The Toy Taker

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 Shooter’s 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 anticipation. ‘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.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you – whoever you are.’

‘I already told you who I am, Mark. You need to pay a little more attention and you need to answer my questions and you need to answer them now. Do you know what happens to child murderers inside, Mark? Look at you – you wouldn’t last a week before someone stuck a sharpened screwdriver into your liver. You already know all about living Rule 43 inside, don’t you, Mark – but a child murderer? How long before the screws accidentally leave your cell unlocked, eh?’

‘You finished yet?’ McKenzie asked, his smirk turning to a full-blown smile.

‘Fuck you, am I finished!’ Sean told him as he pushed his face into the computer screen, releasing him at the same time and stepping back before he did something he knew he’d regret. ‘I’m just getting started, you disgusting piece of shit. Trust me, McKenzie, when I’m finished you’ll know.’

Donnelly sat alone, surveying the interior of the café he’d found off Hampstead High Street, sipping the coffee he’d just bought, the price of which had made his eyes water. He regretted not opting for one of the many big-chain coffee shops and saving himself a few pounds, even though he couldn’t stand the places. It had been a few years since he’d attended any training courses at the nearby Peel Centre Police College, but even in that time many of the independent cafés and restaurants had disappeared, overtaken by the ever-spreading international franchises. He sighed as he took a bite from his extortionate bacon sandwich and sipped the coffee that cost as much as a pint of bitter in his favourite pub. As his mind drifted back to the case in hand and his appointed task of organizing the door-to-door inquiries, he couldn’t suppress a snort of disgust at the way his talents were being wasted. Not that he had any intention of actually knocking on endless doors himself, speaking to the disinterested and the over-keen alike − though he had reserved a couple of addresses for his special attention: the immediate neighbours of the Bridgemans.

He had quickly come to the conclusion that they were looking for some spectre who didn’t actually exist. During his long service he’d seen a lot of strange things, but when a child went missing and there was no sign of a forced entry there was no need to look further than the parents. The boy was almost certainly dead already and probably still hidden somewhere in the house – a suitcase or holdall. Once the search team or dog unit found the body, they could crack on with the murder investigation, by which time he planned to be one or two steps ahead. Interviewing the neighbours would be the first of those steps.

Donnelly hadn’t even met the missing boy’s parents yet, but just sitting in this café in the middle of Hampstead told him the sort of people they would be: smug and self-important. God, he loved putting the squeeze on types like that. They always thought they were so clever – so much cleverer than a dumb copper. Which was just how he liked it, because they invariably thought they were smart enough to talk their way out of any situation. In reality, they always ended up digging themselves great big holes to neatly fall headfirst into. If they really were as clever as they thought, they’d say nothing – just like the everyday feral criminal from any housing estate in London would. How I love hubris, he told himself with a smile, the image of tearing their alibis to pieces across an interview table cheering him considerably. The cold, hard truth was that all he had to do was bide his time and wait for the body to turn up.

Kentish Town Police Station sat on the corner of Kentish Town Road and Holmes Road, blending in perfectly with its bleak surroundings, its Victorian architecture oppressive and forbidding, a relic from the past that seemed to hold the entire area back, despite its proximity to some of the wealthiest and most sought-after areas of London. From outside the building almost no signs of life could be seen within, just as the Victorians had wanted: small windows with thick, dimpled glass kept the secrets of its business from the public outside. That suited Sean just fine as he and Sally sat in the small office they’d borrowed from the resident DI, preparing to interview Mark McKenzie – who was currently languishing in the dingy, threatening cells that lay in the bowels of the building.

‘So, how much d’you like McKenzie for our yet-to-be-established abduction?’ Sally asked, breaking minutes of silence. Sean looked up from McKenzie’s intelligence file, his expression telling her he hadn’t heard her question.

‘What?’

‘McKenzie? D’you think he could be our man – if it’s confirmed the boy has actually been taken?’

‘The boy’s been taken,’ he assured her, ‘and yes, he could be our man. His previous is perfect – especially his record of night-time residential burglaries while the families were at home, sleeping. He’s a creeper, and that makes him a dangerous individual. You and I both know that. People don’t do night-time burglaries while the residents are at home for profit alone – it gives them something else – a buzz, some perverted satisfaction. It makes them feel powerful and in control, even if half of them do end up fouling themselves with fear.’

‘But not McKenzie,’ Sally added. ‘There’s nothing in his records to say he ever defecated at the scenes of his burglaries.’

‘Which means either he wasn’t afraid or he’s learned to control his fear, both of which make him all the more dangerous. Add to that the fact he has previous for sexual assaults on children, and has used lock-picking as a way of gaining entry … yes, I like him for this – a lot. But I could do with something a bit more concrete before we interview him. Which reminds me …’ He grabbed his mobile from the desk and searched its memory for one of the newest members of his team, then hit speed-dial and waited.

‘Guv’nor,’ Goodwin answered.

‘How you getting on with that search team and dog unit?’

‘I’m gonna meet them at the house in a couple of hours, guv.’

‘What’s the hold-up?’ Sean asked impatiently.

‘Anti-Terrorist, guv. They’ve had them all tied up for days now. I had to be a little economical with the truth to pull them away for a few hours, so if you get an irate call from any brass, I’m afraid that’ll be down to me.’

