Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

He continued his climb to the third floor, briefly pausing outside the room he guessed the parents used as their bedroom, remembering the initial scene report: parents on the second floor, children on the third . The door was only slightly open, but he needed to see inside. He placed the knuckle of his index finger high on the door and pushed, acutely aware he wasn’t wearing gloves of any kind. Touching the front door hadn’t been a problem — he knew Forensics had completed their work there, but he couldn’t be sure about the parents’ room. Forensics would kill him if they knew he’d been in the scene without a full forensic suit, never mind without gloves, but he dare not put any type of barrier between himself and the house — between himself and the man who’d killed Samuel Hargrave. Not even a thin skin of latex.

As the door swung slowly open it made a slight creaking noise — the sort of noise that would go unnoticed during the daytime in a busy house full of noisy children. But in the dead of night the sound would have seemed a hundred times louder — potentially mysterious and terrifying. Sean quickly looked around the room before returning to the hallway, satisfied the room held nothing for him. As he climbed to the third floor and the children’s bedrooms he noticed the creak of a stair, his heart beating faster and faster. Knowing an idea was about to reveal itself, he tried to clear his mind, to provide his thoughts with a blank canvas to paint their picture on — sure he was at last close to something, something case-changing.

He stepped on to the third-floor hallway and froze, every minute sound of the house echoing like church bells in his head until finally the idea showed itself. ‘Fuck. Fuck. You know these houses in the night. You’ve been here before in the night. That’s how you were able to enter and leave without a sound, wasn’t it? Because you knew every sound the house could make to betray you.’ But his elation was short-lived as a wave of other questions and doubts crashed over him, making his head begin to thump. ‘You’re good with locks, so you came in the same way — through the front doors. You looked around the houses, carefully noting everything — where the children slept, where the parents slept, which floorboards would creak − so when you came back for the children you would know everything you needed to. But … but why would you let yourself in, learn everything you needed to know and then leave without the child?’

Sean stood silent and still for what seemed an age, stuck in a trance-like state, bewildered by his own questions until his mind asked even more. ‘And … and when you did come back, how did you take George Bridgeman and Bailey Fellowes without making a sound? Samuel fought and his noise betrayed you. If the others had fought they would have betrayed you too, but they didn’t, did they? They went with you willingly, so they knew you, they must have known you or … or you had some … some special hold over them — something … magical … or you’re a family friend … or you cased the houses when they were still empty, before the families even moved in … or … or … Jesus Christ, fuck it!’ he suddenly swore, the frustration of the cascading, tumbling questions too much. He pulled a packet of ibuprofen from his coat pocket and popped a couple from the tin foil straight into his waiting mouth, swallowing them without water. He rubbed the sides of his head as he waited for the whirlwind of possibilities to subside.

After a minute or so the confusion settled and he could think again. ‘You know all these families. We just haven’t found the link yet. Something the families haven’t told us yet. Something they’re afraid of, or have maybe just forgotten — something they can’t even conceive of as being relevant. Is that what you are — someone easily forgotten?’ He walked along the corridor until he reached the two doors opposite to each other. He pushed open the door to his right, again using the point of his knuckle, staring into the room before daring to enter, trying to see into the dimness. He could make out little other than shadows and silhouettes, prompting him to search the wall for a switch and flood the bedroom with light.

After a few seconds of surveying the room from the doorway he stepped inside, scanning everything from the unmade bed to the toys that littered every corner and surface, seeing everything through different sets of eyes: the boy’s, the killer’s and his own, each giving him a different perspective of the crime. ‘You didn’t kill him here in this room, because the parents heard voices downstairs — so you wanted him alive. If you’d wanted to kill the boy in the house you would have done it in this room with the boy’s own pillow, and nobody would have heard a thing. No,’ he decided. ‘You wanted the children alive and somehow you took them without a sound.’ He was quiet for a while. ‘Somehow you persuaded them to leave with you — to sneak out of their own homes and away from their own families. Only Sam changed his mind. You couldn’t control him, couldn’t make him be quiet, and when you heard the voices of his parents you panicked and ran. You panicked and smothered the boy and you killed him, and then you left him in the cemetery on the grave of Robert Grant as what … some sort of apology? Damn your apology and damn you too.’

He took a deep breath and one last look around the bedroom. It seemed as if each and every one of the large collection of soft toys were staring into Sean’s eyes, trying to tell him what they had witnessed — lifeless eyes flickering and burning as they reflected the light — a hundred mirror images of himself looking back at him — accusing him. ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ he told the room and flicked the light off, silencing the eyes of his accusers.

He made his way downstairs, moving quicker than he had when he’d arrived, satisfied the house held nothing more for him. It had convinced him the killer had been in the house during the night, possibly days, even weeks before taking Samuel Hargrave, but that was all he’d learned. Despite his initial feelings of excitement at this new revelation he was rapidly realizing it only posed more questions than it solved. Come into the house in the middle of the night and leave without the children — why? He shook his head at his own question, his mind turning to Mark McKenzie. Was this still all part of a game McKenzie was playing? Was he working with a paedophile ring after all? Getting their kicks out of playing with the police as well as through doing unthinkable things with the children they were taking? John Conway and his sick followers had liked to play games. Could this yet be more of the same? He doubted it, but he couldn’t be sure, not yet.

He paused halfway down the flight of stairs leading from the second floor to the first — the place where both parents had said they’d heard voices. ‘You stopped here, didn’t you? The boy didn’t want to go with you — he began to struggle, and you were afraid, weren’t you? I can feel your fear — fear like you’ve never felt before. You had to stop him shouting so you did the first thing that came into your mind and pressed your hand over his mouth, but you covered his nose as well and he couldn’t breathe.’ He paused for a moment as he recreated the struggle in his mind — the boy fighting to escape as a panicking man overpowered him, gloved hands at first soft and warm on his skin, but then constricting and suffocating, an unbearable pressure crushing the boy’s face. ‘Did you mean to kill him? Did he make you angry — angry enough to make you want to kill him? Can you not bear the thought of facing up to what you really are — a murderer of children? He let the rest of the scene play out behind his eyes, as clear as if he was watching a recording. The heavy, dark figure picking up the boy and hurrying down the stairs, afraid to look over his shoulder as he fumbled at the locks that only minutes earlier he’d opened from the outside with such skill and ease. Sean skipped down the remaining stairs, trying to catch up with the spectre of the man fleeing below.