“I don’t know that he did,” I laughed. “He said he ‘might be willing to consider my theory’ or whatever.”
“Yeah, that’s the most you’re going to get out of him.” Stephen shook his head with a smile. “Useful of him to come and tell you, though.”
“It is. We need to talk to this teacher, too, I think, and find out Jules’ last name. That’d help a lot.”
“He and Alistair might’ve met through school, then, if they went to the same one,” Stephen mused. “Whereas it seems like the other kids met online. That might indicate two different groups of teens.”
“Maybe,” I hummed. “Although, Jules was three years older than Alistair, so it’s not that likely that they interacted a lot during school, is it?”
“Possible, though,” Stephen countered, and I gave a nod of acknowledgement.
Before we could get back to work, the phone on my desk started ringing, and I reached over to pick it up.
“DCI Mitchell speaking.”
“It’s Rashford. I want the pair of you in my office.”
She hung up the phone before I could ask why, and I set it down with a baffled frown.
“Are we in trouble?” Stephen said, only half-joking.
“No idea, but Rashford wants us. C’mon, let’s not keep her waiting.”
We made tracks over to her office, and I tried to think of what she might want to talk to us about. Perhaps Sedgwick had complained about us inserting ourselves into his case, but he’d been surprisingly cooperative today, and I didn’t think so. So what was it?
Rashford called us in when we knocked and, after sharing a glance with Stephen, I pushed the door open. The superintendent didn’t look especially annoyed when she looked up and gestured for us to take a seat, but I wasn’t sure that I knew her well enough yet to tell. She always looked strictly professional and wore a white button-down and navy trousers, her hair done up in a neat twist today.
“Ma’am,” I said politely, and Stephen echoed it.
“You’ve been working incidents focused on teenagers, is that right?” she asked, getting straight to the point.
“Yes, ma’am. Particularly fire-related incidents.”
“What have you covered so far?”
“Well,” I stalled while I thought, “we helped with a group of joyriders, there was a fire outside York, then there were the teenagers bothering homeless people today.”
“Plus the ones who bothered you,” Stephen added.
“And, before all of those, there was a fire set by teenagers on Monday night,” I remembered. “There’s been a marked increase in fires being set since April, ma’am.”
Rashford gave a short nod, her expression not showing any surprise.
“And from your reports, I gather that you think there’s some kind of link between these events and the missing child, Alistair Pumphrey?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I couldn’t tell from her tone whether she thought the idea had merit or that it was ludicrous.
She seemed to consider this for a long moment, briefly glancing over at her computer screen.
“I can’t say I’m entirely convinced, Mitchell, but your reports have been interesting, regardless. Besides, there’s been another one, and I want you to focus on it.”
“Another one, ma’am?” I repeated. “Another fire?”
“No, teenagers causing damage. A group of them robbed and terrorised an elderly couple, and one of them is in hospital.”
“Christ,” Stephen muttered.
“I have doubts that this ‘pattern’ you’re investigating is anything more than young people kicking off because it’s summer,” she said, and I had to bite my tongue so that I wouldn’t interrupt her, “but you’ve not got another case on your plate, so I want you to handle this.” She gave me a shrewd look. “And if you want to continue to look into your theory whilst still aiding the force, I won’t tell you not to.”
My shoulders relaxed in relief that she wasn’t completely dismissing our ideas.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Go and figure out what happened at this robbery, understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We set off towards the house that had been robbed, me behind the wheel and Stephen listening closely to the radio for any updates.
“Rashford wasn’t as doubting of your theory as I expected,” Stephen mused as we passed through York. The sky had clouded over slightly through the afternoon, and it felt unpleasantly humid, the pressure in the air building up for a storm.
“It’s still just an idea.” I shrugged. “I don’t think that every teenager-related crime in this city is somehow linked. That would be an Illuminati-level conspiracy theory, right?” Stephen chuckled. “But I think there’s a connection between some of them, and you’ve gotta look at the whole picture before you can pick out the important bit, right?”
Stephen made a noise of affirmation, and we drove on, reaching the scene of the crime relatively quickly. With the cloudier day, the traffic was quieter, and it made for easier driving.
“Here we are.”
I pulled into a side road and rolled down the slight slope until we spotted the house with a police car parked outside. I brought us to a halt on the other side of the road, and we climbed out. I pulled my shirt away from my chest as we walked over, trying in vain to cool myself down.
“DCI Mitchell?” a male officer asked, coming over to greet us. “We were told you’d be heading over?”
“Yes, that’s me, and this is my partner, DI Huxley.”
The officer nodded a hello to Stephen and didn’t offer to shake our hands; it was too warm for it. Instead, he showed us around the compact, semi-detached terrace, which was dated but charming. The years of life that had been lived in it were visible in all the carefully dusted ornaments, and there was a persistent smell of rose all through the house, as if from using the same perfume or soap for decades.
The pleasantness came to an end as we reached the rear of the house where the sitting room had been completely trashed. The glass doors through to the back garden had been shattered, spilling glass across the pale brown carpet, the entire sofa had been upended, and everything that could have been broken or thrown across
