Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘It’s all right,’ Sean stopped her. ‘I understand. Besides, she must have been in the room a thousand times: she won’t affect its forensic state much now.’

‘Thousands of times?’ Haitink questioned. ‘I don’t think so. They only moved here a few weeks ago.’

Sean almost smiled at his own forgetfulness. ‘Of course,’ he told her. ‘Of course they did.’

‘Does that mean something?’ Haitink asked.

‘Only one man can tell us that for sure,’ he answered.

‘And who would that be?’

‘The man who’s taking them.’

Haitink studied him for a while before speaking again. ‘Kitchen’s through here,’ she told him and headed towards it knowing Sean would follow.

As soon as they entered Seth Varndell rounded on them. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, looking at Sean.

‘DI Sean Corrigan — Special Investigations Unit. It’s my job to find your daughter,’ he told him, trying not to think of Addis and what he’d do if he knew Sean was here now.

‘Then maybe you can start by telling me what the hell’s going on?’ Varndell’s short, stocky frame was taut with tension, his almost invisible spectacles magnifying terrified eyes. ‘We reported Victoria missing hours ago and nothing seems to have happened. Where are the forensic people? Why aren’t the streets full of cops searching for her? And what about search dogs and helicopters? Why isn’t anything happening?’

‘That all takes time to organize,’ Sean tried to explain, ‘but it will all be done, trust me.’

‘Time to organize,’ Varndell mocked. ‘No wonder you haven’t caught him yet. Why’s he doing this? Is he some sort of pervert, or has he got a grudge against people working in the City? Is this a revenge attack? How could you let him do this?’

Sean fought hard to resist the temptation to bite back. ‘Unfortunately these abductions aren’t the only bad thing happening in London right now and I don’t have a limitless supply of people, but I can assure you we’re putting as many resources as we possibly can into finding the man responsible, and getting the children back safely.’

‘Safely?’ Varndell questioned. ‘Safely? Isn’t it already too late for one of the children? I haven’t just arrived from another planet,’ he continued. ‘I saw it on the news last night. You found a boy in Highgate Cemetery — right? Dead — and you think he was taken by the same man who’s-’ He suddenly stopped himself, his hands searching for something to support him as his legs suddenly could no longer bear his weight. Sean sprang forward and managed to get both arms around Varndell’s chest and manoeuvre him into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

‘You all right?’ Sean asked with genuine sympathy.

‘Yes,’ Varndell answered, but he looked deathly pale and clammy. ‘Thank you, and I’m sorry — I just can’t believe this is really happening — not to us.’

‘I understand,’ Sean told him, still checking for signs that Varndell wasn’t about to faint. ‘Have you eaten anything, or had a drink?’

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘You need to try,’ Sean insisted. ‘DC Haitink here will fix you something — a cup of sweet tea at least.’ Sean looked to her for backup.

‘Of course I will,’ she told Varndell pleasantly. ‘The DI’s right — you need to take care of yourself if you’re to help us find Victoria.’

‘I’ll try,’ Varndell promised.

‘Good.’ Sean patted the man’s shoulder. ‘And while you do that, I need to speak with your wife.’

‘Helen?’ he asked, filling his lungs to combat the dizziness. ‘Good luck there, Inspector. She doesn’t seem to want to speak to anyone at the moment — not yet, anyway. Maybe you could give her a little time?’

‘Sorry,’ Sean explained. ‘Time is one thing I don’t have.’

‘In that case you’ll find her in Victoria’s bedroom — on the second floor.’

Sean immediately headed for the stairs, telling Haitink: ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ She gave a single nod before turning her attention to Varndell.

‘OK, Mr Varndell, where d’you keep the tea and sugar?’ Sean heard her asking as he made his way up the steep staircase towards the bedroom where hours before Victoria Varndell had been sleeping only a matter of feet from her parents.

‘There’s something here,’ Sean whispered to himself as he climbed the stairs. ‘Something here for me to find, but I need to see, not just look. All I’ve been doing is looking, but now I need to see — need to see like you see. You left something for me at George Bridgeman’s house, didn’t you? But I didn’t see it. I looked, but I didn’t see it. And you left something for me at Bailey Fellowes’ house too, but I didn’t see that either. So you left Samuel Hargrave in the cemetery for me so I would see what you are.’ He climbed the remaining stairs in silence until he reached the almost fully closed door of Victoria’s bedroom, the quiet crying inside telling him he was in the right place. He knocked on the frame and waited, but Helen Varndell either hadn’t heard or she wasn’t ready to share her pain. Sean knocked again, easing the door open when he received no reply, peering inside where he could see Helen Varndell sitting on the end of the bed with her back to him, surrounded by dolls and soft toys, her body as still as if she’d been frozen in stone, her anguished yet gentle sobbing continuing unabated.

‘Mrs Varndell,’ Sean almost whispered, but she didn’t respond. ‘Mrs Varndell,’ he persisted, louder this time, slowly entering the room, just as he had. He was sure that if Mrs Varndell hadn’t been in the room he could have smelt the scent of desperation the man he hunted had left behind, but as it was he couldn’t be sure it didn’t belong to the mother. ‘Mrs Varndell. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan. I need to speak with you, if I can.’

Still she didn’t respond. He walked deeper into the room until he was level with her. ‘I understand you want to be alone, I would too, but I have to speak to you. I need to know what happened here.’

Her head snapped towards him, almost making him jump.

‘Someone took my baby,’ she told him clearly, despite the tears that slid down her cheeks. ‘He came in here and he took her — the same man who took those other children. The same man who killed that boy.’

‘Samuel Hargrave,’ Sean explained. ‘His name was Samuel Hargrave.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ she answered. ‘I wasn’t paying that much attention when I saw it on the news. For a second I thought, God, how terrible that must be for the parents, then I didn’t think about it again until this morning, when I went to get Victoria and saw she was gone. And I knew — I just knew straight away that she’d been taken. I–I remembered seeing it on the television, but I still couldn’t remember the boy’s name.’

‘It’s understandable,’ Sean tried to comfort her. ‘We never think these things will happen to us.’

‘We have an alarm,’ she told him, pain and guilt shining in her eyes, the thought of actions not taken haunting every line of her face. ‘When we saw it on the news I said to Seth, I said we should set the alarm at night, but we forgot, we just forgot, and now Victoria is gone.’

‘No,’ Sean insisted. ‘That’s not why she’s gone. She’s gone because someone took her. That has nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do. This man is like … like a bolt of lightning. Who knows why lightning misses a million people standing in the open, but then hits one man as soon as he steps outside. Some things we just can’t predict, and we can’t live our lives always fearing the worst or we would have no life. I see these things almost every day, but do I make my wife and kids live their lives in some sort of protective bubble? Of course I don’t, and I never would, no matter what.’