Sean watched her silently for a moment as she continued to hug the toy rabbit – watching her eyes and hands, her feet that stayed flat and still on the carpeted floor – judging her. He believed most of what she was saying, but there were doubts and untruths hiding in her grief.
The longer he stood in the boy’s room, the more sure he was that George had been taken. But why and by whom? His mind searched back for memories – going back more than ten years to when he was still a detective sergeant, deployed by SO10 on an undercover operation to infiltrate the Network, a paedophile gang who’d been grooming children during the early days of the Internet and then sexually abusing them, filming their exploits and circulating them to other paedophiles. He forced the face of the gang’s leader, John Conway, into his mind, remembering the way he talked and moved, recalling his mindset – what excited him and motivated him. But Conway and his cronies groomed older children and always met the children a safe distance from their houses and schools, whereas whoever had taken George had risked coming into the house in the dead of night. And George was only four, too young to be groomed from a distance. From a distance, but what about by someone close? Conway’s face melted into that of Sean’s own father. But there had never been anything subtle about the abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his father. The face faded away, replaced by the things that continued to plague his mind: There’s an alarm, but you knew it wasn’t working. A man lives in the house, but you knew he wasn’t there. The floorboard creaks, but you didn’t step on it. You knew all this because you know this house. You have to know this house – but how? Who are you and what do you want? John Conway’s face flashed back into his mind. Slow down, he warned himself. You’re making assumptions. You don’t know he knew about the alarm, the husband being away, the damn floorboard. All you know for sure is that the boy is gone. Someone came to the house, entered without breaking in, took the boy and left, locking the house after them. Was Addis right? Could it have been a paedophile, acting alone or with others, going to the next level that the Network never reached – taking children from their own homes, the danger of the game making the moment of triumph all the sweeter.
‘You will find him, won’t you?’ Celia Bridgeman asked, making his attempt to build a mental picture of what could have happened tumble like a house of cards. He gave his mind a few seconds to recall and understand what she had asked before answering.
‘Of course,’ he answered, telling her the only thing he could. ‘Cases like this can come together pretty quickly,’ he added truthfully, although he already had his doubts this one would. ‘You should all move out, just while we have the house searched by a dog team. And our forensic people always appreciate an empty scene. We need to do everything possible to give us the best chance of finding your son quickly.’
‘Where should we go?’ she asked, her voice forlorn and sad, as if moving out was giving up on the boy.
‘Family, friends,’ Sean suggested. ‘Just for a couple of days while we do what we need to do with the house. In the meantime, try not to touch anything. We’ll need a set of fingerprints from everyone who’s been in the house since you moved in. Are you OK with that?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘if it’ll help.’
‘Good,’ Sean told her, taking a last look around the room. ‘I have to go now. Do you need some help getting downstairs?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’d like to stay here for a while – if that’s all right?’
‘Of course.’ Sean slowly headed to the door, almost unable to take his eyes off the mother, her sadness and longing dragging at him like a magnet as he managed to pull himself from the room and into the hallway where he rested with his back to the wall for a few seconds before walking quietly to the staircase.
‘All right?’ Sally asked as he joined the others in the kitchen. Sean nodded.
‘Mr Bridgeman,’ he turned to the father, ‘I was just telling your wife you’ll need to move out for a couple of days’ – Bridgeman tried to interrupt, but Sean talked over him – ‘and I’ll need those names: the estate agent, the removal firm, anyone who’s been in the house since you’ve been here.’ He took something from his warrant-card wallet and dropped it on the kitchen island. ‘That’s my card – ignore the landline number, it’s old, but the mobile and email address are good. Call me if you think of anything.’ He quickly turned to Robinson. ‘I need you to wait here until my own Family Liaison Officer gets here. They won’t be long.’ Robinson just shrugged. He understood her keenness to escape. ‘I have to go back and brief my team, Mr Bridgeman. You may not see me for a while, but rest assured I’ll be working full-time to find your son.’
Sean headed for the door with Sally trailing in his wake, the crystal-clear air hitting him like a plunge into freezing water as soon as he opened the door, temporarily taking his breath away. He skipped down the stairs and headed for their car, then sat on the bonnet, breathing in as deeply as he could before blowing out great plumes of breath, trying to settle his spinning mind. But still he was left with only questions – questions to which he had no answers, just too many broken, ragged theories.
‘Family Liaison Officer?’ Sally asked. ‘Why are we wasting our time doing all that? Let’s stick a dog unit in there and find this kid.’
‘He’s not there,’ Sean answered. ‘If he was, the mother would have found him – I would have.’
‘So he’s got a secret hiding place nobody knows about. He can’t hide from a dog.’
‘I’m telling you, he’s gone,’ Sean insisted, the unintentional aggression in his voice silencing Sally.
She was silent for a moment, considering her next move.
‘Listen,’ she opened, ‘maybe the Keller case is messing with your head a bit? Believe me, when it comes to having your head messed with, I’m an expert.’
‘Meaning?’ Sean asked, prepared to consider anything.
‘Keller took his victims from their homes before he killed them,’ she explained. ‘Maybe that’s stuck in your head, making you see similarities here that don’t actually exist.’
‘The boy’s gone,’ Sean insisted, his voice sad and resigned. ‘But get a dog to check it over anyway. It might find something.’
Sally studied him for a moment, searching for things in him that not so long ago she’d seen in herself. ‘OK,’ she relented, ‘so the boy’s gone. Someone came in the middle of the night, somehow got in, took the boy and left, all without being seen, heard or leaving any signs of entry.’
‘Either they had a key,’ Sean told her, ‘or they picked the locks.’
‘Christ, Sean,’ she reminded him. ‘Lock-picking’s bloody rare.’
‘Good, then that helps us. But why lock the door after they’d left? Why would they do that?’
‘Because they’re insane.’
‘Or because they cared about the people they left in the house – didn’t want to leave them at risk. Exposed.’
‘You mean the father?’ Sally asked.
‘Possibly.’
‘Why would the father want to abduct his own son?’
‘Why do some fathers slaughter their entire family at the first sign their wives might leave them?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sally admitted. ‘You tell me, Sean. Why do some men do that?’
‘Better to destroy something you love rather than lose it.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘No. No it doesn’t,’ he agreed. ‘Much like this case.’
‘So what you want to do?’