Heatwave Page 10

  “Will the victims be alright?” I asked as the officer led us past the debris, picking through the glass.

  “I don’t know, to be frank. The husband is in a stable condition, last I heard, and his wife is staying with him.”

  I gave a nod of acknowledgement and gestured for the younger officer to go on. He took us through the back door to the small, slightly wild back garden, and I glanced around, initially not sure why he’d led us out here. Then I noticed the scattering of beer cans and spirits bottles in amongst the long grass. I glanced back at the broken back doors and realised that the glass had been smashed from outside, so the teenagers must have broken in from the garden.

  “The teens were out here?”

  The officer gestured to the fence which was looking worse for wear, now that I was directed to look at it. There were scuff marks on the top, and the wood was bowed.

  “The bloke who lives over the road said the group came over here,” the officer explained. “Vaulted the fence and set up a party in the poor folks’ back garden, if you can believe it.”

  “Then what?” I said, frowning as I looked around, trying to picture the scene.

  “There was a cut-off 999 call from the house phone, so we know that they were going to call us to report it, but they didn’t complete the call.” He shook his head, looking older than his years. “The next we hear, there’s an old man having heart problems because some yobs have broken in, scared the hell out of him, and stolen or broken anything they could get their hands on.”

  Stephen muttered a curse under his breath, and I rubbed a hand through my tacky hair, which the heat and humidity made cling to my forehead.

  “Who called it in the second time?” I asked, stepping away to look over the garden for anything I might’ve missed; dropped jewellery or a lost wallet.

  “That we don’t know, actually. The voice sounds young, and they were the one to say that the old bloke needed an ambulance. Might’ve saved his life.”

  “A young person? Could it have been one of the teenagers themselves, after they’d seen what’d happened?” I guessed.

  “Could have been.” The officer gave a nod.

  “Can you make sure the audio for that call gets sent over to us? I’d like to listen to that.”

  “Will do,” the officer promised.

  “And can we speak to that witness of yours from over the street?”

  “He said that he had to go out,” the officer apologised, “but we’ve got his contact details.” He dug a piece of paper from his pocket, and I copied down the witness’s name and phone number.

  “Alright, thanks for that. Keep us updated, and we’ll look into it.”

  After another careful scout around the house for anything that might be significant, Stephen and I headed back to the car and flopped down inside, flipping on the air con.

  “You know what we’re doing next?” Stephen said from where he’d gone limp in the passenger seat, his head dropped back on the headrest.

  “Going back to the station-”

  “Nope. We’re off to Costa, Darren. I need something with a lot of ice, proto.”

  “Understood.” I laughed, putting the car into gear and setting off. “I wouldn’t say no to an iced coffee either. This heatwave is killing me.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Stephen took a cat nap on the way to Costa, only perking up to order a peach iced tea and fruit cooler. He drank the former while pressing the latter to his neck as I drove us back to Hewford, and I grinned at him.

  “I thought you were the one who didn’t mind the heat,” I teased.

  “Dry heat,” he protested. “Right now, York feels like a ruddy rainforest.”

  He’d finished off both drinks by the time we pulled up in the station car park while I took my time sipping my coffee as we went up to our desks.

  “Okay, what’s the plan?”

  I was checking my emails and took a moment to reply.

  “The 999 phone call audio has come through, so we’ll listen to that first.”

  I didn’t carry headphones with me, preferring to run without music, but Stephen had a pair in the bottom of his rucksack. We shared them to listen to the emergency call that had been placed no more than a couple of hours ago.

  “I need an ambulance,” a young voice gasped out, sounding fearful. “There’s a- a man, he’s- his heart! You’ve gotta send an ambulance. I think he’s dying-”

  The operator started trying to get an address and a name out of the caller, but I’d heard enough, and I pulled out the earphone.

  “I know that voice.”

  Still listening to the call, Stephen put a finger for me to hold on, so I was quiet as I waited, my mind turning over.

  “How can you know him?” he asked, once the audio had ended, and he’d taken the earphone out. “He doesn’t tell the operator his name.”

  “You didn’t recognise it?”

  “No?” Stephen frowned. “He definitely sounded young, but-”

  “It’s Mickey, Stephen. I wasn’t sure until he said ‘ambulance’, and his accent was exactly the same. It’s very distinctive. Do you recognise it now?”

  Stephen was looking uncertain, but the frown faded from his face when he played the audio again with Mickey in mind.

  “Yeah, you’re right, it is him. What the hell.”

  “So this could be the same group that set the barn fire, right? The group with Jules in, too.”

  “Crikey.”

  “And Mickey was clearly the one with a conscience, who decided that it’d gone too far and he needed to help that pensioner they terrorised.”

  “Bit of too little too late, isn’t it?” Stephen muttered.

  “No,” I protested with a frown. “It’s not ideal he was involved at all, true, but he could’ve saved someone’s life. There’s a big difference between causing property damage and refusing to help when someone’s having a heart attack.”

  “He probably wouldn’t have had a heart attack if those idiots hadn’t been there, though.”

