‘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.’
‘If you tell us now, Jason, things will go better for you. If you help us.’
Jason folded his arms. ‘We didn’t do anything.’
‘Where’s the knife, Jason? What did you do with it?’
‘I told you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Superintendent, I thought we’d left the knife behind us?’ said Ms Lucas.
‘They didn’t do that,’ said Banks. ‘They took it with them.’
‘Cheap shot. You know what I mean. Stick to the script.’
‘Why did you do it?’ Banks asked Jason. ‘Surely it wasn’t because he saw you taking drugs? Surely you didn’t think he’d tell? And so what if he did? Was it because he was Middle Eastern? One of them? The migrant hordes. He was just a child, Jason. He was only thirteen.’
Jason just shook his head.
Banks let the silence stretch for a while, then handed over to Annie. ‘Did you know Samir before that night in the park?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Jason. ‘I mean no, I didn’t know him at all. Ever. Stop trying to trick me. And there wasn’t no night in the park.’
‘Is that where you got your drugs? The house on Hollyfield Lane? Did you know it was a trap house for the county line?’
‘You’re way off beam. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you? Am I? Did something go wrong? Did Samir short-change you? Did he sell you a bad product?’
‘I never bought nothing off of him.’
‘You’re a bright boy, Jason. Look at you, you go to a posh private school. Your sister doesn’t. Lisa only goes to Eastvale Comprehensive. That’s how she got assaulted, walking home from there after a dance. Did you think it was Samir who did that to her? Or someone like him? Maybe if she went to a private school, like you, it would never have happened. How does that make you feel? Does it trouble you?’
‘It’s not my fault. I hate that fucking school, all right? I never asked to go there.’
‘So what happened?’
‘My dad. Mum and Dad. They wanted me to go, become a doctor or a lawyer or something. Go to fucking Oxford or Cambridge or somewhere. I never wanted it. They could only pay for one of us to go.’
‘And you were their best bet?’
Jason just glared at her.
‘Interesting as all this is, DI Cabbot,’ said Ms Lucas, ‘I can’t really see the point in this line of questioning. Can we move on to the matter at hand?’
‘Maybe I don’t know enough to judge,’ Annie said, ‘but I’ve met both of you, and I’d say Lisa is by far the brightest. Was it you who planted the idea in her mind that her attacker was dark-skinned?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Sure you do. It sounds like the kind of thing you would say. The kind of thing you wrote about in that article they wouldn’t publish in the school magazine.’
‘The school’s corrupt. They make their money from terrorists paying to have their kids educated here so they can infiltrate us and kill us.’