“Alright, alright, you don’t need to guilt-trip me,” he said. “What d’you want to know?”
“I’m primarily interested in what the teens looked like,” I started before running through a series of questions, trying to ensure that I wouldn’t miss anything out simply by not asking the right questions.
Mr Sullivan got into a short rant about kids today and, while he was talking, I flicked through my notebook, seeing whether there was anything else I needed to ask. Sullivan eventually ran out of breath and, since I’d spotted something in my notes that caught my interest, I broke in.
“We’re very grateful for your help, Mr Sullivan. There was one more question I wanted to ask you. Did you notice anything particular about what the teenagers were wearing? Any patches or badges they had on their clothes, for example?”
It was a bit of a long shot, and I didn’t want to lead Mr Sullivan into remembering something that hadn’t happened, but the badges I’d seen on the teenagers the other night had remained on my mind.
“Badges? What kind of badges? I only saw them from a distance, you know. They were across the street, all in a group, though I could hear them loud and clear. It’s noise pollution, isn’t it? Youths like that, hollering and yelling and disturbing everyone.”
“Mm,” I said noncommittally. “So you didn’t see anything distinctive on their clothes? A membership patch of any kind?”
“Oh, a patch? I thought you meant those pin-on badges. They weren’t wearing any of those that I could see with my old eyes. But there were patches on the sleeves of a couple of them, I saw that. Probably trying to be vintage. That’s the fashion these days, isn’t it? They’ll never get the spirit of it, though, no matter what vinyls or whatever they’re selling again.”
“These patches?” I said patiently. “What did they look like, Mr Sullivan?”
“Well, I didn’t see them that well, really, I only noticed because they were bright red-”
“Red?” I repeated. “You’re sure?”
“Obviously, I’m sure, son. I’m old, not colourblind.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. How many of them were wearing these patches?”
“Look, I don’t know. I only saw them for a bit, like I told you already.” He was beginning to sound irritable, or more irritable than before anyway, and I knew I needed to wrap this up soon.
“Alright, thank you. This is right helpful to us. Final question, did you see the design on the patches at all?”
“Why’re you so interested in the patches, hm? How’s that going to help you catch these folks?”
“Please, Mr Sullivan, leave that to us. Do you remember seeing-?”
“Yes, yes, I understood the question,” he grumbled. “I don’t know, son, they were just red. Bright red. A circle of it, or a blot, I don’t know. I wasn’t close enough like I said. Now, are we done, because I have to have my tea? You’ve got to have it early at my age, detective, or I won’t get off to sleep.”
“Of course, sir, thank you for talking to me. I appreciate it greatly.”
“Yeah, yeah, no problem,” he said awkwardly before hanging up the phone. I released a long breath that was partly from exhaustion but also partly from surprised excitement. I hadn’t really expected my question about the patches to yield any new information - I’d no particular reason to suspect that the teens who bothered me the other night were at all linked to the other trouble in the city, after all - but instead, I had a new and promising lead.
Admittedly, I still didn’t know what the red patch with the flammable warning symbol meant to the teens exactly, nor why only some of the teens were wearing them, but those questions were ones that I hoped Mickey could answer for us.
Flipping through my notebook, I found the page I’d written on shortly after I’d encountered the teens abusing that cat. I’d scribbled down all that I’d remembered, along with a sketch of the patch symbol, and it was that that I studied now.
If the meaning of it was intended to be literal, then I was worried. We’d already had two fires set in or near York by teenagers and having a gang going round with a fire warning badge on their arm wasn’t a good sign. We were having the driest summer for years; the very last thing the city needed was people deliberately setting fire to things.
I groaned quietly and rubbed a hand over my face, my tired eyes smarting. I felt uncomfortably sticky from the day’s sweat cooling on me, and I wanted nothing more than to head home to shower and spend time with Sam.
If my theory was correct, though, and these teens were purposefully setting buildings alight and intended to continue, then we could talk about not one or two civilians being in danger, but dozens. A summer fire could get out of control crazy fast, and I would invest any amount of overtime in stopping that from happening within the city.
As I thought about the patches, I had to wonder how exactly they were getting made. Were the teenagers making them themselves? Somehow I couldn’t imagine the animal abusers I’d had the misfortune to bump into were also into sewing, plus the patches themselves had looked reasonably professional, from the brief look I’d got of them. They’d looked a lot like the iron-on pieces that were often marketed at kids to stick into their jeans or rucksack. Not that a flammable warning symbol was the sort of design that would be made for children, but the teenagers were most likely buying them from somewhere, and I wondered whether I could trace the distinctive patches back to whoever ordered them.
I started with a simple search on the internet, and my eyebrows rose as I
