by Michael Wood
‘The large table is detachable if you want to have smaller working areas. I can show you how if you like?’
‘Thanks,’ Sian placed her laptop and folders down on one of the hardback chairs. ‘So, what’s it like working here?’ she asked, helping Richard pull the table apart.
‘It’s interesting.’
‘Have you been here long?’
‘Three or four years, give or take.’
‘You must have met some dangerous boys over the years.’
‘They’re all dangerous. They wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘How do you feel when you see another fresh-faced inmate arrive?’
‘Trust me, they’re anything but fresh-faced. By the time they get here they’re hardened. They may have the face of an angel, but I can see right through them. There’s evil in their eyes.’
Sian stopped what she was doing and looked at Richard’s cruel expression. She felt a chill run through her. ‘How does that make you feel?’ she repeated, slower and quieter this time. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.
‘Part of me feels sad that they’ve ruined their lives. Part of me feels sick to my stomach. Part of me feels hatred.’
‘Hatred?’
‘Of course. These boys are killers. Why would I feel anything else?’
The boardroom door was kicked open by Aaron Connolly. Sian was relieved. For some reason, she didn’t like the thought of being alone with Richard Grover.
It didn’t take long for Sian, with the hindrance of Rory, to fill the boardroom full of detectives and computers from HQ. The usual suspects from the old Murder Investigation Team were there: Aaron Connolly, Scott Andrews, along with Sian and Rory. DI Christian Brady was also in attendance, and he had brought some of his more dedicated detectives with him, like DC Faith Easter.
Matilda Darke made her way up to the boardroom. She took long strides and her facial expression was tense with determination. She had received a warning from the ACC and already a wall of silence was in place among the staff of Starling House. On the one hand, this could be a difficult case to crack; on the other, this was the kind of case Matilda loved. It would be all-consuming and require a great deal of her time. This was going to be a distraction she needed right now as the book about Carl Meagan was hitting the shelves and once again her competence would be called into question.
At the top of the room, standing next to her was her second in command – DI Christian Brady. He was a natural-born copper who always stood tall and erect. With the firm jawline of an Action Man (and matching crew cut) he was an imposing figure. When riled, his deep, terrifying baritone could strike the fear of God into God himself.
Sian had made a good attempt at turning the boardroom into a makeshift briefing room. The wall behind Matilda had a police mugshot of Ryan Asher Blu-Tacked to it and his basic information underneath.
‘We all know why we’re here,’ Matilda began. She spoke louder than usual to reach the back of the room. ‘Fifteen-year-old Ryan Asher was found stabbed to death this morning in the recreation room on the ground floor,’ she paused while all this was taken in. She half-expected someone (possibly Rory) to have muttered ‘good riddance’ but nothing was said. ‘Sian, would you like to tell everyone what led Ryan to being at Starling House?’
Sian struggled with the files on her desk. She eventually found the one she wanted and joined Matilda at the top of the room. She cleared her throat several times before beginning.
‘Ryan Asher was born and raised in Norwich to Paul and Belinda Asher, who have since left the area and changed their names. At the age of fourteen, Ryan burgled his grandparents’ house while they were sleeping. During the event, his grandfather woke and decided to fight back. According to his statement, Ryan was masked but his grandfather pulled it off during the fight. His grandmother started to scream when she saw it was their only grandchild who was robbing them. Ryan said he panicked. He hit his grandfather, knocking him to the ground. This made his grandmother screamed louder so he hit her too.’
The silence around the room was heavy as shocked and appalled officers looked at the floor. They often questioned how anyone could attack a vulnerable and innocent elderly person, but when the attacker was a relation it made the crime more difficult to come to terms with.
‘Ryan was obviously aware the bedroom would be covered in his fingerprints and DNA so he set fire to the duvet. He waited until the room was ablaze before fleeing. The post-mortem examination on his grandmother showed smoke in her lungs. She was still alive when he started the fire.’
