The Toy Taker (20 page)

Donnelly realized what was happening before even seeing the map and notebook, snatched the handcuffs off his belt and stepped towards McKenzie, spinning him around, pulling his arms behind his back and snapping the cuffs on his wrists. ‘Can’t have you running off anywhere, can we?’ he told the startled-looking man.

‘I’m not saying anything until I see my solicitor,’ McKenzie protested.

‘You don’t have to,’ Sean told him, pointing at the damning evidence lying on the bed-base. ‘These say it all for you.’

‘You can’t prove they’re mine. And even if they are – so what?’

‘Do me a favour,’ Sean replied, walking towards him while Donnelly went the other way, eager to see what Sean had seen. ‘But there’s something else you have that I need.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Now is not the time to fuck with me,’ Sean warned. ‘Where are they?’

‘Who?’ McKenzie asked, trying to stall. ‘Where are who?’

‘Not who,’ Sean told him, his voice growing louder. ‘The items you bought from the hardware-shop – where are they?’

‘You’re mad,’ he accused Sean. ‘I haven’t been to any hardware-shop. Why would I go to a hardware-shop?’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Sean warned. ‘Where are they – the lock-picking tools you bought from the shop in Archway Road? I know you were there, Mark.’

‘You had me followed?’ he asked calmly, quietly enjoying the expression on Sean’s face as he realized he’d shown his hand and burnt the surveillance team. ‘You must have, otherwise how could you have known?’

‘So you admit it?’ Sean recovered.

‘I’m not admitting anything.’

‘This isn’t a game, Mark, and I’m not playing. You’re in deep shit. Now, where are the items you bought from the hardware shop?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ McKenzie sneered, ‘you start searching this rat-hole you and your kind condemned me to live in and I’ll tell you when you’re getting warm.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Sean replied, jabbing him in the crotch with a snap of his knee, folding McKenzie in half as he fell to the floor, his hands cupped around his private parts to ease the pain and protect them from further blows. ‘You want to play games? OK – let’s play a new game. This one’s called, you tell me where the tools are or have more of the same.’

‘You can’t do this,’ McKenzie groaned, spittle spraying from his thin, pale lips. He knew Corrigan was dangerous – he’d almost depended on it, but he hadn’t planned on being tortured. His intense fear and dislike of physical pain of any type threatened to cause him to cave in and confess all. ‘You can’t do this to me.’

‘Oh yeah, and who’s going to stop me?’ Sean asked, looking around the room as Donnelly deliberately kept his back to them.

‘I won’t tell you anything,’ McKenzie insisted. Sean slapped him hard across the face, the sound of the blow reverberating around the flat, mixing with the pitiful little scream that escaped from McKenzie’s mouth.

‘That’s probably not true, is it, Mark? You see, I think you’re going to tell me everything I want you to.’ Sean’s voice was full of quiet malevolence and danger – as if torturing prisoners was an everyday occurrence, just another part of his job.

‘Leave me alone,’ McKenzie demanded. ‘You won’t get away with this.’

‘The tools,’ Sean hissed at him. ‘Tell me where the tools you bought from the hardware shop are. And the others – the ones you used on the house you took the boy from – where did you dump them?’

‘I’ve already told you: I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Sean snapped the heel of his shoe into McKenzie’s shin, just below the knee, causing a jolt of excrutiating pain that brought tears to his eyes as he gripped the injured limb and rolled side to side to try and distract himself from his agony.

‘We can keep doing this,’ Sean told him, ‘or you can tell me what I need to know.’

‘You’re insane,’ he spat back. ‘You’re crazy.’

Sean reached out with both hands and gripped the collar of McKenzie’s unbuttoned shirt, twisting it in on itself to make a tourniquet around his neck – cutting off his oxygen and damming the spent blood in his brain. McKenzie tried to break free, but Sean was too strong and his grip too tight. He held him without speaking until McKenzie’s eyes began to bulge.

‘Tell me,’ Sean shouted in his face, watching as McKenzie turned his head, his eyes rolling the rest of the way and pointing accusingly towards a corner of the room.

‘Maybe you should take it easy, guv’nor,’ Donnelly warned, heading back towards the unevenly matched combatants, ready to peel Sean off his prey if he had to. But Sean had already loosened the shirt around McKenzie’s neck and dropped him to the floor, where he lay panting for breath, one hand around his reddening neck and the other pointing shakily at Sean.

