Stephen had updated Rashford and Sedgwick on Friday evening about the events at Rose Heath school and Mickey being admitted to hospital. So Rashford was fully aware of what had gone on, and I was glad that she’d let me have the weekend to recharge before she ordered a meeting with us.
“How’s the boy?” she asked after we’d sat down.
Stephen looked at me because I’d been the one getting regular updates on Mickey’s well being from his mum.
“Mickey’s back home and doing well, ma’am. He breathed in a lot of smoke, so they had him on oxygen for a while, but he’s recovering at a good rate.”
“No other injuries?”
“Bumps and bruises. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but his mum thinks he was beaten up, ma’am.”
“While I’m disappointed that the school has been so badly damaged, I can only commend you for getting Mickey out,” she said, a slight frown on her brow.
“That was the firefighters, really, ma’am,” I gave a small shrug.
“Don’t be falsely modest. The fire chief let me know that you were the one to tell them a boy was inside. I don’t need to tell you what would have happened if you hadn’t realised.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Now tell me you know who did this. We’re looking at a hefty amount of damage to that school that’s going to cost the council dearly, and I need to tell them that we’ve got the perpetrators’ heads on a platter.”
“I’m almost certain we know who it was, ma’am. It’s proving it that’s the difficult part.”
“Proving it is your job, DCI Mitchell,” she said sternly before sighing. “Go and get on with it then. If you’re fit enough to be here, you’re fit enough to work, so get me some answers, alright?”
“Yes, ma’am,” me and Stephen said, getting to our feet as she dismissed us.
“And Mitchell?” she said as my hand was on the door. I turned around to face her. “Well done. You saved the boy’s life. That’s good police work.”
I couldn’t respond to that and just gave a nod, my lips pressed together. She waved us out, and I pulled the door shut behind us.
“You’re terrible at accepting praise, you know that?”
“How can I?” I said, turning on Stephen. “If I hadn’t asked Mickey to help us, he never would have been in danger at all!”
“You know what his mum will think? ‘If I’d kept a better eye on him’ or ‘if I’d stopped him from leaving the house the day before,’ then it wouldn’t have happened, either. But she didn’t know, and neither did you. Mickey made choices to join that gang in the first place-”
“He’s sixteen, just a teenager. I should’ve known better than to ask him-”
“The only people at fault here are the ones who put Mickey in that school and set it on fire, do you understand? You can try to trace the blame back to any of us, but essentially, they were the ones who did wrong.” He held up a hand when I tried to argue. “Now, maybe this will mean you won’t ask a teenager to give us information in the future the same way we asked Mickey, and that’s fine. We can learn from stuff like this. But it was a unique, dynamic situation, and we were doing our best. You’re not to blame, I promise.”
My shoulders sagged at his words, and I released a tired breath. I still wasn’t sure I entirely believed him. But what I did know was that Mickey’s mum would blame herself when she shouldn’t be, and I could only hope that she’d have the same feeling towards my part in putting Mickey in danger. At the time, I’d thought that the risk was small and worth it.
Now, I knew better.
“I couldn’t have forgiven myself if he’d died,” I said quietly. Stephen wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick side hug.
“I know, mate. But it wasn’t your fault, and he’s going to be absolutely fine.”
I gave him a nod and a weak smile, and he patted me on the shoulder.
“Right, let’s get the scum who actually deserve the blame for this, okay? That’s the best we can do for Mickey right now.”
“Okay.” I nodded, marshalling my thoughts. “If you can try to find out if there’s any useful CCTV from the school or the school grounds, that would be great. I’ll call Ms White, see what state he’s in and whether he can talk to us yet.”
We got to work, Stephen on the computer and me on my phone. Sedgwick walked past as I was waiting for Mickey’s mum to pick up, and he gave me a nod. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it, but I returned it, and he moved away.
“Hello?”
“It’s DCI Mitchell. I wanted to see how you were both doing?”
Donna gave a small, tired laugh on the other end of the phone.
“We’re okay, yeah. I’m just- I’m so grateful to have him home. Thank you so much, detective, for all you’ve done.”
“Just doing my job,” I said, swallowing around a lump in my throat. “Would Mickey feel up to having a chat with us? Nothing too strenuous, of course. We’d like to hear his side of the story.”
“Oh, let me go and ask him. His throat is still sore from all the smoke, you know, so he’s taking it easy.”
“Of course,” I said and then waited while she talked to her son and the phone went quiet.
“He’d like to talk to you,” Donna said when she came back a moment later.
“Great, that’s great. What time can we come round?”
“Well, we’re not doing much today, really. His grandparents are coming round this afternoon to check on him, so sooner rather than later, I suppose. But I’m sure you’ve got important things on, so whenever is best for you, detective.”
“That’s very kind, but we
