Street Magic

neighborhood. I'm following momentarily." Even to her ears, she sounded flat and uninterested, as if a boring program were on BBC 4 but she couldn't be bothered to change the channel.
    She could lie and say it was Jack's fault, for jerking her about rather than telling the truth, but it was hers. Two more children. An agonizing five days, if she was lucky, before they showed up in the same fashion as Bridget Killigan. Pete didn't even bother to tell herself that these were just suspicions, not fact. She was too tired to deny that she was certain.
    "I'll fetch my car, head over there as well," said Ollie.
    "Heath, wait," said Pete. Ollie paused. "Would you… would you mind going on ahead and taking point on the case, just for today?"
    Ollie's lips pursed. "You've been eerie ever since we found the Killigan child, Caldecott. You need a bit of rest. If that's what you're asking for, take it. With my blessing."
    "Not a rest," said Pete. She felt mad, as if she were standing on a cliff with paper wings strapped to her back. But the simple fact, the only
fact
in this at all, was that Jack had been right. Never mind
how
, he'd found Bridget. He would find the two new missing.
    Pete didn't allow herself the glaring thought that her faith in Jack was as misplaced as it had ever been. Or the new wrinkle, that he hated her for something she couldn't fathom.
    "Not a rest," Pete repeated to Ollie. "There's something that I have to do. It may take me thirty-six hours or so, Ollie… cover my arse with Newell until then?"
    Ollie Heath, God bless him, just nodded. "Of course, Pete."
    He went to look for the missing children, and Pete went hunting for Jack, not knowing if she was going to hit him or embrace him when they met, just that she needed to find him, and so she would.

----
Chapter Eight

    She'd never intended to rescue him, of course. Of all the strung-out lost boys in London, Jack was the least in need of that.
    Pete knew she'd been spending too much time around Southwark when the shifty bloke on the steps of Jack's squat waved to her.
    And she waved back. "Jack in?"
    "Nah," said the kid, sniffling and shivering even inside his parka. "He moved on last night. Prolly over near Borough High Street in the close. There's a few beds."
    It was twilight, witchy and shadowed along the narrow street. The night citizens were beginning to stir, but there was enough daylight left to allow her safe passage to Jack's latest shooting gallery.
    He was nodding against the wall in the front room, burning cigarette dangling between his lips and a crackling copy of
London Calling
on the turntable. Pete pushed the needle off track with a squeal and Jack cracked one eye.
    "Hasn't anyone told you it's rude to burst into other people's houses?"
    "I need to talk to you," Pete said. She crossed her arms and made sure to appear stern and unyielding. Jack was in the throes of a hit, and damn it all, he'd listen to her one way or another.
    "I recall we've played this scene before," said Jack. "Only this time you haven't got my stash to threaten me with. So what are you going to do, DI Caldecott—beat me about the head with a great bloody stick?"
    "Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind," Pete assured him. Jack exhaled a cloud of blue, the nubby cigarette falling to the floor. He didn't appear to notice, tapping his dirty fingertips to the time of "Clampdown." A stray line of blood painted the path between the clustered punctures on his forearm, and Pete stooped to press the napkin she'd received with her breakfast buttie against the spot. The faint smell of eggs and ham rose between them, blending the tobacco and the sour undertone of the squat into something almost home.
    "Someone who didn't know would almost think you cared," Jack muttered, but he didn't pull his arm away.
    "I care," Pete said. "I care about Diana Leroy and Patrick Dumbershall."
    Jack yawned languidly. "Who, now?"
    "You know bloody well who they are," Pete said, slipping one end of the metal links from her belt around Jack's wrist. He jerked as soon as the handcuffs clicked closed and Pete's wrist bruised with a sharp jab.
    "You slag!" Jack spat when he realized what Pete had done. "If you're still trying to get into me knickers, there's better ways."
    "Your knickers don't concern me in the least," Pete said crisply.
    "Please, Pete," Jack said with a pathetic jangle of the cuffs. "Don't do this to me. I can't do another stretch. Prison's bloody murder for me." He was like the