‘Bastard,’ someone muttered.
Sian closed the file but remained standing. It was difficult to listen to but it was just as difficult to describe.
‘Thank you, Sian,’ Matilda said after a short silence. ‘Now, I’m sure the majority of you are thinking Ryan Asher got what he deserved and that his killer deserves an OBE. However, we are police officers and our task is to find the perpetrator of this crime and prosecute him to the full extent of the law. We cannot allow our feelings to cloud our judgement on this. If you think you’re unable to detach yourself enough to find Ryan’s killer, you need to speak up now.’ She paused and looked around the room at a sea of blank, expressionless faces. She continued: ‘good. Now, any questions?’
‘Yes,’ DC Scott Andrews raised his hand. ‘Why was Ryan burgling his grandparents’ house?’
‘They were due to go on holiday the following morning,’ Sian said. ‘Ryan had overheard his parents talking about how his grandmother had drawn all their holiday money out of the bank in cash – five thousand pounds.’
‘Did he get the money?’ Rory asked.
‘No. It went up in smoke with everything else in the room.’
Silence gripped the room once again. Two elderly people were murdered in a senseless act by their grandchild. The fact his crime had failed too made their deaths even more pointless.
‘Moving on,’ Matilda said, bringing the room back to life. ‘What do we know so far? Who found Ryan Asher?’
‘Oliver Byron,’ Sian said. ‘He’s the head of the officers. When Ryan didn’t turn up for breakfast he went looking for him. His room was empty so he looked in the recreation room, where he found him on the pool table.’
‘Was the recreation room the first place he looked?’
‘I’ve no idea. I only had a brief chat with him. He hasn’t been formally interviewed yet.’
‘Right. Who knew Ryan was at Starling House?’
Aaron flicked through his notebook. ‘I was chatting to one of the security blokes and he said it wasn’t mentioned in any of the newspapers Ryan was being transferred up to Sheffield. The only people who should have known are Norwich police, the staff at Starling House and Ryan’s solicitor.’
‘To be honest though,’ Scott Andrews chimed up, ‘anybody who knows about Starling House will have realized Ryan would have ended up here.’
‘Is Starling House well known to people outside of the police force?’ Faith Easter asked.
‘Well, the entire population of Sheffield know about it. As do the press. As does anyone who reads the newspapers. As does anyone who can use the internet … ’
‘Thank you for that, Scott,’ Matilda said. ‘Sian, I know you said Ryan’s parents have moved away. Do we know where?’
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘Try and find out if he has any family still left in Norwich. They’ll need to be interviewed too.’
DC Faith Easter raised her hand. ‘Ma’am, I was looking online and there are plenty of websites and forums about Ryan Asher. People were calling for the death penalty to be brought back. There were campaigns at the time of his trial, and plenty of online posts where his parents were blamed.’
Matilda blew out her cheeks. She hated the internet for things like this: people used it as a mouthpiece for their most disturbing and violent thoughts and expected to get away with it. The majority of the time these people didn’t act on the thre
ats. They just wanted to voice their opinion. However, every angle had to be covered.
‘Faith, have a good look on the Net, see if there have been any direct threats against Ryan or his parents. They’ll need contacting too and eliminating from our inquiries. Anything else we should know about before we begin?’
‘What about the other inmates?’ DI Brady asked. He’d perched himself on the edge of the desk and folded his arms.
‘Sian, do you have all their files yet?’
‘More or less. Rory’s been having a read.’ She looked across at Rory, who was engrossed in a file. He didn’t look up at the mention of his name.
‘Rory!’ Sian called.
He looked up. His usual cheerful face looked blank. ‘What?’
‘Who are we dealing with here?’
‘Well, I’ve … I … ’ he stumbled, obviously disturbed. ‘I’ve been reading up on Callum Nixon.’ He filled the group in on Nixon’s murder of two teachers in Liverpool. His voice was shaking as he ran his eyes over the file. He then went on to discuss Mark Parker, who had stabbed his violent father and strangled his mother. He was about to start on Lee Marriott when he looked up and made eye contact with Matilda. His look was almost pleading with her to intervene and tell him to stop.