  “Look, regardless, this is a chink in Mickey’s armour. He felt guilty about what happened, enough to risk his identity to call in to get help, right? So perhaps we can talk him into helping us. He seemed on the edge of agreeing to help when we spoke to him before, didn’t you think?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “He’s clearly easily led or pushed into things by his peers. Now we just need to convince him that it’s wrong, or not even that, because I think he’s already fully aware that it’s wrong. We have to convince him to take action to help us.”

  “We could try,” Stephen agreed finally. “But I think you’re more likely to get his help if you promise some reduced charges for what he’s done. I think you’re overestimating the kid’s moral compass. You heard him in the phone call. He’s driven by fear. I bet he wasn’t thinking about that bloke. I bet he thought that manslaughter looks a lot worse for him than burglary and property damage.”

  I was silent for a moment before I sighed. Stephen might be right, or we might both be. People could have complex motivations and be inspired to act by multiple feelings at once. Both compassion and self-interest could have driven Mickey at the same time when he made the call.

  “At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters. Whichever angle we take, I think we can get Mickey on our side. And if we can get information from someone who understands what’s going on from the inside, that’d help us immensely.”

  The problem right now was that we were running blind, darting from one side of the city to the other because we didn’t know what was connected and what wasn’t. If we had someone close to the centre of it all, that’d be a huge step forwards in our work to untangle this web.

  Nine

  After realising that the voice on the call was Mickey’s, we tried to get hold of the kid using the mobile number he’d given us when we spoke to him previously. He’d had to give up his parents’ phone numbers, too, so that they coul
d be called to come and collect him and, after failing to get an answer on his mobile, I tried his home phone.

  His mother answered, and I explained who I was before asking whether Mickey was home.

  “No, not yet,” she admitted. “Sometimes he goes to his friends’ houses in the summer.”

  “We need to speak to him, and it would be much better for him if he came willing to talk to us,” I said sternly. “We’ll send round a plainclothes officer to escort you both to the station.”

  I thought it might be overkill to send an officer over to supervise a teenager being brought into the station, but I wasn’t sure whether Mickey was a flight risk. I’d rather be safe than sorry, I’d concluded, and we certainly didn’t want to have another missing child at large in York because Mickey decided to run off from his mum when she tried to drive him over here.

  “Is he in more trouble?” She sounded suitably alarmed. “Has he done something else?”

  “I don’t want to go into the details on the phone,” I told her. “Please come in as soon as possible, and we can discuss it, and don’t send him any text messages in the meantime, please.”

  “Well, alright,” she said nervously.

  “Look, Mickey seems like a good kid,” I said, wanting to make sure that she was on our side, “and we’re trying to help him, but he’s not helping himself. Let’s get him back on the right track, okay?”

  Her voice sounded stronger when she agreed to that, and I hung up. I checked the time on my wrist and saw that it was almost five. I’d be working late if Mickey didn’t turn up soon, and that would give me less time to spend with Sam this evening. I sighed. Such was the job, I thought. As a DI, Stephen could afford to leave mostly on time to get back to his family, though he stayed late sometimes too. As DCI, I couldn’t afford to treat my job like a usual nine to five, not when there were sometimes lives on the line, and significant overtime was needed in order to save them.

  So I settled in for the wait, letting Sam know that I might work late, and started work on a different lead while I waited for the Mickey one to yield fruit.

  “Am I alright to head off, mate?” I looked over to see Stephen holding his phone and looking apologetic.

  “Of course, Steph. Your wife messaged you, did she?” I nodded towards his phone.

  “Yeah, she’s got work, too, and needs a hand.” He clapped me on the shoulder as he headed out. “See you tomorrow, and thanks.”

  I waved him off and gave a sigh, getting back to what I’d been doing. I hoped that the witness who’d seen the teens breaking in today would be available for a call so that I could get something useful done whilst hanging around for Mickey.

  I tried the number that the officer had given me at the scene and tapped my fingers on the desk as the phone rang in my ear. If the witness didn’t pick up, I’d have to find another lead to chase, but right now, we didn’t have a huge amount to go on, and I kept my fingers crossed.

  “Don Sullivan speaking,” a gruff, male voice answered. His voice held a faintly Irish softness in the way he shaped his words.

  “Evening, Mr Sullivan,” I said brightly, just glad that he’d picked up. “I’m calling about the crime you witnessed in progress today. My name is DCI Mitchell, from Hewford station.”

  “That other guy already asked me about it, didn’t he?”

  “I know you’ve spoken to one of our other officers. However, I’d like to make sure that we got all the details. As the only witness, your input is key to helping us get justice for the elderly couple who had their home invaded and one of whom is currently in hospital.”

  “Alright, alright, you don’t need to guilt-trip me,” he said. “What d’you want to know?”

  “I’m primarily interested in what the teens looked like,” I started before running through a series of questions, trying to ensure that I wouldn’t miss anything out simply by not asking the right questions.

  Mr Sullivan got into a short rant about kids today and, while he was talking, I flicked through my notebook, seeing whether there was anything else I needed to ask. Sullivan eventually ran out of breath and, since I’d spotted something in my notes that caught my interest, I broke in.

