The Stolen Children

by Oliver Davies

  Gaskell waved us out. “Go, go on. You’ve got to debrief, write your report. Always so much paperwork,” he grumbled, turning to the stack of paper on his own desk. “I’ll expect to hear from you as soon as you get something interviewing the kid downstairs, understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. Gaskell wanted a location that they could move on, and as soon as possible.

  Once we were dismissed, Stephen and I headed out, not talking to each other. As the lead on the operation, I had to give a short debrief to the Leeds team, and the York team that’d been involved in the planning stages, and I did so on autopilot. My brain was still processing what had happened, and how angry Stephen had been afterwards. He was a steady man, slow to anger, so to see him so furious rattled me, even as I hadn’t shown it.

  After I’d finished the meeting, Stephen a silent presence at my side, the Leeds lot headed off home. At our desks, Stephen and I finally got a minute to talk alone. He looked tired now, and I could more easily see the worry that had driven him into shouting at me.

  “Mitchell, you can’t do that,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t follow you. He could’ve had a knife-”

  “And you could’ve gotten shot,” I said, firmly. “That’s why I wanted you to stay in the van. Because they could’ve opened fire on all of us the minute that the Leeds folk stepped out, right?”

  Reluctantly, Stephen nodded. “But we did that as a team-” he started.

  I held up a hand. “I didn’t want you to go,” I pressed on, “but you decided you were willing to take the risk and I accepted that. Do you understand? I didn’t order you, or try to make Gaskell keep you back. You made a decision.” I faltered. “Look, I’m- I’m touched that you care so much, Steph, but you also need to trust that I could make my own decisions. Even if they’re the wrong ones sometimes.”

  He looked at me for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed. Looking as angry as he did, he cut an intimidating figure, but it was all bark and no bite with him. I felt like I knew him well as a partner, now, and I trusted him too. Now I needed him to do the same.

  “You don’t understand how scary it was,” he said finally, “when you ended up in hospital on our last case, in the autumn. I was worried you’d get brain damage, or a damn aneurysm, Darren. You could have died, and I would’ve been the last person you talked to.”

  I frowned, feeling slightly sick to hear him say it like that. To me, it had just been a bump on the head, and I’d recovered fine. I hadn’t known that it had affected him so much.

  “Watching you run off like that, I thought it’d be me who’d find you bleeding out after he’d stabbed or shot you. Do you see?” He held out his hands like he was pleading with me to understand.

  “Aye, I understand,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “But not sorry you did it?” Stephen said, a tiny, tight smile twitching at his mouth.

  I winced. “No,” I admitted. “I needed to catch him.”

  “Because of Lydia,” Stephen sighed, sitting back in his seat with his shoulders slumped.

  I nodded. “We needed to get him to interview him, find out what he knew.”

  “Yeah, but if you take risks like that, or worse, you won’t be here for the next Lydia, the next case. Our job always has high stakes. You can’t throw yourself off a cliff, trying to save everyone.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it again. “I hear what you’re saying,” I said finally, “but I believe the risk was the right one to take.”

  Stephen sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “Just… will you think about it?” he said. “You need to be cautious and actually take care of yourself more. Your police work will benefit from it, too, you know.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him, because I knew he was only babying me because he worried. I reached over to pat his shoulder.

  “I’ll think about it,” I promised him.

  “Alright,” he said. “That’ll have to do, then.” He gave me a small smile, and I returned it.

  “Forgiven?” I asked, holding out a hand.

  Stephen was the one to roll his eyes then. “Sure. Forgiven but not forgotten,” he said, shaking my hand. “Don’t go scaring me like that.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, and meant it. I had every intention of working for the police for many years to come and coming to a messy end before I’d reached forty didn’t factor into my ten-year plan. I’d take the risks I deemed necessary, but no more than that.

