The Toy Taker (33 page)

He took the few steps to the door and knocked, looking back at the young secretary as he did so, rolling his eyes when Addis answered. ‘Come, come.’ He pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing the door behind him and taking a seat opposite Addis’s oversized desk without being asked, daring him to challenge him.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Of course I wanted to bloody see you,’ Addis barked. ‘So you could explain this latest fucking disaster. It’s not bad enough you’ve already made one unlawful arrest, now you’ve damn near made another. What in God’s name is going on?’

‘McKenzie wasn’t an unlawful arrest,’ Sean reminded him, ‘and nor would the second have been, although in the end it wasn’t necessary.’

‘Inspector, you almost arrested a bloody nursery teacher for nothing. Are you trying to make us look like fools?’

‘She had a link to both families – it was worth checking out.’

‘Was it, bollocks!’ Addis told him. ‘We can’t afford to chase any more wild ideas. For God’s sake, she was just moonlighting as a damn babysitter.’

‘I didn’t tell you that,’ Sean said, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, trying to recall who he’d told, who could know about Hannah Richmond and who would have told Addis before he had a chance to manage the situation – Featherstone? Donnelly? Sally?

‘No you didn’t,’ Addis agreed by way of warning, giving his words time to sink in before speaking again, deliberately calmer now. ‘So what next?’

‘We look for leads, we look for links between the families and we chase them down – that’s all we can do.’

‘We don’t have time to just plod along,’ Addis insisted. ‘We need some ingenuity, some good old-fashioned gut-instinct.’

‘What,’ Sean asked, ‘you think I’m going to suddenly see the offender’s face in my mind, where he lives … works? I’m going to see him standing on a street corner and suddenly say
That’s the guy we’ve been looking for?
’ Addis stared at him without speaking, his expression telling Sean everything he needed to know. ‘You do, don’t you? You really think I’m going to simply pluck the man we’re looking for out of thin air?’

‘Isn’t that what you
do
, Inspector? Isn’t that how you solved the Keller case, the Gibran case and others before, by using your unique
insight
?’

‘No, no it isn’t,’ Sean lied more than he knew he was. ‘I looked at the evidence – I pursued leads. I just saw things in the evidence that other people missed. If they’d have looked properly they would have seen too.’

‘And in this case, you don’t
see
things in the evidence, or can’t?’

‘No,’ Sean admitted. ‘Not yet.’

‘I see.’ Addis leaned back into his comfortable black leather desk chair. ‘Then what do you suggest we do, given that you appear to be well and truly stuck?’

‘Like I said, we’ll keep pulling in the evidence and cross-referencing until we find the link between the families.’

‘And if another child goes missing in the meantime, while you’re
cross-referencing
?’

‘Then it’ll be easier to establish any links,’ Sean told him matter-of-factly. ‘It was always possible that more than one person would be linked to two affluent families living comparatively close to each other, but to be linked to three – that would almost certainly identify them as the prime suspect.’

‘But the only link between the two families was this Richmond person,’ Addis pointed out, ‘and you’ve already … eliminated her from your inquiries.’

‘No,’ Sean argued. ‘She was the only link we’ve identified
so far
. That doesn’t mean she’s the only link. There has to be someone else. There has to be someone linking the families. These children were selected – carefully chosen.’

‘Why?’ Addis jumped him.

‘I don’t know,’ Sean admitted, staring straight into Addis’ eyes. Neither man spoke for an unnaturally long time.

‘This isn’t very encouraging, Sean,’ Addis eventually broke the silence. ‘In the absence of anything new, I suggest we do another media appeal – this time flanked by both sets of parents. Perhaps we can somehow touch this animal’s sense of compassion – persuade him not to harm the children – if he hasn’t already.’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Sean told him and meant it, ‘but the parents need to do most of the talking – more them and less us. And have the mothers do most of that: whoever’s taken the children will be more likely to feel sympathy for the mothers than the fathers – even if the abductor is a woman herself.’

‘I agree,’ Addis replied, as if he’d had the same idea. ‘And I want you to be present at the appeal – sitting next to me, in between the parents.’

Sean went cold inside. The thought of sitting in between the parents, their sadness and pain leaking out and seeping into him while Addis bleated on as the cameras pointed straight at them, searching them for signs of weakness, filled him with fear. ‘I wouldn’t advise that,’ he blurted out.