‘If I do, I’ll deal with it,’ Sean assured him. ‘You got a team and that’s all that matters. Anyone gives you a hard time, you tell them I made the call on that one – understand?’

‘Thanks, guv.’

‘As soon as you get a result, let me know,’ Sean told him and hung up.

‘Problem?’ Sally asked.

‘The house hasn’t been searched yet,’ Sean told her, ‘and won’t be for a few hours.’

‘Shall we delay the interview?’

‘No. We’ll do it anyway. We’ve got a missing four-year-old, we can’t afford to wait around.’

‘So,’ Sally began, her eyebrows raised in exaggerated concern, ‘we’ll be interviewing a possible suspect who we have no evidence against about a crime we can’t even prove has happened. This’ll be interesting.’

‘The crime’s happened,’ Sean almost snapped at her, ‘and McKenzie’s a good suspect. We go with what we’ve got. If the search teams or Forensics come up with anything else, we can always re-interview him.’

‘If you think he fits the bill, that’s good enough for me,’ Sally told him.

Sean closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, allowing the images of McKenzie crouched by the front door of the Bridgemans’ house to flow into his mind, the dark figure quickly and smoothly working the locks as his breath condensed in the cold night air, before slipping inside the house and moving silently towards the stairs that would lead him to the boy he knew was sleeping upstairs. ‘How did you know?’ He spoke aloud without knowing it.

‘Know what?’ Sally asked, making him open his eyes.

‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her, ‘or at least nothing that’s going to take us forward. Christ, my head’s so full of crap at the moment I can barely think.’

‘Then use your experience instead,’ Sally encouraged him. ‘You’ve dealt with paedophiles before. What about that undercover case you were on?’

‘That was years ago.’

‘These particular leopards never change their spots.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘No, they don’t.’

‘So what was the job?’

‘To infiltrate a paedophile ring calling itself the Network.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ Sally sniffed sarcastically.

‘The Internet was just beginning to spread and typically the baddies were on to it before we were – grooming kids online before getting them to … to perform – sometimes with each other, sometimes with the men who’d groomed then. They’d film the abuse and post it on the Internet.’

‘Why?’ Sally asked.

‘Because they were proud of what they did.’

‘Sick,’ Sally judged.

‘Maybe, or maybe that was just the way nature intended them. Anyway, I infiltrated their top man in prison first, then on the outside we continued our relationship until eventually he let me into the heart of their organization, something they called the Sanctum, made up of the members who actually did the abusing and oversaw distribution of the pictures.’

‘And you took them out?’ Sally asked.

‘We did. But the whole time I was with them, the head of the snake knew I was a cop – from the very first time he met me.’

‘He was bullshitting you.’

‘No,’ Sean said without hesitation. ‘He knew. John Conway knew.’

‘Then why did he take you in?’

‘Because he thought he could turn me,’ Sean admitted.

‘Thought he could turn you into a paedophile?’ Sally asked, confused.

‘What else?’ he answered, the question lingering unanswered between them. He steered the conversation back to the present. ‘But the Network groomed their victims, luring them to places where they could safely meet them. And the victims were older – all between nine and thirteen. Not like this one. Our guy goes into the house and takes them – and he takes them when they’re still very young.’

‘Them?’ Sally asked. ‘He’s only taken one, if that.’

‘Slip of the tongue,’ Sean lied. ‘Anyway, there’s a damn good chance we have our man banged up downstairs. So, if you’re ready …’ He stood, gathering up the piles of reports he’d been reading in preparation for the interview.

‘Ready when you are, Mr McKenzie,’ Sally said. ‘Ready when you are.’

DC Maggie O’Neil looked out of the fifteenth-floor hotel-room window at the view of Swiss Cottage and Maida Vale, the streets below twinkling and sparkling in the headlights, the crowded pavements bathed in the yellow light that leaked from the shop-fronts. The traffic was in gridlock, the sounds of which drifted up to the fifteenth floor and through the double-glazing. She’d offered the Bridgemans the use of a police safe house but they had unceremoniously turned her offer down, instead opting to find and pay for their own temporary accommodation, hence the three-bedroom apartment in the hotel in Swiss Cottage. Mr and Mrs Bridgeman took the largest room, while the nanny and Sophia shared the twin room. Maggie could use the small single room if she felt it was necessary for her to spend the night with the family, and so far she did.

She drew the curtains on the city below and turned to study the family, wishing she was tucked up at home in her small flat in Beckenham with her partner, who worked on the Mounted Division out of Wandsworth. She’d recently turned thirty and still hadn’t told her parents and family back in Birmingham she was gay, although she suspected her older sister had worked it out by now – the lack of boyfriends, no marriage talk, no baby talk. But for the rest, their conservative Irish background seemed to mean they’d rather not know the truth than have to deal with it. Besides, her brothers and sisters had already produced four grandchildren with the promise of plenty more to come, so it wasn’t as if she was leaving her parents with no little brats to bounce on their knees at Christmas.

She watched the nanny chasing six-year-old Sophia around the living area, her excitement at staying in a London hotel on a school night making her even more difficult to deal with – all thoughts of her missing brother seemingly forgotten. How cruel and selfish young children can be, she thought to herself as Sophia’s noisy protests against bedtime drowned out the urgent whispers from the small kitchen next door where Mr and Mrs Bridgeman had retreated in search of privacy.