Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘I don’t know,’ the little girl answered.

‘Well when was the last time you had her?’

‘This morning, before school.’

‘And you haven’t seen her since?’

‘No. Maybe Kathy took her,’ she offered, referring to her three-year-old sister.

‘Kathy’s already asleep,’ her mother explained. ‘I’m not going to wake her up looking around her room for Polly.’

‘But I can’t sleep without Polly,’ Vicky pleaded.

The shadow of her father appeared in the frame of the doorway, shorter than his wife at only five foot six. ‘What’s with all the noise?’ he demanded. ‘I’m trying to work.’

‘Vicky can’t find Polly and it’s her bedtime,’ his wife explained.

‘Not again,’ Seth Varndell declared, sounding exasperated. ‘Well, it’s too late to look for her now. I’m sure Polly’s just gone for a sleep-over party with all her rag-dolly friends and she’ll be back in the morning. Now pick another dolly to cuddle tonight and Polly will be back tomorrow.’

‘No. I want Polly,’ the little girl wailed.

Seth sighed and stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips, studying the distressed infant he was usually so proud to call his daughter. ‘Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere?’ he asked his wife in desperation.

‘Yes, Seth,’ she snapped back. ‘I’ve looked bloody everywhere.’

‘But she can’t sleep without Polly.’

‘Well, she’s going to have to,’ Helen told him and bent over her daughter, kissing her on the forehead and flicking the night-lamp on. ‘Go to sleep now,’ she ordered. ‘We’ll find Polly in the morning, but it’s a school day tomorrow so you need to get to sleep.’ With that she swept out of the room, turning the overhead light off as she went, leaving her husband and daughter alone in the pale glow.

‘Get to sleep, sweetie,’ Seth told the still tearful child. ‘I’ll keep looking for Polly, and if I find her I’ll tuck her up in bed with you once you’re asleep, OK?’

‘But I love Polly,’ was all the little girl could say, her pain a knife straight into his heart.

‘I know, sweetie. I know,’ he told her as he backed out of the room and closed the door until it was slightly ajar, before heading downstairs to begin his impossible search for the rag-doll.

The things he needed for the task that lay ahead were spread neatly on the desk in front of him, lined up like surgical instruments. He had asked for guidance and it had been given — it was God’s will. One by one he carefully slipped the miniature tools into their suede roll-up case, wrapping them securely before placing them in his small holdall. Next he checked the head-torch was working correctly and tucked it in the bag with the tools. Finally he lifted the thing the little girl loved so much, looking down on it as it lay limp in his hand, causing images of Samuel Hargrave’s still body to rush into his mind, the grief and sadness instantly making his head throb.

He stuffed the special thing into the bag as he talked quietly to himself. ‘God forgive me,’ he pleaded, but no sooner had he spoken than his wife’s voice echoed inside his head, catching him by surprise, making him grab at his fluttering chest. You have done nothing that you need ask God to forgive. You are doing his bidding , she reminded him. ‘But I can still see the boy,’ he told her, his voice shaking with fright. ‘I can still see his dead eyes, looking at me. I can still see the fear in his eyes.’ Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way . ‘What does that mean?’ he begged her to take his doubt and confusion away. It means maybe the boy lacked faith — lacked belief. He feared meeting the Lord when he should have been rejoicing . ‘So?’ So maybe he wasn’t worthy. ‘I don’t understand.’ Maybe he deserved to die. ‘But he was just a boy — how could he deserve to die?’ The servants of darkness are everywhere — trying to betray you . ‘Betray me?’ The Lord took him to save you, so you can save those worthy of saving . ‘But what if others try to betray me?’ he asked his dead wife, his eyes darting around the room suspiciously before involuntarily looking up to the ceiling and bedroom above it where the two children slept silently. Who? ‘The girl can be … difficult. Ungrateful.’ Then the Lord will punish her . ‘How?’ He will guide your hand, as he did before. Ours is not to question why, but to trust in his divine judgement. The Lord will guide your hands . ‘But she’s just a child. It’ll take time for her to change, that’s all.’ Then everything will be fine .

His wife’s voice fell silent, leaving him standing alone in the study, listening for its return — listening for sounds of the children, just as he’d done an hour earlier, standing with his ear pressed to their bedroom door, listening to them crying themselves to sleep, each calling for their mother through their quiet, mournful sobbing. He’d listened until finally they had fallen silent, sneaking back into the room to check they were asleep. He looked down on the tiny shapes under their blankets and sheets, watching their chests gently rise and fall to assure himself he hadn’t done anything during one of his moments of blackness. He shook the memory away with a jolt of his head and packed the last few things he needed, then sat at the old desk chair where he would wait for hours, the holdall on his lap, before heading into the night. His voice was barely audible as he repeated the same line over and over: ‘Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need …’

Sean sat alone in his office, having returned from revisiting the three abduction scenes, although the home of George Bridgeman was the only one he’d been inside. He’d sat and stared at the victims’ houses, looking for some similarity between them, but he could find none other than that they were all reasonably large family houses. He’d walked the leafy affluent streets, but nothing new leapt out at him. In the end he had driven away from the final scene, the home of Samuel Hargrave, frustrated and angry with himself. The thought of going home, so far from the scenes, so far from the missing children, so far from the man he sought, was unbearable.

He looked into the half-empty main office, where detectives either hammered away at computer keyboards or talked urgently into phones, chasing down leads and possible witnesses. The rest of the team were out, following his instructions to repeat door-to-door inquiries, this time asking about any overnight alarm activations. They, like Sean, knew it was only clutching at straws, but they’d do it anyway. They’d all worked on cases before where freakish good luck had brought an investigation to a swift and satisfactory conclusion.

Sally was keeping everybody hard at it, wandering from detective to detective, offering words of advice and instructions, but Donnelly was nowhere to be seen.

I need to try something , Sean told himself, something we haven’t done yet — something to shake this bastard out of his tree — knock him out of his comfort zone. So what have we got? He allowed himself to think for a moment, concentrating on the things he believed he could all but guarantee. All the victims were taken from within a few miles of each other, so either you know this area well because you visit it a lot or you were brought up there, or you still live there — hiding right in the middle of the place where we’re looking hardest — looking, but not seeing . He tapped his pen on the open page of his journal before beginning to write down his thoughts and ideas. We start searching houses — all of them, starting with the ones closest to the scenes, and spread outwards. Do it as overtly as possible — let the world see what we’re doing. We don’t have time to get hundreds, thousands of search warrants — wouldn’t get them anyway − but we don’t need them. As soon as the occupiers know what we’re looking for, they’ll let us do it anyway. Those who don’t become suspects. Let’s light a fire under this scorpion and get him running in circles instead of us .