“How’s it looking?” Stephen asked, coming up the stairs to see me.
One of the officers we’d brought with us had left Alistair’s bedroom and gone off to look through the house for anything useful, while the other kept an eye on Alistair in the police car.
“Not much,” I said, lifting up the evidence bag I had in hand with my small finds inside.
“Hopefully, they’ll be plenty on his laptop. His phone was in his pocket too, so we have that.”
“Did he have a debit card on him?”
“No idea. Did you find a wallet?”
“Aye, but it only had a little bit of cash. No cards.”
“We can ask his parents, I guess.”
The only thing I hadn’t yet done was to look through Alistair’s clothes for any stains, like ash or graffiti paint, for instance. I sent Stephen off to talk to Alistair’s parents and to see whether Alistair had any dirty laundry lying around. If he had stained any of his clothes, most likely, he’d already have tossed them in the wash.
In the end, I didn’t turn up anything useful in his wardrobe, and Stephen had a similarly disappointing talk with Alistair’s mum. The teenager didn’t have a bank account, and all the washing for the day had already finished.
We left the house somewhat deflated, and I started the drive over to Adel Beck, who’d confirmed that they could take Alistair, at least for the meantime. The other two officers split off from us, taking the modest amount of evidence we’d gathered back to the station to be looked over. I’d made sure to impress upon them the urgency of getting the laptop seen to, and they’d agreed to pass it to Keira personally.
“Did you fill his parents in?” I asked Stephen.
In situations involving teenagers under fifteen, it was important that they could stay near to family and see them if they wanted to. Though in Alistair’s case, I thought, he’d pretty clearly indicated by running away for over two weeks that he was quite self-sufficient and independent for his age.
“Yep. They know where he’ll be and who they can get in touch with to see him.”
“I won’t be there long,” Alistair said abruptly.
I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Alistair smirking very slightly. It was perhaps the most emotion I’d seen on the lad since I’d met him, except for the interview when he’d been trying to convince us that he was entirely innocent. He seemed to have abandoned that act now, and that concerned me slightly. What did he know that we didn’t?
“Why’s that then?” Stephen said gruffly.
Alistair’s smirk widened slightly. “You haven’t got the proof to keep me there. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“We’ll see about that,” I muttered.
I wanted to turn the radio on and ignore the arrogant little jerk, but if Alistair was going to start sharing his secrets, I knew I ought to listen. But the lad fell silent after that smug, sinister comment, and I squeezed my hands around the wheel.
We handed Alistair over to the staff at the secure children’s home, and I refused to glance over my shoulder as we walked away, though I swore I could feel Alistair’s gaze on my back. Stephen took the wheel on the trip back to Hewford, and we stopped to grab a coffee on the way, though what I really needed was some lunch.
“Creepy kid, right?”
“Definitely,” I said.
“I’m guessing we go and see if Adams has got anything for us?”
I checked my watch. It hadn’t been long since we left Alistair’s house, and Keira would’ve had the laptop for an hour at most.
“We can ask her, but she probably hasn’t got to it yet. We’ll see.”
I waited until after we’d picked up a quick lunch from the shops opposite the station before we went to see Keira. She was eating at her desk, a salad fork in one hand as she typed on the computer with the other.
“I haven’t looked at it yet,” she said without looking up.
“Okay, no worries. Let us know when you do.”
“You’d get it back faster if you asked one of the others,” she said, taking a bite of salad whilst working and still not sparing us a glance.
“One of the team is looking over the USBs, but I wanted you to see the laptop. You’re most likely to dig up something hidden in there.”
“Sure, but you’ll have to wait.” She gave a shrug. I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking, and turned to go.
“Thanks,” I called as we left, not surprised when she didn’t respond.
“That woman needs a pay-rise, a bunch of assistants, and to grow about six new arms,” Stephen said.
I snorted out a laugh. “You’re not wrong. I don’t know how she manages to do everything she does.”
While we were waiting for Keira to have a spare hour or two, Stephen and I focused our efforts on the other teens Mickey had named. His word alone wasn’t enough to search the kids’ houses like we had with Alistair, but we could at least go and interview them. We could see what the situation was like with them and whether it’d be better to apply some pressure or offer a plea deal if they cooperated, or both.
It turned into a long afternoon, driving between different parts of York and trying to negotiate with sullen teenagers, as well as dealing with a good
