Heatwave

by Oliver Davies

  “Alistair Pumphrey, we’re arresting you on suspicion of…”

  I tuned the familiar words out as I moved further into the small bedroom, painted a dark blue that made the space seem oppressive. There was a lingering smell of smoke despite the open window, and it made me feel slightly ill. No doubt, the smoke had worked its way into the fabric of his clothes after all the fires he’d set over the years, with the persistent smell hard to wash out.

  Stephen escorted the silent, glaring teenager out of the room while I began to search for anything incriminating. One of the back-up officers scooped Alistair’s laptop up with a pair of gloves and put it in an evidence bag for Keira to have a look at back at the station.

  Alistair’s room was fairly neat all in all, though there were plenty of possessions compacted into the small space. I started at one side and methodically worked my way round, searching every drawer and shelf for something we could use. I turned up a couple of USB drives in the drawers of his desk, which I picked up, as well as a lighter and a box of matches I found hidden under his chest of drawers. The floor was covered with carpet, and it didn’t seem to peel up at any of the corners, so I assumed Alistair hadn’t hidden anything under the floorboards. I checked beneath his bed, too, but found only spare duvets, a box of old school books and mountains of dust.

  “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 number of infuriated parents, too. Keira hadn’t managed to get around to seeing the laptop before five o’clock, and we called it a day. Whilst we were under time pressure to cough up the evidence so that Alistair would remain in custody, we did have a short period of leeway. I didn’t want to waste that time, but I also knew that if I didn’t get a decent night’s sleep and a few hours of peaceful time with Sam, I’d get burnt out.

  What I needed most urgently, though, was a run. My ribs still twinged when I pulled them wrong, but they felt solid enough to cope with me going for a short, careful run. Sam managed to get off work at the same time as me, for once, and we ran home together, with her making sure that I didn’t push myself too hard and tear anything. Still, running felt incredible after what felt like forever being stuck sitting around, so I couldn’t help but do a sprint near the end, letting out a whoop of victory as I reached her front door. Behind me, she laughed.

  We took it easy that evening, relaxing in each other’s company and eating a meal we cooked together. Later, as I was falling asleep on the sofa, some nonsense on the TV and my arm around her shoulders, I was reminded again that we wouldn’t be able to have this for much longer.

  “I’ll come and visit you if you want,” I said quietly.

  We’d been avoiding talking about it, other than in passing, casual mentions. We’d not made any specific plans or promises. Other than that, we’d try to make it work. I still had that stubborn kernel
of doubt that said that we wouldn’t be able to survive the distance, for whatever reason, and I’d lose her. I’d held off on talking about how I could drive down every fortnight or that we could video call every night because I didn’t want her to feel trapped.

  “And I’ll come up here,” she said, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. “I know you’re not sure about whether we can make it, but I really want to try.”

  “Aye? Me too.” I kissed the top of her head.

  “Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” she said wryly.

  “Impossible,” I told her. “My heart couldn’t get any fonder.”

  “Oh, you sap,” she laughed.

  The conversation relaxed and lightened, and we went to bed soon after. I didn’t know whether our promise to give the relationship our best shot, despite her moving away, was going to keep us going or just make it hurt more if it ended. With her in my arms, I tried to savour the moment and fell asleep thinking about how lucky I was.

  I wasn’t at the station long the next morning before Keira came over to talk to me. Stephen wasn’t in yet. His son had had some stomach trouble overnight, so Keira pulled up his chair and sat down.

  “There’s nothing useful on the laptop,” she told me, looking genuinely apologetic.

  I gritted my teeth at the news, holding back a curse.

  “And the USBs?”

  “Nothing there either, I double-checked. It’s schoolwork, mostly. And the laptop seems barely used, except for a bit of gaming, school sites, watching movies. Normal teenage things.”

  “So we’ve got nothing to link him to the fires, great.” I rubbed a hand over my hair.

  I’d done a short run into work this morning, and my ribs ached slightly when I lifted my arms, but the discomfort had been worth the exercise.

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “The ICT teacher had said he was talented at tech. Are you sure he didn’t bury something on there or delete it?”

  “As sure as I can be. It’s very difficult to leave absolutely no traces, online or on a laptop. I did check thoroughly, Mitchell.”

  “No, no, of course. I know you did.” I sighed. “Alright, thanks.”

  “Maybe he used a school computer?” she offered as she stood up.

  “Aye, it’s a possibility,” I agreed.

  She gave me a sympathetic look and left to get back to her own work. Stephen arrived not long later, apologising that he’d been delayed.

  “You sure you didn’t need to stay with him?” I asked, waving away his apologies.

  “No, it’s alright. Annie’s mum came over to keep an eye on the kiddo. Annie just needed to rush off this morning, so I stayed with him till his Gran came over, y’know.”

  “Alright, mate. But tell me if you need to hoof it anytime, okay?”

  “I will. What’ve I missed?”

  I filled him in on what Keira had said, and he looked as disappointed as I’d been.

  “Damn, I was really banking on that having something incriminating on it, something solid.”

  “I know, so was I. Alistair knew as well, didn’t he? When he was taunting us in the car.” I grimaced.

  “So what now?”

  I turned on my computer and pulled up the tracking website for the petrol canisters.

  “Now we go and check these out and hope to god that they’ve got some evidence on them.”

  “We might need back-up. I’ll see if anyone’s free to come with us.”

  “And I’ll talk to Rashford,” I agreed.

