Free The Toy Taker by Luke Delaney Page A

seeing—’
    ‘Surveillance?’ Featherstone stopped him. ‘No chance.’
    ‘Why?’ Sean snapped. ‘I need this bastard followed.’
    ‘Sorry, Sean,’ Featherstone explained, ‘but there’ve been too many cases in the media lately of the police acting too slowly – following people around while the suspect remains at large and the victims remain missing, only to turn up dead a few days later in the places we should have just charged into and searched from the off. So let’s not fuck about here. If you have a viable suspect – and you do – let’s get in there and nick the bastard, spin his gaff and anywhere else he’s known to have been. Our priority is to get the boy back – alive, preferably.’
    ‘But if we can follow him for a while, I’ll know,’ Sean argued. ‘I’ll know for sure before we even make a move.’
    ‘There’s nothing to be gained from surveillance,’ Featherstone reiterated. ‘Act decisively – that’s the way forward here. Now, you get on with what you’ve got to do while I go and see the Assistant Commissioner and spin him along for a bit. Hopefully the next time I see him I’ll be able to give him the good news, yes?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Sean answered sullenly.
    ‘Fine. Until then—’ Featherstone was already springing out of his chair and striding from the office. No one spoke until he disappeared into the corridor.
    ‘What’s got him so rattled?’ Sally asked.
    ‘Eighteen months from retirement with Assistant Commissioner Addis all over his back – you’d be rattled too,’ Sean told her. ‘Now, get hold of Stan and Tony and let’s pay McKenzie a visit.’
    A few drops of sweat formed on Mark McKenzie’s forehead as he searched his newly acquired, second-hand laptop for pornography that suited his particular taste. Hard-core child pornography was hard to find on the Internet unless you’d had a tip-off from a like-minded friend, but his well-practised fingers danced across the keyboard entering the words that experience had taught him were the quickest way to find what he was after. He wiped the sweat away with the back of his hand and considered turning the heating down in the small, squalid flat he rented above a fried chicken takeaway franchise. But once he found what he was looking for it would be better to be warm for what he had in mind. He felt the old familiar excitement beginning to spread through his body as his testicles coiled and swelled, constant licking making his thin lips appear red and full, as if stained by wine. He lit another cigarette and tried not to let thoughts of the police and what would happen to him if he was caught downloading child pornography spoil his magical moment as he drew ever nearer to his prize.
    The very thought of the police, the entire criminal justice system, made him almost laugh out loud as he blew plumes of thick grey smoke at the computer’s screen. They thought themselves so clever, but so long as he kept signing their pathetic register on time and turning up for their pointless interviews they’d leave him alone – alone to do whatever he wanted. Thoughts of the police faded to nothing as he finally found what he was looking for and amateur pictures of young, naked bodies began to fill his screen. This one even had half-decent sound. He took one last, hurried drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out and loosening the belt around his grubby trousers.
    Just as he was about to take hold of his penis, the flimsy door to his flat exploded inwards, sending splinters of wood flying almost the full length of the living room. He jumped off his chair in shock, taking temporary refuge under the flimsy table. As soon as he saw the people in raincoats and suits bursting through the hole where the door used to be, he knew they were police and not the local vigilantes – even before they started calling into the flat, ‘Police! Police! Stay where you are and stand still.’ In a millisecond he remembered the laptop