Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

Sean opened the A to Z first and flicked through to the pages covering Hampstead and the surrounding area, the neat red circles leaping out at him like tracer bullets, his eyes frantically searching until he found the street the boy had been taken from — Courthope Road — ringed in red, just like numerous others. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, loudly enough for both Donnelly and McKenzie to hear, his gloved finger tracing the pages to the areas ringed in red, several of which marked remote areas on Hampstead Heath.

‘Problem?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Yes,’ Sean answered, ‘but not for us — for him.’ He turned and nodded once towards McKenzie, who stood silent and motionless, his eyes wide with anticipation and trepidation, afraid he wouldn’t be able to control what he’d begun — wouldn’t be able to control Corrigan.

Leaving the A to Z open on the damning page, Sean turned his attention to the accompanying notebook, immediately noticing that it appeared almost new and largely unscathed — something that niggled at him, his instincts warning him that the book should look well worn, as if McKenzie had hardly been able to bear not to have it in his hands for even a second. But the fact the boy had only been taken recently chased his doubt away. As soon as he opened the notebook, the same garish red ink stared up at him, obscene scribblings detailing extreme sexual acts and acts of excessive violence between people of all ages and sexes, along with sketches and rough diagrams illustrating the words. Crude drawings of what looked like Christ on the cross littered most pages, as did caricatures of the devil and demons, all frolicking with the naked, deformed, wounded and bleeding humans — the most grotesque creatures of hell paying the children special attention. Sean again glanced briefly over his shoulder at McKenzie. ‘You’re fucked, McKenzie,’ he announced. ‘Your throat cut by your own hand.’

Donnelly realized what was happening before even seeing the map and notebook, snatched the handcuffs off his belt and stepped towards McKenzie, spinning him around, pulling his arms behind his back and snapping the cuffs on his wrists. ‘Can’t have you running off anywhere, can we?’ he told the startled-looking man.

‘I’m not saying anything until I see my solicitor,’ McKenzie protested.

‘You don’t have to,’ Sean told him, pointing at the damning evidence lying on the bed-base. ‘These say it all for you.’

‘You can’t prove they’re mine. And even if they are — so what?’

‘Do me a favour,’ Sean replied, walking towards him while Donnelly went the other way, eager to see what Sean had seen. ‘But there’s something else you have that I need.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Now is not the time to fuck with me,’ Sean warned. ‘Where are they?’

‘Who?’ McKenzie asked, trying to stall. ‘Where are who?’

‘Not who,’ Sean told him, his voice growing louder. ‘The items you bought from the hardware-shop — where are they?’

‘You’re mad,’ he accused Sean. ‘I haven’t been to any hardware-shop. Why would I go to a hardware-shop?’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Sean warned. ‘Where are they — the lock-picking tools you bought from the shop in Archway Road? I know you were there, Mark.’

‘You had me followed?’ he asked calmly, quietly enjoying the expression on Sean’s face as he realized he’d shown his hand and burnt the surveillance team. ‘You must have, otherwise how could you have known?’

‘So you admit it?’ Sean recovered.

‘I’m not admitting anything.’

‘This isn’t a game, Mark, and I’m not playing. You’re in deep shit. Now, where are the items you bought from the hardware shop?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ McKenzie sneered, ‘you start searching this rat-hole you and your kind condemned me to live in and I’ll tell you when you’re getting warm.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Sean replied, jabbing him in the crotch with a snap of his knee, folding McKenzie in half as he fell to the floor, his hands cupped around his private parts to ease the pain and protect them from further blows. ‘You want to play games? OK — let’s play a new game. This one’s called, you tell me where the tools are or have more of the same.’

‘You can’t do this,’ McKenzie groaned, spittle spraying from his thin, pale lips. He knew Corrigan was dangerous — he’d almost depended on it, but he hadn’t planned on being tortured. His intense fear and dislike of physical pain of any type threatened to cause him to cave in and confess all. ‘You can’t do this to me.’

‘Oh yeah, and who’s going to stop me?’ Sean asked, looking around the room as Donnelly deliberately kept his back to them.

‘I won’t tell you anything,’ McKenzie insisted. Sean slapped him hard across the face, the sound of the blow reverberating around the flat, mixing with the pitiful little scream that escaped from McKenzie’s mouth.

‘That’s probably not true, is it, Mark? You see, I think you’re going to tell me everything I want you to.’ Sean’s voice was full of quiet malevolence and danger — as if torturing prisoners was an everyday occurrence, just another part of his job.

‘Leave me alone,’ McKenzie demanded. ‘You won’t get away with this.’

‘The tools,’ Sean hissed at him. ‘Tell me where the tools you bought from the hardware shop are. And the others — the ones you used on the house you took the boy from — where did you dump them?’

‘I’ve already told you: I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Sean snapped the heel of his shoe into McKenzie’s shin, just below the knee, causing a jolt of excrutiating pain that brought tears to his eyes as he gripped the injured limb and rolled side to side to try and distract himself from his agony.

‘We can keep doing this,’ Sean told him, ‘or you can tell me what I need to know.’

‘You’re insane,’ he spat back. ‘You’re crazy.’

Sean reached out with both hands and gripped the collar of McKenzie’s unbuttoned shirt, twisting it in on itself to make a tourniquet around his neck — cutting off his oxygen and damming the spent blood in his brain. McKenzie tried to break free, but Sean was too strong and his grip too tight. He held him without speaking until McKenzie’s eyes began to bulge.

‘Tell me,’ Sean shouted in his face, watching as McKenzie turned his head, his eyes rolling the rest of the way and pointing accusingly towards a corner of the room.

‘Maybe you should take it easy, guv’nor,’ Donnelly warned, heading back towards the unevenly matched combatants, ready to peel Sean off his prey if he had to. But Sean had already loosened the shirt around McKenzie’s neck and dropped him to the floor, where he lay panting for breath, one hand around his reddening neck and the other pointing shakily at Sean.

‘I want to make a complaint,’ he managed to mumble. ‘I want him arrested,’ he told Donnelly. ‘You saw what he did — arrest him. He tried to kill me.’

‘If he’d tried to kill you, you’d be dead by now,’ Donnelly answered, ‘so shut the fuck up. And next time, save yourself a bit of bother by answering our questions when we ask them.’ He looked away from the still prostrate McKenzie towards Sean, who was already in the corner of the room McKenzie’s bulging eyes had looked to. ‘You got something?’

Sean was crouching to examine the floor. ‘Carpet’s loose over here,’ he answered, ‘like it’s been pulled away more than once.’

‘Hello, hello,’ Donnelly said, looking at McKenzie. ‘Another wee hiding place, Mr McKenzie?’

He didn’t answer, his eyes once again wide with the infinite possibilities of the next few seconds — Corrigan’s unpredictability only now fully revealing itself to him, increasing both the danger and the possible rewards.