“Look who it is,” Jules called.
I looked up and down the street, searching for a witness, but there wasn’t anybody around. I clawed my phone from my pocket and hit the shortcut button to call for help, but a second later, I was violently hit by a weight slamming into my back. I hit the ground hard, the breath thumped out of me by the force of one of the heavier teens tackling me from behind and landing on top of me.
I wheezed, dragging in air as I tried to find where my phone had gone after it’d gone flying when I was attacked.
“Looking for this?”
I looked up, wincing at the pain in my chest and back, and saw that Jules had his foot on my phone. I didn’t get the chance to even say anything before there was a crunch, and Jules crushed the screen beneath his heel with a sadistic smile on his face. I swore under my breath.
Whoever had attacked me from behind clambered off my back and grabbed my arms to pull me up. There was a moment when they weren’t pinning me down, nor had a good grip on my arms, and I tugged myself sharply forwards, getting free.
The problem was that the teenagers had already surrounded me, and there were at least ten of them. Still, I got to my feet, my grazed knees bleeding, and scanned all of their faces as I tried to commit them to memory.
“You’re skinnier than you looked on TV,” Jules said, and I turned slowly back to face him. They hadn’t made another attempt to grab me yet, but I had no doubt that their intentions towards me weren’t good.
“What do you want?” I said, working hard to keep my voice steady. My heart was thumping, but not from exercise this time.
“Nope, you’re not the one asking questions, mate,” he said, sneering the last word. “Not this time. You come to my house, you steal our stuff. Did you think we weren’t gonna be mad about it? Did you think, what, that we couldn’t touch you?”
He laughed, hard and mean. I cursed him in my head and hoped that my call through to the station had arrived before Jules had broken my phone and that someone would take it seriously enough to send someone out. When Sam and I had gotten together, I’d intended to spend more time in the gym with her, where she did frequent boxing training. I’d not kept up with it, preferring to run outside rather than sweat inside boxing gloves. I was regretting it now, even though my odds against ten or so riled up young men would have been awful, anyway.
I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell, I thought bitterly.
The only options seemed to be to run or to talk my way out of it, but I couldn’t see either of them working. They had me well surrounded and, though I was a good deal taller than many of them, I didn’t doubt that they could stop me if I tried to shove my way out of the circle they had me trapped in.
“Alistair Pumphrey, right?” I said, half-desperately. Jules had wanted me to respond to him, no doubt, but I was focusing on the fourteen-year-old for now. “You’ve been missing for over a week.”
The kid looked at me dully. His face was pale, but he didn’t look malnourished or even particularly tired. His dark hair looked recently washed, and he was wearing clothes that fit him. All signs pointing to a child who was living somewhere he could look after himself or where someone else was taking care of him.
“Where’ve you been?” I demanded. “Your parents were worried you were dead.”
The teens, perhaps predictably, laughed at that.
“You missing your mum, Ali?” one taunted before others launched into similar, unoriginal jokes.
My attention stayed on Alistair, and I realised I’d judged it wrongly when his expression darkened. The kid might’ve possibly been my only ally, but I’d embarrassed him by mentioning his worried parents. He wouldn’t lift a finger for me now if he’d ever been planning to.
Jules slung an arm over Alistair’s shoulders and gave me a cold, sharkish smile. Alistair’s expression didn’t change, staying eerily flat.
“Ali can go home anytime he wants. What did y’think? That we were keeping him locked up in some cellar or something?” He gave a sharp laugh.
Alistair shrugged his shoulders, brushing Jules off. I half expected the older teen to ignore the movement, but Jules backed off and gave the kid his space.
“You’ll gain nothing from attacking me,” I tried to reason with them. “In fact, the police don’t take kindly-”
Jules swore at me. “I don’t care what you pigs want. You’re the middle-aged jerk tryna hunt us down. We’re not doing any harm!” He twisted his lips into a grin. “Not much, anyway.”
“The focus on you will double if you start targeting police officers.”
It was a struggle to keep my tone neutral, and sweat made my back itch. I kept glancing past the teens’ heads, hoping to see red and blue lights come blinking round the corner or hear the wail that signalled help was coming, but neither was forthcoming.
“We’re not intimidated by you,” Alistair said, to my surprise. His voice was thin, but it carried, and there was a thread of absolute certainty in it that sounded unnervingly adult coming from a young teenager.
“Do you understand the conse-?” I started, knowing that it was useless but unable to stop myself from trying.
Threatening them wasn’t working; they were too proud. Jules couldn’t back down from attacking me now, not in front of all of his followers, and I didn’t know how to change his mind. The end of this encounter felt inevitable, and it was making my legs feel unsteady.
“Shut up,” Alistair said, and Jules didn’t stop him. For all that I’d pegged the tall, blond boy as the leader, all the teens listened when Alistair spoke, and Jules didn’t talk over him. “You’ve got no power here. You’ve got no power over this city. The police are weak, and we’re going to show everyone.”
A shudder went down my neck at his words and the dark look on his pale face, his eyes seeming black. All the beauty had gone out of the summer evening, and the light, previously golden to my eyes, now seemed sickeningly tinted. The stifling, orange glare from a distant fire.
