Kate took a deep breath while she took his words on board. ‘Starling House has been open for almost twenty years. In that time, we have not had a single issue to bring this place into disrepute. Yes, we have a high turnover of staff, and, yes, there have been some problems, but we have always managed to sort them out internally and with the highest professional standards.’

Kate’s voice crackled with tension and nerves. She may have said the words but did she believe them herself?

‘Kate, I don’t want to speak out of line here, but you’re going to need to practise that speech a few more times before the detectives turn up.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You sound like you’re giving a statement you don’t believe. You sound like you’re hiding something.’

Kate’s eyes widened. ‘I have nothing to hide,’ she said with severe conviction.

‘What about Elly Caine?’

‘Elly Caine has no bearing on what has happened.’

‘If the police don’t dig her up then the press will. You know they’ll go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. They’ll want to tear this place apart.’

‘Oliver—’

A knock on the door silenced Kate. The manager and head of officers looked at each other. They both recognized the heavy knock of an official. There was a detective behind the door. The nightmare was about to begin.

‘Come in,’ Kate managed to force out despite her rapidly drying throat.

The door opened and a dishevelled-looking woman entered followed by what seemed to be a male model.

‘I’m DCI Darke and this is DC Fleming from South Yorkshire Police. Kate Moloney?’

‘That’s right. Please, come on in. Can I get you a drink of tea or something?’

‘Tea would be nice, thank you.’

While Matilda and Rory took their seats, Kate got on the phone and ordered drinks from her secretary.

‘I’d just like to say,’ Kate began, fiddling with the items of stationery on her desk. ‘What happened here is completely out of the blue. We operate a zero tolerance policy, and my staff and myself will offer you our total cooperation.’

‘Thank you. That’s good to know,’ Matilda responded, slightly perplexed by Kate’s nervous demeanour. ‘I’m going to need to see the files on all the inmates.’

‘They are confidential.’

So much for total cooperation.

‘Ms Moloney—’

‘Kate, please.’

‘Kate. This is a murder investigation and you have seven convicted murderers living on-site. I need to know who I’m dealing with before I interview them. Obviously, we will have our own files on the boys, but they’ll be coming from different police forces around the country and could take some time. Besides, we know all about confidentiality. My team is hand-picked and know how to deal with sensitive information.’

‘I understand all that … ’

‘I could obtain a warrant from the magistrate’s court, but I really don’t want to go down that route.’ Matilda added, her voice growing louder and sterner with every sentence.

‘Of course. I’ll get whatever you need,’ Kate relented with a painful smile.

‘I’ll need the files on your staff too.’

‘Now steady on—’ Oliver Byron chimed in.

‘And you are?’ Matilda asked, looking across at the grey-haired man with the shocked expression on his face.

‘Oliver Byron. I’m head of officers here. Why do you want to see the staff files?’

‘Mr Byron, my job is to interview everyone involved, and eliminate where possible. My team will be interviewing everybody on-site. That includes all staff, all officers, yourself, and even Ms Moloney.’

Kate stood up. ‘Oliver, it’s fine. DCI Darke, I’m sorry. As I’m sure you can guess, emotions are running high at present. Don’t worry, we will all cooperate with your investigations.’

‘I appreciate that. I’ll need our forensics team to go through the CCTV footage from all the cameras throughout the building.’

Matilda noticed Kate and Oliver exchange glances briefly. For a single moment, they looked worried.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘No.’ Kate smiled nervously. ‘Not a problem at all.’

‘Thank you. I’ll need a room for my officers to work in while we’re here. Would that be possible?’

‘That’s not a problem. We have a boardroom we use for staff meetings. Oliver, can you make sure it’s suitable for DCI Darke and her team?’

‘Of course,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Thank you. Now, what can you tell me about Ryan Asher?’ Matilda leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs. She was going to be here for a while so she may as well make herself comfortable.

