Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

when you think about Carol Jordan?’ she persisted, her voice harsh now.
    Tony shook his head. ‘I can’t say.’ Not because he didn’t know the answer. But because he did.

3

    E ven from behind, Paula McIntyre recognised the boy. She was a detective, after all. It was the kind of thing she was supposed to be capable of. All the more so when the person in question was out of context. That was where civilians fell down. Without context, they generally failed. But detectives were meant to make the most of their natural talents and hone their skills to the point where people were once seen, never forgotten. Yeah, right, she thought. Another one of those myths perpetuated by the double-takes of TV cops confronted by the familiar in unexpected circumstances.
    But still, she did recognise the boy, even from the quarter-profile of her angle of approach. If she’d entered the station via the tradesmen’s entrance – the back door from the car park – she’d have missed him. But this was her first day at Skenfrith Street and she didn’t know the door codes. So she’d taken the easy way out and parked in the multi-storey opposite and walked in the front door, coming up behind the teenager shifting from foot to foot before the front counter. There was something about the set of his shoulders and the angle of his head that suggested defensiveness and tension. But not guilt.
    She paused and tried to get the measure of what was going on. ‘I understand what you’re saying. I’m not stupid.’ The boy’s voice was miserable rather than aggressive. ‘But I’m asking you to understand that this is different.’ He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. ‘Not everybody’s the same, man. You can’t just go with one size fits all.’ His accent was local but, in spite of his best attempts, unmistakably middle-class.
    The civilian staffing the counter muttered something she couldn’t make out. The boy started bouncing on the balls of his feet, all wound up and nowhere to go. He wasn’t the sort of lad who would kick off, she thought she knew that. But that was no reason not to try and placate him. Keeping a lid on things wasn’t the only point of getting to the bottom of what was bothering the punters.
    Paula stepped forward and put a hand on the boy’s arm. ‘It’s Torin, isn’t it?’
    He swivelled round, his face startled and anxious. A thick mop of dark hair framed the pale skin of a teenage boy-cave dweller. Wide blue eyes with dark smudges beneath, a prominent wedge of nose, a narrow mouth with incongruous rosebud lips under the faintest shadow of what might one day become a moustache. Paula cross-checked the mental catalogue against her memory and ticked all the boxes. No mistake here.
    The tightness round his eyes relaxed a little. ‘I know you. You’ve been to our house. With the doctor.’ He frowned, struggling for a memory. ‘Elinor. From casualty.’
    Paula nodded. ‘That’s right. We came round for dinner. Your mum and Elinor are mates from work. I’m Paula.’ She smiled at the small grey man behind the counter as she produced her ID from her jacket pocket. ‘Detective Sergeant McIntyre, CID – DCI Fielding’s team.’
    The man nodded. ‘I’m telling this lad, there’s nothing we can do for him till his mum’s been missing for twenty-four hours.’
    ‘Missing?’ Paula’s question was drowned by Torin McAndrew’s frustrated riposte.
    ‘And I’m telling this…’ He breathed heavily through his nose. ‘… this man that you can’t treat every case the same because everybody’s different and my mum doesn’t stay out all night.’
    Paula didn’t know Bev McAndrew well, but she’d heard plenty about the chief pharmacist from Elinor Blessing, her partner and the senior registrar in A&E at Bradfield Cross Hospital. And nothing she’d heard tended to contradict Bev’s son’s adamantine certainty. None of which would cut any ice with the civilian behind the counter.
    ‘I’m going to have a chat with Torin here,’ she said firmly. ‘Have you got an interview room?’ The man nodded towards a door on the other side of the barren waiting area. ‘Thanks. Please call up to CID and let DCI Fielding know I’m on the premises and I’ll be up shortly.’
    He didn’t look thrilled, but he did pick up the phone. Paula gestured with her thumb towards the interview room. ‘Let’s have a sit-down and you can tell me what’s going on,’ she said, leading the way.
    ‘’Kay.’