Peter Robinson - Many Rivers to Cross

‘Right you are, guv,’ said Gerry. ‘I’ll get right on it.’

‘And Gerry?’

‘Guv?’

‘Good work. Soon as you’ve got things arranged, get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need it.’

Naturally, both Jason’s and Chris’s parents made a big fuss when the police came by the following morning to take their sons in for interviews under caution, search their rooms, and impound their computers and Chris’s car for forensic analysis. Both sets of parents trailed down to the station behind their boys and demanded to be present at any interviews. As both suspects were over eighteen, their requests were denied. Jason was placed in interview room one, and Chris in room three, both with their duty solicitors. The outraged parents went back outside the building and threw themselves into slagging off the police to the assembled media crowd, who loved every minute of it.

While Chris and Jason waited in the sterile and stuffy interview rooms, listening to their lawyers brief them, the team went to Banks’s office, where they drank strong coffee, planned strategy and simply let time pass. At one point, Banks sent Gerry over to the lab to find out the status of the tests. It was too soon, but Jazz had determined so far that the blood was human; the DNA test had been underway for a while. There was a good chance she would be ready later in the morning. Banks wasn’t too concerned, as he knew it would work just as well as a threat. Under PACE, they could hold the boys for twenty-four hours, anyway, by which time Jazz would certainly have finished her tests. If Chris or Jason had stabbed Samir, then they would know already that his blood was in the park, and perhaps also that their DNA was on the roaches or chewing gum found there, too. Still, a positive result before or during the interviews would certainly help. And a murder weapon.

‘Let’s take Jason first,’ Banks said. ‘Annie, you come with me. Gerry, stay on top of the lab.’

If Gerry was upset at being excluded from the interviews, she didn’t show it. Banks and Annie marched to interview room one, dismissed the constable standing guard over Jason and sat down. In contrast to Chris Myers’s golden curls, Jason had straight dark hair over his ears and down to his collar. He was also a little overweight. Not obese, exactly, but not as slender and athletic as his friend. He looked as if he would be the last one to be picked for the rugger team at school games.

And Jason was nervous. He had clearly been biting his knuckles and fingernails, though he tried to stop when Banks and Annie entered. It wasn’t long before he was chewing on them again. Sitting beside him was Harriet Lucas, a duty solicitor Banks had worked with before on a number of occasions; he had always found her fair and unflappable.

‘I don’t know what all this is about,’ Jason said, ‘but I’ve got an important exam this afternoon.’

‘We’ll inform your school if we need to keep you beyond the exam’s starting time.’

‘But... that’s hours yet. You can’t...’ He turned towards Ms Lucas, who simply shook her head once.

‘The exams can wait,’ said Banks. ‘There’ll always be another opportunity. It takes as long as it takes, Jason. If you cooperate, we’ll be done in no time.’ But you won’t be heading out to sit any exams, he thought.

Then Annie started up the recording machines and cautioned Jason. When Ms Lucas had explained the caution to him, and he had said that he understood, they began.

‘You know why we’re here, Jason,’ said Banks. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier and quicker if you just told us what happened that Sunday night in the park?’

‘What Sunday night? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘A week ago last Sunday, when you and Chris Myers were down in the little park at the bottom of Elmet Hill smoking marijuana.’

‘We weren’t there. And you can’t prove anything.’

‘Oh, yes, we can. We turned up quite a lot of evidence there yesterday, and the scientists have been working overtime on it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re expecting the results any moment. We told them to bring what they found straight here to us.’

‘I don’t believe you. Even if you did find stuff, you can’t know when it was put there, or who by.’

‘If we find Samir’s blood, we’ll know that it wasn’t put there after that Sunday night, because that’s when he was murdered.’

‘A bit melodramatic, Superintendent,’ Ms Lucas interjected.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Jason.

‘What about if we find your DNA in the saliva on those roaches, or the chewing gum?’

‘I don’t chew gum. What roaches?’

‘Didn’t you know? We found two roaches in the woods there, close to where we found the blood. We think you were there smoking up when Samir turned up and you killed him. You forgot to take them with you when you left the scene. Sloppy, Jason.’

Jason said nothing. Banks thought he could hear the wheels turning.

‘We know Chris was involved with drugs because he was caught at a drug party last year,’ he went on. ‘You’re his best mate. It’s no great stretch to say you were involved, too, even if you weren’t at that particular party.’

Ms Lucas whispered in Jason’s ear, and he said, ‘No comment.’

‘How long have you been carrying a knife, Jason?’

‘I don’t carry a knife.’

‘But you were carrying one on the night we’re talking about, weren’t you? Why? Were you nervous about being in the park, about being out so near Hollyfield after your sister had been attacked? She said she was scared to walk through there by herself.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘Mr Bartlett says he wasn’t carrying a knife,’ said Ms Lucas. ‘I think we should leave it and move on unless you can prove differently.’

‘Fine. But is it really so stupid, Jason? Ask yourself. I don’t think so. What do you think of people from the Middle East? What do you think of Muslims?’

‘What? I don’t think anything about them.’

‘I think you do. I’ve read your essay. You talk about “migrant hordes streaming over the sea and through the ports” and “open floodgates poisoning our society, our culture”. You say that if it’s allowed to go on, we “won’t be able to live by our own laws in our own country any more and there won’t be any jobs left for honest, decent white people”. You call them “no better than animals” and accuse them of “raping our women”. You say we need to leave Europe and close our borders. Did you write that, Jason?’

‘So what if I did? It’s true. A person’s entitled to his opinions, isn’t he? It’s still a free country. At least it was last time I looked.’

‘Don’t you realise that even if we end free movement throughout the Union, it won’t mean getting rid of migrants, of all the migrants, especially the Pakistanis and blacks that seem to bother you so much? They’re not from Europe, Jason. Samir wasn’t from Europe.’

‘I know that. They’re all the same, though, when you get right down to it. They’re all foreigners. They’re different from us. They’re contaminating our culture, our breeding, our way of life.’

‘We’ve got your computer, Jason. We’re well aware of the sick websites you’ve been visiting, the kind of hate literature you’ve been reading. Is that what spurred you on to kill Samir?’

‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Was it Chris, then? Did he do it? We know it happened when you were both in the park that night and Samir ran there from Hollyfield Lane.’

‘How can you know that? You weren’t there. You’re just bluffing, trying to trick me into confessing to something I didn’t do.’