‘There’s not much I can tell you. He only arrived on Sunday night. I met with him on Monday morning. Told him about the place, what would be expected of him; showed him around and that was it.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Like all the other boys who arrive here, he was nervous. He didn’t speak much, but he looked like he was paying attention.’

‘You know of his crime?’

‘Of course. I was sent his file before he arrived.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘From my point of view he was another inmate. His crime has nothing to do with me. Like all the boys.’

‘You could get past what he had been convicted of?’

‘Yes. I look at it this way: without these boys being here I would be out of a job. They’re here, so am I. It’s that simple.’

A tiny knock and the door opened to reveal an elderly woman struggling under the weight of a tea tray. Rory jumped up to take it from her. She thanked him and left, closing the door behind her.

‘Shall I be mother?’ Rory asked.

Matilda tried to hide her smile. Kate’s face remained solid stone.

‘Did he speak to any of the other boys while he was here?’

‘Yes. I believe he spoke to all of them at some point.’

‘Any in particular?’

‘I saw him deep in conversation with Lee Marriott in the dining room last night.’

‘Lee?’

‘Yes. He was—’

‘I know of Lee Marriott, thank you.’ Matilda said, making a note of his name.

‘DCI Darke, the boys are currently all locked in the dining room. How long will it be before they’re allowed out?’

‘Until we’ve interviewed and been able to eliminate them from our enquiries. Of course the recreation room is going to be out of bounds for the foreseeable future.’

‘Of course.’

‘Is there anything you think we should know about any of the boys or the staff before we get started?’

Silence. There was a look on Kate’s face that Matilda couldn’t quite make out. An expression flitted across it and disappeared just as quickly. Her stoical persona, for a split second, had dropped. Why? Had Matilda’s question conjured up something she wanted to keep private? Matilda decided not to push it – not yet. Whatever secrets were buried within these thick stone walls, Matilda would uncover.

MARK PARKER

Worthing. October 2014

There was a story in the newspaper the other day about a woman in Leeds who had stabbed her husband 119 times. That was in the headline. I wouldn’t normally have read a story like that but it caught my attention. How could you stab someone that many times? It turns out she was being mentally and physically abused by her husband for the whole of their married life, and they’d been married for over thirty years. I kept thinking: why didn’t she just leave him? It’s not as simple as that, though, is it? I can’t just leave my dad.

Mum was lucky, she got out before she snapped and stabbed dad over a hundred times. She’s now living in a woman’s refuge on the other side of town. I go to see her sometimes. I want to ask her why she didn’t take me with her but it never comes up. I could bring it up, I suppose, but I think I’m scared of the answer. Did Mum honestly think Dad wouldn’t start hitting me once she had left?

I first noticed Dad hitting Mum when I was five years old. I was in the living room playing and went into the kitchen for a drink. Dad was sitting at the table and he had a face like thunder. Mum was at the sink; her face was red and she’d been crying. She looked in pain too. I remember asking her why she was crying, and she said it was because she was peeling onions. I don’t know why but that scene always stuck in my mind, and I kept looking back on it. It was a few years before I realized there were no onions. Dad’s face was like thunder because he was angry, and Mum looked like she was in pain because he’d hit her. I never found out why though.

I often saw my mum crying. I thought she was an emotional person. I mean, she used to cry at soap operas all the time, but it wasn’t that – she cried for a reason.

I don’t blame Mum for leaving. I don’t blame her for not taking me with her. I blame her for leaving me behind to take her place. I blame her for me being covered with burn marks and bruises. I blame her for me snapping and killing dad.

I remembered the story of the woman in Leeds, and when I first started stabbing Dad I began to count the stab wounds. I lost count after thirty. I don’t think I made it to 119. It’s tiring stabbing someone over and over again.

I left Dad in his bedroom. Someone will find him. I needed to see my mum, tell her what I’d done. She needed to know it was OK to come back home now.

