Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

It was late afternoon and already growing dark by the time Sean pulled up outside the tall, slim Georgian terrace in Primrose Hill, the scene of the latest and vilest crime committed by the man he needed to try and become if he was going to catch him. Sean knew the sooner he could start thinking like this one, the sooner he could catch him — no matter how uncomfortable it might be. He parked in one of the residents-only parking bays that unusually ran at ninety-degree angles to the pavement, rather than adjacent to it: a neat way of doubling the amount of parking spaces for the City bankers and their wives who dominated this area. The street seemed unnaturally quiet as Sean hauled his tired body from his out-of-place-looking Ford; a lull before the storm, he decided. The school runs were complete, but the husbands were still at work. He rolled the stiffness out of his neck, jerking it to release a series of cracks as he looked up at the empty, dark house.

The family had been moved away while their house was examined and the forensic team had packed up and gone home, as per Sean’s instructions. They’d been working as covertly as they could for most of the day, doing everything within their power to avoid drawing attention. Even the usual uniformed guards had been dispensed with, replaced by surveillance units who watched from unseen positions close by. As well as keeping the scene nice and quiet, they’d also been briefed by Sean to watch for anybody who appeared to be taking an unnatural interest in the house, even if they just lingered outside for a few seconds. There was always the chance the offender would return to the scene. Sean didn’t believe he would — this one didn’t feel like that — but the possibility had to be taken into consideration. If there’d been an obvious sexual element to his crimes then the pull of revisiting the scene would have been much stronger.

Sean looked up the number of one of the surveillance team members who he knew would be looking at him right now and pressed call.

‘Hello,’ a female voice answered.

‘DI Corrigan — about to enter the address,’ was all he said.

‘We have you,’ the voice told him and hung up.

Sean pulled the house keys he’d borrowed from the forensic team from his coat pocket, rhythmically clenching and releasing his fist around them, feeling self-conscious, knowing the eyes of the surveillance team would be on him, watching his every move. Quickly he slid the key into the centre deadlock before suddenly freezing, looking down at the hand that held it — some instinct or some connection with the man who’d come in the night telling him his actions were wrong — out of sequence. In that second he forgot the surveillance team were watching and began to slip into his own dark world — the world he shared with only one other.

He pulled the key out without turning it and stepped back from the door, looking it slowly up and down. He noted that it had the same type of deadbolt security locks top and bottom, then a different type in the centre — the one he’d almost unlocked − with a Yale lock just below it for when the family needed to leave the door on the latch. Sean considered the report on possible points of entry. This scene was exactly same as the others — there was no possible way the suspect could have entered through anything other than the front door. All windows and rear doors of the three houses were fitted with security locks that could only be unfastened from the inside. As impenetrable as the front door looked, it was the only way he could have entered.

‘Did it look daunting?’ Sean found himself whispering. ‘Standing here in the middle of the night, looking up at this door, all these locks − or didn’t it bother you? No, you weren’t afraid — you knew these locks would be child’s play to you. You didn’t stand here fumbling in the darkness — you came straight to this door, prepared your tools and opened the locks. But you didn’t start in the centre of the door, did you? You wanted to control the movement of the door — you couldn’t afford for it to pop open unexpectedly.’ He scanned the door once more before sliding a different key into the top lock, one of a pair of identical deadlocks fitted top and bottom, opened by the same key, smoothly turning it to open. ‘You did the top lock first,’ Sean told the darkness, crouching down to slide the same key into the bottom lock, ‘and then you did the bottom lock — the same type of lock, so you opened them one after the other using the same technique, the same tools.’ After releasing the lower lock he stood and stared at the two remaining locks halfway up the door. ‘Then you did the central deadlock,’ he continued, again slipping the key into the hole, imitating the events of the night before. ‘Did the excitement begin to rise — threaten to overtake you when you realized there was only one simple lock between you and the inside of the house? The family? The boy? … No,’ he eventually decided. ‘No, you didn’t come here for excitement, did you? Your cause is more serious — something you believe you have to do, even if sometimes you don’t want to.’

He let the ideas fire around his mind for a while before finally slipping the Yale key into the last lock and turning it, the door immediately opening inwards with a click, the warm air from inside being sucked out into the cold evening, rushing past Sean and making him quickly close the door. ‘No. You wouldn’t have let the door open like that. You wouldn’t have risked the noise, wouldn’t have risked a breeze catching it and blowing it wide open.’ He took hold of the door handle and pulled the door towards him, once again turning the key as he did so. This time the lock clicked open, but the door remained secure until he gently pushed in inwards and open, quickly and quietly stepping inside, closing the door behind him with another click as he leaned with his back to it, looking into the darkness of the house, listening for sounds of life. ‘Did you wait here long, enjoying the warmth of the house after the cold of outside? Did you wait until the numbness in your hands and feet had gone before heading for the stairs?’ Again Sean waited a few moments for the answers to come before daring to move. ‘No, you didn’t want to waste any time. You’re no voyeur. You didn’t want to spend time amongst the family’s things — you didn’t want to be a part of their lives. At the other two scenes you locked the doors behind you when you left because you didn’t want to leave the families in any danger, exposed. You took no pleasure in the suffering you knew you were about to cause. You just came, took the child and tried to leave. Only this time something went wrong and you had to run and the boy died. But why are you taking these children in the first place? Why are you risking everything to take them?’ No answer came.

He pushed himself off the front door and began to slowly walk along the hallway towards the stairs, the luminous light from the alarm system’s control panel drawing his attention and reminding him of the other houses — the other scenes. ‘All the houses have alarms, but somehow you know they’re not working. How do you know that? Of all the houses in London, you pick three where the alarm isn’t working — that can’t possibly be by chance. You knew. You knew, but how? We need to check back further — check the … check the alarm-monitoring companies, the key-holders, the families who used to live in the houses. Were they once monitored by the police? Is it something about these alarms that somehow connects these families?’ He froze for a second as he considered the dozens of lines of inquiry that such checks would throw up, but if they had to be done — so be it.

He left the alarm and headed for the stairs, climbing them steadily, his hand hovering above the bannister but careful not to touch it, talking to himself as he moved ever upwards, the street lamp outside providing the only light, just as he was sure it had the previous night. ‘You’re so damn comfortable in this house and the others, finding your way to the boy’s bedroom in the dark — no accidental wandering into the wrong room. Damn it — I know you know these houses, but how? We’ve checked the estate agents, the removal companies, the alarm companies and everything else − nothing links the families, but you’ve been in these houses before — before you took the children, but when? What the fuck am I missing? What?’