“We don’t need an army to show how useless you are,” Alistair went on. Unlike Jules, there was no sneer or visible emotion in his tone, just a cold deadness. “But we have an army, anyway. You don’t understand now, Darren Mitchell, but you will.”
The shorter boy gave Jules a nod, seemingly of permission, before he turned and walked away, leaving the circle that had been surrounding me. I tensed rigid, knowing even before Jules stepped forwards what was going to happen. They were done talking.
The police weren’t the first to find me. Instead, a young couple came to my aid, calling an ambulance for me. My thoughts drifted and slipped away as the paramedics arrived, and time seemed to jump forwards and stop at random. Sharp moments of pain cut through, but the rest of the time was fuzzy.
I thought about how I needed to call Sam because she’d be worried. I thought about how mad Stephen was going to be and that Gaskell would be disappointed to see me in hospital again. It didn’t register till later that Gaskell wasn’t even my superintendent anymore.
My last thought, before the painkillers from the paramedics kicked in, was of Alistair’s young, cold face with his dark eyes as he told me that everyone would see how powerless we were. Even as blurry as my head felt, the thought struck me as terrifying.
Fifteen
I woke up in the hospital with a warm hand tucked into mine.
“Mm, Sam?” I mumbled as I was trying to open my eyes and squinting against the bright light. My nose felt stuffy, and it was difficult to breathe through it.
“I’m here.” She squeezed my hand, and I heard her move closer to the bed. “You scared the hell out of me. What is it with you and getting yourself into trouble?”
“Not my fault this time,” I said, my lip feeling thick and sore as I managed a weak smile. My throat was painfully dry since I couldn’t breathe much through my nose, and Sam helped me drink from a cup when I asked.
Later, Stephen swapped places with Sam when she had to go back to work.
&nbs
p; “Take it easy,” she said firmly.
Stephen fetched me coffee and helped sit me up, which was a painful and laborious process considering my ribs were wrapped tightly.
“You broke your nose, and your shoulder was dislocated. One broken rib, two cracked,” the doctor told me succinctly when he had a chance to come in. “You’re lucky to have no internal damage that we could see on the MRI, but if you start getting new bruises for no reason, you’re to come straight back in.”
He went on to tell me a number of other scary symptoms I should watch out for before informing me that I had a concussion and I’d be staying at least till this evening under observation.
“You’re such an idiot,” Stephen said, once the doctor had left, giving me strict instructions about resting and not going to the bathroom without a nurse.
“I’m an idiot?” I protested weakly, my eyes already closed again. My voice sounded nasal from my broken nose, and the doctor had told me it would take a while for the swelling to go down.
“Yeah. I mean, you’re not,” he sighed. “It wasn’t your fault. But Jesus, Darren, why’s it always you in the hospital? It’s enough to give a man grey hair.”
“Reckon you’ve already got a few.”
“See, I’ve got so many great answers to that, but I can’t be mean to you when you look like you’ve been through a blender.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” I teased.
He swore at me gently. “‘Course I care, you complete pillock. Me and Sam are gonna be wrapping you in bubble wrap from now on.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said, or I thought I did. I might have fallen asleep again by that point.
The weekend passed slowly, with me being in pain and frustrated at all the things I couldn’t do. The hospital threw me out on Saturday morning, and Sam insisted on me staying with her while I recovered, setting me up in the main bedroom and making sure I was comfortable. I could see the worry plain as day on Stephen and Sam’s faces, so I didn’t overexert myself and rested up like they wanted me to.
I did what little I could to help the case in the meantime, making sure Stephen knew exactly where the attack had happened so that he could check for CCTV.
“None, it’s a blind spot,” he grumbled at me from down the phone line. Sam was sitting with me, currently reading a book in her armchair, and Stephen had nipped into the station to follow up what I’d told him.
“They planned it,” I surmised.
I was on fewer drugs now, so there was more pain but less fuzziness in my head, and I could think more clearly.
“You mean they knew where the CCTV was?”
“Aye, they must have. Adams said that they had some tech skills, didn’t she? With the messaging site and all.”
“True. That’s worrying. Worrying that they know that, and it was all premeditated.”
“I shouldn’t have run the same route.” I went to push my hair from my face, but the movement sent a spike of pain all up my ribcage, and I winced.
“You can’t have known,” Stephen told me firmly. Sam had heard what I’d said, too, and was giving me a frown.
Not your fault, she mouthed at me. I smiled slightly.
“Sam agrees with you,” I told Stephen. “Look, thanks for following it up, mate. Can you do me another favour? I’ve still got no phone, and I’ve lost all my contacts.”
“You want me to get you a new one?”
“No, no, I can handle that. Just, in the meantime, can you handle having Jules’ face put on the news? He’s dangerous, and I want it known so people can stay away from him, make it harder for him to move around.”
I carefully rotated my shoulder as I spoke, the one that’d been dislocated. It was back in place now, but the muscles were still fiercely achy.
“Yeah, of course, I can do that. I saw your email about the identities of the other kids, too, and that’s all on the system. If they’re sighted or get picked up, they’ll be brought straight in.”
