will forgive me for. Now, come to the kitchen and have some breakfast.’

  ‘Why aren’t we allowed downstairs?’ little George asked.

  ‘But you are downstairs. Your bedroom is above us, is it not?’

  ‘I meant down the other stairs – to the place where we can hear the voices coming from. Where we can hear you talking to other people.’

  ‘Because it’s not safe for you down there,’ Allen warned him, his tone more serious and foreboding now. ‘When I’m not here you must stay in your bedrooms. When I’m here you may come down here, but never try and go all the way downstairs. Never. Do you understand me, George?’ The little boy nodded slowly, fear surging through his slight body as he imagined the terrible things that waited downstairs. ‘Now – breakfast.’

  ‘When can I go home?’ George suddenly asked, unable to stop the question tumbling from his lips.

  Allen looked at him with genuine puzzlement. ‘But you are home, George, and we are your family now. You must forget the others, as if they never existed. It is God’s will, George. It is God’s will.’

  Sean and Donnelly entered their new office in New Scotland Yard together having already made dozens of phone calls each on their way back from the scene in Highgate Cemetery. It seemed everyone in the world needed to know about the murder of Samuel Hargrave. Their job now was as much about coordination as investigation and it continued to weigh Sean down like a lead jacket, choking his instinct and insight. But as devastating as the recovery of the boy’s body was, at least it had given him his first close look at the man he hunted – finally a chance to try and understand his motivation. To understand his mind.

  He stopped in the middle of the office and threw his raincoat over a chair. Donnelly understood what was happening and did the same.

  ‘All right. Listen up,’ Sean barked above the sounds of conversation and typing, allowing the room to drift into silence before continuing. ‘As most of you have probably heard by now, we have another victim, Samuel Hargrave, abducted last night from his home in Primrose Hill. The parents disturbed the intruder, but he managed to get away with the boy. Several hours later the boy’s body was found in Highgate Cemetery, left where it would be easily found – on the grave of Robert Grant, who coincidentally was a Metropolitan Police Officer about a hundred and fifty years ago. He’d also won the Victoria Cross.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ DC Jesson asked. ‘This is his third victim, but the first we’ve found. Is he getting sloppy about how he disposes of the bodies?’

  Sean looked around the room before answering. His team looked tired and demoralized. So far they’d only been confronted with photographs of the victims smiling, happy and alive, but now they knew they’d soon be seeing cold, livid pictures of the body at the recovery location and, worse still, from the post-mortem. It was always so much worse when the victim was a child, especially for the detectives who had children of their own. It dragged everyone into melancholy and darkness, while at the same time stiffening their resolve to keep going, to leave nothing undone until they could finally stop the human monster, march him into the custody area handcuffed and defeated – not a thing to be feared any more – not even a man – just a broken wretch, promising to tell them anything they wanted to know in exchange for protection from the baying mob and some hope of clemency.

  ‘No,’ Sean finally answered Jesson’s question. ‘I don’t think he’s getting sloppy. The body was very deliberately left there for us to find. He wasn’t trying to conceal it. He wanted us to find it.’

  ‘Why?’ Carlisle asked in her Geordie accent. ‘Why would he want us to find this victim, but not the others?’

  ‘Because the other victims are still alive,’ Sean told her with a trace of confusion in his voice, a little surprised she hadn’t worked it out herself yet.’

  ‘So why did he kill this victim, but not the others?’ Carlisle continued, the expressions of the faces of the rest of the team telling Sean he was running ahead of them.

  ‘Because it was an accident,’ he told them. ‘Because he didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Then manslaughter, not murder,’ Jesson added.

  ‘We treat it as murder until we know any different,’ Sean reminded them. ‘Assume nothing. Murder or manslaughter – that’s the CPS’s decision.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Donnelly mumbled.

  ‘We still have two missing children out there who I believe are still alive, so what do we know? What have we found out?’ Sean asked the room.

