The Toy Taker (46 page)

‘I’ll look after them,’ Maggie promised.

‘Call me if they remember anything,’ he told her, then he turned and headed down the steps towards his car, stopping only when he heard the heavy door close behind him.

He looked up at the clear darkness in the sky. Late afternoon had turned into early evening and the moon was already full and low above London as another day all too quickly slipped past, and still the case wouldn’t break. How much time had he wasted on Mark McKenzie and then Hannah Richmond, and all for nothing more than discovering what sort of person he wasn’t looking for. ‘Time. Time. Time. Time,’ he muttered to himself as he climbed into his car, the thought of returning to his office both oppressive and depressing. There were no answers there, no clues hiding in amongst the piles of documents, paper or otherwise. Whatever the answer was to the riddle he was sure he hadn’t found it yet and he was sure it wasn’t back in his office – it was out here, on the streets of North London, at the scenes of the crimes, or in the mortuary. He either hadn’t found it yet, or he had and had missed it. He pulled away from the kerb and headed towards Highgate.

Helen Varndell’s frustration was growing into genuine anger as she stormed around her converted mews home in Mornington Crescent, just south of Camden Town. She swept up the stairs feeling ever more agitated and into the bedroom of her five-year-old daughter who waited, sobbing quietly in her bed. ‘Damn it, Vicky, where did you leave the bloody thing?’ The overhead light in the child’s room made Helen’s attractive but slightly stern-looking face seem harsher than ever, her short, blonde hair cut well above the slim neck that flowed gracefully into her broad shoulders and tall, slender body. She stood with her hands on her hips staring down at her crying daughter.

‘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
.

He looked out into the main office and saw the pictures of the three missing children stuck to one of the many whiteboards.
What do you have in common? You don’t look the same. You’re not the same age and you’re not all the same gender. All your families are wealthy beyond most people’s imagination, but what does that mean – why’s that relevant?
He rocked back in his chair while he reviewed everything he’d learned about the families – what he had been told and what he had seen for himself.
All the families employed nannies or au pairs, even those where the mother wasn’t working. Nannies and au pairs to take the children to and from school, to look after them at weekends and during the holidays – to cook for them, dress them, bathe them, put them to bed? But what does any of this have to do with you? Did you know that the parents had entrusted their children’s upbringing to someone else?
He bit hard enough on his bottom lip to make it bleed, but didn’t even notice.
Of course you did. You knew it all – knew everything you needed to know about these families. Was that it – was that the flame that drew you? The fact the parents didn’t seem to care – didn’t seem to … to love them – not like you would. You always choose families that had more than one child because you wanted to leave them with at least one – one who now you’ve taught them a lesson you believe they’ll love in the way they should, in the way that’s acceptable to you
…

Sean rolled his head and cracked the stiffness out of his neck, trying to organize his random thoughts, convinced he was right. But still something wasn’t making sense. He closed his eyes and pinched his temples between the fingertips of both hands, elbows resting on his desk.
I know you’re a man – the Hargraves heard a man’s voice. But these thoughts you have, these
…
judgements, are more the thoughts and judgements of a woman
… Again he paused for a few seconds.
You’re not like Mark McKenzie and you’re not like Hannah Richmond, so what are you? Both? Something in between? You take the children because a woman tells you to? You snatch them and take them home to your loving wife to raise as your own?
His eyes opened as he suddenly stood and almost knocked over his chair, the frustration enough to make him want to sweep everything from his desk. ‘No,’ he told himself. ‘No. That’s wrong. There’s no woman waiting for you to bring them to her. Your motivation is female, yet your actions are male. Taking the body to a cemetery, leaving it on the grave of a war hero and a cop were the actions of a man. Why can’t I see? Why can’t I understand you?’

The words of the priest began to snake around his mind, drowning out everything else:
We look, but we can’t see. We look, but we can’t see
.

He could feel them as soon as he entered the house – waiting upstairs for him to come while he stood feeling the warmth of the house chasing the chill from his muscles. He remembered the strange layout of the house, with its living room, kitchen and main bathroom all on the ground level where he was now. Two short flights of steep, narrow stairs led to the second floor and the bedroom of the little girl he’d come take. But now he was here, safely inside the silent, sleeping house, his legs refused to move. Doubts and fears swept through his mind, the harrowing memory of Samuel’s lifeless body lying across his desk robbing him of the will to continue, evaporating his strength.

The pain in his head returned in a rush as he dropped on to one knee. ‘God give me strength,’ he begged in a whisper. ‘The Lord is my shepherd. He will answer my prayers and offer me guidance.’ He squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his head between the palms of his hands, waiting for God to speak to him. But there was only darkness. ‘Iris,’ he pleaded to his dead wife. ‘The Lord has forsaken me. He has abandoned me.
No
, she answered, making his eyes flash open.
He is with you now – he is always with you, and so am I, my love
. ‘But he doesn’t speak to me. He doesn’t tell me what I should do,’ he whispered.
He speaks through me. He tells me what to tell you
. ‘But what if he’s wrong? What if he’s wrong about the parents? What if we’re taking children from parents who love them?’ His wife’s usually calm voice grew angry, like the time they’d had
that
argument, when they were told they’d never have children. When she’d blamed him and called him all those terrible names.
Our God is a vengeful god
, she warned him,
and his word is not to be questioned by man, or they will feel his wrath
. ‘I’m sorry,’ he implored her, on both knees now, his voice growing dangerously loud in the darkness. ‘I’m a weak man, and my faith grows weak inside me.’
You must take the girl. God wills it
. ‘I can’t,’ he told her. ‘No more. I won’t do it any more.’
God wills it
. ‘No more.’
God wills it
. ‘Please. No more. Leave me alone. I won’t take the girl.’
Our God is a vengeful god
. ‘No.’
They will feel his wrath
. ‘Please.’
You must save her from the darkness
, his wife’s tone softened. ‘What?’
Only you can save her from the darkness
. ‘The darkness?’
Yes. Only you can save her. You must take her
. ‘I’m saving her?’
Yes. Yes. Only you can save her. If you leave her here, the darkness will take her
. ‘No. No. The darkness can’t have her. I won’t let the darkness take her.’ He felt the strength seeping back into his body and mind.
Then save her. Go to her and save her
.