  Twenty-Three

  Stephen and I walked down to the interview room together. The traffic police had called in to say that they’d contained the van, and its two occupants. They hadn’t brought them back to the station yet, but we already had one of the kidnapping gang’s number in our custody, and I figured that we might as well make a start. He’d been carrying his wallet when he was grabbed, so we had an ID on him: Liam Smith.

  I checked my watch as we walked over and winced to see that it was almost seven. “Do you need to head off home?” I asked Stephen.

  He shook his head. “I let Annie know it’d be a late one,” he said. “She’s expecting me around nine or so.”

  “We can work with that,” I said. I didn’t want to have to wait until tomorrow to interview this guy. Sometimes, giving them time to stew could be a good thing, but I didn’t know the temperament of this one. I didn’t want to give him time to come up with a convincing bunch of lies overnight.

  “He might be a lackey,” I said as we walked down the stairs. “He seemed awfully young.”

  “At our age, everyone under twenty-five is a literal child.”

  “At our age?” I mimicked with a laugh. “Mate, you’re the old one here. I’ve got plenty of life in me yet.”

  “You cheeky whippersnapper,” Stephen laughed. “There’s only five or so years between us.”

  “Really?” I teased. “I could’ve sworn you’d hit fifty.”

  Stephen gasped in mock outrage and gave me a none too gentle push. “You’re the one with the upcoming birthday,” he pointed out, sounding smug.

  I rolled my eyes. “God, who told you that?”

  Stephen snorted. “The station puts everyone’s birthdays on the online calendar, didn’t you notice?”

  “Aye, I noticed,” I said, offended. “I thought they put them on themselves, not that it was compulsory.”

  “Oh, it’s so compulsory,” Stephen said, as he reached forwards to get the door for me. “You better bring in cake, Mitchell.”

  I groaned. “If you want it to be edible, it’ll be straight from the shops. Colin the Caterpillar sound good?”

  He slapped me heartily on the back. “Can’t go wrong with chocolate cake,” he agreed.

  We arrived at the interview room, thankfully ending the conversation about my birthday, where another officer had brought up our suspect.

  “Thanks, Mike,” Stephen said, shaking the hand of the officer who’d been keeping an eye on our man.

  “No problem.” Mike gave me a nod and left us to it.

  Stephen and I looked down at Liam, his handcuffs attached to the desk, before we took our seats.

  “Alright,” I said, switching on the recording machine to get started. I introduced Stephen and myself, before looking pointedly at Liam on the other side of the table.

  The younger man, who didn’t look older than his early twenties, opened his mouth and closed it again, before finally spitting out, “Liam Smith.”

  I gave him a nod. “Okay,” I said, “how old are you, Liam?” I knew this already from his driving licence, but I wanted him to say it.

  He frowned slightly at me. “Twenty-one.”

  I hummed. “So you’ve got your life ahead of you, right, Liam? Bet you’ve got places you wanna go, things you wanna do.” I paused. “Thing is, right now you’re connected to a gang that kidnaps children.”

  Liam twitched backwards as I leant forwards towards him. “You go to prison for that, and you’ll lose, what, ten, twenty years
of your life.”

  Liam stared at me, looking pale. “I haven’t done anything,” he said weakly. “I was just in the van. I haven’t stolen any kids.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “You’re complicit, because you’re tied up with the wrong people. Do you want to go to jail for something you’ve not even done?”

  “You’ve got no proof,” Liam spat suddenly. He jerked his hands towards himself, as if he wanted to fold them over his chest, but the cuffs stopped him.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you a gambler, Liam?”

  “What?”

  “That’s a hell of a bet, you’re making there,” I said evenly. “Betting twenty years of your life on your assumption that we haven’t got your gang nailed down tight.”

  Liam was right, actually. We didn’t have any proof. But we would, and I was determined that Liam would help us with that. Stephen stayed quietly at my side, letting me lead. I turned towards him now.

  “You wanted to give this kid a chance,” I said, putting an impatient annoyance in my voice, “but clearly he doesn’t want to take it. I think we’re done here, no?”