  ‘We’ve checked out the estate agents for both families, the removal companies, alarm companies, all workmen who’ve been through both houses and any other possible link they could have, but we’re not finding anything,’ Sally updated them.

  ‘Then we’re missing something,’ Sean insisted. ‘Go back and have all the people we’ve spoken to spoken to again. Somebody, somewhere missed something.’

  ‘We’ve already done that,’ Sally argued.

  ‘Then do it again, and let’s speed up the new inquiries, checking with their GPs, after-school clubs, holiday clubs, anything that could link them.’

  ‘But—’ Sally began before Sean cut her down.

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’

  Sally looked at the floor and swallowed her rising anger, Sean’s rebuttal stinging her. ‘No,’ she admitted.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Sean added cruelly. ‘And now we have another family to cross-reference with the other two Maybe now the link between all the families will show up.’

  ‘What if we’re wrong?’ Carlisle asked. ‘What if there is no link? What if the suspect’s victim selection is totally random and we’re wasting our time looking for a link that isn’t there?’

  Sean felt the colour draining from his face, his empty stomach tightening and twisting, his usual certainty weakening in the face of Carlisle’s questions. Why was he so sure? Was he wasting their time, looking for things that didn’t exist? No, he told himself. The evidence was there to be seen. ‘We’re not wrong,’ he assured the room. ‘Don’t forget what we already know: whoever’s taken the children knew too much about them for it to be random: Where they lived. That their alarms weren’t working. That there were no dogs in the houses, and God knows what else. These weren’t random – they were planned, and he had insider knowledge of all three families and their homes. He couldn’t have done it if he didn’t.’ He looked at the faces of the detectives who stared back at him, relieved to see them largely nodding in agreement, seemingly convinced by hard, cold facts. ‘So let’s find out everything we can about the latest family and see if we can’t hunt down this link. The link is the key.’

  ‘What about the press conference?’ Sally asked.

  ‘It goes ahead as planned, but we make no mention of the third victim.’

  ‘We won’t be able to keep it a secret for long,’ Donnelly told him.

  ‘Long enough to get the conference out the way. Any more questions?’

  ‘Why’s he taking them?’ Sally asked, her voice slightly raised, silencing the growing murmur in the room, her eyes fixed on Sean.

  He hesitated a moment, his eyes flicking to Donnelly, remembering the reaction of the other detectives in the cemetery when he revealed his theory. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he lied, relieved to see that Donnelly didn’t react.

  ‘What about the victim’s body?’ Sally continued. ‘Were there any signs of injury or an
ything else?’

  ‘The body was wrapped in a blanket. It was impossible to tell. I’m guessing the cause of death was asphyxiation, but we’ll know more after the post-mortem.’

  ‘You didn’t examine the body at the scene?’

  ‘No. Best to do it under lab conditions.’

  Sally flicked her eyebrows, surprised that Sean had been able to resist at least an initial examination.

  ‘I took some photographs at the scene, on my phone. I’ll email them to everybody, with a brief report of what we know so far. Chase down everything – all leads, witnesses, information reports, door-to-door, anything you can, no matter how seemingly unimportant. We need to stop this one, because he will take more. Why he’s doing it I don’t know, but I’m certain he’ll take more. Whatever’s driving him won’t just stop, and neither will he.’

  It was late morning when Featherstone entered the office of Assistant Commissioner Addis, who was already standing behind his desk stuffing a selection of coloured files into his black briefcase. Featherstone knocked on the doorframe to attract his attention, not willing to step further across the threshold without permission. Addis looked up with an expression of distaste on his face. ‘Ah. It’s you,’ he said.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t got time to sit and chat. You’ll have to walk with me.’ Addis quickly closed and locked his briefcase before unceremoniously striding past Featherstone and into the corridors of power, walking at a pace Featherstone struggled to keep up with, talking as he went, fluently and without any signs of breathing hard despite the relentless pace, occasionally glancing at his watch. ‘Clearly you know that a third victim has been found?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Featherstone answered. ‘Corrigan sent me an email with some photos and a covering brief.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t bother to contact you in person?’