  We knew that the petrol was stolen, so that was plenty enough reason to do a search of the address where the canisters were being stored, but it never hurt to keep Rashford in the loop. She agreed with me that it was the logical next step, especially since the laptop and the search of Alistair’s house had turned up zilch.

  “We probably should’ve expected it,” I muttered to Stephen when we were in the car as we drove over to the address. Another police car followed with two junior officers in it, ready to back us up if anything unexpected happened.

  “Expected what?”

  “That there’d be nothing in the house or on the laptop. Alistair’s too smart to do that, to leave a mess where he eats, so to speak.”

  Stephen made a noise of agreement, his hands tight around the steering wheel.

  We arrived at the house where the tracking site told us the canisters were being kept. We couldn’t be certain they were in there because the tracker could’ve been taken off the canisters, and this was nothing more than a decoy. But I was reasonably sure that if they’d found the trackers, they would’ve just destroyed them, or that was what I was banking on. Mickey, too, had told us that his being found out hadn’t been related to the trackers, so we could only assume that the little pieces of tech were still right where I’d stuck them. It felt like ages ago, now, that Stephen and I had gone to the garage and then led the stakeout, but it wasn’t really so long. Time became strange during a case, especially a high-tension one, as it seemed to stretch and contract against the normal law of things.

  We pulled up round the corner from the property, which looked as innocuous as it had when Stephen and I had driven past it the other day. I turned to check that the two junior officers were behind us and then went to knock on the front door.

  There were footsteps from inside, and a middle-aged woman with tired eyes opened the door, a dachshund barking in her arms.

  “Can I help you?” She frowned upon seeing us standing there.

  “I’m DCI Mitchell, this is DI Huxley,” I said, letting the other two officers introduce themselves. “We’re looking for something that we believe is on your property. We’ll need to search it.”

  “Don’t you need a warrant or something to do that? What’re you looking for? I haven’t-”

  “Mum?” a teenage boy said, appearing from down the hall.

  His eyes went huge when he saw us, and I immediately recognised him. He froze rigid, and I stared at him, not sure if he was going to run. He was one of the kids I’d seen on the CCTV but whom Mickey hadn’t been able to put a name to.

  The teen’s mum saw that I was looking behind her and turned around.

  “Drew, what’s going on? Have you done something?”

  “I- Sorry, mum,” he choked out and then bolted.

  “You two, stay here,” I barked over my shoulder at the junior officers before gently pushing past Drew’s mum and racing down the hall after the teenager.

  He broke out of a back door and skidded round to a side gate which let out onto the street. Slowed down by having to open the gate, I managed to grab his t-shirt, but he burst forwards and broke my grip. My ribs throbbed as I ran down the road after him, Stephen’s heavy footsteps following some way behind me.

  The teenager wasn’t very fit, and it only took a couple of streets before I managed to catch up with him. I wasn’t at my fittest after being injured in the fight, and I had to push past the cramp in my side as I grabbed at the teen’s shirt and dragged him to a stop.

  “Wait, wait, I haven’t done anything!” he tried to plead as I took his wrists and clipped the handcuffs on him, reading him his rights as I did so. He was panting heavily and didn’t put up anymore struggle once I’d caught him, letting me lead him back towards his mum’s with his head down. “I swear, man, I had nothing to do with it-”

  “We can discuss that at the station,” I said.

  “C’mon, my mum’s gonna kill me.”

  “Aye, well, you should’ve thought of that before running off and giving me a stitch, hm?”

  Stephen caught up as I was walking Drew back, and he gave me an unimpressed look, probably for running off after a perp on my own again. But once he’d seen that I wasn’t injured and had it all in hand, he gave me a nod and walked back to the house.

  He took Drew from me when we reached the car, loading the complaining teenager inside. While he did that, I went to speak to his mother, who was standing on the porch step, lo
oking shaken and distraught.

  “You’re Drew’s mother?” I asked to start with, though I knew she was.

  “Yes. Tracy Phillips, that’s me. What’s he done? Where are you taking him?”

  “We can discuss that in full in a moment,” I told her, gently as I could. “Right now, I need to search the house.”

  “I’m not sure- Do I need a lawyer?” She stood, protective but uncertain, in the doorway.

  “You can access legal advice for your son if you wish, public or private. But I have permission to enter the premises and preventing me from doing so could count as obstruction of justice.”

  Though I spoke seriously, I tried to keep my tone unthreatening. After a moment, she gave a shaky nod and stepped aside. The two junior officers, standing just outside the front door, looked to me for instructions.

  “If you two could take the downstairs, we’ll start upstairs,” I told them. I wanted to have a look over the teen’s bedroom, which I expected to be the most likely place to find anything.

  But, nearly an hour later, we’d yet to turn up anything.

  “The tracker definitely points to here? Not to the neighbour’s, or-” Stephen wanted to know.

  “For the tenth time, Steph, it’s definitely here.” I sighed, frustrated that we couldn’t find anything. I’d tried asking the teen in the car but, despite his earlier protestations of innocence, he didn’t want to say anything now.

  Instead, I went downstairs to talk to Drew’s mum. Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard a creak of floorboards and caught a glimpse of a figure dressed in grey moving away down the hall. None of the people I knew to be in the house wore grey.

  I eased my way down the rest of the stairs and stuck my head round, sucking in a sharp breath. There was a door under the stairs which had been left ajar and, further up the hall near the kitchen entrance, a tall, blond teenager had his back to me.

  It was Jules.