“Why’d you care? Are you gonna charge me or not?”
“That depends on your level of cooperation in this conversation,” I said firmly, giving him a quelling look. He met it with defiance for a moment before he dropped his gaze to glare at the table.
“Sixteen,” he muttered.
“Good, thank you.” I took a note of Tiger’s age. “What’s your home address?”
There was a long pause, and Tiger looked shifty, glancing around the hot room as he avoided eye contact. Young knocked on the door and came inside with our cups of water at that point, and we all looked up. He set the two down on the table.
“I’d better get you another one,” he said with a brief look at Tiger, who was sweating just like Stephen and me were.
I nodded my thanks and pushed my cup towards Tiger in the meantime. He gulped it down hungrily and kept hold of the cup when he was done, the plastic crinkling under his fingers.
“Where do you live, Tiger?” I repeated. “We know you’re not from around here.”
“Acomb,” he said finally, his shoulders curling up further. “Look, what do I get for this?” He briefly met my gaze with a flare of rebellion. “I’m not meant to be telling you anything. What do I get then, huh?”
“Who says you’re not meant to be telling us anything?” Stephen asked, leaning forwards.
“Uh.” Tiger looked startled. “No-one. I just meant- it’s the rule, isn’t it? Don’t snitch to the cops.”
He wasn’t a bad liar, I thought, but he also wasn’t good enough to hide his tells completely. He still wouldn’t meet our eyes, and his hand had tightened around his water cup as he spoke.
“Alright, so who would be annoyed if you broke that rule?” I tried, keeping my voice neutral.
He shrugged and refused to say anything more on it nor, it became apparent, anything else. He unbent enough to give his full address and his parents’ phone number, but he refused to say anything about the other teenagers, about whose idea it had been, nor how he’d gotten all the way out here.
“The firefighters told us that fuel was used to start the fire,” I told him, still trying to get him to talk. “What did you use?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said stubbornly. “Don’t I get a lawyer or something?”
I sighed and sat back in my chair, hiding a grimace at the way my clothes were sticking to me.
“Are you aware that you’re looking at arson and aggravated assault charges? The consequences for those won’t be light. Are you really willing to take the fall for the rest of them? Would they do the same for you?”
For a moment, I thought I’d gotten through to him. He paused for a long second, his posture tense and agitated.
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered finally and clenched his jaw. “You don’t snitch.”
“Okay,” I relented. Perhaps the teenager would change his mind after his parents had given him a talking to, but right now, I was sure that he wasn’t going to budge. “Time to talk to your buddy.”
“He’s not my buddy,” Tiger snorted, surprising me with the vehemence of his response. He seemed offended at the suggestion, even though it had only been a passing comment on my part. I’d intended to get up to show Tiger out, but I settled back in my chair.
“He’s not? I thought the group of you were friends?”
Tiger seemed to realise he’d said more than he meant to, and I wasn’t sure he was going to respond. But if there was anything that would make most teenagers talk, it was insulting their pride.
“I wouldn’t be mates with a nerdy weed like that,” he said, his lip curled.
I shared a look with Stephen, who gave me a shrug. If the other teenager was something of an outsider, that might make it easier to get through to him, I thought.
We took Tiger out of the too-hot little room and handed him off to one of the small-town officers to keep an eye on him while his parents were called. The other kid did look a little on the nerdy side, I thought, especially when he stood up and didn’t even reach my upper arm. He was narrow-faced and had quick eyes, like a fox in a trap, and I could feel the nerves vibrating off him.
“Alright, lad, you’re up, let’s go.”
He trailed, slow-footed and reluctant, after us. He sent a glance over at Tiger, too, I saw, but the other boy wouldn’t look at him.
The little interview room felt twice as warm after taking a break from it, and I sighed as I sat down, shifting in my seat with an uncomfortable grimace. The teenager opposite kept his hands in his lap and watched us with obvious nervousness.
We ran through the basics, and the teen gave up his details relatively easily. His name was Mickey White, he lived in the suburbs of York, and he was fifteen, though he looked younger.
“How did you guys get out here?” I asked. “It’s a good hour from York.”
“We, er, caught the train,” he said, his head down and his gaze on the table. He had a strong accent that was mostly Yorkshire, roughened up by his teenage attitude.
“How many of you were there?”
“Uh, seven.” He glanced towards the door like he wanted to make a run for it but didn’t quite dare.
I nodded, making a note. Already we were making better progress with Mickey than we’d managed with Tiger, and it’d only been a couple of minutes.
“Did you know the others well?” I had the feeling that Mickey would keep sharing if I kept the questions reasonably subtle, so I tried to move towards asking about the teens’ identities in a roundabout way.
“Not… particularly,” he said hesitantly. He hadn’t looked up once from the table, and his mousy-brown hair hung down, shading his face.
“Do you know