  Featherstone reminded himself that talking to Addis was like walking through a minefield. ‘I imagine he’s been too busy with this new one.’

  ‘Yes,’ Addis sneered. ‘The new one – only this one’s not like the others, is it?’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because this one’s dead, Superintendent.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I know.’ A degree of insolence leaked into Featherstone’s tone. Addis stopped in his tracks and turned to face the older, junior man.

  ‘Do you know where I’m on my way to now, Superintendent? I’m on my way to do the press conference with the parents of the other two missing children, and after that I’m going to have to tell them that a third child has been taken, and then I’m going to have to tell them that that child was murdered. That’s not going to be a very pleasant thing to have to do, is it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Featherstone agreed before continuing, eager to move the conversation on. ‘Did you get Corrigan’s brief for the press conference?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it is entirely adequate.’ High praise coming from Addis, and Featherstone knew it. ‘A few interesting ideas,’ Addis admitted before breaking back into his stride along the corridor, speaking over his shoulder at Featherstone who once more struggled to keep up. ‘But I need more than interesting ideas for a press conference: I need this bastard caught, and quickly. I’d have been speaking to Corrigan myself this morning if I hadn’t been so busy, but there’s only so long he can go on dodging bullets. Some of my contacts in the media have already given fair warning that it won’t be long before they turn on us. A bungled police investigation always makes for profitable headlines and those cunts at the BBC won’t miss a chance to stick the knife in, especially after recent events. It’s only a matter of time, Alan, mark my words – it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Corrigan will bring home the bacon soon enough,’ Featherstone tried to assure him.

  ‘I hope you’re right. But if you’re not, someone needs to take the fall – for all of us.’

  ‘Corrigan?’

  Addis came to another sudden stop. ‘Maybe I − we − over estimated Corrigan’s … talents. Perhaps he’s not as insightful as I was lead to believe.’

  ‘He’s not a fortune-teller,’ Featherstone tried to remind him. ‘He’s not a psychic. He just needs a little more time.’

  ‘There are plenty of other competent DIs out there, Alan – more reliable ones – ones who respect the system, and the hierarchy of rank.’

  ‘There are no others like Corrigan out there,’ Featherstone argued, digging his heels in to protect his man, risking more than he wanted to.

  ‘Maybe,’ Addis conceded, ‘but what’s the point in having an attack dog if it can’t be controlled?’ Addis’s lips spread into a thin, venomous smile. ‘Do you know what a sheep farmer does with a dog they no longer trust, no matter how loyal it may have been in the past?’

  ‘No,’ Featherstone replied, although he feared he knew the answer.

  ‘They shoot it. They take it out into the woods or the hills and they shoot it in the head. They kill it before it ever gets a chance to bite them. We do understand each other, don’t we, Alan?’

  Featherstone said nothing as Addis’s grin grew ever broader before disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. Then the Assistant Commissioner turned abruptly and set off at pace along the corridors of the Yard. Featherstone had half expected him to click his heels together and give a Nazi salute before marching away, but if Addis was any sort of a joke then he was a killing joke. It was no secret he had his eye on becoming the next Commissioner of the metropolis and he couldn’t afford any skeletons in his closet, not in this day and age. A failed high-profile murder investigation would be exactly that. Corrigan needed to pull something out of his hat, and soon, or heads would roll.

  ‘Just a few more months to retirement,’ Featherstone whispered to himself. ‘Just a few more months.’

  Sean sat in his office trying to concentrate on the ever-rising piles of paper and cardboard folders that grew like model skyscrapers on his desk, not to mention the hundreds of unopened emails he knew waited for him on the Met’s internal system. But try as he might to conscientiously read through the reports and files he kept drifting back to the photographs that lurked in his phone – photographs of Samuel Hargrave lying on the cold stone in the cemetery. Sean scrolled to one showing the boy’s face and enlarged it as much as he could without losing what detail there was – his pale blue lips indicating cause of death was asphyxiation, probably due to smothering, but possibly by strangulation. Or maybe he’d even died through simple hypothermia. No matter what had killed him, the photographs were haunting and distressing.

