Page 95 of Little Children

Kim groaned. His view was as narrow as looking through a kitchen-roll tube. It had taken three days and a mountain of evidence provided by her team to prove to him that the disappearances of the boys were linked at all, and now he couldn’t even fathom that this thing went wider than Lewis and Noah.

‘Shall we?’ he asked, pointing to the door that led to the squad room where both teams were waiting.

Kim conceded defeat and stood. It wasn’t that she doubted the correct direction of the investigation, but now she knew it would be her team alone following it.

‘And I’m sorry to hear about the rape and murder of Jasmine Swift. Roy said you knew her,’ she offered as he opened the door.

He visibly bristled. ‘I knew her as the victim of a crime, nothing more.’

‘Of course,’ Kim said in a tone that said she’d never thought otherwise.

Not a subject he was eager to discuss, she noted as they exited his office. Bryant had filled her in on the events of the day before, and like him she found the whole thing highly suspicious. Why had Roy attended the crime scene? But more importantly why had he visited the ex-boyfriend and then returned to the morgue? She had a pretty good idea, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up. They needed more information before bringing it to anyone’s attention.

‘Okay, people,’ Red said, standing at the head of the room. ‘We’re splitting the investigations again. The away team are working their own leads on a case unconnected to ours, and we’re going to be chasing down local paedos.’

‘So, you’ll be getting off home then?’ Roy asked, turning to her.

‘Not your business, Roy,’ Red snapped. ‘But their case might have links this end of the country, so they’re free to use the office space assigned to them until the chief says otherwise.’

Kim caught both underlying messages. First, separate yourself and don’t distract the home team. Second, he’d be lobbying for the chief to make that call sooner rather than later.

‘Sounds like a long day ahead,’ Roy said, tapping his fingers on the desk. ‘Hope everyone got a good night’s sleep.’

His glance settled on Bryant, who looked away. An alarm of unease rose in her stomach.

‘What’s happening with the Jasmine Swift case?’ Bryant asked, looking directly at Red.

‘An arrest has been made, but our involvement with that case is over.’

‘Who was arrested?’ he pushed, despite knowing exactly who it was. She guessed that he wanted to hear Red say it, and he wanted to see Roy’s reaction when he did.

‘Not our business, pal, so it’s certainly none of yours,’ Red snapped.

‘Okay, guys,’ Kim said, shepherding her team into their own war room. ‘Clearly, we’re on our own,’ she went on once the door was closed. ‘So we play nice to hang on to the office space and the logs. Red is convinced there’s no link to our boy Josh, but we still need to have access to the regional reports.’

They all nodded their understanding.

‘Stace, I want you looking for any links between Lewis and Noah. We know Lewis was probably chosen because he was a fighter, but how did these people know that? How did they know about Noah, or was that an opportunistic grab?’

‘Got it, boss.’

Kim turned to Penn. ‘I want you going as deep as possible into the dark web. If our gym owner is up this way, there’s a good chance there’s an event happening soon. We need to be at that fight.’

‘Try my best, boss,’ Penn said.

Kim turned back to the detective constable. ‘Stace?’

‘Just sending it through now, boss.’

Kim waited for her phone to sound receipt of the message before standing.

The video had shocked her. Seeing Lewis being bundled into the van so blatantly had boiled her blood.

Lewis had been propositioned first. He’d refused, but then they’d taken him anyway.

Given the attitude of his parents and the interaction between Kevin and Lewis in the arcade, this thing had been planned. At least one of the three of them had known about it.

Sixty-One