I got off the bus and she was waiting for me at the bus stop. I wanted her to hug me but she didn’t. She didn’t like any physical contact anymore; she told me that on my last birthday. She didn’t even kiss me hello or goodbye anymore. She was empty of all emotion. That’s what dad had done to her.

We went for a walk in the park. It was quiet. In the middle of a weekday there were very few people around. We walked past the playground area, by the abandoned tennis courts to the woodland area. Mum always enjoyed walking among the trees; she found it relaxing. There was an awkward silence between us as if we were two strangers. We were mother and son for Christ’s sake. Eventually, I started the conversation. One of us had to.

‘Mum, would you ever come back home?’

‘No. I couldn’t,’ she said quickly, shaking her head.

‘What if Dad wasn’t there?’

‘He’ll always be there.’

‘What if we moved somewhere, just you and me?’

‘I don’t think so. It wouldn’t work.’

‘Why not?’

‘It just wouldn’t.’

‘But you’re my mum. We should be living together.’

‘Don’t start this again, Mark. Just leave it for now.’

I took my coat off and started taking off my jumper and T-shirt too. Mum asked me what I was doing. It was October, and I’d catch a chill.

I showed her the cigarette burns; the scald marks; the bruises from his shoes with the steel toecaps that wouldn’t fade; the bite marks on my arms. I turned around to look back at Mum; her face was blank. Didn’t she care? Wasn’t she interested in what was happening to her only son?

‘Did you honestly think he wouldn’t start on me if you left me alone with him?’

A tear fell down her face but I think it was a habit; there was no emotion on her face at all.

I told Mum everything. It wasn’t just the beatings; Dad used to swear at me and call me names. I’d be sat eating my tea and he’d walk past and spit in it and still make me eat it. There are refuges for Mum to go to, but where do I go? I get put into care. I get sent God knows where to another family and live with complete strangers. I should be living with my mum.

‘Mark, I’m sorry, I can’t deal with any of this right now. I’m not strong enough.’

She wouldn’t even look at me.

‘So what am I supposed to do?’

She didn’t answer. She shrugged. Thirteen years old and my mum was leaving me to suffer at the hands of an evil bastard. Mum started to walk away. I asked her where she was going and she said back to the refuge. I told her we’d only just met up; she’d promised me a panini in Costa. She said she couldn’t handle it and she wanted to go back.

For the second time that day I saw red. I snapped. I had an evil father and a pathetic mother. I know it wasn’t Mum’s fault she was pathetic; Dad had turned her that way, but I was her son. She should have helped me. She should have saved me, and she was turning her back on me. I called her a selfish bitch.

That stopped her. She turned back to look at me. She was about to say something when I grabbed her by the throat and started squeezing.

‘I’ve killed Dad, you know,’ I told her as the life drained from her. ‘About an hour ago I went into his bedroom with the carving knife and I stabbed him repeatedly, over and over and over again. It felt good. You should have done that years ago. You should have stopped him instead of leaving him to turn on me. I hate you. I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done, what you’ve forced me to do.’

I removed my hands and she dropped to the cold, wet ground.

I looked at my watch. The bus to take me back home wasn’t due for another thirty-five minutes. I took the change out of my pocket and counted it – there wasn’t enough for a panini.

EIGHT

The boardroom on the top floor of Starling House was large and dark. It was rarely used, and there was an underlying smell of dust and damp. The decoration was simple and neutral: light cream walls, dark cream carpet, pastel-coloured Roman blinds, and reproduction prints on the walls. In the corner was a fake potted palm with a thick layer of dust on each leaf.

Richard Grover, a heavyset guard with a dour expression and sad eyes led the way into the room and turned on the lights. His breathing was laboured after walking up four flights of stairs without stopping. He went to the back of the long room to pull up the blinds and open a few of the windows.

‘As you can tell, we don’t use this room too often. Only for the larger, more formal staff meetings, and we don’t have many of them.’ His voice was monotone and lacked an accent.

‘This will be perfect. Thank you,’ DS Sian Mills said.

‘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 threats. 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?’

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