Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

Stuart Bridgeman went pale as he struggled to find an answer, but he was spared by another gentle rat-a-tat-tat at the door.

‘Everything all right in there?’ DC Maggie O’Neil asked.

‘Yes,’ Celia Bridgeman lied through the door. ‘Everything’s absolutely fine.’

They abandoned their unmarked car by the side of the road on double yellow lines with the vehicle’s log-book tossed unceremoniously on the dashboard to identify it as a CID car to any passing traffic wardens − not that the ones from the local council would take any notice. Sean led the way as they strode across the pavement, already tugging his warrant card free from his inside jacket pocket. Donnelly was close behind, but nowhere near as enthusiastic. As they entered, a loud, electronic buzzing noise filled the hardware shop, replacing what would once upon a time have been a bell. The Indian shopkeeper, somewhere in his sixties, short and slim with an immaculate grey beard and complete with turban, appeared from behind the counter where he’d been crouched while rearranging the fine display of nuts and bolts. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he immediately asked in his thick Indian accent.

‘Police,’ Sean told him unceremoniously, holding his warrant card out in front of him. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Corrigan and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Donnelly. I need to ask you a few questions about a customer who came to your shop earlier this morning.’

‘Of course. No problem,’ the shopkeeper answered without any nervousness or hesitation. ‘I was a police officer myself many years ago,’ he added, ‘so please, anything that you want, just ask.’

‘Was that back in India?’ Donnelly asked.

‘It was, sir. In Bombay. My father was also a police officer and so was my grandfather, but it was easier to be a police officer there than here I think. Trust me, everyone I ever questioned soon admitted their guilt. Not so many rules back then.’

Sean was already tired of the police-club chat. ‘I’m sure,’ he interrupted. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name …?’

‘My name is Mr Nashua. I moved to this country with my family-’

Sean cut him short. ‘Mr Nashua, a man came into your shop earlier …’ He rummaged in his jacket pocket for the photograph of McKenzie. ‘This man,’ he said, carefully placing it on the counter. ‘I need to know what he wanted.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Nashua acknowledged, ‘I remember him. He was here not long ago.’

‘Yes, but what did he want?’ Sean hurried him. ‘Did he buy anything?’

‘He looked around for a bit. I was a bit suspicious at first — he seemed to be looking out the window, checking outside, as if he was waiting for someone to join him in my shop. I can always spot a thief who has only come to steal from me, but this one seemed more interested in what was going on outside the shop rather than the things inside.’

‘Mr Nashua, please,’ Sean appealed. ‘Did he buy anything?’

‘Oh yes — eventually. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted.’

‘And what was that?’ Sean persisted.

‘He bought an MLPX,’ Nashua told them. ‘A very good one too. It cost almost one hundred pounds.’

‘A what?’ Donnelly asked.

‘An MLPX,’ Nashua repeated. ‘A master lock-picking kit. In the right hands, a set like that could open pretty much any standard lock in the world — and this man who bought it seemed very much to know his business. He asked me about the quality and size of the picks, hooks, wrenches, diamonds — everything. I thought this man must be a qualified locksmith — yes?’

‘You could say that,’ Sean answered, still looking at Donnelly. ‘What say we pay our locksmith friend a surprise visit?’

‘I don’t see we have any choice,’ Donnelly agreed. ‘Only …’

‘Only what?’ Sean pressed.

‘I don’t recall anyone mentioning we’d seized any lock-picking tools when he was first arrested.’

‘That’s because we didn’t.’

‘So why does he need a new set?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Because tools leave distinctive marks. Once the lab open up the locks from the Bridgemans’ house they should find tool marks — some may match the tools he used to open them, the rest will fit with the keys normally used to unlock them.’

‘You had Forensics take the locks from the front door?’

‘Of course.’

‘That’s a hell of a long shot.’

‘It is, but McKenzie probably knows it’s possible.’

‘So he ditched the tools he used at the Bridgemans?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Then we need to find them,’ said Donnelly.

‘Would be useful,’ Sean agreed. ‘Have Zukov make sure all the search teams are aware we’re looking for tools used for lock-picking. He may have dumped them not too far from the scene. Tell him to download some pictures from the Internet so people can see what he’s talking about or it’ll mean nothing to most of them.’

‘No problem,’ Donnelly assured him. ‘It will be done.’

‘Is there a problem?’ Mr Nashua asked, aware that the detectives had forgotten he was there.

‘No,’ Sean told him with a wry smile. ‘No problem at all.’

A smile of self-satisfaction fixed itself to his face as he looked out of his first-floor window at the people of all creeds and colours scurrying along Kentish Town Road below. Every few minutes the sight of a child electrified his body with an excitement he couldn’t control and tightened his belly and groin as he licked his dry lips and waited — waited for the inevitable.

As soon as the car came into view crawling along in the rest of the traffic some criminal instinct told him it was them, but he felt no panic or fear — no need to scramble around his tiny, sparse flat to find and destroy any incriminating evidence before they found it. He felt calm and in control, as if everything he’d been planning was coming together better than he could have expected. Corrigan had been a gift — a gift that must have been sent from a greater power — the conduit of all his planned revenge. They had thought him beaten and humiliated. Now it would be him who would teach them the true meaning of defeat and public humiliation.

He drew the stained net curtains to better conceal himself while still keeping watch on the approaching car. It stopped and squeezed itself into the tightest of parking spaces, holding up the traffic and provoking a cacophony of horn blasts. He knew the occupants wouldn’t give a damn about the inconvenience they caused, such was their all-consuming arrogance and ignorance. As he watched them climb from the car he realized he was grinding his teeth in anticipation and hatred, eager to continue the game he knew he couldn’t lose. They crossed the pavement and became impossible to see once they were directly below him — at the communal entrance that ultimately led to his front door.

Slowly he moved away from the window and sat shaking a little at the only table in the flat, wishing he still had a laptop to log on to so that he could download incriminating items to tantalize Detective Inspector Corrigan with — sending him on yet more wild-goose chases, leading him further and further away from the boy and himself closer and closer to final victory.

He listened for the sound of splintering wood — the sound of Corrigan’s career beginning to shatter, but was disappointed to hear instead one of his neighbours’ intercoms buzzing. He immediately knew what Corrigan was up to — threatening or cajoling one of the other occupants of the filth-infested flats to open the communal door so they could sneak up the stairs like sewer rats.

Quickly he gathered the items he had laid out on the table in front him: an A to Z of London with the missing boy’s street circled in red pen, other houses also circled in red, along with a few local schools and − his crowning glory — areas of nearby woodland. He’d enjoyed himself that morning, chuckling to himself as he marked the map and scribbled the apparent ramblings of a dangerous madman across the pages of a notebook that he now placed on top of the A to Z . He sat back, trying not to grin as he heard the footsteps climbing the stairs — neither running nor tiptoeing, just steadily walking — not as he’d expected them to come. The departure from how he’d expected things to happen caused a rare moment of panic, a fluttering in his chest like a hummingbird’s wings.