  Stephen played along, turning to look back at Liam, before he stood up, apparently dismissing him. “Yeah, you’re right. Lost your last chance, Smith,” he said coldly.

  Liam’s eyes widened as I reached to turn off the recording machine, and he held up his hands suddenly.

  “Woah, woah, wait!” he said sharply.

  I turned an unimpressed look on him, even as, inside, I was eager to hear what he’d say. “What?”

  “What- what did you want? Okay, I don’t want to go to jail, I just wanted to earn some extra cash, okay? I didn’t mean anything. I haven’t hurt any kids.”

  I slowly pulled my hand back from the recording machine, and Stephen sat back down.

  “What did you have to do for this cash?” I asked, curious.

  Liam winced. “Not much really,” he muttered. “Just, like, move some packages around.”

  I grunted, unconvinced. “Any ideas what was in those packages?” I asked. “If you don’t know, give me your best guess.”

  “I don’t know,” Liam said immediately. He looked between my and Stephen’s hard expressions and wilted. “If- if I made a guess,” he said hesitantly, “I’d guess… maybe, weapons. Or something.”

  Guns, I thought. Definitely guns. “Alright, thank you,” I said. “Now, what were you doing with the van today?”

  Liam’s lips parted into an ‘o’ shape as he struggled to come up with an answer. I didn’t give him too long to think about it.

  “The truth,” I said harshly. “Lying will get you in even more trouble than staying quiet would, you understand?”

  Liam exhaled heavily, chewing on his lip. He was a skinny lad, his wrists looking delicate in the heavy metal cuffs, and he looked like he could do with some feeding up.

  “We were meant to pick up somebody,” he said, his voice rough. “A guy, called Lawrence. There weren’t meant to be anyone else.”

  “Were you supposed to kidnap him?” I asked, as if we hadn’t been the ones to send the texts.

  He pulled back. “No!” he said sharply. “No, he contacted us, okay?”

  “And where were you meant to take him to?”

  Liam shrugged. “Just back to base,” he said, before his eyes went wide. Clearly, that had been something he’d not meant to say.

  I pretended an indifference that I didn’t feel. That base could be where they were holding Lydia. “Where is ‘base’, then?”

  “I, er, I don’t know,” he said, which was one of the least convincing lies I’d ever heard.

  I raised an eyebrow, but before I could call him out on it, Stephen stepped in.

  “What did we say about lying?” he said. All of his usual friendliness had dropped away, and he looked cold and fierce.

  Liam blinked at him. “I’m not,” he protested weakly. “Not lying.”

  “Liam,” I sighed, “we’ve talked about the consequences of not cooperating already. Years in jail, remember?” I gave him a hard look. “Do we need to go over that again?”

  Liam leant forwards, his eyes large, and he spread his hands as far as the cuffs would allow. “I can’t tell you,” he said quietly, like someone might be listening.

  “Why’s that?” I asked, wondering if they had something on him.

  “They’ll kill me,” he said, strained. “They’ll find me anywhere, okay?”

  “You’re already talking to the police, kid,” Stephen said, playing his role harsher than I was. “You think they’re going to go with the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t tell us anything?”

  There was a heavy silence as Liam looked between us, his skin dampening with sweat. “I haven’t said anything. I didn’t-”

  Stephen scowled. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve already picked a side, Liam. Now, we can protect you, or you can piss us off and end up stuck in between your old employers, who want you dead, and us. Does that make things clearer?”

  Liam’s mouth worked as he struggled for something to say. He groaned, his shoulders slumped with defeat, and I almost felt sorry for him.

  Stephen nudged me, and I glanced at him. He gave me a nod. Stephen had done the stick part, now time for the carrot.

  “Liam,” I said evenly, “we can protect you. And we can work to get you a much more lenient sentence if you work with us here. You help us, we’ll help you, understand me?”

