Heatwave by Oliver Davies (the red fox clan txt) 📗

even though they were questions it was impossible to get answers to. We’d agreed to try the long-distance relationship, but neither of us knew how that would work out for us. I didn’t know if we could maintain the same spark that existed between us now over video and phone calls, but the only way we’d find out was by trying.

The printer finished up, bringing me back to the present, and I took the grainy photos back to Stephen. I nabbed a desk lamp from someone’s unoccupied desk and flicked it on, spreading the photos out beneath it.

“I swear they look familiar,” I said after a pause. The footage was in black and white, as well as being taken from a distance and at a strange angle, so it was difficult to be sure.

“Are they the teenagers from yesterday?” Stephen looked over at me, but I shook my head.

“No, but still, I could swear I’ve seen…” I tapped one of the boy’s faces, frowning down at him.

“Well, it’s not Mickey or Tiger. Nor Alistair or Jules, for that matter.”

“No,” I said distractedly, still looking at the boy. “How old do you think he looks?”

“I don’t know, fifteen?”

I hummed, considering the video still. I was sure I recognised that boy, but from where, I couldn’t quite remember. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t reach it.

“Well, I can’t say that they look familiar to me.” Stephen gave a shrug, heading off to get himself a fresh cup of tea.

I continued to stare at the print-out, hoping that it would materialise into meaning if I looked at it long enough. I tried for ten minutes before giving it up as a lost cause and shifting my attention to looking back through what we’d done so far in the hope that I’d notice something important that we’d missed earlier on.

It was when I was flicking through my notebook half an hour later that I remembered where I recognised those teenagers from.

“Steph!” I said, seizing the photos and looking at them again, tapping the paper in triumph. “It’s the boys from the joyride! Remember? On Tuesday, we went to help out-”

“I remember, I remember,” Stephen said impatiently. “Have we got their names? Their details?”

I got on my computer to search it up, looking for the records relating to the incident.

“Aye, here, look.” Pictures had been taken of the two, along with their fingerprints and full details. “Dammit,” I muttered, “they clearly haven’t sorted themselves out, have they? They’ve gone straight back to making more trouble.”

“Yeah, I’d hoped they might’ve been young enough to get straight once they’d had a talking to.”

“So did I,” I sighed. “Alright, at least we’ve got a couple of names and faces. That’s good. Hopefully, we can trace them back to their respective schools and fill in some more gaps.”

“You’re hoping to find out who the rest of the group is?”

“It would help,” I said, though I was privately hoping that we’d find out more than that. That there would be some evidence that demonstrated a link between these cases, and maybe even Alistair’s, too. “You take this one,” I pointed to the younger teen, “I’ll look into the other one. See what we can find out.”

“Are we calling their parents?” Stephen asked. “I mean, they’d know the most.”

“Mm, good question.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “Not yet, I don’t think. I don’t want the teens tipped off by their angry parents and them warning their friends, you know?”

“Alright, let’s go with that for now. We can try the parents later if we need to.”

We got to work, and I started with the teenager’s school, which had been recorded on the forms we’d had his parents fill out when he was brought in for the joyriding. It wasn’t the same school as Alistair, which was a disappointment, and Stephen confirmed that the teen he was looking into didn’t go to Alistair’s school either.

“How have they gotten together, then?” I queried, shaking my head. “Teens make friends at school mostly, don’t they?”

“This day and age, I suppose we’ve got to think of the internet. You can meet anyone on there.”

“I wonder whether Keira’s had a chance to look into Jules online yet,” I said as the thought occurred to me. I’d have to check in with her and see how she was getting on.

We went back into researching the two teenagers, and I was focused on looking through the kid’s social media when someone cleared their throat on my right and made me startle. I looked up sharply and was surprised to see Sedgwick standing there, looking impatient.

“Afternoon, Sedgwick.”

“Mitchell,” he greeted me flatly. “You asked to be kept updated.”

“Aye, I did,” I agreed when he seemed to be waiting for confirmation or pre-emptive gratitude. “Have you got something?”

“We’ve been conducting interviews at Alistair’s school,” he said stiffly. “We spoke to a teacher who’d seen Alistair being confronted by another boy at the school gates a short while before he went missing.”

“Huh.” I sat back. “That teacher must have a good memory to remember that.”

Sedgwick gave me a cold look, like I was doubting the validity of his witness, but went on after a second of silence.

“The teacher identified the boy as one who’d left the school a year ago. She said his name was Jules.”

“What?” I stared at him for a long moment. “Well, damn. That’s good to know, thanks.”

He gave a shallow nod. “I’m willing to consider that this boy, Jules, may know Alistair’s whereabouts.” The way he said it sounded like ‘You were right and I was wrong,’ to me, but I resisted the desire to point that out. “If you find him before we do, I’ll expect to be told.”

“Sure,” I agreed easily. “Can you send the full report over, with the teacher’s name and that?”

He gave another nod before turning on his heel and smartly walking away.

“It’s been a while since Sedgwick has admitted to being wrong,” Stephen said, sounding slightly