The Toy Taker Read Online Free PDF Page B

Inspector?’
    ‘No. It’s just that I was brought up on a council estate,’ Sean told him. ‘I thought you should know.’
    Addis grinned and nodded, impossible to read as he turned his back on Sean and headed for the exit, almost colliding with Sally as she barrelled into the room, unable to see where she was going due to the size of the box she was carrying. Addis jumped out of the way and cleared his throat to make her aware of his presence.
    Sally peeped over the top of her box at the sullen-faced Assistant Commissioner and groaned inwardly. ‘Shit,’ she spurted, immediately realizing her mistake and hurrying to correct it: ‘I mean, fuck … Sorry, sir … sorry.’
    Addis glared at her and exited quickly into the corridor, leaving the bemused Sally scanning the room for Sean, eventually spotting him still standing in his new office. She dumped her box on the nearest desk and made for Sean who was already heading towards her, the file on the missing boy in his hand.
    ‘Pompous twat,’ she offered, with a jerk of the head towards the door Addis had just departed through. Registering that Sean was advancing in that direction, she added, ‘Going somewhere, guv’nor?’
    ‘Yes,’ Sean told her. ‘And so are you.’
    Donnelly sat in the passenger seat while DC Paulo Zukov drove them through the increasingly dense traffic around Parliament Square, Donnelly shaking his head at the thought of having to use public transport to beat the traffic. ‘The Yard,’ he moaned out loud. ‘Why did it have to be the Yard? They’re selling the damn thing as soon as they can find a buyer. We’ll no sooner get sorted than they’ll have us on the move again. Bloody waste of time. Where to next, for Christ’s sake – Belgravia?’
    ‘Look on the bright side,’ Zukov told him, ‘we can tell everyone we’re detectives from New Scotland Yard now. Better than saying you’re from Peckham. And the traffic’s not that bad – considering. You’ve just got to get used to it.’
    Donnelly looked him up and down with unveiled contempt. ‘Why don’t you just drive the car, son. Let me do the talking and the thinking, eh. “You’ve just got to get used to it”
– sometimes I wonder how you ever got into the CID. Let anyone in these days, I suppose. I’ll tell you this for nothing – after a few weeks at the Yard you’ll be wishing you were back at Peckham. Where do you live – Purley, isn’t it? How you gonna get in from there every day?’
    ‘Train,’ Zukov answered precisely, too suspicious of Donnelly’s reason for asking to say more.
    ‘Oh well, let me know how that works out for you – hanging around on a freezing platform before being squeezed into a carriage with standing-room only, rubbing shoulders with the great unwashed every morning and evening. And how you gonna get home when we don’t finish until three in the morning? There’s no local uniform units to bum a lift from at the Yard.’
    ‘I’ll take a job car.’
    ‘Oh aye. You and everyone else. Only one problem – we have a lot more people than we have cars. Better get used to sleeping on the floor, son.’
    ‘I’ll figure something out,’ Zukov replied, promising himself he wouldn’t speak again.
    ‘You will, will you?’ Donnelly condescended. ‘Well, I’ll look forward to seeing that. And while we’re about it, remember to watch your back at all times. You make the same sort of mistake you made on the Gibran case and I won’t be able to cover your arse, not at the Yard. Everything’s changed for us now: senior management have got us right where they want us – under their noses. And I’m pretty sure why.’
    The ensuing silence and air of mystery was too much for Zukov. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why do they want us right under their noses?’
    ‘That, son, is for me to know and for you not to find out,’ Donnelly told him. ‘Now get us out of this traffic and to the Yard. I’m bursting for a piss.’
    Sean and Sally pulled