Gupta pulled from beneath the till a spray bottle in which he kept bleach, the only weapon he had with which to defend himself or to urge their cooperation. The boys’ reaction, reported by Ian Barker with a fair degree of pride, was laughter, followed by the appropriation of five bags of crisps (one of which was later found at the Dawkins building site), which prompted Mr. Gupta to make good on his threat. He sprayed them with the bleach, hitting Ian Barker on the cheek and in the eye, Reggie Arnold on the trousers, and Michael Spargo on both trousers and anorak.

While both Michael and Reggie understood quickly that their school trousers were as good as ruined, their reaction to Mr. Gupta’s attack upon them was not as fierce as Ian’s reportedly was. “He wanted to get that Paki,” Reggie Arnold declared when questioned by the police. “He went mental. He wanted to rubbish the kiosk, but I stopped him, I did,” an assertion unsupported by any facts that followed.

It’s likely, however, that Ian was in pain and, lacking any socially acceptable response to pain (it appears unlikely that the boys sought out a public lavatory in which to wash the bleach from Ian’s face), Ian reacted by blaming both Reggie and Michael for his situation.

Perhaps as a means of deflecting Ian’s anger and avoiding a thrashing, Reggie pointed out Jones-Carver Pets and Supplies, in the window of which three Persian kittens played on a carpet-covered set of platforms. Reggie becomes vague at this point, when asked by the police what attracted him to the kittens, but he later accuses Ian of suggesting they steal one of the animals “for a bit of fun.” Ian denied this during his questioning, but Michael Spargo has the other boy saying that they could cut off the cat’s tail or “nail it to a board like Jesus” and “he thought that’d be wicked, that’s what he said.” Naturally, it’s difficult to know who was suggesting what at this point, for as the boys’ stories take them closer and closer to John Dresser, they become less and less forthright.