A Room Full of Killers. Michael Wood

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