The Toy Taker Read online

  He half-expected the door to be locked in a final gesture of defiance from the now disbanded Arts and Antiques Squad – a show of two fingers to Assistant Commissioner Addis, who Sean ironically always pictured living in a house surrounded by arts and antiques. Maybe one day Addis would get burgled and have to hastily re-form the squad in an effort to recover his own stolen treasures.

  Sean balanced the heavy box on his raised thigh and tried the door handle, which to his surprise turned and opened, the door itself swinging aside in response to a good kick, allowing him to enter his new home from home.

  Sean peered inside as best he could before stepping over the threshold. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he exclaimed as he walked deeper into the office, which was about half the size of the one they’d just left and looked like a hand-grenade had gone off in it. Clearly the Arts and Antiques boys and girls had been moved out in a hurry, leaving very little but rubbish and broken computers behind. He congratulated himself on the decision to tell his own team to ransack the Peckham office as part of the move. He dumped the box on an abandoned desk and crossed the office to the still-closed blinds – cheap, grey plastic venetians. He tugged the string, expecting the blind to neatly, if noisily, roll up to the ceiling, but the entire thing came crashing to the floor, the reverberating sound appearing to go on for ever as it bounced back and forth off the empty walls. Sean stood frozen, his face a grimace, long after the sound had faded. He turned back towards the door, anticipating a flurry of concerned people coming to investigate, but no one came, although he thought he heard laughter from further down the hallway. He moved along the line of blinds and gingerly pulled the strings until all were open and he was able to look down on the streets of St James’s Park below, the traffic little more than a distant murmur.

  Turning his back on the windows, he surveyed the office in the daylight and didn’t like what he saw any better than before. It was going to be a real squeeze and arguments would abound as to who was entitled to a desk of their own, but at least there were two offices at one end of the main room, partitioned off with the usual polystyrene boards and sheets of Perspex, all held together by strips of aluminium. He made his way to the larger office and stepped inside, deciding it was about as big as his last one. He decided he’d give it to Sally and Donnelly to share while he took the smaller one. At the very least it might placate the unhappy Donnelly.

  Leaving the office, he retrieved the heavy cardboard box that contained his most precious policing tools and entered the smaller office, dumping the box on the standard-sized desk that would soon be covered in keyboards, computer screens, phones and files. Under the desk he found the usual cheap three-drawer cabinet and miraculously the previous owner had left the keys in the top lock. Only someone leaving the force for good would abandon such a prized possession. Sean felt a twang of jealousy as he imagined the previous owner skipping out of the office after their last day at work, knowing they would never be returning. He shook the thought away and looked around for a chair, finding a swivel one pushed into the corner of the room, foam peeking from the rip in the seat cover. Never mind – it would have to do.

  Before sitting he began to unpack the contents of the box – the few personal things first, placed on top of everything else where they were least likely to be damaged: a photograph of his wife, Kate, and of his smiling daughters, Mandy and Louise, and finally a small silver cross on a thin silver chain, given to him by his mother when he was just a boy. She’d told him it would protect him. It hadn’t, but still he’d kept it without knowing why. He hung it over the corner of the frame that held Kate’s picture and remembered being dragged to church as a child, never to return as an adult, despite his mother’s frequent encouragement.

  He continued to unpack his things: his Detective’s Training Course Manual – otherwise known as The Bible, a copy of Butterworths Criminal Law and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, old files kept for reference, stationery and even the landline phone he’d commandeered from his old office back at Peckham. Every so often he glanced up from arranging his new desk to look exactly like his old one and stared into the empty main office – imagining, almost seeing how it would soon look – the characters who he so strongly associated with Peckham transported to this strange new environment, working away at computers, phones clamped between ears and shoulders as they hurriedly scribbled notes, the constant chatter and noise bringing the place to life. He blinked the imaginary detectives away, returning the office to its eerie emptiness and leaving him feeling strangely lonely. It wasn’t something he felt often, not since his childhood when being alone generally meant being safe. He shook his head and continued to empty the box, but a voice close by broke the silence and made him jump a little, leaving him surprised that he hadn’t felt the other person approaching as he usually would have.

  ‘Settling in all right I trust, Inspector?’ Assistant Commissioner Addis asked from the doorway.

  ‘More moving in than settling in,’ Sean answered.