‘Really?’ Addis asked, nonplussed. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘I’m still on SO10’s books,’ Sean remembered, desperate for an excuse to avoid the media show, ‘which means I’m still technically available for undercover deployment. They wouldn’t be very happy if I was to stick my face all over the telly and papers.’

‘You did a media appeal for the Gibran case,’ Addis reminded him, making Sean swear inwardly. ‘SO10 didn’t seem to mind then. Besides, SO10 come under my umbrella, so you won’t get any trouble from them. I can assure you of that.’

Sean kept thinking. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it for other reasons as well – reasons that relate to the offender’s state of mind.’

‘Such as?’ Addis demanded.

‘I believe they’ll respond to an authority figure better than someone who’s less visibly identifiable.’

‘You mean they’d rather see a uniform than a man in a suit?’ Addis took the bait.

‘Exactly,’ Sean answered, swimming in relief.

‘The uniform of a high-ranking police officer,’ Addis continued.

‘Precisely,’ Sean encouraged him. ‘If he sees you alongside a
detective
then we might lose his trust. We don’t want him to feel hunted.’

‘Very well,’ Addis relented, ‘but I need you to prepare me a full briefing of anything and everything you feel could be useful for the appeal – anything that might help us flush this bastard out – understand?’

‘I understand,’ Sean told him, already standing to leave, as happy as he could be with the outcome of the meeting. ‘I’ll have it for you before close of play.’

‘And, Sean,’ Addis stopped him. ‘Let’s make sure I don’t have to do another media briefing – with another family. That could put you in a very difficult position. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly,’ he answered, never looking away from Addis’s dead eyes, like the black eyes of a shark. ‘I understand perfectly.’

‘Good. Because it would be a shame if this privileged position you’ve been given was to prove too much for you.’ Sean’s mouth opened slightly to answer, but Addis cut him off. ‘That will be all, Inspector. You may go.’ He looked down at the reports on his desk as if Sean wasn’t there – as if he’d never been there.

Early evening and the large, modernized pub close to New Scotland Yard was already growing busy with a mix of off-duty cops and workers from the surrounding offices, the two groups separated by the quality of their suits and the loudness of their voices. Any drinking establishment this close to Scotland Yard was automatically assumed to be police property by the cops who used it as their regular watering hole, but civilians were tolerated so long as they behaved and didn’t get in the way of the bar − although attractive women were always given special licence to behave more freely. Sally weaved her way through a group of almost exclusively male detectives who paid her little attention, having already identified her as one of their own. She tried not to spill the two overflowing drinks as she carried them across to a nearby table where Donnelly waited for her, cursing the day the smoking ban had come into effect and praying for the onset of spring when he could again take his pint outside and enjoy a smoke. Sally slid him his drink and sat next to him, backs to the wall, facing the entrance. Cops liked to see everyone as they arrived – just in case.

‘Cheers, Sal,’ Donnelly thanked her.

‘I don’t think we’ll be making this place our regular,’ she answered. ‘Costs an arm and a leg. Almost ten quid for a pint and a glass of house white.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Donnelly moaned, ‘I hate the bloody Yard and I hate paying West End prices for a pint when I’m in bloody Victoria. Look at this place,’ he told her, surveying the modern, minimalist surroundings with an expression of distaste, ‘what a dump. Give me the Bee Hive back in Peckham any day.’

‘You mean give you back free drinking,’ Sally teased.

Donnelly feigned indignity. ‘I paid my way. Never asked the landlord of that fine establishment for anything per gratis and never expected anything either.’

‘Doesn’t mean you didn’t accept the odd one,’ Sally said with a grin.

‘Careful, Sally,’ he warned her. ‘The walls of the pubs around here have ears. You never know when the rubber-soled brigade are listening,’ he continued, using the police slang for Internal Affairs.

‘I’d like to think they’ve got better things to worry about than your subsidized drinking,’ Sally told him.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Donnelly scoffed before taking a long draw on his pint, licking the froth from his moustache before speaking again. ‘Anyway, more importantly, how’s the guv’nor doing? Shared any secrets with you lately?’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as who’s taking these wee kiddies?’

‘No,’ Sally answered honestly. ‘He thought Hannah Richmond was a real go, until it blew up.’

‘As he did with Mark McKenzie,’ Donnelly added. ‘Also a … mistake.’

‘Whereas you wanted to haul George Bridgeman’s parents over the cobbles,’ Sally reminded him.

