Page 29 of Little Children

With only the neighbours’ recollection to go on, she was unable to push him any further.

Kevin turned to leave the room.

‘Hang on, one more thing,’ Kim said. ‘Is it true that you took your brother somewhere and left him there, as a punishment?’

All three sets of eyes were on her, clearly wondering how she knew about that. She’d bet even Red and Roy were unaware of that one.

He looked to his parents, who were no help at all.

‘It was just a joke, a prank. I knew he’d find his way home.’

‘So he was on a bus route, and he had money?’ Kim asked.

Kevin shrugged.

‘How did you do it?’ Kim pushed. The boy wasn’t old enough to drive.

‘Took him for a ride on my bike. Told him my mate wanted to show us his new scrambler. Followed the tram lines for a few miles then went down a few lanes to confuse him.’

‘How far?’ Bryant asked.

‘Dunno. Nine or ten miles. Not far.’

Far enough, Kim thought, for a kid left on his own.

‘How did he get home?’ she asked.

‘Hitchhiked,’ Kevin mumbled, making it clear that he’d not been on a bus route and most likely hadn’t had any money.

‘Was it a joke, or was it a punishment?’

‘He was being an arse,’ Kevin said defensively.

‘Was he being an arse on the day he disappeared?’

Kevin stuck his chin out. ‘Probably.’

‘And there’s no chance you decided to teach him another lesson, except this time something went wrong and he didn’t find his way back?’

‘I never touched him. I didn’t go out that night, I swear.’

Kim knew she couldn’t push any further. They were victims and deserved to be treated as such until she found any proof that told her otherwise… but something wasn’t right, and she wasn’t going to stop digging until she found out what it was.

She thanked them for their time and headed out to the car with a growing sense of sadness.

Whether he was a little shit or not, Lewis didn’t seem to have anyone to turn to. Surely he and his older brother should have been a team amidst this new family? They should have had each other’s backs at all times. Instead, Lewis appeared to have no one to rely on but himself.

There was a conflict in her mind, splitting her reasoning down the middle. One minute she was convinced that the disappearance of the two boys was linked. She didn’t like the coincidence of the timing; it seemed certain that both boys had been abducted. And then her mind would shift once she spoke with the Stevens family and their behaviour caused her to wonder if one of them was responsible for his disappearance.

There was something that she wasn’t being told, and she had no clue how she was going to find out what it was.

Eighteen

Stacey found herself still thinking about the exchange between the teams that had taken place in the briefing.

How the boss was keeping hold of her temper she couldn’t even imagine, as all the hostility seemed to be aimed at her. The rest of them were being met with mainly silence and strange looks.

That had remained the case once the boss and Bryant had left, with Penn not far behind.