  ‘Indeed,’ Addis agreed, a thin, unpleasant grin fixed on his face, his eyes sparkling with cunning and intelligence. ‘The office is on the small side, I know, but I’m sure it will serve its purpose.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Sean told him without enthusiasm, returning to the task of unpacking.

  ‘Good,’ Addis said, walking deeper into the room. ‘It’s fortunate you’ve arrived early,’ he added, making Sean look up.

  ‘Really?’ Sean asked, already concerned about what was coming next. ‘How so?’

  ‘Gives us time to chat – in private.’ Addis looked around at the emptiness as if to make the point.

  ‘About what?’ Sean asked without trying to veil the suspicion in his voice.

  ‘Your new position, of course – here at the Yard. I’m assuming Superintendent Featherstone briefed you?’

  ‘He did – more or less.’

  ‘You should thank me,’ Addis told him without a hint of irony. ‘You’re free now. Free of all those tedious investigations a trained chimp could solve: husband strangles wife to death; drug dealer shoots other drug dealer; teenage gang member stabs other teenage gang member. I think we can leave the mundane to the less gifted to solve, don’t you?’

  Sean shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Suppose so?’ Addis asked. ‘You know so I think. Yes?’ Sean said nothing. ‘You know one of the things we do really badly in the police, Sean? We waste talent. But I don’t waste talent when I see it, Sean – I use it, in whatever way I think best.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m here?’ Sean asked. ‘To be used?’

  Addis gave a short, shallow laugh before pulling a thin manilla file from under his armpit that Sean hadn’t registered he was carrying until now. Addis flopped it on the desk, some of the documents inside spilling out, including a photograph of a radiant, beautiful child. ‘Your first case,’ Addis told him without emotion. ‘A four-year-old child has gone missing in suspicious circumstances from his home in Hampstead.’

  ‘Hampstead?’ Sean asked, remembering the area or at least several of its pubs that were frequently used by detectives attending residential courses at the Metropolitan Police Training Centre in nearby Hendon.

  ‘The boy apparently went missing overnight while his mother and sister were asleep. No signs of forced entry anywhere in the house, so it appears the boy has vanished into thin air. Quite the mystery. Right up your street – don’t you think?’

  ‘And the father?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Away on business, I believe. The local CID are at the address with the family eagerly awaiting your arrival.’

  ‘Has the house been searched yet?’ Sean enquired. ‘Sounds like the kid’s probably still in there somewhere, hiding.’

  ‘The house’s been searched by the mother, the local uniform officers and the local CID. No trace of the boy, which is why I’ve decided to assign the investigation to you.’

  ‘I see,’ Sean said, realizing that nothing he could say would d
eter Addis.

  ‘If you find the boy hiding somewhere the others failed to look then all well and good,’ Addis told him. ‘But if you don’t …’ He let it hang for a while before speaking again. ‘I understand you had some success a few years ago working undercover to infiltrate a paedophile ring known as the Network?’

  ‘I did,’ Sean admitted, slightly fazed that Addis had taken the time to research him so thoroughly.

  ‘Then you’ll have good understanding of how these people work.’

  ‘And you think a paedophile is involved here?’

  ‘That would be my guess,’ Addis answered. ‘And these people aren’t council estate scum, Sean – before you start accusing the parents of being involved.’

  ‘I was only thinking it’s a little too soon to make any assumptions. If the family are wealthy there may be a ransom demand.’

  ‘Well,’ Addis said, allowing Sean his moment of contradiction, ‘I’ll leave that for you to discover. All the details I have are in the file.’ Addis’s eyes indicated the folder on the desk. ‘Oh, and while I have you, I’ve decided your team needs a new name – to help you stand out from the crowd. As of now you will be known as the Special Investigations Unit. Should keep your troops happy: there’s nothing detectives seem to like more than a bit of elitism – or at least that’s what I’ve always found. Predominantly you’ll still be investigating murders, but every now and then something else may come along.’ Sean didn’t reply, his eyes never leaving Addis. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it. A quick result would be much appreciated: we could do with some positive press. If you need anything just pop in and see me – I’m never far away, just a few floors above. Report to me when you find anything, or Superintendent Featherstone if I’m not around. Until later, then.’ Addis turned to leave.

  ‘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 ex
plained. ‘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.