The whole Bartlett family was sitting around the television watching Emmerdale when Banks arrived that evening after teatime, having spent most of the afternoon reading over the article Jason had written and talking with various contacts about some of the racist ideas he had expressed. The family was clearly annoyed at being interrupted, but Gus turned the volume down and seemed resigned to answering a few questions.
‘Mostly it’s Jason I’d like to talk to,’ said Banks.
‘What have I done?’ said Jason. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘Nobody’s saying you have,’ said Banks. ‘I just want a word, that’s all.’
‘We’re all staying,’ said Gus.
Banks nodded. ‘Very well. Suit yourselves.’ So they all settled back in their chairs and waited. Emmerdale went on with the sound turned down.
Jason looked both furtive and distracted. ‘I’ve got an exam tomorrow afternoon,’ he said. ‘So please hurry up. I’ve got revision to do.’
‘What is it?’ Banks asked.
‘Media Studies.’
‘Ah. Watching television.’
‘Shows how much you know.’
‘Jason!’ said his mother. ‘Manners.’
‘Well, he was making fun of me.’
‘It was a joke,’ said Banks. ‘Obviously in poor taste. I’m sorry.’
Jason said nothing.
Banks turned to Gus Bartlett. ‘I understand you work with Granville Myers on the Neighbourhood Watch?’ he said.
‘That’s right.’
‘I was wondering if any of you out there noticed anything odd on the Sunday night before last, when the Syrian boy, Samir, was killed. Do you have written records, reports and so on?’
‘We do,’ said Bartlett. ‘But Sally Villiers keeps those. She’s a secretary at the town hall, for the council, like, and she’s skilled at that sort of thing.’
‘Do you submit incident reports?’ Banks smiled. ‘If it’s anything like us, you’d have to write even the slightest detail up in triplicate.’
Bartlett laughed. ‘No. It’s not that bureaucratic. But we do keep records. Incident reports, as you say. I mean, a good deal of our job is intelligence. Not so much catching criminals in the act as keeping an eye on neighbourhood trends, suspicious strangers hanging about, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you photograph them?’
‘Sometimes. Some of our members do, yes.’
‘Get a lot of strangers?’
‘Not many. No.’
‘What about recently? Before the Sunday in question. Just from memory.’
‘None I can think of, no.’
‘And that evening?’
‘I’d have to check, but I don’t think there was anyone from the Watch out that night. Sundays are usually pretty quiet.’
‘Burglars’ night off?’
Bartlett laughed. ‘I see what you mean. But it’s true. We’ve rarely had any kind of incident on a Sunday evening.’
‘So nobody was out on patrol that night?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure you weren’t in the park with Granville Myers?’
‘I... no. As I said, we didn’t go out Sunday night.’
‘Ever had any incidents down in the park?’
‘That’s not really part of our territory.’
‘It seems like the ideal place for people up to no good to hang out. Hey, Jason?’
‘Why look at me?’
‘You know. Lads get up to all sorts. I did, myself. Smoking. Maybe sharing a bottle of whisky. You know the sort of thing.’
‘No.’
‘So, Mr Bartlett, you never had any trouble down there?’
‘As I said, we don’t patrol the park, specifically, but if anyone had seen or heard anything, I’d certainly know about it.’
‘Lisa? I know the memory might be painful for you, but do you know anything about what goes on in the park?’
Lisa shook her head. ‘I was on the shortcut through the car park at The Oak to the hill. I didn’t walk through the park. I never do. It’s too scary after dark.’
‘Why?’
She hugged herself as if she were cold. ‘No reason. It’s just a scary park, that’s all.’
‘But if nothing ever happened there...?’
‘I wouldn’t walk through there alone. That’s all.’
‘OK.’ Banks leaned forward and looked at Jason. ‘We think that Samir, the Syrian boy, ran from Hollyfield Lane up to the park on the night he was killed, but we don’t have any reports of him going anywhere else after that. It’s a bit of a puzzle. Can you help us?’
Jason just shrugged and averted his eyes. His father said, ‘But he must have gone to the East Side Estate. Isn’t that where his body was found?’
‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘But that doesn’t mean he was killed there. Besides, it’s quite a long walk from here.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s a matter of timing. Do you have a car, Jason?’
‘No.’
‘That’s right. Mr Bowen told us. But Chris Myers does, doesn’t he? Your best mate. He gives you a lift to school and back.’
‘So what? And why have you been talking to Bowen about me? What’s he got to say?’
‘We’ll get to that later,’ said Banks. ‘In the meantime, we think Samir’s body was dumped on the East Side Estate. Most likely by car.’
‘Now, wait a minute,’ said Gus Bartlett. ‘You’re not accusing our Jason of this murder, are you?’
Banks glanced from one to the other. ‘I’m not quite sure yet,’ he said. ‘We’re still waiting on the lab results of traces we found in the park. At the scene. I have a suspicion it might be one or the other of the boys, though. Unless you also smoke marijuana.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Gus Bartlett.
‘Not at all. Obviously, the killer wanted us to think Samir had been killed on the East Side Estate, that it was just the kind of place where a boy like him might have lived and died. The thing is, nobody’s ever seen him there. Nobody knew him.’ He turned to Jason again. ‘He was thirteen,’ he said. ‘He left his family in Syria because they could only afford to pay the smugglers for one passage. The idea was that when he got here, he would find an aunt and uncle, get work and send money home. But it didn’t happen like that. God only knows what privations he suffered on the journey — kids like him go through everything, from rape to robbery — but he made it, having walked over a good part of the continent. It took him months. He found a group of smugglers who got him into this country, but by then he’d lost his relatives’ address, and he had no money left. They kept him a virtual prisoner in Birmingham, in slavery, working off his debt. He got away and fell in with a bad crowd in Leeds, got involved in selling drugs. He was no angel. But he was only thirteen and a long way from home. He was still saving money to get his family over. And guess what? His family were all dead. Killed in a bomb attack not long after Samir left. And the irony was that he never knew. He never knew he was selling drugs for nothing.’
‘That’s a very sad tale,’ said Gus Bartlett, ‘but I don’t see what it has to do with us.’
Banks looked directly at Jason. ‘Does that really make Samir “no better than an animal”, Jason?’ he asked.
Jason reddened and turned away. Everyone else seemed nonplussed by the question. Clearly, Jason had not apprised his parents of his racist views.
Banks stood up. ‘Ask your son,’ he said to Gus Bartlett. ‘He knows what I’m talking about.’
He noticed that Lisa was crying.
‘It is a sad story, isn’t it, Lisa?’ he said. ‘Anyway, I must be off. We’ve had a lot of developments down at the park today. I don’t know if you’ve seen our forensic officers at work, but pretty soon we’ll have a DNA profile of the killer, then all we have to do is match it up with one of our suspects.’ He looked at Jason again, but the boy’s eyes were still averted.