  Liam was quiet for several seconds before he lifted his head. “I’ll write it down,” he said, his voice flat with resignation.

  I pushed my pad of paper towards him, alongside my pen. He clumsily picked it up with his bound hands and started writing. I carefully took it back when he was done, wary of him trying to stab my hand with the pen which someone had tried on me before.

  On the paper was a credible-looking address, and I pushed it towards Stephen for him to see. He’d brought a tablet along with him and started plugging the address in as I turned back to Liam.

  “Tell me about the base,” I instructed.

  As Stephen pulled up the address, I grilled Liam on all the specifics, like who might be armed, what defences they had, how many people, who was in charge, etc. The longer Liam talked, the more easily he answered my queries, as he seemed to accept that he’d gone beyond the point of return now. He’d thrown his lot in with us, and his old gang wouldn’t take him back now.

  An officer poked his head around the door about an hour later, and I looked up.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but the other two have been brought in. They’re in holding now.”

  “Okay, thank you.”

  Liam had gone very still, his eyes wide. “You can’t put me with them,” he said desperately.

  I frowned, feelings of pity stirring at the sheer terror in his face. I put up a hand to curtail his panicking. “We won’t,” I said firmly. “And you shouldn’t have to talk to them, either, okay?”

  Liam released a breath. “Thanks,” he said, looking down at the table. He looked exhausted and no wonder, really. He’d run hell for leather when I was chasing him and then had the emotional turmoil of betraying his people.

  “Time for a break, I think,” I said, and Stephen nodded. We shut off the recording machine, and I put away my notebook. “We’ll be back in a moment,” I told Liam, and he gave a small nod.

  Stepping out of the room, I closed the door behind us and turned to Stephen. “I’ll fetch the kid something to eat,” I said. “Think you can find a couple of officers to talk to the other two? I don’t think they’re going to give much up, but someone ought to talk to them, anyway.”

  Stephen nodded. “Sure, I’ll find someone who’s in the loop. Meet you back here in twenty?”

  “Aye, see you then.”

  We split off, me heading towards the station break room, where there was usually some kind of food lying around. Today, there was a platter of small sandwiches in the communal fridge, leftover from a higher
-up’s meeting, so I snagged several, putting them on a napkin. They were a little dry considering it was now evening, but they would be perfectly edible. I made myself a coffee, Stephen and Liam a cup of tea, and then tried to balance everything in my hands as I headed back to the interview.

  “Here we are,” I said, as I came. Liam’s expression brightened at the sight of food and tea, and I pushed them towards him so that he could reach them with his cuffs on. His eating was a bit awkward with the restraints, but he managed well enough. I sipped my coffee as we waited for Stephen’s return.

  It didn’t take long before he was back. “Sorted?” I asked as he came in.

  He sat down beside me and took a sip of his tea. “All done,” he confirmed.

  “Good,” I said, before turning back to Liam, who was demolishing the sandwiches. “We have another couple questions, then you can chill for a while, alright?”

  He looked up, his expression wary, before giving a nod. He’d cupped his mug between his cuffed hands and stayed quiet as I set up the recording device again.

  “Okay,” I said, pulling out my notebook. “We’ve been looking into the disappearance of a little girl, Liam. Do you know anything about that?”

  Liam’s eyebrows rose in apparent surprise. “A little girl? No, I don’t know anything.”

  I frowned at him for a moment before deciding that, unfortunately, he was probably telling the truth.

  “Did you ever overhear someone talking about her? Or about other kids?” Stephen asked. He’d dropped his intimidation tactics from earlier, but Liam still looked slightly nervous.

  “Er, no,” he said, taking another sip of tea.

  “Does the name Lydia mean anything to you?” I tried.

  Liam looked apologetic as he shook his head. Stephen pulled up a picture of her on his tablet and turned it to face Liam, who looked at it for several seconds before shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her,” he said. Stephen tried again, this time with Lawrence’s picture.