Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

Images of all the victims he’d seen flashed through his mind, a series of macabre stills fast-forwarding through his memory: some mutilated, others apparently with barely a mark. Bodies in wheelie bins, next to train tracks, left in the street, abandoned in the woods, tossed into running water, and those left in shallow, pointless graves, gnawed and bitten by foxes and rats. So either you know these children personally , he told the unseen monster, or they’re … they’re not dead. You’ve taken them, but you haven’t killed them, and you haven’t killed them because … he suddenly felt so close to a breakthrough into the mind and motivation of the taker that his head began to pound as if he was suffering a severe migraine … because you don’t have to … because … because … The answer came like light pouring into a black hole … you haven’t hurt them. You haven’t touched them. You take them, but don’t lay a finger on them. You love them! He allowed his mind to stop thinking, to grow calm. But if, when, they don’t return your love, what will you do? Once again the face of Thomas Keller burnt itself into his consciousness. Will you turn on them like Keller turned on the women he’d taken? Will you leave them in a dark wood for me to find?

He waited for the answers, but none came. ‘Damn it. I’m guessing — nothing more than guessing. Christ,’ he swore quietly as he once more tried to concentrate, to think like the man whose footsteps he now walked in, raising his hand to the partially open door, resting no more than a fingertip on the yet-to-be-examined wooden surface and pushing it fully open — slowly waiting for it to swing fully aside. Did you stand here and watch her sleeping? Watch her chest rise and fall — listen to her breathing? Did her scent almost drive you mad with desire, make you want to rush into the room and do the things you’d dreamed about doing to her while her parents, brother and sister slept soundly below? Maybe you wanted to, but you didn’t. How did you control those needs that burn in the pit of your stomach?

He sighed without knowing it and walked into the room, not stopping until he was exactly in the centre where he stood completely still, staring at the empty, unmade bed, biting down hard on his bottom lip, the pain preventing any unplanned thoughts from ambushing him while he tried to clear his mind and create the blank canvas he needed to paint the picture of what had happened here last night. The girl had been taken, but that was only a small part of it. What coming together of circumstances and opportunities had led to the cataclysmic event that could result in the violent end to a young, innocent life?

Toys from all corners of the room watched him as he looked around — their glass eyes as lifeless as the eyes of the victims that had haunted him as he’d climbed the stairs. And like so many of the dead, they looked as if they might come to life at any moment — sealed plastic lips of dolls unable to tell him what they saw. Sean felt their eyes as he moved towards Bailey’s abandoned bed and knelt by its side, eyes wide and nostrils flared as he instinctively searched for anything that didn’t belong: the faint scent of cigarettes or alcohol, chloroform or ether; a tiny drop of blood or a small patch of discoloured, flaky material made that way by semen or saliva. But he saw and smelt nothing out of place. How , he asked the ghost, how did you come into this room in the dead of night and take this girl — take this girl without a sound or even the slightest sign of a struggle?

‘What do you want them for?’ he demanded under his breath, his lips thin and pale with anger and frustration, that soon gave way to an overwhelming sadness. ‘Please don’t hurt them,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t hurt them and I won’t hurt you. As God is my witness, I’ll do everything I can for you, just don’t hurt them.’

He closed his eyes for a fraction too long, allowing the snarling, savage faces of the gang of paedophiles who called themselves the Network, to poison his thoughts, their faces morphing into the shapes and colours of the bizarre, handmade animal masks they wore during the orgies of child abuse they called chicken feasts . His eyes jolted open to chase the images from hell away.

Sean searched in his coat pocket until he found a loose pair of surgical gloves that he painstakingly pulled over his hands, making a mental note to let Forensics know that if they found traces of talcum powder it would most likely have come from his gloves. Once his hands were covered he ran them over the surface of the blue-and-white patchwork quilt, partly to see if any foreign objects revealed themselves, but more significantly to try and connect with the little girl. If he couldn’t think like the taker then perhaps he could try and see what she had seen — feel what she had felt. Perhaps that would bring the answers? ‘Why didn’t you fight?’ he whispered. ‘Why didn’t you scream or call out? Weren’t you frightened?’

He thought about his last question for a few seconds, looking around at the peaceful room, sensing no brutalization of the atmosphere, no lingering feeling that something violent or terrible had happened there. ‘No. You weren’t frightened, were you? But why not? Why weren’t you afraid of this man who came into your room in the middle of the night? Did you know him, know him like he knew this house? Did you trust him — trust him like George Bridgeman trusted him? Did he make you feel safe — loved and safe?’ Sean suddenly found himself rubbing his face with his glove covered hands, the smell and feel of the latex making him gag slightly as he lost his train of thought, feeling as far away from truly understanding what was happening as he’d ever been.

‘Shit,’ he swore and pushed himself back to a standing position, surveying the room with his hands on his hips, studying the faces of the silent dolls and teddy bears and the array of other soft toys that seemed to surround him. Slowly he began to move around the room, circling its borders where most of the lifeless creatures were gathered, his hand occasionally stretching out to touch one or move one slightly to see what was behind them. The room reminded him so much of not just George’s, but of his own children’s rooms, their infant sanctuaries, colourful and safe — places where the outside world didn’t exist — where they were protected from all the evils of reality. He couldn’t help but smile as he recognized some of the toys that he’d also seen in his daughters’ rooms, until he found himself back by the bed, the far side of which was covered in dozens more dolls and toys. He scanned each and every one, looking for others he recognized from home, his need to connect with his own children suddenly overwhelming. Something caught his eye, hidden in amongst the other toys, a doll whose eyes seemed to burn into his own, as if she was desperately trying to tell him something, beckoning him. He leaned over the bed and gently pulled the doll free from the crowd, its incredibly blue eyes glittering in her porcelain face and contrasting with her long, curly, black hair. She was dressed in a long, handmade, lace dress that looked like a wedding dress from the 1930s, giving her the appearance of an antique rather than a toy. As he held the beautiful doll he was just beginning to feel a slight smile spread across his lips when the sense of someone behind him made him spin around to face the door.

Jessica Fellowes stared at him blankly, her eyes as glassy and lifeless as those of the doll he held. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, protective of her daughter’s room, uncomfortable at having a strange man handling her things.