Page 18 of Little Children (Detective Kim Stone #22)

Seventeen

‘So, has Charlie worked out how to use FaceTime yet?’ Bryant asked once they were in the car.

‘Kind of but not really,’ Kim said honestly.

She’d tried to call him last night to get a look at Barney, and she’d seen just about every part of Charlie’s house except where the dog was lying.

She could tell the elderly man was getting anxious because he couldn’t work it out, so she’d reverted to a good old-fashioned phone call instead, to learn that Barney was being as spoiled as he always was when he stayed with his best friend.

She knew she had nothing to worry about, but she didn’t like being so many miles away.

‘He’ll be fine,’ Bryant said, winding through the back streets of Blackpool.

She said nothing. Somehow her colleague always knew when she was thinking of her canine buddy.

‘Any more texts from your bestie?’

‘Bryant, I dare you to call her that one more time,’ she growled.

He laughed in response, and they said nothing more until he pulled up outside the Stevenses’ residence.

‘Might be a bit early for them, guv,’ he said, glancing towards the house.

She too had already noticed that every window was still obscured by drawn curtains.

‘It’s almost eight, and they have three young children and a missing son. Not sure they’re sleeping all that peacefully even if it is half term.’

It was an unfortunate part of any investigation into a missing child that family members had to be investigated too.

History and statistics had shown that almost fifty per cent of missing kids that didn’t come home had a family member or friend tied up in it somehow.

Very few people hadn’t heard of the Shannon Matthews case; the twelve-year-old girl had been concealed by a family member with the knowledge of her mother in a bid to get rich from donations.

For the families that were completely innocent, the spotlight cast on them by police questions made the stress of an already heartbreaking situation unbearable.

She didn’t care very much about the others, and while she wasn’t sure which camp certain members of the Stevens family came into, until she had something that said otherwise, they would be treated with consideration and respect.

It took three heavy loud knocks to get an answer, so Kim revised her earlier thought that none of them would be sleeping soundly.

‘What the hell?’ Bobby Stevens asked when he finally opened the door, rubbing sleep from his eyes and shielding them from the morning light.

A bit strange that he seemed confused about what they were doing there when they could easily have come to tell them their son had been found, an eventuality that wouldn’t necessarily be confined to office hours.

‘May we have a word?’

He stepped aside and beckoned them into a house where all the natural light was shut out.

Bobby immediately started opening curtains and blinds before turning to her with a frown. ‘Have you found him?’

Kim shook her head.

‘Why the early call then?’ he asked without annoyance.

‘The sooner we’ve had a quick chat with the three of you, the quicker we can get back to searching for Lewis.’

‘Ssh,’ Shirley Stevens said, padding down the stairs.

With three young children, Kim was guessing the woman was already on borrowed time until her day got started for real.

‘Three of us?’ Bobby asked, just realising what she’d said.

‘Yes, we need to speak to Kevin as well.’

Shirley took her phone from her dressing-gown pocket. She rang a number before giving them an irritated look.

‘Come downstairs,’ Shirley said into the phone. ‘Because I said so,’ she added before ending the call.

Kim followed them both into a room that bore the signs of a late-night takeaway. Yellow Styrofoam boxes and half-eaten bags of chips littered the surface, even though the family had been in the process of their evening meal when they’d visited the previous day.

It was good to know they were all maintaining healthy appetites.

‘Just a couple of follow-up points,’ Kim said, sitting at the kitchen table.

Bobby leaned against the fridge freezer with his arms crossed, while Shirley filled the kettle.

‘We’ve been told there was quite the argument the night that Lewis disappeared.’

‘Who told you…?Oh, hang on, I can guess,’ Bobby said, nodding towards the wall they shared with the neighbours.

Kim didn’t confirm or deny. ‘Would you mind telling us what the argument was about?’

‘Of course. It was about Lewis. They’re always about Lewis.’

Kim wished, just once, that she could see one ounce of emotion directed towards his stepson. A child he might never see again.

‘Any particular reason?’ she asked.

‘His cheek, his attitude, his laziness, his fighting, his suspension from school. It was bound to be one of those.’

Kim turned towards Lewis’s mother. ‘Is he really that much of a problem child?’

Shirley hesitated before answering as though trying to work out the correct response.

‘He can be, but I still wish…’ Her words faltered.

‘Wish what?’ Kim pushed.

‘That he was here being a pain right now.’

Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away after displaying the first real emotion Kim had seen. She even detected a shadow of regret pass over Bobby’s face. Regret for what?

‘You stormed out not long after Lewis left,’ Kim said, fixing her gaze on the stepfather.

‘So?’ he asked, shrugging.

‘Did you see him again? Did you catch up with him?’

He shook his head. ‘It was a good ten minutes before I went out.’

Ten minutes wasn’t that long if you were walking quickly and you knew which way to go.

Although Lewis had entered and exited Coral Island alone, she’d like to know if there’d been any further contact between the two of them once Lewis had left the house. ‘Answer my question, please.’

‘Never saw him.’

‘And where did you go?’

‘Hey, hang on. I don’t like where this is going. You trying to say I had something to do with his disappearance?’

‘As investigators we have to rule out any involvement from family members,’ Kim said honestly. ‘And I’m really surprised you haven’t already been asked.’

He uncrossed his arms and put his hands in his pockets. ‘That’s the difference when you’re dealing with coppers who know you.’

‘Was it Red and Roy that came and gave Lewis a stern talking-to?’

He nodded. ‘They were doing a follow-up after our break-in. They had a quiet word.’

If they were still arguing about him the night he disappeared, it hadn’t done him a lot of good on the behaviour modification front.

‘So, if you can just tell me where you went when you left the house,’ she reminded him.

‘For a walk, down the front. Just to clear my head.’

‘Anyone we can check that with?’ Kim asked.

He thought for a minute before shaking his head.

‘And you returned at what time?’

‘Around tenish.’

A good half hour after Lewis had left the amusement arcade.

‘That’s a lot of head clearing,’ she observed.

‘Walking ain’t a crime, is it?’ he said, taking a cuppa offered by his wife.

Kim noted she and Bryant hadn’t been offered any kind of refreshment, almost like the Stevenses didn’t want police in their home a minute longer than necessary. Unless their names were Red or Roy.

‘Okay, if we can just speak to?—’

‘What is it?’ Kevin Stevens asked, entering the kitchen. Obviously hopeful of being able to go right back to bed, he wore pyjama bottoms and no top.

He barely even glanced their way until his mum nodded in their direction.

‘Just a question or two and then we’ll leave you in peace.’

He yawned and rubbed at his eyes.

‘Where did you go the night Lewis went missing?’

‘Bedroom, watching telly?’ he said as if she would know the correct answer.

‘We’ve been told that you went out.’

‘Might have done,’ he said, shrugging as though confused as to why it mattered.

‘Can you think hard for me, Kevin?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Definitely stayed in. Nothing to do so I just stayed in.’

Friday night a mile away from one of the most lucrative night-time economies in the country and this teenager couldn’t find something to do.

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.