Luke Delaney - 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 Shooters 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.