The Toy Taker

‘Mr Addis,’ Sean called after him, making the Assistant Commissioner stop and turn, his face slightly perplexed, as if having his progress interrupted was a novel and unwelcome experience.

‘Something wrong, Inspector?’

‘No. It’s just that I was brought up on a council estate,’ Sean told him. ‘I thought you should know.’

Addis grinned and nodded, impossible to read as he turned his back on Sean and headed for the exit, almost colliding with Sally as she barrelled into the room, unable to see where she was going due to the size of the box she was carrying. Addis jumped out of the way and cleared his throat to make her aware of his presence.

Sally peeped over the top of her box at the sullen-faced Assistant Commissioner and groaned inwardly. ‘Shit,’ she spurted, immediately realizing her mistake and hurrying to correct it: ‘I mean, fuck … Sorry, sir … sorry.’

Addis glared at her and exited quickly into the corridor, leaving the bemused Sally scanning the room for Sean, eventually spotting him still standing in his new office. She dumped her box on the nearest desk and made for Sean who was already heading towards her, the file on the missing boy in his hand.

‘Pompous twat,’ she offered, with a jerk of the head towards the door Addis had just departed through. Registering that Sean was advancing in that direction, she added, ‘Going somewhere, guv’nor?’

‘Yes,’ Sean told her. ‘And so are you.’

Donnelly sat in the passenger seat while DC Paulo Zukov drove them through the increasingly dense traffic around Parliament Square, Donnelly shaking his head at the thought of having to use public transport to beat the traffic. ‘The Yard,’ he moaned out loud. ‘Why did it have to be the Yard? They’re selling the damn thing as soon as they can find a buyer. We’ll no sooner get sorted than they’ll have us on the move again. Bloody waste of time. Where to next, for Christ’s sake – Belgravia?’

‘Look on the bright side,’ Zukov told him, ‘we can tell everyone we’re detectives from New Scotland Yard now. Better than saying you’re from Peckham. And the traffic’s not that bad – considering. You’ve just got to get used to it.’

Donnelly looked him up and down with unveiled contempt. ‘Why don’t you just drive the car, son. Let me do the talking and the thinking, eh. “You’ve just got to get used to it” – sometimes I wonder how you ever got into the CID. Let anyone in these days, I suppose. I’ll tell you this for nothing – after a few weeks at the Yard you’ll be wishing you were back at Peckham. Where do you live – Purley, isn’t it? How you gonna get in from there every day?’

‘Train,’ Zukov answered precisely, too suspicious of Donnelly’s reason for asking to say more.

‘Oh well, let me know how that works out for you – hanging around on a freezing platform before being squeezed into a carriage with standing-room only, rubbing shoulders with the great unwashed every morning and evening. And how you gonna get home when we don’t finish until three in the morning? There’s no local uniform units to bum a lift from at the Yard.’

‘I’ll take a job car.’

‘Oh aye. You and everyone else. Only one problem – we have a lot more people than we have cars. Better get used to sleeping on the floor, son.’

‘I’ll figure something out,’ Zukov replied, promising himself he wouldn’t speak again.

‘You will, will you?’ Donnelly condescended. ‘Well, I’ll look forward to seeing that. And while we’re about it, remember to watch your back at all times. You make the same sort of mistake you made on the Gibran case and I won’t be able to cover your arse, not at the Yard. Everything’s changed for us now: senior management have got us right where they want us – under their noses. And I’m pretty sure why.’

The ensuing silence and air of mystery was too much for Zukov. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why do they want us right under their noses?’

‘That, son, is for me to know and for you not to find out,’ Donnelly told him. ‘Now get us out of this traffic and to the Yard. I’m bursting for a piss.’

Sean and Sally pulled up outside 7 Courthope Road on the edges of Hampstead Heath and headed for the smart four-storey Georgian house that four-year-old George Bridgeman had apparently gone missing from, although Sean would assume nothing until he proved it was so. The house reminded him of other houses he’d visited, other investigations. Other victims whose faces flashed through his mind like images from a rapid-fire projector. He forced the distraction away, needing to concentrate on the job in front of him, his mind already clouded with thoughts of moving the office and all the admin and logistical headaches that would bring, as well as recurring day-and-night dreams about Thomas Keller and the women he’d killed. If he was to think the way he needed to think he had to clear his mind.

