Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘All right,’ he told himself, his voice still hushed. ‘All right. We look further afield — someone who could have had access to both children, but something the parents wouldn’t necessarily think to remember.’ He began to scribble some notes between the two columns of information, anything he could think of that could possibly link the families — the children.

Do they share the same GP or practice? Have they visited them lately? Have there been any visits to the hospital? Do the parents remember any over-familiar doctors or nurses? Do the missing children belong to any of the same after-school or weekend clubs? Where did the families last go on holiday and did the children use any kids’ clubs? Do they share a local favourite restaurant, playground, sports club, holiday club … The list went on and on until he finally stopped, staring down in dismay at all the possibilities. ‘Conventional. Conventional,’ he found himself repeating over and over. ‘Conventional and slow — too slow. Even if you selected the children this way, how could you know the inside of their houses?’ He wrote the words in bold capital letters across the length and width of the page: Too slow, too slow, too slow underlining it to emphasize his frustration. The pen in his hand began to move again, writing the same word over and over, each time in a different style and size, covering every inch of the open pages: Blind. Blind. Blind. Blind. Blind. Blind .

The house was his, still and quiet, warm and comforting, the familiar sound of a grandfather clock’s pendulum swaying in the hallway making him feel as if he belonged — as if he was meant to be here. Above him, the Hargraves slept soundly, oblivious to the intruder in their midst. He closed the door behind him and secured the Yale lock, moving deeper into the house, their home, aware of the sounds and odours of the interior, the dark patches where the street lights couldn’t reach — where the shadows lived. He was acutely aware of all these things, all these things that were just as they were before, but he didn’t relish them — didn’t take time to become one with the house — with the family. He wasn’t here for the family — just the boy.

Douglas Allen took a slow, deep breath before moving across the wooden hallway of the immaculate five-storey Georgian house in Primrose Hill — one of the capital’s most exclusive ghettos for the rich and celebrated. He was relieved to feel the mint condition Persian rug under his feet, covering the wood, his rubber-soled shoes rendering him completely silent but for the occasional sound of his clothes as his legs brushed together when he walked. Everything he wore was selected for silence and ease of movement, but also to blend in and avoid drawing suspicion as he walked and drove through the streets of North London, dressed as he was in grey-flannel trousers, blue shirt and necktie, his padded black anorak zipped up against the cold. He’d noticed a lot more police cars in the area lately, and even some checkpoints stopping men in cars, although he was yet to be pulled over and questioned himself. He thought of the children he’d recently rescued — poor little Bailey, even her name was a joke, a thing of amusement and ridicule for all who cared to laugh at her. He almost wished he’d been able to take her siblings too, but his instructions had been clear and specific — take only the girl . In any case, even though the parents weren’t deserving of any children, to take more than one would have been too cruel a punishment. He hoped that in losing one child the parents would be able to appreciate more the ones he’d left them with. In taking George and Bailey he’d saved their siblings too — just like he’d been told he would.

His gloved hand rested on the polished wooden bannister as he began to climb the stairs, slowly and purposefully. He reached the first floor and walked without hesitation past the children’s playroom and the room their mother used as an office for the business she ran as a justification to abandon her children to be raised by a succession of full-time housekeepers and nannies − the latest of which was an economic refugee from some South-east Asian country who lived in the smallest of the top-floor bedrooms.

As he arrived at the second floor his heart rate increased, reaching dangerously high levels, momentarily threatening to trigger a panic attack. But the words of his guides came to him when he needed them most and calmed his fear, controlled his sudden urge to retreat back down the stairs and flee the house, leaving the family to wake as if nothing had ever happened. He was reminded of his cause, his resolve stiffened. Belief drove him forward, past the sleeping parents who he knew could never understand his reasons for doing what he must, and up the next flight of stairs to where the children of the house slept in two separate bedrooms, one opposite the other. Samuel and his younger brother, surrounded by all that money could provide, yet virtual strangers to their own parents. It was his duty to save them, to stop them growing up to love only money and status — to stop them from having more unloved children in their turn. But he could save only one, and it was Samuel who had been chosen for him, shown to him.

He came to the pristine white-panelled door, unmarked by the play of young children afraid to free their spirits for fear of damaging anything in the house and reaping the wrath of their overly house-proud mother. The boy waited on the other side, unaware that soon he would be in a better place, a place where he would be loved more than he could possibly conceive, with new brothers and sisters he could grow and mature with in a way that would ensure they became the special people they deserved to be — giving back to those around them, loving those around them, loving all mankind, even those who deserved no love.

He placed his small bag on the floor and took from it the thing that he knew was special to the boy. He stood and rested a gloved hand on the door, easing it open slowly on silent hinges, stepping into the room and seeing that everything was just as it had been before. Made-to-order dinosaur-print wallpaper, handcrafted wooden storage boxes for the toys Samuel wasn’t allowed to make a mess with, built-in cupboards and wardrobes with shelving mounted on brushed chrome railings, all lined with exclusive, top-of-the-range soft toys − but all too high for Samuel to even reach. He felt his heart sink with sadness as he imagined the boy sitting alone in a room full of toys he wasn’t allowed to love.

A smaller collection of soft toys littered the boy’s bed — less expensive, less cared for, but more loved, scattered without order, the remnants of his night-time games, before sleep had finally taken him. Allen closed his eyes as a sense of calmness and happiness gently swept through his body, reassuring him of his right to be there — his right to take the boy. He gripped the precious thing tighter than ever and stepped into the room, moving slowly across the floor, watching the tiny child’s entire body seem to rise and fall as he breathed peacefully in his sleep. He reached the boy’s bedside and knelt down, he knees creaking, firing pain through his legs.

The drugs his doctor had prescribed for his advancing arthritis weren’t the only ones he’d deliberately chosen not to take. He wasn’t about to be turned into an automaton, like all the other soulless robots he saw wandering aimlessly, their pains and fears wiped clean by pharmaceutical cocktails prescribed by general practitioners too overworked and undertrained to do anything else. He’d rather live with the pain than live in the fog, even if the headaches were sometimes unbearable, rendering him almost unconscious at times. The drugs made the voices stop too, the voices that guided him, the voices that told him what to do and when to do it — the voices that kept him safe. The voices of those who loved him most. He wouldn’t take the drugs and kill those he loved most.