“Fine. Just thinking about how you’re gonna have to put your foot down if you want to keep up with Young.”
“Jesus, you telling me to go faster,” He grinned, “what’s the world coming to, right?”
“Topsy turvy,” I agreed.
“Do you really think that the blond teenager who was linked to Alistair is the same one who was here?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted after a pause, “but he did seem to fit that description pretty closely, didn’t you think?”
“I guess.” Stephen gave a careless shrug. “Could be a coincidence, though.”
“All clues are coincidences at first,” I said with a slight smile. “But I know what you mean. I’ll wait till we know more to say anything for sure. The similarity just struck me, that was all.”
“We can ask these two lads more about it.”
The roads had opened out a little, and it hadn’t taken long before we were in the middle of the small town. The station was near the opposite end to the farm, and we followed Young into the tight car park.
“Just like Lockdale,” I said fondly as Stephen struggled to squeeze the car into a too-small space.
“I’ll take the city any day,” he muttered.
“We’ll be back there soon enough, don’t you worry,” I said jovially.
For now, we had two teenagers to get some answers on and an arson case to help with. It wasn’t a serious enough incident for me to get involved with actually leading the case, so the majority of it would be handled by DI Young and his colleagues once Stephen and I had left.
Still, I enjoyed being presented with a new challenge and getting to consult on it without having to do all the tedious leg work and research. Of course, as DCI, I didn’t necessarily have to do that on the cases that I was running, but it was how I worked. How could I read the lay of the land without having both my feet on the ground? Until we had our own case to work, this was a welcome distraction, and Stephen and I headed inside, keen to get started.
Five
The small-town station was oppressively warm inside and had the smell of an old building where the roof leaked in heavy rain and countless people had worked and sweated within its confines. It felt a lot like Lockdale, and it made me smile even as Stephen wrinkled his nose beside me and pulled his sticky shirt away from his chest.
“Here,” Young said, offering us both cups of water. The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly chemical, but it went down my dry throat like a dream, and I thanked him.
“We’ve got all the windows open,” Young added apologetically when Stephen flapped ineffectually at his face with his hand. “Not like your city police station, right?”
I grinned at that. “Actually, there’s no air con at Hewford either, or if there is, you can’t feel it. Not everything’s better in the city, lad, that I promise you.”
“Most of it is, though,” Stephen added cheekily, leaning towards Young like he was imparting a secret. “Mitchell’s just nostalgic for his rustic origins.”
“Rubbish.” I swatted him on the arm before turning back to Young, who looked amused. “Okay, enough of our nonsense,” I grinned, “where can we talk to the kids? Have you got an interview room?”
“Not really,” Young said before gesturing for us to follow him. “But we can use one of the back rooms. It used to be a storeroom, but it’s empty right now. Bit cramped, but it’ll do in a pinch. We’ve been waiting for the space in the budget for an extension, you know, but it never turns up.”
“I know how that goes,” I agreed. As overstrained as York’s resources sometimes became, the station was certainly much better funded than Lockdale had ever been.
Young showed us through to a back room which was, if it was possible, even hotter than the main office space.
“Crikey,” I muttered, tugging my collar away from my neck. “Can I trouble you for some more water?”
“Of course.” Young sent me an apologetic look and went to refill our cups.
While he was away, Stephen and I got settled at the slightly rickety table that’d been set up. Stephen gave the table leg a nudge as if he thought it might collapse.
“Missing the city?” I teased, fanning myself with my notebook.
“I never thought I’d see a place that made Hewford look flashy.”
I rolled my eyes at him and was about to respond when another officer, one I hadn’t met yet, came inside. She looked startled to see us sitting there but quickly recovered.
“Oh, sir, here’s the first of the boys.” She came further into the small room, and a sullen teenager followed her grudgingly. “He’s calling himself Tiger Shute.”
“Go ahead and take a seat, Tiger,” I said, nodding towards the chair opposite us. I was inclined to think that the name ‘Tiger’ was unusual enough to be his real one. That or it was the nickname he was best known by.
The lad had an unremarkable sort of face, dotted with teenage acne, and his eyes narrowed with annoyance. The most distinctive thing about him was the bright green T-shirt he was wearing, with an artistic rendition of a dinosaur on the front. It looked like one of the slightly kooky pieces of clothing that turned up at fashion shows, and I wondered briefly whether it was designer.
“Is Tiger the name on your birth certificate?” Stephen asked, clearly thinking along the same lines as I was. “Or a nickname for… Thomas or Timothy?”
“No,” the teenager said. He glanced over at the officer who’d shown him in as she took her leave and closed the door behind her. Tiger hunched down in his chair once she’d left and glared at us.
“No, it’s not a nickname?”
“It’s my name,” he snapped.
“Okay,” I said neutrally. The kid had probably gotten some stick