  Sean tried to pull his eyes from the unreal-looking photographs on the small screen, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t look away, his brain kept desperately trying to see something in the pictures – something that could put him right next to the man he hunted.

  ‘You don’t want me to find you, do you?’ he softly spoke to himself. ‘You want me to believe you’re not a killer, but you don’t want me to find you. Why not?’ He held the phone in one hand, using the index finger of the other to press his upper lip into his teeth, as if pain would help bring the answers. ‘So many killers want to be caught, so why don’t you? They want to be caught because in their souls they know they are wrong. They don’t … they don’t believe in what they’re doing. It’s all about belief, isn’t it? You believe in what you’re doing. You believe what you’re doing is right.’

  A knock on his already open door made him jump and he looked up to see Sally staring at him from the doorway. He dropped the phone on his desk and pretended to casually push it away as if he hadn’t been looking at anything important. Sally gave him a few seconds before speaking, knowing exactly what he’d been looking at and why.

  ‘Press conference is about to start,’ she warned him. ‘We’ve got it on the telly in the main office if you want to watch.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose I should,’ Sean answered, pushing himself to his feet
without enthusiasm, the thought of watching the parents of the missing children going through their private torture less than appealing. ‘See if they can all stick to the script.’

  They made their way to the crowd of detectives surrounding the small TV, Sean waving away offers of a seat as he instead chose to stand and look over their heads and shoulders, more comfortable knowing his reactions to the parents’ agony would not be observed.

  He watched as the incessant flashing of cameras began to subside and the two sets of parents took their seats, the familiar shadow of Addis coming into view, sitting between the two couples, indicating it was time for the baying journalists to settle down before the conference began. Sally leaned close to Sean and spoke quietly. ‘Word has it he’s a shoo-in as a future commissioner – sooner rather than later too. You wouldn’t want to be in his bad books.’ Sean said nothing, concentrating on the spectacle unfolding in front of him as Addis gave a recap of the disappearances of George Bridgeman and Bailey Fellowes, explaining the purpose of the press conference, that it was an appeal to the public for help in catching the man who’d been taking the children of the wealthy and privileged of North London. Sean couldn’t help wondering whether the parents’ riches would generate or reduce sympathy with the general public.

  He was pleased to see Addis sticking to the brief he’d provided him, handing over as quickly as possible to the parents: a high-ranking police officer wasn’t going to create empathy with anyone. He wanted whoever had taken the children to see the result of his actions. He wanted them to see the parents’ suffering and pain – wanted them to be overwhelmed with so much remorse that they might possibly release them unharmed. But he’d prepared the briefing before the body of Samuel Hargrave had been found – before the kidnapper had killed. Before they had crossed the ultimate line from which no one could return.

  Samuel’s death had changed everything – making the press conference as much of a risk as it was an effort to save the missing children. The media appeal might make him panic and kill the other children. One death, two deaths, three deaths – it made no difference, not once the line had been crossed. Better to get rid of any witnesses – bury the bodies where they’d never be found. Sean knew the risks, but had chosen to keep them to himself, the opportunity to finally put some pressure back on the man who’d snatched these children from their own homes too tempting to resist. If he panicked, he’d start making mistakes and Sean would be close by, ready to bring his fantasy world crashing down to reality. He only prayed he was right about Samuel, that his death had been an accident. Whether it was murder or manslaughter, the man he hunted was still dangerous – dangerous and irrational. Anything could set him off at any time as he grew more and more unstable with each passing day – each passing hour. Sean didn’t have time to play safe. He had to take the risks and be prepared to live with the consequences – the guilt, the regrets, the nightmares.