  “We’re very grateful for your help, Mr Sullivan. There was one more question I wanted to ask you. Did you notice anything particular about what the teenagers were wearing? Any patches or badges they had on their clothes, for example?”

  It was a bit of a long shot, and I didn’t want to lead Mr Sullivan into remembering something that hadn’t happened, but the badges I’d seen on the teenagers the other night had remained on my mind.

  “Badges? What kind of badges? I only saw them from a distance, you know. They were across the street, all in a group, though I could hear them loud and clear. It’s noise pollution, isn’t it? Youths like that, hollering and yelling and disturbing everyone.”

  “Mm,” I said noncommittally. “So you didn’t see anything distinctive on their clothes? A membership patch of any kind?”

  “Oh, a patch? I thought you meant those pin-on badges. They weren’t wearing any of those that I could see with my old eyes. But there were patches on the sleeves of a couple of them, I saw that. Probably trying to be vintage. That’s the fashion these days, isn’t it? They’ll never get the spirit of it, though, no matter what vinyls or whatever they’re selling again.”

  “These patches?” I said patiently. “What did they look like, Mr Sullivan?”

  “Well, I didn’t see them that well, really, I only noticed because they were bright red-”

  “Red?” I repeated. “You’re sure?”

  “Obviously, I’m sure, son. I’m old, not colourblind.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. How many of them were wearing these patches?”

  “Look, I don’t know. I only saw them for a bit, like I told you already.” He was beginning to sound irritable, or more irritable than before anyway, and I knew I needed to wrap this up soon.

  “Alright, thank you. This is right helpful to us. Final question, did you see the design on the patches at all?”

  “Why’re you so interested in the patches, hm? How’s that going to help you catch these folks?”

  “Please, Mr Sullivan, leave that to us. Do you remember seeing-?”

  “Yes, yes, I understood the question,” he grumbled. “I don’t know, son, they were just red. Bright red. A circle of it, or a blot, I don’t know. I wasn’t close enough like I said. Now, are we done, because I have to have my tea? You’ve got to have it early at my age, detective, or I won’t get off to sleep.”

  “Of course, sir, thank you for talking to me. I appreciate it greatly.”

  “Yeah, yeah, no problem,” he said awkwardly before hanging up the phone. I released a long breath that was partly from exhaustion but also partly from surprised excitement. I hadn’t really expected my question about the patches to yield any new information - I’d no particular reason to suspect that the teens who bothered me the other night were at all linked to the other trouble in the city, after all - but instead, I had a new and promising lead.

  Admittedly, I still didn’t know what the red patch with the flammable warning symbol meant to the teens exactly, nor why only some of the teens were wearing them, but those questions were ones that I hoped Mickey could answer for us.

  Flipping through my notebook, I found the page I’d written on shortly after I’d encountered the teens abusing that cat. I’d scribbled down all that I’d remembered, along with a sketch of the patch symbol, and it was that that I studied now.

  If the meaning of it was intended to be literal, then I was worried. We’d already had two fires set in or near York by teenagers and having a gang going round with a fire warning badge on their arm wasn’t a good sign. We were having the driest summer for years; the very last thing the city needed was people deliberately setting fire to things.

  I groaned quietly and rubbed a hand over my face, my tired eyes smarting. I felt uncomfortably sticky from the day’s sw
eat cooling on me, and I wanted nothing more than to head home to shower and spend time with Sam.

  If my theory was correct, though, and these teens were purposefully setting buildings alight and intended to continue, then we could talk about not one or two civilians being in danger, but dozens. A summer fire could get out of control crazy fast, and I would invest any amount of overtime in stopping that from happening within the city.

  As I thought about the patches, I had to wonder how exactly they were getting made. Were the teenagers making them themselves? Somehow I couldn’t imagine the animal abusers I’d had the misfortune to bump into were also into sewing, plus the patches themselves had looked reasonably professional, from the brief look I’d got of them. They’d looked a lot like the iron-on pieces that were often marketed at kids to stick into their jeans or rucksack. Not that a flammable warning symbol was the sort of design that would be made for children, but the teenagers were most likely buying them from somewhere, and I wondered whether I could trace the distinctive patches back to whoever ordered them.

  I started with a simple search on the internet, and my eyebrows rose as I looked through the options. There seemed to be a lot of options to order custom patches online, and I rested my elbow on the desk and put my chin in my hand as I considered the various websites. It would be much harder to track purchases that had happened online as opposed to in a physical shop, which might have CCTV and where they’d have to interact with staff. I’d have to put Keira on the case and see if she could dig anything up for us. We could really do with one of the patches themselves to see whether they had any brand mark on them. Perhaps, I thought, Mickey might be able to help with that too or would know where we could get hold of one.

  I occupied myself with writing up a list of contact details for the websites that’d come up online so that, if Mickey didn’t know where the group had bought them, I could start calling around. It most likely wouldn’t turn up anything, but I was willing to give it a shot on the off-chance that it turned out to be a usable lead.