“Marks?” Alex repeated.
“Aye, they look like they’ve been burned.”
Alistair’s parents glanced at each other, and I saw some sort of communication pass between them that I wasn’t privy to. Alex crossed the kitchen after a moment to join me at the french doors.
“Oh, those. They must have been the fireworks from, ah, my birthday.”
“When was your birthday?”
“In June. Why is this relevant?”
I glanced sideways at him and read the discomfort in his stiff posture and tight voice, but I didn’t understand why it was there. Nevertheless, I shook my head.
“It’s not relevant. I’m just a detective. It’s my job to be curious.” I gave him a slight smile, and he gave an awkward laugh, more heartily than my words deserved.
“Well, let’s get this done with, hm?” Grace said with forced cheer. “Did you want a cup of tea before we sit down again?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
“I’ll call Alistair back down,” Alex said, leaving the room to fetch his son. Grace didn’t look at me as she finished putting the mugs on the draining board and dried off her hands, and so I left her alone, moving back towards the sitting room. Stephen raised his eyebrows at me, and I shook my head minutely to tell him that I’d fill him in later when there weren’t other people around to overhear.
Sedgwick and Greene continued to question Alistair and his parents whilst Stephen and I listened in. Alistair stuck to his story about the older teenagers coercing him into joining their gang and running away from home.
“I have a couple of final questions,” I put in as Sedgwick was rounding up the interview. He sent me an unimpressed look, but I pressed on regardless. “Alistair, do you know a lad called Mickey White?”
Alistair looked at me, entirely nonplussed, and seemed to think.
“He sounds familiar,” he said after several seconds.
“And do you know where he might be?” I asked, having to force myself to be patient. Perhaps it was irrational, but I was dead certain that Alistair knew more than he was letting on.
“No, sorry. I don’t think I even know what he looks like. There were a lot of us.”
I looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back at me evenly. I patted my pockets to find my phone, determined to show the teenager Mickey’s picture and see how he reacted.
“Yeah, I’ve seen him around,” was all Alistair said in response.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Let us know if you remember anything or if he gets in touch, alright?”
I was frowning as we left the house, me and Stephen heading to our car and Sedgwick and his partner climbing into theirs.
“What’re you thinking?” Stephen asked as he started up the car, jamming on the air conditioner first, and followed Sedgwick’s car back towards the station.
“Let’s not go back to Hewford yet. Just drive around the area for a minute and park up a couple of streets away,” I told him.
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t believe Alistair, and I don’t think his parents were entirely straight with me either.”
“Really?” Stephen made a surprised face, but he did as I asked.
“Aye, I want to have a quiet word with the neighbours.” I looked over sideways at him. “What did you think of them? Of Alistair?”
He took a breath, letting it out slowly and giving himself a moment to think.
“I don’t know, to be honest. Alistair seemed all dressed up, and that was odd. I think it’s possible that the older teenagers pushed him into it. Hell, you’ve even suggested it yourself. He’s a small kid and only fourteen.”
“True. But after seeing how he was with the group… well, you saw on the CCTV, too, right? When they were walking down the street together, he was right next to Jules, like he was fully part of things. He didn’t hang back like Mickey, did he?”
“Jules could’ve been keeping a close eye on him.”
“Aye, there’s that.”
“Plus, do you remember at the start, Sedgwick told us that it had been confirmed that some kids confronted Alistair at the school gates? A teacher saw it. So that part of his story certainly rings true, right?”
“Right,” I agreed because it was a good point. “But we don’t know what was said between them, and their relationship could’ve changed in the weeks that Alistair was away from home.”
Stephen had doubled back towards the Pumphrey’s house after a few minutes and came to a stop around the corner from their place.
“Yeah, okay, I can believe that,” he said, “but why do you suspect Alex and Grace of not being truthful? I think they want to believe their kid’s totally innocent, and can you blame them?”
“No, I totally understand it, but when I was in the kitchen, I saw these burn marks on the lawn.”
I went on to explain exactly what the blackened circles had looked like and how the Pumphrey’s response had seemed clunky and inadequate to me. Fireworks didn’t make big rings of burnt grass like that, or not in my experience, anyway.
“And you’re hoping the neighbours will know what actually made the scorch marks,” Stephen summarised.
“Precisely.”
I got out of the car, and we made our way towards the Pumphreys’ but went over to their neighbour’s door this time. There was no response from the right-hand house, so we tried the other side. A tired-looking, middle-aged man with a toddler on his hip answered it.
“Can I help you?” he said, looking concerned to see us there.
I got pretty much straight to the point, fully aware of how most people became worried when they saw police outside their door. They started to fear that their loved ones had been in an accident or involved in some terrible crime they didn’t know about. When we went to ask questions about a completely unrelated matter, I always tried to dispel that worry as quickly as possible.
“Hi, I’m DCI Mitchell, and this is my partner, DI