He paused at the foot of the steps just as Sally was about to ring the doorbell, making her hesitate while he looked up and down the street. He watched the last of the leaves falling from the trees and floating to the ground, some briefly resting on the two lines of cars parked on either side of the road before the bitter breeze blew them away, all the time waiting to see something in his mind’s eye. But nothing came – no hint of what had happened, no feeling about what sort of person might have taken the boy, if anyone even had. He cursed Addis for putting thoughts of paedophiles and the Network in his mind – pre-wiring his train of thought before he had a chance to look around the scene. He gazed up and down the road once more, but still he saw nothing.

‘Something wrong?’ Sally asked. Sean didn’t answer. She repeated the question a little louder.

‘What? No,’ he replied. ‘I was just thinking it must have been freezing outside last night.’

‘So?’

‘Nothing,’ he answered, moving next to her, stretching then crouching as he examined the four locks on the front door, all of which appeared high quality and well fitted. ‘The report said all four locks were still on when the nanny arrived in the morning and that the mother checked all the windows on the house and the back door – again, all locked and secure. So how the hell did someone get in, grab the boy and get out, leaving the place all locked up, without being heard or seen?’

‘He didn’t,’ Sally explained. ‘That’s not possible. The boy must be hiding in the house somewhere, too afraid to come out now his joke’s gone too far. We’ll have a good look around, find him, talk his parents into not killing him and then get back to our unpacking.’

‘But he’s only four,’ Sean argued.

‘So?’

‘When my kids were four they wouldn’t have stayed hidden this long. They might now, but not back then. It’s too long.’

‘So you do think someone has taken him?’

Sean stepped back from the door, looking the house up and down before once again peering in both directions along the affluent, leafy road. ‘I don’t know,’ he eventually confessed, ‘but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

‘Don’t tell me that,’ Sally almost begged him, rolling her eyes back into her skull. ‘Every time you say that we end up in it up to our necks. We haven’t even got the office up and running – the last thing we need now is a child abduction – or worse. A few days from now we’ll be ready and willing, but not yet.’

‘Too late,’ Sean told her. ‘For better or worse, this one’s ours.’ He flicked his eyes towards the doorbell.

With a shake of her head, Sally pressed the button, stepping back to be at Sean’s side – a united front for when the door was opened, warrant cards open in their hands.

They heard the rattle of the central lock before the door was opened by a plain woman in her mid-thirties, brown hair tied back in a ponytail like Sally’s, her inexpensive grey suit and white blouse the virtual uniform for female detectives. Neither Sean nor Sally had to ask whether she was the mother or the local CID’s representative and she in turn knew what they were and why they were there, but they showed her their warrant cards and introduced themselves anyway.

‘Morning. DI Sean Corrigan and this is DS Sally Jones – Special Investigations Unit,’ Sean told her, drawing a sideways glance from Sally, who was hearing their new name for the first time.

‘Special Investigations Unit?’ the detective asked. ‘That’s a new one on me.’

‘Me too,’ Sally added, making the other detective narrow her eyes.

‘We’re based at the Yard,’ Sean explained. ‘It’s a new thing that’s being trialled – rapid response to potentially high-profile crimes – that sort of thing.’

The detective nodded suspiciously before responding. ‘DC Kimberly Robinson, Hampstead CID.’

‘Can we see the parents?’ Sean asked.

‘Of course,’ Robinson answered, but instead of opening the door for them to enter she stepped outside and shut the door to behind her, leaving it slightly ajar. ‘But before you do there’s one thing bothering me,’ she told them in a near whisper. ‘Why has this case been handed over to you? Why has this case been handed over to anyone? Something like this would usually stay with the local CID until we get a ransom demand or …’ she checked the door behind her before continuing ‘… until a body turns up. So why are you here so soon?’

‘You know how it is,’ Sean explained. ‘Your boss gets to hear about something a little different and he tells his boss who tells his boss who tells my boss, whose interest is piqued and before you know it the case lands on my desk and here we are.’

Robinson studied him for a while before answering. ‘Fine,’ she eventually said, easing the door open and stepping inside. ‘You’re welcome to it. Parents are in the kitchen.’

‘D’you have any background on the parents yet?’ Sean asked quietly.

‘He’s thirty-eight, works in the City – a broker for Britbank, apparently,’ she said in a lowered voice, before lowering it even further. ‘She’s a few years younger, a full-time mum, although round here that isn’t exactly what it sounds like, if you know what I mean.’