“Good,” I said, tired from even the short conversation.
Sam stood up and gently took the phone from me, ignoring my raised eyebrows. She took over talking to Stephen, and I didn’t mind. I’d told him all I’d needed to, and I was already falling asleep again. The heat, my injuries, and my blocked nose made it difficult to stay asleep for long, but I kept nodding off, regardless.
Rashford had told me to take a week off at least to heal up, but both Stephen and Sam knew how likely it was that I’d stay lying around at home for all that time. Still, Sam took Monday and Tuesday off to hang out with me, and we had a good time trying out a couple of new recipes and reading together in the garden. The bruises and swelling on my chest and face were ugly and purple, but the pain started to settle, and I got quickly restless.
“I’m not sure I should be telling you this,” Stephen said, calling me on the phone on Wednesday afternoon.
“Go on,” I urged. Sam was out at work, and I had her house to myself.
“There’s been reports of another fire.”
I sat up quickly and swore, partly from the news and partly because of my still-healing ribs.
“Darren? You alright?”
“Fine,” I said, grimacing as I climbed to my feet and headed over to the bedroom to change.
No way was I sitting this one out, not when we’d advanced the case this far already. During my absence, Stephen had been given another officer to help him out with the investigation, but they hadn’t made any major breakthroughs in that time. I couldn’t fault their work since they were doing everything I would’ve, but I still itched to be a part of it and not sitting at Sam’s in my pyjamas, watching daytime TV.
“Where is it?” I asked as I dragged on a pair of work trousers.
“It’s a house, lived-in this time.”
“Dammit, is anyone hurt?”
“No, the couple who lived there got out in time, with their cats too. But this is a big step up. If their smoke detector hadn’t worked or they couldn’t get out, we could have been looking at homicide.”
“Attempted murder, aye, Jesus,” I muttered, putting the phone down briefly to finish getting changed. “Where’s this house?”
“It’s over near Rowan Wood school, y’know the one? It’s the headmaster’s house.”
I grunted in acknowledgement, stepping over to the kitchen to fill up my water bottle. Just walking around made my ribs twinge and twisting my torso or running was both a no-go. Similarly, my breathing was still heavy from my broken nose, and my face looked none too pretty with the swelling around my eyes. But I was determined that I could manage a brief drive in the car and then standing around for a while as I asked people questions. If there were any teenagers that needed tackling, I thought wryly, I’d leave that up to Stephen. He was the rugby player, anyway, not me.
“I’ll meet you there,” I told him firmly.
“Mitchell,” he groaned. “I knew this would happen if I told you, you can’t be running off-”
“I’m not running anywhere, but I am getting in the car. Ten minutes, mate.”
“Damn you, you stubborn-” he muttered.
I hung up the phone on him as I stepped out the door and checked that I had everything. I’d spent plenty of time out in Sam’s garden whilst I’d been recuperating, but I hadn’t been out the front door in several days. I’d slid on sunglasses to hide the worst of my bruising, which wasn’t exactly comfortable resting on my nose, but it was better than the stares, I thought.
Sam’s car took up the drive, so mine stayed on the pavement, and I walked gingerly over to it and climbed in, immediately sweating at the heat inside. Blasting the air con, I got the car started up and drove myself over to Rowan Wood school, trusting that I’d know exactly which house Stephen had meant once I got there.
Small things like changing gear, holding my arms up to grip the wheel, and the light pressure of the seatbelt against my chest were all uncomfortable and reminded me that I really did still have a lot of healing up t
o do. Regardless, I was out of the house now, and it wasn’t long before I pulled up close to the house fire, the smoke of which was visible from streets away.
Stephen was already there when I arrived and didn’t look best pleased to see me.
“You look awful.”
“I know.” I grinned, giving a half-shrug that made me wince. “What’s been going on? Have the teenagers been caught?”
Stephen gave me a long look to express his disapproval of me being here before he relented and answered my questions. We walked slowly towards the scene, ducking under the police tape as he filled me in.
“No, the kids weren’t caught. The fire wasn’t called in until they were long gone. The headmaster and his wife who live at the place have been carted off to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but they seemed otherwise okay when I saw them.”
“Thank god for that.”
“I don’t know if they actually saw the teens, but I’d guess not. The kids probably set it and ran.”
“Efficient,” I said bitterly. “Did they set it on two sides of the house this time?”
“I haven’t been able to grab a fireman to talk to yet. We’ll have to ask.”
“Is the fire out?”
“Pretty much, I’d say.”
We’d gotten as close to the smoking house as we could and stood looking up at it. It seemed like a too-perfect day for something like this to be happening, the sky bright blue behind the burnt house, and the heat of the fire made me sweat under my chest bandages. The house itself was mostly intact thanks to the firefighters’ quick work, but showed significant damage on the left side that’d probably be painfully expensive to repair. And the house itself was nice enough, but it wasn’t anything so flashy that I thought the owners were rolling in money. A headmaster probably got paid pretty well, I thought, but this would put a dent in most people’s pockets and their lives.
“You think the insurance will shell out?” I mused.
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