Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

‘Love,’ Allen answered without hesitation. ‘I could give them love. Their parents didn’t care — not really. Nannies, au pairs, child-minders, toys to keep them quiet, computer games to keep them distracted. Their parents would do anything for them except spend time with them — nurture them and love them. They didn’t deserve children. Iris and I tried for years, but the Lord never saw fit to bless us with a child, even though we would have given it all the love in the world.’

‘Iris?’ Sean asked. ‘Your wife?’

‘She died.’ Allen told him what he already knew. ‘More than two years ago. Cancer. She deserved better. We deserved better. I only took the children who I could see weren’t loved. And I would have loved them, loved them as if they were our own.’

‘Must have made you pretty angry — seeing these parents with beautiful children, blessed by God when they didn’t deserve to be, while he left you with nothing: no children and your wife taken from you?’

‘Not angry — determined. Determined to save the children from a loveless childhood.’

‘That wasn’t for you to decide,’ Sean snapped at him. ‘That wasn’t your judgement to make.’

‘Not my judgement,’ Allen agreed. ‘God’s. It was God’s judgement. He blessed them with children and they forsook his blessing, they ignored and took for granted the gift of all gifts they had been given. God passed his judgement on them and gave me the strength and guidance to do his work.’

‘To take the children?’ Sean asked. ‘You’re telling me that God told you to take the children?’

‘The Lord is my shepherd.’

‘And how did he tell you to do these things?’

‘He spoke to me — in my mind — his voice as clear and distinct as yours is now. The voice of Our Lord and the voice of my wife guiding me, always guiding me — telling me what I must do.’

‘You heard your wife’s voice too?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Yes — giving me the strength to go on, even in the darkest of hours.’

‘Given Douglas’s medical history,’ Leane interrupted, ‘there’s no reason to doubt what he’s saying.’

‘No,’ Sean agreed. ‘I don’t suppose there is. But I need to know, Douglas, why didn’t you just take your medication?’

‘And silence the voice of God, and lose my wife for ever? Is that what you would have done?’ Allen asked. ‘Do you think yourself more important than God?’

‘No,’ Sean answered. ‘No, I do not, but I’m not the one being interviewed, am I? You are.’

Allen’s mouth fell open as if he was about to say something, but then it slowly closed. Sean sensed he might be going into lock-down and knew he needed to keep him talking, at least until he had enough to be sure Allen wasn’t a far more darkly dangerous animal than appearances would suggest. That his medical history wasn’t just something he’d created and nurtured so that he could hide behind it if he ever got caught.

‘What did it feel like,’ he asked, ‘when you let yourself into their houses? What did that feel like?’ For the briefest of moments he thought he’d detected the slightest glimmer in Allen’s eyes. ‘It was cold out at night. Inside the house must have felt warm — warm and safe. Did it make you feel like you belonged there?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Allen told him.

‘Did it make you feel in control? Did it make you feel like the God you say you serve?’

‘It didn’t feel like anything. I was only there for the child — for the sake of the child.’

‘Come on, Douglas — it must have felt special, knowing the house was yours — standing alone while the family slept — knowing exactly where the child you’d come to take waited for you. Did it make you feel powerful?’ Allen said nothing, his eyes never leaving Sean’s. ‘Because you knew everything about the house, didn’t you, Douglas? You’d been there before. You’d been there the night you took the child’s most prized possession — the thing you knew they loved more than anything — the thing you knew you could use to win their trust when you went to take them. That sounds like a man in complete control to me — not someone listening to voices inside his head.’

‘I did it so they wouldn’t be scared,’ Allen tried to explain. ‘I went to them the night before and I took their special toys so they wouldn’t be scared when it was time to come for them. I didn’t want them to be afraid, that’s all. I couldn’t stand it when they were afraid. They looked so … so alone.’

‘And when you were alone with them, what did you do to them? When you stood next to their beds in the middle of the night, did you touch them? Did your hand slide under their blankets and touch them?’

‘No! Never! You’re completely wrong. You don’t understand — I’d never … hurt them. I’d never do anything like that. I just wanted to love them.’

‘Love them? But when Samuel became too much trouble, you killed him.’

‘I told you — that was an accident.’

‘What about the others, Douglas? What were you going to do when they became too much trouble ? Were you going to kill them as well?’

‘No, no!’ Allen spluttered, burying his head in his hands.

‘Get rid of them like the rubbish they were?’

‘No! I just did what the voices told me to do. I just did what the Lord told me to do — what Iris said I should do. They would never tell me to harm the children.’

‘There are no voices in your head,’ Sean accused, his voice rising. ‘No one’s telling you what to do. You took the children because you wanted to. You killed Samuel Hargrave because you wanted to — because it made you feel good.’

‘No!’ Allen fought back. ‘It tore me apart. The guilt was unbearable.’

‘Inspector,’ the solicitor interrupted. ‘I have to point out that, given my client’s medical history, it is entirely possible, even probable, that he has been hearing voices telling him what to do.’

‘If his medical background’s real, if it’s not something he’s created to hide behind. Manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility sounds a lot better than murder — doesn’t it, Douglas?’

‘I didn’t murder anyone, I swear.’

‘You murdered Samuel Hargrave. And it was only a matter of time before you murdered the other children as well.’

‘That’s a lie!’

‘One by one you’d have taken them from the room you kept them in and you’d have-’

‘No.’

‘You’d have pressed your hand over their mouths and held them-’

‘No! Stop this!’

‘Held them until they weren’t struggling any more.’

‘No.’

‘And then you’d have taken them to some place and left them for us to find. Some place you thought was special — some place where leaving them there made you feel less like the cold-blooded murderer of children you are.’

‘No!’ Allen shouted, tears, mucus and saliva mixing together and making his face shiny and wet. ‘No. No. No.’

‘I think that’s enough,’ Leane stepped in, but Sean was finished anyway.

‘All right,’ he told Allen, his voice calm and normal again. ‘All right, Douglas. That’ll be enough for now. Have a chat with your solicitor and Leane, then get some rest. We’ll talk again later, or maybe tomorrow.’ He stopped the recording, took the tapes out and began to seal one in its case.

‘When can I go home?’ Allen’s quiet voice broke the silence.

Sean looked up slowly. ‘Excuse me?’

‘When can I go back to my shop? I need to get back to the shop.’

‘I don’t think that’ll be happening for a very long time, Douglas. I’m sorry.’

‘But I was only doing God’s work,’ Allen explained. ‘I was doing what he willed me to do.’