Page 17 of Little Children

‘Here you go,’ he said, passing her the box.

‘Err…’ she said, looking to her bloodied hand.

‘Sorry, sorry, of course,’ he said, opening it up and passing her a tissue. ‘Here, press this onto the cut.’

She did as he said, holding her hands higher in the air.

He fiddled with different-sized plasters before asking to take a look.

‘It was just paper,’ she said. ‘Bloody vicious stuff.’

He chuckled then stopped himself.

‘It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone you spoke to me. It’s a medical emergency.’

His lips twitched as he chose a plaster.

A quick glance to her left revealed Penn watching her with an amused expression.

‘So, what’s your real name? I don’t really want to call you Gonk.’

‘It’s Adil.’

‘So why the nickname?’ she asked as he tore off the paper to reveal the sticky tape.

‘It’s Red’s favourite insult for newbies. Apparently it’ll be bestowed upon the next newcomer once I’m no longer the freshest member of the team.’

‘Yeah, I had one of those,’ Stacey lied. ‘Boss called me Plank on my first day cos my last name’s Wood.’

She hated lying about the boss, who had never done any such thing, but she wanted to try and build a rapport with the constable. ‘I managed to throw it off after a week or so.’

‘Did you mention it to her?’ he asked.

‘Goodness, no, I’m not that brave. I’d never do anything like that. I played dumb and stopped responding to it, and the boss got sick of saying everything twice.’

He laughed as she moved the tissue to reveal the cut was still bleeding. Maybe she should have pressed the tissue harder. She reapplied it.

‘This is going to slow down my CCTV review.’

‘You’re going over my work?’ he asked, frowning.

‘Not just yours. Your chief wants us to focus on Lewis so you can focus on Noah.’

‘Ah, makes sense.’

‘Was it hard to get the footage from the arcade?’ she asked. ‘I’ve had some that make me wait for days.’

He shook his head. ‘We gave them a description and a rough idea of the time. They narrowed it down and caught him going in and coming out.’

‘Nothing during his time in there?’ she asked.

‘Struggled to locate him inside, so that’s all we’ve got. It’s all we need though, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘We know he left the premises.’

Yeah, but we don’t know if he spoke to anyone in there, she thought. And because the footage they’d sent was so finely edited, she couldn’t tell if anyone had followed him in or followed him out.

Stacey took away the tissue to reveal the cut had stopped bleeding.

Adil applied the plaster, and she thanked him before returning to her desk.