Sally and Sean glanced at each other before following Robinson through the hallway, Sally closing the door behind them. She quickly and discreetly swept slightly envious eyes over the hall’s contents: large, original oil paintings, Tiffany lampshades and polished oak floorboards. Sean also noticed a control panel for an intruder alarm attached to the wall.

As soon as they entered the large contemporary kitchen Sean was making mental notes of what he saw: Mrs Bridgeman pacing around the work area, her husband leaning on the kitchen island watching her but not speaking, while the nanny sat with their young daughter, trying to keep the crying child distracted with small talk and a drink.

‘Mr and Mrs Bridgeman,’ Robinson said, ‘these officers are from the Special Investigations Unit, Scotland Yard. I believe they’ll be taking over the investigation now.’

‘Why?’ Celia Bridgeman asked before Sean or Sally could speak, panic lighting her eyes. ‘Has something happened? Have you found him?’

Sally could tell she was about to lose it completely. ‘No, Mrs Bridgeman. Nothing’s changed. We’re just here to try and help find George as quickly as we can. Everything’s going to be fine, but we’ll have to ask you both some questions if we’re going to do that.’

‘More questions?’ Stuart Bridgeman interrupted. ‘We’ve already answered all the questions. Now you need to get out there and find our son.’

‘Almost every officer in the borough is out there searching for George,’ Robinson tried to reassure him, ‘including dogs. Even the police helicopter’s up and looking.’

Sean eyed Bridgeman for a while before considering his response. He felt an instant dislike for the man – his carefully groomed hair, golden tan and athletic build, and above all his arrogance, which more than matched his wealth. ‘I can understand your frustration.’ He managed to sound businesslike. ‘But we really do need to ask you some more questions.

‘Of course,’ Celia took over, ‘anything.’ She wiped the tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘I believe you were the one who discovered George was apparently missing, Mrs Bridgeman?’ Sean asked.

‘Not apparently,’ Stuart Bridgeman interrupted again, ‘is missing. Who did you say you were?’

‘I’m Detective Inspector Corrigan and this is Detective Sergeant Jones from the Special Investigations Unit.’

‘Special Investigations?’ Bridgeman asked, distaste etched into his face. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Stuart,’ his wife stopped him. ‘You’re wasting time.’

Bridgeman grudgingly backed down. ‘Ask your questions, Inspector.’

‘When you couldn’t find George, what did you do?’

‘I looked everywhere,’ she told him, shaking as she spoke, involuntarily closing her eyes as she remembered the panic and fear, the feeling of sickness overtaking her body, ‘but I couldn’t find him.’

‘Then what?’

‘I checked the windows and doors.’

‘And?’

‘They were all closed and locked – all of them.’

‘Even the front door?’

‘Yes, and the front door.’

‘All four locks?’

‘No. Just the top lock.’

‘How come?’

‘Because Caroline had already arrived for work before I discovered George was missing.’

‘Caroline being yourself,’ he said looking over at the nodding nanny.

‘I always put the top lock on,’ she told him, ‘so that the kids can’t get out through the front door. It’s the only lock they can’t reach.’

‘And that’s how you found it?’ he asked, turning back to look at Celia Bridgeman.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

Sean considered the nanny for a moment. Had she forgotten to put the top lock on when she’d arrived, fastening it later once she’d realized her mistake? Was it already too late by then – George had slipped out into the street and wandered off, or been taken away? The nanny looked relaxed and calm enough under the circumstances – he sensed no guilt or fear in her, even if it was the most logical explanation. But he was picking up on something else – a presentiment of foul play that made him consider the entire family for a second. It was impossible to look at them and not be struck by their wealth and privilege and even more so by their beauty. All of them beautiful, including both children. Had that been the flame that had drawn the moth to them?

Stuart Bridgeman’s voice cut through his thoughts.

‘This is all we need – a wannabe Sherlock bloody Holmes on the case. These stupid questions are a waste of time. You need to stop hiding in the warm and get out on those streets and find our son.’

Ignoring Bridgeman’s rant, Sean directed the next question at him. ‘You weren’t here last night, Mr Bridgeman, is that right?’

‘I was away on business. You know – earning money for my family. I work in the private sector. I have to earn my money, unlike some.’

Again Sean let it pass. ‘So, where were you last night?’

‘Why? Am I a suspect in my own son’s disappearance?’

‘No. I just need to know where you were.’

‘Fine. I was in Oxford.’

‘You got back quickly,’ Sean prodded.

