Dust to Dust (A UK Youtuber Story)

Chapter 7 - Cracking the Case

2 months had passed since Stephen had introduced Mara to the world of YouTube and she had taken to it with everything she had. She'd made multiple new friends who were always eager to see her which had rejuvenated her once minimal social life. Stephen had brought her out of her shell and she had implanted in him a slightly more determined nature. She'd also been excelling in her job, her performance being relayed to individuals in the higher echelons of the force who had been impressed by what they had seen or heard. A new obstacle as always with her demanding occupation soon threw itself in front of her however and this time it was a bit closer to home.

"PC Bloom can I borrow you for a second?"

"Of course Sergeant. What can I do?"

"A burglary has taken place at this address with a considerable amount of equipment being taken. I believe you're familiar with the occupants."

It was the Sidemen house.

"I am sir" replied Mara, seriously saddened that the lads had been victims of a robbery.

"I want you take the lead on this then. I've been hearing good things about you and want to see you in action, you never know what it may lead to" said the sergeant with a smile.

Mara instantly got in her car with a couple of officers, followed by a car with forensics and headed to the Sidemen house. Once there, she rang the doorbell, quite aggressively. The door swung open to reveal Tobi.

"Mara! You're on this!?" said Tobi, bringing her into a hug.

"I am. I'm so sorry to hear about your stuff mate." she replied, enjoying Tobi's warm embrace.

"Yeah it's pretty shit, nearly all our equipment for filming was taken as well as some personal items, we're all a bit deflated to be honest with you."

"Can you gather all the lads? I'd like to talk you all as a group if that's ok?"

"Sure thing, I'll get them."

Mara entered the house and Tobi rounded up the Sidemen for a chat with her, all of them greeting and hugging her.

"Ok guys, so did you all stay here last night?"

"Yeah, we were all here together last night as we were planning an early start to filming this morning" said Josh, irritation at the situation evident in his voice.

"Right, and did any of you hear anything? I'm surprised with seven of you here, nobody heard anything?" said Mara, somewhat puzzled.

All of the lads racked their brains thinking back.

"To be fair, no one sleeps on the ground floor when we're all here, so if someone was incredibly quiet and knew what they were doing, it wouldn't be completely unbelievable that they could take everything quietly, but we're still not sure how they got in, we lock everything, we have an alarm and you need codes to open certain rooms from the outside." said Vik, trying to account for every possibility.

"Hmm, that's odd" said Mara thinking deeply.

"Where did you put your equipment?" asked Mara

"We leave it in boxes all over the place generally, last night, most of it was in the garage as we had some free space" replied Harry.

"Ok, You lads go upstairs, the team and I will have a look around and see if we can find anything on the ground floor."

Mara and the team searched extensively through the house's bottom level. Nothing jumped out at them until they reached the garage. They had checked all windows and doors and they were all locked, but once in the garage, certain things stood out, Mara found slight outlines of a muddy footprint in the corner of the garage, forensics took a cast of this footprint. She then discovered a couple of hairs by the footprint which she bagged up to be reviewed by the lab later. One thing that bothered her was the lack of indication of how the thief or thieves (she hadn't discounted the possibility of multiple offenders) got in the house. It then came to her but she had to ask the boys for confirmation.