Purely on instinct, I jerked to the side and scrambled up the first few steps of the stairs. He couldn’t slow his momentum in time but managed to grab my jacket, trying to wrench me down the stairs.
“Stephen!” I yelled as I held onto the bannister and lashed out with my foot.
My boot connected squarely in the centre of Jules’s chest, and he fell back, his mouth open and gasping. I seized the moment and dropped down the stairs to grab his wrists and twist them behind his back. He tried to thrash, even as he was still winded and struggling for air, and I shoved him up against the wall.
Stephen came running in a moment later, hurrying over to help me. I’d used my handcuffs already on the Phillips lad, and Stephen had to use the ones on his belt. The two other officers had come over at my shout, and Drew’s mum was there too, her hand on her mouth.
“Did you know this lad was in your house?” I demanded of her, although I probably should’ve waited to interview her formally.
She wordlessly shook her head, her eyes huge in her head.
“Let’s get him loaded in,” Stephen said, and I agreed.
Stephen did the actual wrangling of Jules, who was spitting and struggling like a pissed-off cat. I opened the car door for him and pushed Jules’s head down so that he wouldn’t knock it on the top. We put Jules in the police car, sitting him in next to Drew, and I told the junior officers to take them both back to the police station. We still had more to look over here, and I saw no point in having the teens sit around in the car when they could get sorted out and processed at Hewford.
“Jules came from the cupboard under the stairs,” I told Stephen as we headed back to the house.
“Maybe there’s more than just the vacuum and some shoes in there, then.”
“It, uh, it leads to the cellar,” Tracy Phillips, Drew’s mum, told us, clearly having overheard our conversation.
“Were you gonna tell us about it?” I said, feeling painfully on edge after having Jules try to attack me.
I’d already felt what it was like to have him kick me when I was down, and the thought that it could’ve happened again was making me feel fractious and sick.
“Yes, I mean, I’ve nothing to hide,” she said timidly, making me feel like a jerk for snapping at her.
“No, of course. Thanks.”
Stephen stayed at the door while I ventured into the cupboard and down the steps inside. I’d not been in a cellar for many years since they were hardly common around here. I found the light switch on the wall which lit a bare bulb and briefly blinded me. When my eyes adjusted, I gave a low whistle.
“Jackpot,” I muttered.
Piled into the small, underground room were a whole pile of petrol cans, and I was sure they were the ones from the garage. I moved forwards to look them over but didn’t touch any of them, not wanting to disturb any evidence. In the corner of the room not taken up by the canisters, was a half-deflated air mattress and several blankets, which made me frown. A crate of packaged food and several bottles of water and pop were set by the mattress, and several bits of discarded clothing dropped on the floor.
When I’d seen Jules, I’d automatically assumed that he’d been hiding out in the house. But these things on the floor looked more long-term, as if Jules had been living down here for at least a few days, if not longer. The small room was grim, smelling overwhelmingly of petrol fumes, and even now in the daytime, it was cold enough to make me shiver in my jacket.
Shaking my head, I went back up the concrete stairs to let Stephen know that the cans were there and we’d need forensics sent in to look them over.
“There was something else down there,” I told him once we’d called the station to update them. Stephen looked alarmed, listening closely as I explained what I’d seen.
“I was worried you were gonna tell me you found blood or body parts, for a minute there,” he said, giving a shake of his head. “But, yeah, that’s strange enough.”
“I guess he knew we’d check out his own home, so he headed over here.”
“Suppose so.”
He went down to have a look like I had and came up grimacing.
“That stink is awful.”
“What’s down there?” Drew’s mum asked, looking pale and worried.
“Petrol cans. Stolen, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking at me.
After a moment, she seemed to gather herself and absently offered us a cup of tea while we waited for forensics to turn up. I saw no reason why not, finding myself pretty thirsty after running after one teenager and getting attacked by another.
Forensics were out on another case, so it would take them a while to arrive. Stephen and I needed to sit on the evidence so it wouldn’t get messed with, accidentally or otherwise, by Drew’s mum, so we sat tight for the moment. After two cups of tea and a trip to the loo, I went back down to the cellar for lack of anything better to do.
Keeping carefully away from the pile of canisters so as not to knock into them, I crouched down by the air mattress to look into the box of food. As I did, something crunched under my feet, and I frowned, looking down. There seemed to be crushed bits of black plastic on the concrete floor, and I wondered what it’d come from.
Looking around, the bits of plastic were only on the floor near the mattress, and I cocked my head, considering. I was reluctant to move anything before forensics arrived, but my curiosity won out, and I