‘I came straight back as soon as I heard. Wouldn’t you – if your child had gone missing?’

‘What time did you hear?’

‘I don’t remember … some time before nine.’

‘And when did you get back here?’

‘A little while ago – why?’

‘It was ten thirty,’ Robinson told Sean. ‘It’s in the crime-scene log.’

‘That was fast,’ Sean accused him, ‘through rush-hour traffic.’

‘So I broke a few speed limits – what the fuck do I care?’

‘Stuart, please,’ Celia appealed to him. ‘You’re not helping.’

‘Here we go,’ Stuart Bridgeman said, shaking his head. ‘I wondered how long it would be before this all became my fault.’

Sean didn’t have time to referee a domestic. ‘Where did you stay? In Oxford – where did you stay?’

Bridgeman took several calming breaths before answering. ‘The Old Parsonage Hotel – just outside the city centre. They’ll be able to confirm I was there last night.’

Sean studied him, in no hurry to fill the uncomfortable silence. Bridgeman could have comfortably booked into his hotel but then come back in the night and taken the boy before returning to Oxford to await his wife’s distressed phone call. But why would he want to abduct his own son? He decided not to push that line of questioning – not yet.

‘I’m sure we won’t be needing to check with the hotel, Mr Bridgeman,’ he lied. ‘But one thing’s bothering me.’

‘And what would that be?’ Bridgeman asked, not attempting to disguise his frustration.

‘I saw an alarm panel as I came through the hallway. I assume it’s for an intruder alarm.’

‘So?’ Bridgeman asked.

‘So, if someone did manage to break into the house, why didn’t the alarm go off? Wasn’t it set last night?’

‘No,’ Bridgeman told him, ‘nor any other night since we’ve been here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s the old alarm left here by the previous owners. They cancelled their subscription to the alarm company when we bought the house and I haven’t got round to having it reactivated yet.’

‘So the house wasn’t alarmed?’ Sean clarified.

‘No,’ Bridgeman admitted. ‘But there’s an alarm box on the front of the house. You would think that would deter most people from trying to break in.’

‘So you haven’t been here long then?’ Sally asked.

‘No,’ Celia Bridgeman answered, never taking her accusing eyes off her husband. ‘A little less than three weeks.’

‘Where did you move from?’ Sally continued.

‘Primrose Hill.’

‘Any reason for the move?’ Sean asked.

‘Camden seemed to be getting closer and closer,’ Bridgeman explained, ‘and Primrose Hill’s full of very dull Russian bankers.’

‘Did you change the locks when you moved in?’ Sean questioned.

‘No,’ Bridgeman replied. ‘Who changes the locks when they move into a new house? This is Hampstead, not Peckham.’ Sean and Sally looked at each other, Sally failing to stop a small grin forming on her lips. ‘The people we bought it off were decent people. In fact, the husband works not far from me in the City. They’re hardly likely to come back and burgle us, are they?’

‘But there are keys out there you can’t account for?’ Sean asked. ‘In all likelihood there’ll be keys for this house in the hands of others?’

‘I suppose so,’ Bridgeman agreed.

‘Then we’ll need a list of anyone who might have keys to the house: the estate agent you used, the previous owners, the removal company you hired – anyone who has access to the house.’

‘Fine,’ Bridgeman reluctantly agreed, ‘but that’ll take time. What are you going to do to find our son now?’

Sean nodded his head slightly, looking around at the faces watching him expectantly. ‘I need to see the boy’s bedroom. I need to see it alone.’

‘It’s upstairs,’ Celia Bridgeman told him without hesitation, her pale lips trembling. ‘On the second floor. Along the hallway on the right.’

‘Thank you,’ Sean replied and headed for the exit. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he told them, although he was mainly talking to Sally. The relief of being on his own, away from the parents’ torment, guilt and anger felt immediately liberating as he headed for the stairs, stopping for a while to look around him, his eyes drifting towards the front door the nanny had sworn she’d locked. He believed her, but the front door somehow wouldn’t let him look away, as if it held answers to the questions firing inside his head. But the answers wouldn’t come. His mind was awhirl with distractions: the office move, Assistant Commissioner Addis, Thomas Keller still awaiting sentencing … The mental clutter was robbing him of the very thing that set him apart.

