The Toy Taker. Luke Delaney
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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.
‘Do you need any help there, Caroline?’ she asked the nanny, who continued to chase the six-year-old.
‘No thanks,’ she replied, ‘I’m used to it. Come on, Sophia – it’s time for bed.’
‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ Sophia unhelpfully answered. ‘You’re not my mother.’
‘Don’t talk yourself into trouble, Sophia,’ Caroline warned, prompting the six-year-old to turn her back on them and reluctantly head towards the bathroom, calling back without looking:
‘Whatever.’
Caroline rolled her eyes in Maggie’s direction before whispering, ‘Proper little madam, that one.’
‘What about her brother?’ Maggie asked quietly. ‘What’s George like?’
‘Not like this one. He’s a really sweet boy,’ Caroline managed to answer before her voice failed and her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she stuttered. ‘I wasn’t expecting to have to speak about him.’
‘It’s all right,’ Maggie reassured her. ‘In situations like this our emotions can sometimes ambush us. One second you think you’re fine, then the next …’
‘Poor George. Dear God, poor George. What’s happened to him?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie told her. ‘We’ll find him.’
‘How do you know that?’ Caroline asked. ‘I mean, how do you know that for sure?’
It was a question Maggie knew she had to avoid answering. ‘How’s Mrs Bridgeman coping?’
‘She’s doing a decent job of hiding it, but I can tell she’s scared – really scared. This is killing her inside.’ The sound of Mr Bridgeman’s raised voice in the kitchen made them both freeze for a