‘Ah well,’ he replied with a shrug of his heavy shoulders. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

‘Indeed they’re not,’ Sally agreed in the tone of a strict school teacher before taking a sip of her wine.

‘Well,’ Donnelly continued with a shake of his head, pint held only inches from his lips, ‘he’s not the man he used to be – I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sally demanded. She’d grown closer to Sean since she’d found him bleeding and helpless on Thomas Keller’s filthy kitchen floor. She’d saved him then from a psychopathic killer and she’d save him now from his own kind if she thought she had to.

‘Just that he seems a bit out of sorts,’ Donnelly mused. ‘Not quite the Sean of old.’

‘What d’you expect?’ she argued. ‘First they mothball us for almost six months, then they drop this nice little mess into our laps and expect Sean to be able to magically solve it.’

‘Sean, now is it?’ Donnelly picked up on her slip. She’d never called him anything other than guv’nor or boss in front of the others before.

‘All I’m saying is, he’s bound to be a bit a rusty – we all are. He just needs a little time, that’s all. He needs to get the scent for it again.’

‘Is that why he went after McKenzie and this Hannah bird – trying to get the feel for it?’

‘Probably,’ Sally admitted. ‘At least he was doing something, not just sitting in his office praying for a miracle, or sitting in a pub drowning his sorrows.’

‘Aye, well perhaps he’d better start praying for a miracle now,’ Donnelly told her, ‘because if he doesn’t crack this one soon he’ll be in the brown smelly stuff – and us along with him. The eyes of the world are watching, Sally – the eyes of the world are watching.’

It had already been a long day and it wasn’t over yet. Every inch of his body ached and throbbed after spending the best part of the night sitting in the front seat of an unmarked police car on what ultimately turned out to be a wasted endeavour. He looked up from the endless reports and loose bits of paper littering his cheap desk and peered into the adjoining office only to see that it was empty. A quick scan of the main office confirmed that neither Sally nor Donnelly was anywhere to be seen. He was pretty sure what sort of place they were probably in, even if he didn’t know exactly where, and as they were the only ones who would be likely to enter his office without announcing themselves first, he knew he was unlikely to be disturbed.

Confident of solitude he unlocked his middle cabinet drawer and slid it open. It contained only one thing – his private journal, a visible record of his whirlpool of thoughts and ideas, captured before they escaped his consciousness and were lost for ever. He lifted the book, which was leather bound and about the size of a large photo-album only thinner, and placed it carefully on his desk, opening it at the very beginning and moving steadily through it, page by page, reading his own words, trying to decipher the dozens of small sketches and chaotic graphs – a multitude of names circled and linked to other circled names, each line in a different colour signifying something he’d long since forgotten. But they all related to other cases – old cases solved and consigned to the scrapheap of his memory. So many names: of paedophiles, murderers, witnesses, suspects, the dead. One name made him stop and linger longer than any other, his finger caressing the letters, circling the small cut-out from a surveillance photograph he’d glued on to the page. James Hellier, real name Stefan Korsakov – the man who could have killed him anytime he’d wanted to, but who in the end saved his life, although his motives for doing so were never entirely clear. Maybe he just couldn’t stand the thought of someone else taking his life? ‘Where are you now, my old friend?’ Sean whispered to the small photograph. ‘And what the hell are you up?’ The cold shiver running up his back urged him to move on, flicking through page after page of disorganized notes and scribbles until he came to a nearly blank page halfway through the book. The only words were those written across the top:
George Bridgeman – Abduction
and a little further down:
Bailey Fellowes – Abduction
. The rest of the page was barren – the accusation obvious: he couldn’t think any more, not the way he needed to.

He smoothed out the pages and lifted a red fine-tipped felt pen from an old mug he used as a penholder and flipped the top off, holding it above the notebook as if he expected it to magically lead his hand and start writing for him – solving the puzzle of the missing children without his help. He tried to force thoughts into his mind, but only the broad strokes, stuff he’d already covered with Sally and Donnelly – with Anna – would come. Nothing incisive, nothing that allowed him to cut through the rock and find the diamond.
The abductor knew the children, but how? They knew the families, but how? They knew the houses, but how? They even knew the alarms weren’t working, but how did they know that? The alarm fitters checked out OK and were from different companies, so not that
… He knew he was asking the right questions, but he needed the answers and they wouldn’t come.