‘OK, let’s leave it there for now. We’ll have another briefing towards the end of the day. Sian can fill us all in then on the rest of the inmates. In the meantime, let’s hope one of them confesses to it and we can wrap this up by tea time.’
Famous last words.
NINE
The remaining seven inmates of Starling House were becoming restless as their incarceration in the dining room entered its third hour. They were being watched by two of the guards, who, despite the inmates’ pleas for information, remained silent, leaving the boys to concoct their own theories.
‘Well, it’s obvious something’s happened to Ryan, otherwise he’d be here,’ Lewis said. ‘You think he’s dead?’
‘Of course he’s dead, you nob,’ Callum replied. ‘I saw the cop cars come down the drive. They wouldn’t send all them out if he’d fallen downstairs or something. I reckon he’s been murdered.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Thomas asked, looking up from the book he was reading. ‘He could have died in his sleep, had one of those underlying heart conditions.’
‘Yeah, and I’ve got Scarlett Johansson coming over tonight to tuck me in.’
‘Why would anyone want to kill Ryan?’ Lee asked. ‘He’s only been here a day.’
‘Because he’s murdering scum,’ Callum answered.
‘We’re all murdering scum if you read the papers.’
‘You know what I think?’ Lewis asked, leaning back in his seat with his arms folded. ‘I think there’s a serial killer on the loose and he’s stalking Starling House. One by one we’ll all get bumped off until only the killer is remaining.’
‘You’ve seen too many horror films,’ Mark said.
‘Of course he has. That’s why he killed his brother,’ Callum said. ‘You can’t believe anything he says. His mind’s fucked. He’d love it if there was a serial killer loose.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘He’s probably the one doing it.’
‘Fuck off, Callum. I slept right through last night.’
‘We’ve only your word for that.’
‘Why would someone want to kill us all anyway, Lewis?’ Mark asked.
‘Don’t encourage him.’
‘I’m just saying,’ he continued, ‘people don’t bother with us; we’re just left here. What would be the point?’
Lewis leaned forward. The twinkle in his eye was evidence he was enjoying this conversation. ‘It could be motiveless. That’s the scariest crime of all. When the murderer has no reason for killing and does it out of pleasure.’
‘There speaks a man of experience,’ Callum said. ‘Fuck off to another part of the room, Lewis, you creep me out.’
The key turned in the door to the dining room and all the inmates stopped in their tracks and wondered who was coming in. Kate Moloney entered, flanked by DCI Matilda Darke, DI Christian Brady, DS Sian Mills and several tall and well-built uniformed officers.
As they saw Kate enter, the inmates all talked over each other, demanding answers. Matilda hoped nobody saw her roll her eyes when she heard one of the inmates say they ‘had no right to be locked up in here like this’. Had they forgotten their reason for being here in the first place?
Kate, hands up to silence the boys, said: ‘Please, calm down and I shall inform you of what has occurred here this morning.’ It didn’t take long for the inmates to be quiet. Kate obviously commanded a great deal of respect among them. ‘You’ll obviously know that Ryan Asher is not among you. He was discovered in the recreation room this morning. He died during the night.’
Matilda looked quickly at each of the seven blank faces to see if she could recognize any hint of a guilty expression. There wasn’t any. She didn’t expect there to be. After all, these were convicted murderers. They knew all about hiding their emotions and the tell-tale signs of their guilt.
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Matilda Darke from South Yorkshire Police,’ Kate said, stepping to one side to allow the spotlight to fall on Matilda. ‘She is leading the investigation into finding out what happened to Ryan, and all of us, not just you, but myself, and all the staff, will need to be interviewed and give a statement as to our whereabouts—’
‘So he was murdered then?’ One of the boys interrupted.
