“We’ve got to go,” I told both Stephen and Mickey’s mum when I came back to the living room.
“Have you found him?” she asked.
“No,” I said gently. “But we’ve got someone we can talk to who might help.”
That was possibly a stretch, but I was trying to be hopeful. Alistair may very well have information on Mickey’s whereabouts, and I intended to ask him, but it would be up to him whether he told us what he knew or not.
“We’re gonna keep looking for your son,” Stephen put in, “but please let us know immediately if he turns up back here.”
“I will.”
She saw us out, and we headed back to the car which was uncomfortably warm again. We’d spent long enough with Donna that all the effects of the air con had been defeated by the sun, and I wound the window down, sweating. My ribs were aching as I settled into the driver’s seat, and I touched my side briefly with a grimace. It was the extra movement and tension from the stress, I was sure, but there was nothing I could do about it right now.
“Do you need a painkiller?” Stephen asked once we were on the road over to Alistair’s house. I must not have been hiding my winces well when I reached for the gear stick, and Stephen had noticed.
“If you’ve got one,” I accepted.
“When did you last eat?” he asked whilst rummaging around in the glove box.
“I don’t know, breakfast, probably. Why?”
“Probably better if you have paracetamol, then.”
I’d have preferred something stronger, but I accepted the pills and a gulp of water from Stephen’s lukewarm water bottle to wash them down.
“I really feel for Donna,” Stephen said, staring ahead at the road as we cut across York. I didn’t have a good enough reason to put the siren on, the use of which was logged every time, but I wanted to.
“Aye, so do I. She definitely really cares for her son.”
“And he’s romping around, getting into all sorts of trouble.” He shook his head. “Teenagers can be so selfish sometimes.”
“Hey, you don’t know exactly what’s going on with him. He might have things going on under the surface, right? Life’s hard when your hormones are going on a random rollercoaster every ten minutes.”
“Yeah, I know, but doesn’t he see the pain he’s causing her?”
“Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.” I sighed. “Look, Steph, I don’t know. For once, I think I’ve gotta be the one to tell you to pull your emotions back from this, okay? Our job is to find the lad and get him back to his mum. Any laws he’s broken, we’ll deal with. Beyond that, he isn’t our responsibility. It’s his mum’s and maybe social services if he needs some counselling or guidance or whatever.”
“I get what you’re saying,” he said with a slight grimace. “But I’m still going to have a serious chat with that kid when we find him. You try to stop me.”
I smiled slightly at that. “I won’t stop you. Maybe he needs a firm word from a relative stranger. It could do him good. Just consider that some teenage troublemakers are sad and coping with it badly, alright?”
“Of course,” he said before giving me a sidelong look. Perhaps he’d caught the slightly personal note that’d come through in my words, or maybe he hadn’t, but I didn’t say anything more for now. I could admit that I had my own biases for why I wanted Mickey to turn out good, but for us to help him, we first had to find him.
If the kid turned out to have thrown his phone in the river and spent the day in McDonald's, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be more relieved or annoyed. Probably relieved, at this point, I thought. He’s fallen out of contact with us before, of course, but that, combined with the messages about a traitor on the chat, was enough to have my gut saying that something bad had happened. I only hoped it was wrong.
Nineteen
Alistair Pumphrey looked like a different lad when we went round to his parents’ house. We were there to listen in on Sedgwick’s interview, not to intervene or get in the way, so Stephen and I stood at the back of the sitting room and observed. His dad, Alex Pumphrey, offered us cups of tea, but I refused, wanting my hands free to make notes.
Alistair’s greasy hair had been washed and trimmed above his collar, as well as being tucked back behind his ear on one side. He was dressed much more nicely than the last time I’d seen him, with chinos and a smart shirt even though he surely wasn’t leaving the house to go out today. It was a display, I thought, put on either by Alistair or his parents to convince Sedgwick and perhaps me too that Alistair was a good, well-cared for, well-behaved kid.
“We’re so grateful to have him back,” Alistair’s mum said, emotion making her voice tight.
“Absolutely. The place was too empty without him.” His dad gave Alistair an awkward pat on the back. Alistair looked unimpressed, though when he noticed me looking, his expression lifted into something more neutral.
“Where have you been, Alistair?” Sedgwick asked, his voice far less gruff and abrupt than when he was speaking to me. “You had all of us very worried for you.”
“The stress got to him, didn’t it, Ali?” his mum, Grace, put in before Alistair could even open his mouth.
“Alistair?” Sedgwick said pointedly, ignoring the lad’s mother.
“Here and there. Friends’ houses. The cinema. Park.” He gave a shrug like it was no big deal. I couldn’t read his expression.
“You’ve been missing for over two weeks. Where did you get your food?”
“Lots of places.”
“Like where?”
“Is it really necessary to ask all this?” Alex interrupted with an awkward, forced laugh. “We’re happy he’s home. That’s the important thing, right? No need to interrogate the boy.” He laughed again, trying to make a joke of it even in the