Work through the evidence, he told himself, looking at the windows he could see and noting they were all in good condition with security locks fitted and in place. The door, he told himself. Someone came in through that door, in through it in the middle of the night and took the boy away. But how, who and why? Still nothing particular stirred in his subconscious, no early ideas of who or what he could be about to hunt. He felt a rising panic at the thought of no longer being able to see or feel what the people he had to find and stop had seen or felt.

There was an alarm, but it wasn’t working – did you know that? A man lives in the house, but he was away – did you know that? Have you been watching the family – and if so, for how long? He waited for answers or ideas, some coldness in the pit of his stomach that would tell him the darkness within him was beginning to stir – the malevolence that could lead him straight to the front door of whoever took the little boy. You don’t even know for sure he’s been taken yet, he reminded himself as he began to climb the stairs, careful not to touch the mahogany bannister that clearly hadn’t been polished for a day or so. Did you touch this bannister? In your excitement to reach the boy, did you forget yourself and touch the bannister? Did you leave me your fingerprints here, hiding amongst the prints of the family, the nanny, the cleaner? What did it feel like to be inside this warm house with its comforting sounds and smells – so different from the cold, empty street outside?

‘Shit,’ he whispered as still nothing happened – no flash of inspiration or horror of realization, just blackness. ‘If you’re hiding somewhere, George,’ he said, a little louder than a whisper, ‘now would be a really good time to show yourself.’

As he stepped on to the first floor landing his eyes again swept over his surroundings: more oil paintings and Tiffany lamps, good quality carpet under his feet deadening the sound of his footsteps, stretching out in front of him and seemingly spreading into three of the four rooms he could see, the fourth of which he assumed would be a bathroom, the carpet giving way to floor tiles. He began to walk along the landing towards the staircase that continued its way upwards at the other end, but the scent of the mother leaking from the first room he passed made him stop and look around, checking he was still alone. Did the carpet feel good under your feet – silencing your footsteps? Did it reassure you? He moved to the bedroom where he knew the mother slept and moved slowly inside, breathing her in as he studied the room – her clothes tossed on the chaise longue for someone else to tidy and the bed only slept in on one side. Stuart Bridgeman had been away the previous night, but Sean felt only a fading presence of the father in the room, as if he’d stopped sleeping here days or weeks ago. Maybe he never had, just using it to store his clothes for appearances’ sake – to keep the sad truth from the children? Did you come in here? Did you stand where I am now and watch her while she slept – watching her chest rise and fall – hypnotized by her beauty? But you didn’t come for her, did you? Again the answers evaded him. He scratched his forehead and left the room, passing what was indeed a bathroom, a room used as an office and another made up as a spare bedroom, but almost overly tidy and sterile. Was this where Stuart Bridgeman spent his nights – making the bed immaculately every morning before the children, nanny or cleaner could discover it had been used – quickly moving his used clothes into the master bedroom to complete the illusion? Probably, Sean decided, but what did it mean? What, if anything, did it have to do with George’s disappearance?

He left the room behind and climbed to the second floor and the children’s bedrooms, his foot finding a loose floorboard and making it creak loudly. Did you step on the creaking stair? Did it make you freeze with panic or fear? Or did you know it was there and avoid it? But how could you know it was there? He could feel the ideas, even possible answers straining to break free, but the weeds of his everyday responsibilities and life kept strangling his newly flowering strands of thought. Finally he lifted his foot, the returning floorboard making the same loud creaking that would have been magnified ten-fold in the dead of the night. No one came in here in the middle of the night and stole the boy, he almost chastised himself as he strode up the final few stairs and along the hallway. I’m letting things from the past fuck with my head. There’s no mystery here – just a little boy whose joke’s gone too far. The doors and windows are locked. No one came in here and the boy couldn’t have left, so he’s here – somewhere inside this house. He reached George’s room and unceremoniously pushed the door wide open, the sense of excitement that they would soon find the boy hiding instantly replaced by a deep sense of coldness. He felt as if he was stepping into a murder scene where the shattered soul of the victim still lingered, only there was no body, just an awful feeling of emptiness, as if the boy had never been there in the first place and the room was little more than a mock-up of a child’s room: the silhouettes of clouds printed on the powder-blue wallpaper, the train mobile above the bed with its matching bedclothes. The duvet remained on the floor where the mother had thrown it, along with a dozen or so teddy bears and other soft toys. More toys were neatly stacked on the shelving units and play table. But none of it seemed real any more – it felt surreal, just like so many other crime scenes he’d seen. And although the answers to his questions failed to come, the sickness in his stomach told him something had happened to the little boy. But what?