THE COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS LAY SPREAD OUT ON THE large oval table in the boardroom on Friday morning. In addition to the core team, also present were DS Stefan Nowak, Crime Scene Manager; Vic Manson, fingerprints expert; and Dr. Jasminder “Jazz” Singh, their toxicology, blood and DNA specialist from the lab. Everyone present seemed tired; Thursday had been a long day.

“You’ve got some good news for us, I hope, Stefan?” Banks said to DS Nowak.

“Yes,” said Nowak. “We’ve been able to link the dead boy, Samir, with the Stokes house on the Hollyfield Estate. Naturally, we can’t tell you when he was there, but he definitely was there.”

“Was he killed there?”

“Unlikely,” said the diminutive Jazz Singh. “No blood other than Howard Stokes’s turned up. And very little of that. If Samir had been killed there, you’d expect . . . well, you’d expect to see blood.”

“Unless someone cleaned it up?” Banks suggested.

“Of course. That’s where the Luminol came in handy. We were very thorough. Believe me, nobody can do a perfect cleanup.”

“Thanks, Jazz,” said Banks, reaching for a doughnut. “So what did you find?”

“Stefan’s team found several hairs with follicles intact on the back of one of the armchairs. They found hairs on the backs of both chairs, actually, but the other ones belonged to Howard Stokes.”

“What about the mattresses?”

“Howard Stokes’s hair on one, and someone else’s on the other, though it had been turned over, and the mattress itself had been stripped of sheets. It didn’t look as if it had been used recently. Not Samir’s hair, by the way. Blond and short. There were no follicles, so we couldn’t run DNA.”

“It must belong to the boy Margery Cunningham told me about yesterday,” said Gerry. “The one she thought was Stokes’s grandson. The one who came and went. He rode around on a red bicycle and had a lot of visitors.”

“Likely,” said Banks. “And if there were no traces of Samir on the mattress, the odds are that he didn’t spend a night in the house. As he was seen by several people arriving in Eastvale on Sunday evening, we have to assume that he didn’t spend very long there at all.” He turned back to Jazz. “Anything more?”

“That’s it, really,” she said. “The hairs on the chair back contained DNA that matched that of Samir Boulad.”

“And only his?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no room for error?”

“One in one thousand million.”

Banks smiled. “I’ll take that as a no. Excellent news, Jazz. And quick work. Thanks a lot. I can’t say I know what this all means yet, but it’s the best lead we’ve had so far. It gives us a solid line on inquiries to pursue around Hollyfield. Have another doughnut.”