“It’s the warm weather, kids being kids, I guess,” she said, altogether too casual for my liking. “They stay out late, get drunk, and someone sets fire to something.”
“But the accelerants? The petrol cans? That suggests predetermined actions, doesn’t it?” I pressed.
“Look, I want them caught too, DCI Mitchell. Tell me who did it and show me the proof, and I’ll be there arresting them right alongside you.”
“I’m looking into it.”
“I see,” she said after a pause. “That’s not really your area of expertise, is it? Has the Superintendent signed off on that?”
I inwardly groaned, rubbing a hand over my face. First Sedgwick and now this; it frustrated me how territorial officers could get over their own little patch of turf. Though, I admitted to myself, I’d been reluctant to let others help with my cases in the past too.
“No, it’s not my area of expertise, but it’s possibly linked with a missing child case, and I’ve got the time on my hands to look into it. Another pair of hands can’t hurt, can it?”
“Very well,” she said, after a long pause. “Keep me updated, DCI Mitchell.”
She hung up before I could respond, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was getting on for six now, and Stephen had headed off home a little while ago. I was hungry enough that I was starting to get a headache, so I resigned myself to calling it a day and started to pack up.
I changed into my running kit hurriedly, wincing when I realised what the time was and that I’d be late to see Sam. I sent her off a text to let her know where I was, and she responded with a thumbs up. She’d known full well what a relationship with me would involve when we got into it, but I still felt some lingering guilt that I couldn’t give her more of my time. Especially since I wasn’t sure how much longer, we would have together before she moved over two hundred miles away.
I pushed the thoughts out of my head for now and just let myself run, stretching out the tensions and stresses of the day as my trainers ate up the distance and hit the pavement beneath me. The evening was perfect for it; pleasantly balmy without being uncomfortable, and the airless feeling from earlier in the day had lifted along with the heat, making me feel light and fast.
I took my usual route towards Sam’s place and kept my pace up so that I wouldn’t take too long to reach her. The streets were reasonably busy this time in the evening, especially with the weather so pleasant, and I had to weave around several groups of oblivious students or couples linking arms.
Perhaps it was the fact that I’d been working on incidents relating to teenagers all day, but when I glanced sideways and saw a group of young men grouped together a little way down a side road, I slowed my run. At first glance, I didn’t see anything, but a second later, I caught sight of a flash of tortoiseshell fur beyond the boys, and there was the sharp yowl of an animal.
I came to a complete stop, out of breath, and glanced around me, but the street was relatively deserted. The group of lads were laughing, nudging each other, and there was a brief scuffle as I watched from a short distance away.
One of them swore loudly before yelping, “It clawed me!”
My legs drew me towards the group before I could think anymore about it, unwilling to stand by while this lot abused a cat right in front of me. There had to be about seven of them, most of them with their backs to me, and my heart rate picked up as I strode towards them.
“Hey!” I snapped as there was another squeal from the cat. The poor thing managed to get itself free of the circle of boys and sprinted away past me as I approached the teenagers. “The hell are you doing?”
It occurred to me after I’d spoken that it would’ve been a good idea to send Stephen or Sam a text before I marched up to a bunch of boys and told them off. But it was too late now, and they all turned around, their attention fixing on me now that their previous target had run off. I could smell the drink and weed on them from here, and there was a nasty look on their faces that said that they were bored and careless.
One of them swaggered up to me with a sneering grin, and I resisted the urge to back up. This hadn’t been a good idea, I thought, much too late to do anything about it.
Seven
The teenager who’d strode up to me with the arrogance of a prince looked me cooly up and down.
“What d’you want?” he said before tossing several choice insults at me that made his friends snigger like children.
I scanned all of their faces, trying at once to see if I recognised any of them and to remember them in case anything happened. I found myself looking for two faces in particular: Alistair Pumphrey and the elusive Jules, but none of the boys was pale blond, and they all looked to be at least sixteen.
“Cat got your tongue?” the dark-haired jerk said, the one who was standing no more than a couple of yards away from me. He seemed to think he was hilarious and grinned at me coldly.
“You make a habit of kicking animals a fraction of your size, do you?” I said, which wasn’t the smartest thing to ever come out of my mouth, but I was struggling to think of anything else to say.
The boy’s expression darkened, and I instinctively tensed, ready to bolt if he came at me. I wasn’t sure I could outrun them for speed, but