‘I want to make a complaint,’ he managed to mumble. ‘I want him arrested,’ he told Donnelly. ‘You saw what he did – arrest him. He tried to kill me.’

‘If he’d tried to kill you, you’d be dead by now,’ Donnelly answered, ‘so shut the fuck up. And next time, save yourself a bit of bother by answering our questions when we ask them.’ He looked away from the still prostrate McKenzie towards Sean, who was already in the corner of the room McKenzie’s bulging eyes had looked to. ‘You got something?’

Sean was crouching to examine the floor. ‘Carpet’s loose over here,’ he answered, ‘like it’s been pulled away more than once.’

‘Hello, hello,’ Donnelly said, looking at McKenzie. ‘Another wee hiding place, Mr McKenzie?’

He didn’t answer, his eyes once again wide with the infinite possibilities of the next few seconds – Corrigan’s unpredictability only now fully revealing itself to him, increasing both the danger and the possible rewards.

Sean pushed the tips of his fingers between the skirting board and carpet edge, gripped the frayed ends and pulled – the carpet peeling back like the skin of an over-ripe fruit to reveal old floorboards, the shortest of which wobbled slightly when he rocked it with his hand. He pressed down on one side and the short board flipped on its side as it broke loose. ‘One of the boards isn’t nailed down,’ he called over his shoulder, tossing the board to one side and retrieving his torch. He placed it in his mouth to free the arm that now snaked under the floor, his gloved fingers coiling around the plastic bag he’d seen in the torchlight. As he pulled it free, he looked inside like an excited child with a bag of treats, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. ‘Jackpot,’ he said quietly as he emptied the suede roll-up case from the bag, untying the loose knot and unrolling the holder to reveal an array of delicate metal tools within. Even from a distance Donnelly could see they were lock-picking tools.

‘Game’s up for you, Mark,’ Donnelly told him. ‘Now, where’s the boy?’

‘You’re the police,’ McKenzie answered. ‘You’re supposed to be the detectives, the ones with all the answers – so why don’t you detect him yourself?’

Sean was up and across the room in a second, pushing past Donnelly, eyes on fire with a fury he couldn’t control as he again grabbed McKenzie by the shirt collar and half pulled him off the floor, his face so close their breath became one. ‘Tell me where the boy is,’ Sean demanded. ‘Tell me where the boy is or I swear you won’t leave this room in one piece.’

‘You can do what you like to me, but I won’t tell you where he is – no matter what.’

‘We’ll soon see about that,’ Sean told him, his wrists beginning to twist as he tightened the shirt around McKenzie’s throat.

A heavy hand landed on Sean’s shoulder, prompting him to back off.

‘Careful, guv’nor,’ Donnelly warned quietly. ‘Don’t give him a way out – know what I mean?’

Sean loosened his grip, but kept hold of McKenzie. There was more than one way to torture the truth out of him.

‘When you broke into all those houses – when you convinced everyone you were just another housebreaker looking for things to steal, you were hiding the truth from them, weren’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You weren’t there to steal, were you? Not in the beginning. You were there for the children, weren’t you?’

‘I needed the money, that’s all.’

‘You’re lying,’ Sean accused him. ‘I can smell your lies. All the houses had children in them and you knew that before picking the locks in the middle of the night and letting yourself in, didn’t you?’ McKenzie shook his head, his mouth hanging open. ‘Did you take things, Mark? Things belonging to the children – things special to them? Did taking their things allow you to relive being in their houses with them over and over and over again? Every time you felt the urges, the needs returning, you could get out the things you’d taken and look at them, couldn’t you? Touch them, breathe in their scent, just as if they were the children themselves. Did you mark maps, Mark, ring the houses you’d been inside in red, just like you have with George Bridgeman’s house? Did you need to do that to keep the connection even more alive – another reminder of your little visits in the night?’

‘You can’t prove I did any of that,’ McKenzie finally spoke. ‘You can’t prove anything.’

‘I can prove plenty,’ Sean told him. ‘I’ve got enough here to finish you, Mark, and with your previous you don’t stand a chance. Tell me where the boy is, and I can promise things won’t go as badly for you as you might think − but only if he’s still alive.’

‘And if he’s not?’ McKenzie asked, his eyes narrow and cunning.

