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.”