A Room Full of Killers: A gripping crime thriller with twists you won’t see coming. Michael Wood

the steering wheel, and Mum had taken her seatbelt off, I’m not sure why, and went straight through the windscreen. They were both dead by the time help came. I knocked my head and had to have a few scans but I’m OK.

      I went to live with my aunt and uncle. I don’t think they wanted me living there. They didn’t want kids, and, all of a sudden, they end up with me on the doorstep. But I’m family, so they had no option but to take me in. Aunt Susan always said that Mum was her sister and she was doing it for her.

      I don’t know when they noticed a change in my behaviour. Uncle Pete said it was probably to do with the car crash and watching my parents die. Aunt Susan said I should have come out of it by now because kids are resilient. She wanted me to go to see someone. Uncle Pete was against it. So was I. I didn’t need to see anyone.

      One night, Aunt Susan sat me down and asked if I was OK. She asked if I was being bullied at school, if I was taking drugs, if I was in trouble, if I was gay. I answered no to all her questions. There was nothing wrong with me.

      The thing that changed it all was during the October half-term holiday. Uncle Pete was at work, and Aunt Susan was doing the washing. I was in the kitchen having breakfast. The washer finished and Aunt Susan was unloading my football shirt when it got caught on the catch on the door and it ripped. She held it up.

      ‘Oh Craig, I’m so sorry,’ she said. She didn’t sound sorry.

      ‘What have you done?’ I said, shocked.

      ‘It was an accident, Craig. I got it caught, I’m sorry.’

      ‘You’ve torn my shirt.’

      ‘I didn’t mean to.’

      ‘That’s my best shirt. That’s my football shirt and you’ve fucking torn it,’ I screamed at her.

      ‘Craig, watch your language. It was an accident. I’ll replace it.’

      ‘Damn right you’ll fucking replace it.’

      ‘Craig, I won’t tell you again. Don’t speak to me like that.’

      ‘You can’t do anything right, can you?’ I shouted at her. ‘All you do is cook, clean, and wash and you balls that up too.’ I snatched the torn shirt from her and looked at it.

      ‘Calm down, Craig, it’s only a football—’

      She didn’t finish as I threw my arm out and slapped her hard across the face with the back of my hand. She fell against the fridge, held a hand to her face and ran out of the room crying.

      She must have called Uncle Pete as he came straight home from work and had a go at me for hitting Aunt Susan. I just sat there and let him rant.

      Aunt Susan didn’t speak to me much after that. It was like she was scared of me.

      I lost it again with my aunt over Christmas. I can’t remember what happened. I’ve tried but I just remember shouting at her and her cowering when she thought I was going to hit her again. Uncle Pete said he wasn’t going to put up with my outbursts anymore. He didn’t care if I was grieving or suffering from a head injury, I couldn’t keep getting away with it. They were going to see someone about me.

      At the end of January, Aunt Susan said they’d got an appointment with a specialist at the hospital. I was going to have a brain scan and see a therapist. It was a day off school so I wasn’t bothered.

      I’ve no idea of the results of the scan, even to this day, and I don’t know what the therapist thought about our session as we didn’t have a second appointment.

      Everything was quiet on the way home in the car. Uncle Pete was driving, and keeping an eye on the road; Aunt Susan was looking out of the window, chewing on her fingernail.

      ‘What did you talk about?’ Aunt Susan eventually asked me.

      ‘Not much,’ I replied.

      ‘What did she ask you?’

      ‘Just about school and stuff.’

      ‘Did you talk about us?’

      ‘A bit.’

      I could see Uncle Pete shaking his head at my answers. He looked across at Aunt Susan and she nodded once. He nodded back. Something was going on. They’d planned something while I’d been having tests and talking to that therapist woman with one blue eye and one brown. I bet they were going to send me away, get me locked up or something. Talk about déjà vu. This is exactly what Mum and Dad had done, and here we were again on the same stretch of road. Talk about history repeating itself. I wondered if I could get away with it a second time. I took off my seatbelt and leaned forward. I grabbed the handbrake and pulled it up.

      I leaned back in my seat, quickly put my seatbelt back on and bent forward into the crash position. I closed my eyes as the car swerved, hit an embankment and ploughed straight into a tree.

      I opened my eyes and saw Uncle Pete with his head bloodied and slumped over the steering wheel. Aunt Susan was breathing heavily. Her head had smashed against the window. She turned around to look at me. Her face was covered in cuts where shards of glass had hit her. I looked at her and saw the large piece of glass sticking out of her throat, blood was pouring out and down the front of her white shirt. She tried to say something but she couldn’t speak. Eventually the blood stopped flowing and she died. I’d banged my head and was slightly dazed, but I’d be all right. I was trapped in the back of the car though. It took over half an hour for another car to come along and find us. Just like last time.

       TWELVE

      With DS Aaron Connolly out of action, Matilda sat in for him during the next interview alongside DC Scott Andrews. The door to the poky room opened and in walked Thomas Hartley. The timid sixteen-year-old had his head down and he took small steps to the table. He perched on the edge of the seat and nervously adjusted himself until he was comfortable. The female officer who accompanied him plonked her ample frame down on the seat next to him.

      Matilda waited and studied the young man in front of her. He had shorn mousy hair, and his grey sweater was a size too big for him. He had a slight frame and the large wide eyes of a rabbit caught in the headlights.

      ‘Good morning,’ he said to them both. The first one of the inmates to make a polite gesture.

      He made eye contact with Matilda, and the DCI stared back, mouth open. Matilda had sat opposite many killers during her time in the force. She had looked into their eyes and seen the violence and horror they inflicted on their victims and the lack of remorse. She knew evil and hatred when she saw it. When she looked across the Formica table at Thomas Hartley, she saw someone who did not belong in Starling House.

      ‘Ma’am,’ Scott urged when Matilda didn’t begin the proceedings. ‘Ma’am,’ he repeated.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Shall we start?’

      ‘Oh. Sorry. Right. You’re Thomas Hartley, yes?’

      ‘That’s right.’ Thomas was holding himself rigid: hands clasped between his legs, arms held taut. His shoulders were hunched.

      ‘Did you … did you speak to Ryan Asher yesterday?’ Matilda was distracted. Thomas’s name was familiar but she couldn’t quite remember the crime he was guilty of. She tried searching her memory but nothing came up. She really should have read Thomas’s file before the interview. She’d glanced at a couple but wanted to get them over with.

      ‘No. Well, only briefly in the dining room.’

      ‘What did you say?’

      ‘I asked him to pass the water jug.’

      ‘That’s it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Did you know Ryan Asher before you saw him yesterday?’