‘At the moment, Callum, we don’t know what happened to him.’
‘Of course he was. You wouldn’t have a DCI here if he’d hung himself or he’d choked on his Weetabix.’
‘What was he doing in the rec. room when we were all locked up by nine o’clock last night?’ another boy asked.
Matilda raised an eyebrow at a very good question. She wondered if any of the boys knew the answer.
Kate ignored the question. ‘It’s still early days in the investigation but I’ve no doubt in my mind that DCI Darke here, and her team, will soon get to the bottom of it. As I said, you’ll all need to be interviewed, and, unfortunately, you’ll need to remain here in the dining room until you’re called. Obviously, the recreation room is going to be out of bounds for the foreseeable future. We shall be adapting the library to accommodate you all.’
‘There are going to be three uniformed officers staying with you until you’ve been interviewed,’ Matilda began after clearing her throat. She spoke louder than she intended and her voice bounced off the walls. She suddenly felt very self-conscious about her appearance. Next to the neatly turned out Kate Moloney she looked like DCI Vera Stanhope from the Ann Cleeves novels. ‘If there is anything you need, or if you need to go to the toilet, let them know and someone will accompany you. We will be calling you in very soon.’
Matilda gave them a small smile before turning and leaving the room. She nodded at the three uniformed officers (she had purposely chosen the three tallest and fittest ones she could find) as she left the room.
Just before the door closed, the chattering among the inmates started up again. Maybe she was mistaken but she was sure she heard one of them mention Carl Meagan’s name.
TEN
Oliver Byron was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair, gripping the arms firmly, his knuckles almost white. His unruly mound of salt-and-pepper hair seemed to have greyed more in the few hours Matilda and her team had been at Starling House.
‘Mr Byron, I know you’ve had a shock this morning, but I’d like you to talk me through everything that happened,’ Matilda began.
DC Scott Andrews was sitting next to her, pen poised and hovering over his notepad. Kate Moloney had asked if they wanted to be alone, but Oliver had requested she stay.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it really has been a massive shock. I’ve never seen anything so … ’
‘It’s OK, Oliver. Do we have to do this now?’ Kate asked Matilda.
; ‘It would be best if it was sooner rather than later.’
‘It’s OK, Kate.’ Oliver took a deep breath. ‘Well, as usual the doors were unlocked at seven o’clock, and the boys were to get ready and come down for breakfast. Ryan Asher didn’t so I went to look for him.’
‘Why you?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Why did you go and look for him? You’re head of the other officers, aren’t you? Surely you’d have sent one of them.’
Oliver looked to Kate then back at Matilda. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t really think. I noticed Ryan wasn’t there so thought I’d go and find him.’
‘OK. So you went straight to his room?’
‘I did. It was unlocked and I went inside. His bed hadn’t been made but the room was empty.’
‘Who unlocked the room?’
‘The locks are on a timer. They’re automatically unlocked at seven o’clock.’
‘OK. What did you think when you saw his room empty?’
‘Nothing. I thought maybe he’d taken a wrong turn on his way to the dining room or decided to have a shower first.’
‘So where did you go first to look for him?’
‘The bathroom.’
‘Then?’
‘Then the recreation room.’
Matilda looked down at the plan of Starling House she had on her lap. The bedrooms of the inmates were on the first floor; the recreation room was on the ground floor. There were other places upstairs he could have looked before going down. So why didn’t he? ‘Why there?’
‘Sorry?’
‘After the bathroom, why did you go to the recreation room?’
‘I don’t know. I just did,’ he replied.
‘What did you find?’
‘Well, the door was locked so I unlocked it and went inside. Ryan was … ’ He choked on his words and had to swallow hard. ‘He was … ’
‘In your own time, Mr Byron.’
‘You know what I’m going to say. You saw it yourself. He was on the pool table. Dead,’ he snapped.
‘Did you know he was dead?’
‘Yes.’
