Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘Dr Ravenni-Ceron’s office.’

Dr Anna Ravenni-Ceron, the psychiatrist and criminologist who’d been attached, against Sean’s wishes, to the last case he had investigated. At the time he’d been so intent on tracking down Thomas Keller and preventing him from abducting and murdering any more women that he’d not even noticed his feelings towards her changing, although he knew he’d come to at the very least respect her determination. But since he’d got out of hospital he’d thought of her more than he’d ever expected to, and now he was standing on the pavement outside her office.

He cleared his throat before answering. ‘I’m here to see Anna.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’ the voice asked suspiciously.

‘I don’t need an appointment,’ he said into the metal box hanging on the wall. ‘Just tell Dr Ravenni-Ceron that Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan is here and needs to see her.’

‘Can I ask what it’s about?’ the box replied.

‘It’s personal,’ he answered, regretting it immediately, wishing instead he’d told the inquisitive voice it was confidential. He winced at his mistake and waited for a response.

‘I see,’ the voice eventually replied. ‘I’ll just see if she’s available. Wait there a minute please.’ He was about to argue, but the connection went dead.

‘Shit,’ he cursed, hopping from one foot to the other, trying to defend himself against the cold and his growing feeling of awkwardness, sure that he was as conspicuous as he felt standing in the doorway of the art deco monolith. Finally the intercom crackled back into life.

‘Dr Ravenni-Ceron will see you now. We’re on the third floor, room 323. You can take the lift or you can use the stairs.’ The door clicked open and the line went dead. He paused for a second before opening the door and entering, sure his feet would take over and lead him away, but instead they took him inside and up the stairs to the third floor, doubts and anxiety giving way to excitement and anticipation.

When he reached room 323 he was relieved to discover there was no intercom to negotiate, just an unlocked door and a secretary in her early thirties sitting behind a desk in the small, simple reception. She stood as he entered, speaking in a voice he recognized from the intercom, although it was warm and friendly now instead of cold and metallic.

‘Detective Inspector Corrigan, I presume?’ she asked with a smile.

‘Yeah,’ he answered, so eager to be alone with Anna that he almost overtook the secretary as she escorted him the few short steps to the office door.

‘Dr Ravenni-Ceron’s office,’ she announced, stepping aside for him to enter.

‘Thanks,’ Sean managed to say before filling his lungs with air and stepping through the door, which closed softly behind him.

At first he almost didn’t see Anna sitting behind her antique leather-topped desk. The design and style of the office was so close to how he’d imagined it that he felt as if he’d been here many times before, although this was his first visit. The multiple layers of shelves stacked with leather-bound books that he assumed were about psychology and other matters of the mind, art deco lamps and shades to match the building, and even a comfortable leather reclining chair. A deep-red Persian rug covered the oak floor. A voice he hadn’t heard in many months broke his mental meandering.

‘Hello, Sean,’ Anna said, her voice relatively neutral, but with a hint of nervous excitement. ‘Long time no see.’

‘Too long,’ he answered. ‘My fault entirely.’

‘Can I ask what brings you here?’

Sean cleared his throat before speaking again. ‘A new case.’

‘A new case?’

‘Yes.’

‘The one that’s been on the TV and all over the papers — the child abducted from his own home? Sounds like the sort of thing they’d like to have you investigating.’

‘But that happened in Hampstead,’ he challenged her. ‘I cover south-east London, not north-west.’

‘Not any more, I hear,’ she told him. ‘Special Investigations Unit, isn’t it? London-wide?’

He assumed Sally had been speaking out of school during her sessions, but his assumption was wrong.

‘You hear right,’ he admitted, ‘and yes, I’ve got the investigation into the missing boy. Only now there’s a missing girl as well.’

‘Oh,’ Anna replied, surprised and disturbed to hear of a second child being stolen from their family. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘So am I,’ Sean told her sharply, a moment of silence falling between them.

‘Please, take a seat.’ Anna waved him to an armchair facing the desk. ‘So how can I help?’

‘I could do with a second opinion,’ Sean confessed. ‘I can’t work out what’s going on in the mind of whoever’s taking them. Why they’re doing it.’

‘Go on,’ Anna encouraged.

‘We don’t have a body yet, despite the fact he’s now taken another child.’

‘And what does that tell you?’ she asked.

‘It tells me that he hasn’t killed — yet .’

‘The news reports said he took the boy from his own home, but there was no mention of how he got in,’ she prompted, even though she already knew the answer. She couldn’t afford to let Sean know that she was already aware of details that hadn’t been released to the public.

‘He used expert lock-picking skills to enter. Then he took the children from their beds in the middle of the night without making a sound or leaving a trace — no evidence of a struggle or drugs being used to subdue the victims. After he left, he locked things up behind him, as if-’

‘As if he didn’t want to leave the remainder of the family vulnerable,’ she finished for him.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Sean admitted, without telling her he’d already considered it and hadn’t yet ruled it out.

‘Uhhm,’ Anna sighed. ‘So when he’s carrying out the abductions he’s highly organized.’

‘I believe so,’ Sean agreed.

‘And most highly organized killers are perversely disorganized when it comes to getting rid of the body.’

‘That’s normal,’ he agreed again.

‘So if the children had indeed been taken by a killer you would be right to expect to have found a body by now …’ Anna continued to think out loud. ‘But if he’s taking them with the intention of abusing them, then perhaps he hasn’t killed them yet.’

‘He would have, by now.’

‘Why?’

‘To get rid of any witnesses,’ Sean answered coldly.

‘Possibly,’ she considered.

‘Definitely,’ he insisted, McKenzie’s face and words imprinted in his mind.

‘Then there’s a simple conclusion,’ Anna told him. ‘They were neither taken by a killer nor by an abuser. They were taken by a possessor.’

‘A possessor ?’ Sean questioned. ‘I don’t understand,’ he half-lied.

‘Someone who means them no harm, but who wants to possess them, keep them as their own, perhaps?’

‘Like who?’

‘Like … like a woman.’

‘A woman ?’

‘Yes, one who perhaps sees these children as needing her. She may see herself as their rescuer, not their abuser. Tell me, do the families have other children?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Why?’

‘Interesting. It could be a sign of her subconscious guilt — she takes a child, but leaves the family with other children, which also explains why she secures the houses when leaving and perhaps how she can get the children from the house without them being scared enough to raise the alarm. Children are inherently less afraid of women than they are men.’

‘No,’ Sean shook his head. ‘A lot of what you’re saying makes sense, but I can’t see a woman picking the locks and entering those houses — I just can’t.’