‘Then tell me where he is anyway,’ Sean answered. ‘Give the family some peace and the courts will have more sympathy for you.’

‘Sympathy?’ McKenzie snarled. ‘That’s what you think I want – sympathy? I don’t want your fucking sympathy – I want justice. Justice for everything that’s happened to me. You owe it to me.’

‘Everything that ever happened to you, you brought on yourself,’ Sean told him. ‘As for justice – you’ll get that, Mark. That much I promise.’

Sally settled into the large comfortable armchair in the spacious office in Swiss Cottage and immediately felt herself begin to relax totally, something she’d learned to do during her previous half-dozen or so meetings. She surveyed the now familiar room as she waited for the soothing voice that she knew would soon come. ‘So, how have you been?’ asked Dr Anna Ravenni-Ceron.

‘Good,’ she answered. ‘Getting there – with your help.’

‘And I’m glad to help,’ Anna answered. ‘It’s good for me to get back to basics and help someone like you – to see the person you really are returning.’

‘You must have thought I was a nightmare when you first met me,’ Sally winced.

‘Not to me you weren’t, although you had every right to be. What happened to you could destroy most people, especially a woman in the police, but you’ve been progressing better than I could have hoped for. Perhaps that in itself owes something to the fact you are policewoman.’

‘Maybe,’ Sally answered, unconvinced.

‘Even at the height of your difficulties, you were politer than most of your colleagues.’

‘Outsiders make them nervous.’

‘I noticed. How is DI Corrigan, by the way?’

‘Sean? He’s … Sean. Why do you ask?’

‘I found him interesting,’ Anna told her.

‘Professionally or personally?’ Sally asked, slightly defensively.

‘My interest could only ever be professional. Why ask – has he said something about me?’

‘No,’ Sally replied, a little too quickly. ‘Not that I know of. Has he called you at all or tried to contact you?’

‘No,’ Anna told her. ‘Nothing.’

‘I’ll tell him you said hello,’ Sally told her.

‘Please do,’ Anna answered, sensing it was time to move forward. ‘Now – how have things been at work? Still unusually quiet?’

‘They were, but we’ve picked up a new case – a four-year-old boy’s gone missing from his home. We have a pretty decent suspect.’

‘And how have you felt, being involved in a live investigation?’

‘Fine. Glad to be busy again, although the break did me no harm – gave me a chance to move forward with my life without too many distractions getting in the way.’

‘I agree,’ Anna told her. ‘It’s easy to bury your head in work and pretend everything’s all right, but ultimately it means you’re never addressing things that need to be addressed.’

‘Well, I feel much better now.’

‘And the drinking?’

‘Better.’

‘In what way?’

‘In that I’m drinking less. I’m off the vodka completely.’

‘Excellent. Are you drinking less now than after the attack or less now than before it?’

‘Less than even before it, and I’m still off the smokes too. If I keep going, I’ll be completely vice-less.’

‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing.’ Anna smiled.

‘Not bad, just boring.’

‘No harm in the occasional glass of wine, just remember to keep track of what you’re drinking.’

‘Sounds like the office Christmas party’s off limits, then?’

‘Go, just don’t drink.’

‘Jesus!’ Sally laughed. ‘If I do that everyone’ll think I’m pregnant. I’d rather they thought I was mad.’

‘Clinically depressed is the term I think you meant to use.’

‘Yes. Sorry. Of course.’

‘And the drugs – the painkillers?’

‘Under control: ibuprofen and the occasional tramadol.’

‘Do you really need them any more? Have you seen your doctor about taking them?’

‘I can still feel the pain in my chest from time to time.’

‘Do you think the pain is possibly more psychological – in your mind?’

‘Well, when I feel it, it’s in my chest and it bloody hurts.’

Anna backed off. ‘Perhaps you could try dropping the tramadol and just using ibuprofen?’

‘I like the tramadol,’ Sally admitted. ‘It helps me sleep.’

‘You still have trouble sleeping?’

‘A bit. I struggle to get to sleep and then things wake me up and I need the tramadol to get me back to sleep.’

‘You mean your nightmares wake you up. Nightmares about the night you were attacked.’

‘Yes,’ Sally answered abruptly, as if lingering on the subject would induce the nightmares she still feared more than anything.

‘Tell me about them,’ Anna encouraged.

‘I’ve already told you.’

‘Tell me again. The more we talk about them, the better chance we have of stopping them.’