Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘I suppose the family had it replaced then,’ Donnelly offered. Sean ignored him and continued to read.

‘I know this name,’ Sean said quietly. ‘How could I know this name?’

‘Maybe it just sounds familiar?’ Donnelly unhelpfully suggested.

‘I remember now,’ Sean told them, still not looking away from the stone, reading the story of the grave’s most decorated occupant. ‘Robert Grant was awarded the Victoria Cross while serving in the British Army during the Indian Mutiny in 1857.’

‘The Indian what?’ McInerney asked. Everyone ignored him.

‘He returned to Britain and joined the Met,’ Sean continued. ‘He was a cop for ten years before he died of TB and was quickly buried here along with seven others who died the same way in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. Just a few months ago the Commissioner at the time found out about Grant’s story and had this new gravestone erected so others would know too.’

‘Nice way to treat a hero,’ Rogers pointed out, ‘stick him in an unmarked grave with seven others, half of whom were probably local scum. How d’you hear about it anyway?’

‘It was on the news. But why here — why specifically choose to leave the boy’s body here — on this grave?’

‘He clearly wanted us to find the body and now we have. Does the actual grave matter?’

‘Yes,’ Sean answered slowly. ‘With this one it matters. It means something. It has to mean something.’

‘So he felt guilty about murdering him and somehow, in his sick mind, leaving him where he could be found relatively quickly was his effort to …’

‘Just,’ Sean almost shouted at Rogers as he cut him off, ‘just wait a minute — I just need a minute.’

Donnelly slightly raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes a little at the other two detectives, his way of explaining that Sean was perhaps a little different from what they were used to, and that they needed to be patient.

Why here? Sean spoke to himself, no longer wanting or willing to share his thoughts with strangers or even Donnelly. They talked too much, continually breaking into his mindset, snapping any connection he was beginning to make with the man who’d taken the children — with the man who’d killed the boy. You didn’t just want us to find him, did you? You wanted to show me something — wanted to tell me something about yourself — something you want me to know . Sean hurriedly began to search with his eyes, only his head moving as he scanned the around the blanket holding the body, around the stone it lay on, the ground underneath and the inscription on the headstone, but he saw nothing he hadn’t already. The sudden silence in his head was matched by the silence in the cemetery as he stared at the words on the headstone, an idea germinating slowly in his mind, like a shattered mirror reflecting a thousand different images, all different, but somehow part of the same picture, until at last they came together to form a solid pattern. You wanted him to be protected, even in death. You wanted him to be cared for. So you sought out a protector. And what greater protector could you find than a police officer — one who’d been awarded the Victoria Cross. Did you believe he would guide the boy’s soul to a better place?

He turned to the waiting, watching detectives. ‘He left the boy here not just to ensure he was found, he left him here because it’s the grave of a cop. That was what was so important to him. That’s why here.’

‘Why does he care?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Because he wanted to leave the boy with someone who’d look after him.’

‘He’s dead,’ Donnelly added coldly. ‘Too late to care for him now.’

‘But when he was alive,’ Sean tried to explain, ‘did he take him for the same reason? Is he trying to protect them?’

‘Protect them from what?’ Rogers joined in.

‘I don’t know,’ Sean admitted. ‘Some danger he thinks they’re in.’

‘Thinks or knows?’ Rogers continued.

‘If he knows, then he knows more than us,’ Sean admitted. ‘We checked out the families and found nothing of concern.’

‘Something else then?’ Rogers offered.

‘The children weren’t in any danger,’ Donnelly interrupted. ‘And if he wants to protect them he’s got a funny way of showing it — snatching them from their beds and murdering them.’

‘We don’t know he’s killed before,’ Sean reminded him.

‘Of course he has. We all know it. We just haven’t found the bodies yet,’ Donnelly insisted.

‘No,’ Sean told him calmly, assuredly. ‘He hasn’t killed before and I don’t think he meant to here either.’

‘Oh come on, guv’nor,’ Donnelly could barely disguise his disgust. ‘He’s a child murderer and probably a paedophile too. The body hasn’t even been examined properly yet — God knows what evidence of abuse we’ll find.’

‘Maybe we should take a look at the body now?’ Rogers suggested. ‘Just in case.’

‘No,’ Sean snapped, warning them all away from the body, as if they intended to snatch it from him. ‘We unwrap the blanket out here we could lose whatever evidence is trapped inside. We wait until he’s moved to the mortuary.’

‘That could be hours — will be hours,’ Donnelly argued. ‘If we take a look now at least we’d know.’

‘Maybe we would — maybe we wouldn’t,’ Sean half agreed, ‘but I’m not going to risk losing critical evidence.’

‘Maybe you just don’t want to see?’ Donnelly accused him, turning the atmosphere poisonous. Sean’s dark anger rose in his throat like hot bile as he rounded on Donnelly, the sudden, shrill chirping of a mobile phone in the silent cemetery stopping him as he moved forward threateningly. Rogers searched himself until he recovered the phone from his raincoat pocket.

‘DS Rogers speaking.’ He listened for a second before interrupting. ‘Let me hand you to the man in charge,’ he told the caller as he stretched the phone out to Sean, who accepted it suspiciously. ‘CID from Camden. You need to speak with them.’

‘DI Corrigan, Special Investigations Unit,’ Sean introduced himself before listening silently for what to the others seemed an age until he finally spoke again. ‘I understand. Can you email the photo to this phone? Good. I’ll be waiting for it.’ He hung up, his face expressionless.

‘Well?’ Donnelly prompted him, reminding Sean they were there.

‘A boy matching the description of our victim was apparently taken from his home a few hours ago — from Primrose Hill, not far from where we are now. The parents heard someone in the house, but by the time they realized what was happening the boy had already been taken.’ Rogers’s phone vibrated in his hand and he almost dropped it before he gathered himself and opened up the email without asking permission, the attachment revealing a picture of a young boy, smiling, dressed in his infant school uniform, his hair combed neatly for the photograph. Sean moved back to the body in the blanket and held the phone next to the lifeless face, the difference between the living and the dead as striking as it always was, making the boy, to the untrained eye, unrecognizable. Sean struggled to compare and match the features of the two, but ultimately came to the conclusion he’d already arrived at in his heart and gut — the boy in the cemetery was the boy taken from his home in Primrose Hill — Samuel Hargrave, only five years old. ‘From the cradle to the grave,’ Sean unconsciously whispered.

‘What was that?’ Rogers asked.

‘This is him,’ Sean answered. ‘This is the missing boy from Primrose Hill: Samuel Hargrave.’ He gave them all a few seconds to absorb the news — the name − before snapping himself them all back into action. ‘OK, make sure your local uniforms keep this place locked up nice and tight. No one in without clearing it with me or Dave first, and speak with the groundskeeper — if the grave was selected as carefully as I think, then maybe our killer had been here before, maybe numerous times. Ask the groundskeeper if he’s noticed anyone hanging around it more than usual.’ Rogers nodded his acceptance. ‘Dave — get hold of the local Murder Squad and tell them we need to borrow their Forensic Team.’