Page 25 of Little Children

‘Does look better for the figures if he ran away though, boss,’ Penn interrupted. ‘It’s what I’d do to keep my incident rate down.’

Kim shot him daggers, as would be expected of her, but it was a nice move on his part. Presenting them with the illusion of a fractured team could only help make them more accessible.

Stacey bit her lip and stared at the ground.

‘Why has no one spoken to Roderick Skidmore?’ Kim asked pointedly.

‘They’re not his type,’ Roy said quickly. ‘He likes them a bit younger.’

‘But you spoke to him and pinpointed his location just to rule him out, didn’t you?’ she pushed. Surely it was just the paper statement that was missing?

‘Like Roy said, waste of time getting a formal statement,’ Red offered testily. ‘We know our own paedophiles, Inspector, and Skidmore has nothing to do with this.’

‘Not sure your sex offenders differ greatly from our own, but I do know they’re the first people we rule out.’ She paused. ‘We’ll be following that up too.’

Red looked like he wanted to say something and then changed his mind.

Kim continued. ‘Any reason why only a handful of teachers and students were interviewed at Lewis’s school?’

‘We were getting the same answers from all of them so it was a?—’

‘Waste of time,’ she finished for him. ‘Dying to know what you did with all that time you saved.’

Red’s expression was darkening every time she opened her mouth. She hoped she was annoying him. She didn’t like sneak attacks. If they were going to be enemies, she preferred open warfare and a combatant with big-enough balls to face her head-on. He was annoyed and she wasn’t even finished.

‘You interviewed Lewis’s brother at length though, right?’

Red didn’t answer.

‘Seeing as we’ve been told he likes to take his younger brother a few miles away and dump him.’

‘It was a prank,’ Roy offered, indicating that they did know about it. ‘He was just teaching the kid a lesson.’

‘So you’ve asked him formally if he did it again and something went wrong this time?’

Red looked at his watch. ‘We need to…’

So that was clearly a no as well, she realised.

‘Okay, last question, why did you write him off as a runaway so quickly? I mean, I assume that’s why it’s barely been investigated. Is it because his parents said so?’

‘He’s got form for it,’ Red answered. ‘He’s run away three times before. He had a few quid in his pocket. He’d been in trouble again and he needed to cool off. He’ll be back. You’ll see.’

And then you’re going to feel like an idiot, were the unspoken words that hung between them.

Rather that than find his body, Kim thought but realised she was wasting her breath. They were locked into their conviction that Lewis was going to suddenly reappear.

If she wanted a thorough investigation, she was going to have to do it herself.

She stood. ‘Okay, guys, thanks. We’ll catch up later.’

She headed into their war room, and her team followed behind.

‘Well?’ Kim asked, standing with her back to the squad room as they took their seats.

‘Safe to say we’re not gonna be swapping numbers after this, but good old Roy gave me a couple of secret eyerolls, so he definitely thinks I’m in his camp,’ Bryant offered.

‘And the others?’ Kim asked, looking at Stacey and Penn.