The Toy Taker. Luke Delaney

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      ‘It was ten thirty,’ Robinson told Sean. ‘It’s in the crime-scene log.’

      ‘That was fast,’ Sean accused him, ‘through rush-hour traffic.’

      ‘So I broke a few speed limits – what the fuck do I care?’

      ‘Stuart, please,’ Celia appealed to him. ‘You’re not helping.’

      ‘Here we go,’ Stuart Bridgeman said, shaking his head. ‘I wondered how long it would be before this all became my fault.’

      Sean didn’t have time to referee a domestic. ‘Where did you stay? In Oxford – where did you stay?’

      Bridgeman took several calming breaths before answering. ‘The Old Parsonage Hotel – just outside the city centre. They’ll be able to confirm I was there last night.’

      Sean studied him, in no hurry to fill the uncomfortable silence. Bridgeman could have comfortably booked into his hotel but then come back in the night and taken the boy before returning to Oxford to await his wife’s distressed phone call. But why would he want to abduct his own son? He decided not to push that line of questioning – not yet.

      ‘I’m sure we won’t be needing to check with the hotel, Mr Bridgeman,’ he lied. ‘But one thing’s bothering me.’

      ‘And what would that be?’ Bridgeman asked, not attempting to disguise his frustration.

      ‘I saw an alarm panel as I came through the hallway. I assume it’s for an intruder alarm.’

      ‘So?’ Bridgeman asked.

      ‘So, if someone did manage to break into the house, why didn’t the alarm go off? Wasn’t it set last night?’

      ‘No,’ Bridgeman told him, ‘nor any other night since we’ve been here.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because it’s the old alarm left here by the previous owners. They cancelled their subscription to the alarm company when we bought the house and I haven’t got round to having it reactivated yet.’

      ‘So the house wasn’t alarmed?’ Sean clarified.

      ‘No,’ Bridgeman admitted. ‘But there’s an alarm box on the front of the house. You would think that would deter most people from trying to break in.’

      ‘So you haven’t been here long then?’ Sally asked.

      ‘No,’ Celia Bridgeman answered, never taking her accusing eyes off her husband. ‘A little less than three weeks.’

      ‘Where did you move from?’ Sally continued.

      ‘Primrose Hill.’

      ‘Any reason for the move?’ Sean asked.

      ‘Camden seemed to be getting closer and closer,’ Bridgeman explained, ‘and Primrose Hill’s full of very dull Russian bankers.’

      ‘Did you change the locks when you moved in?’ Sean questioned.

      ‘No,’ Bridgeman replied. ‘Who changes the locks when they move into a new house? This is Hampstead, not Peckham.’ Sean and Sally looked at each other, Sally failing to stop a small grin forming on her lips. ‘The people we bought it off were decent people. In fact, the husband works not far from me in the City. They’re hardly likely to come back and burgle us, are they?’

      ‘But there are keys out there you can’t account for?’ Sean asked. ‘In all likelihood there’ll be keys for this house in the hands of others?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ Bridgeman agreed.

      ‘Then we’ll need a list of anyone who might have keys to the house: the estate agent you used, the previous owners, the removal company you hired – anyone who has access to the house.’

      ‘Fine,’ Bridgeman reluctantly agreed, ‘but that’ll take time. What are you going to do to find our son now?’

      Sean nodded his head slightly, looking around at the faces watching him expectantly. ‘I need to see the boy’s bedroom. I need to see it alone.’

      ‘It’s upstairs,’ Celia Bridgeman told him without hesitation, her pale lips trembling. ‘On the second floor. Along the hallway on the right.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Sean replied and headed for the exit. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he told them, although he was mainly talking to Sally. The relief of being on his own, away from the parents’ torment, guilt and anger felt immediately liberating as he headed for the stairs, stopping for a while to look around him, his eyes drifting towards the front door the nanny had sworn she’d locked. He believed her, but the front door somehow wouldn’t let him look away, as if it held answers to the questions firing inside his head. But the answers wouldn’t come. His mind was awhirl with distractions: the office move, Assistant Commissioner Addis, Thomas Keller still awaiting sentencing … The mental clutter was robbing him of the very thing that set him apart.

      Work through the evidence, he told himself, looking at the windows he could see and noting they were all in good condition with security locks fitted and in place. The door, he told himself. Someone came in through that door, in through it in the middle of the night and took the boy away. But how, who and why? Still nothing particular stirred in his subconscious, no early ideas of who or what he could be about to hunt. He felt a rising panic at the thought of no longer being able to see or feel what the people he had to find and stop had seen or felt.

      There was an alarm, but it wasn’t working – did you know that? A man lives in the house, but he was away – did you know that? Have you been watching the family – and if so, for how long? He waited for answers or ideas, some coldness in the pit of his stomach that would tell him the darkness within him was beginning to stir – the malevolence that could lead him straight to the front door of whoever took the little boy. You don’t even know for sure he’s been taken yet, he reminded himself as he began to climb the stairs, careful not to touch the mahogany bannister that clearly hadn’t been polished for a day or so. Did you touch this bannister? In your excitement to reach the boy, did you forget yourself and touch the bannister? Did you leave me your fingerprints here, hiding amongst the prints of the family, the nanny, the cleaner? What did it feel like to be inside this warm house with its comforting sounds and smells – so different from the cold, empty street outside?

      ‘Shit,’ he whispered as still nothing happened – no flash of inspiration or horror of realization, just blackness. ‘If you’re hiding somewhere, George,’ he said, a little louder than a whisper, ‘now would be a really good time to show yourself.’

      As he stepped on to the first floor landing his eyes again swept over his surroundings: more oil paintings and Tiffany lamps, good quality carpet under his feet deadening the sound of his footsteps, stretching out in front of him and seemingly spreading into three of the four rooms he could see, the fourth of which he assumed would be a bathroom, the carpet giving way to floor tiles. He began to walk along the landing towards the staircase that continued its way upwards at the other end, but the scent of the mother leaking from the first room he passed made him stop and look around, checking he was still alone. Did СКАЧАТЬ