A Room Full of Killers, Michael Wood [best books for students to read txt] 📗

hungry when she arrived home. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, and, despite her stomach rumbling, she didn’t feel like eating. That was the problem of living alone – what was the point in getting all the pots and pans out, all the ingredients, and making a meal from scratch just for one? If she sat at the dinner table on her own she’d feel sadder than she already did.

The cupboard contained tins of beans, soup, and rice pudding. She could heat one of those up and sit on the sofa in front of the television, but that was one step away from eating it cold straight from the tin. In the end, she decided on a cup of a tea and a packet of Bourbon biscuits. Not very nutritious, not filling, but it was something at least. She took the tea and the biscuits upstairs to her library.

There were two hardback books on the table next to the reclining chair. One was the Val McDermid novel she was thoroughly enjoying, the other was Carl by Sally Meagan. She picked up the book with the blond-haired, smiling, blue-eyed boy on the cover. He had the face of an angel; his entire life ahead of him. What horrors had he seen out of those innocent eyes?

Matilda placed it back on the table beside her. Why was she torturing herself like this? Just because Sally had hand delivered the book with a threatening inscription didn’t mean she had to continue the agony by reading it. Would reading it bring Carl back? No, it wouldn’t. Would going over every single moment suddenly release some hidden clue leading to where Carl was being kept? No, it wouldn’t.

She knew what James would say if he were still here. He’d take the book from her and throw it out and tell her to get on with her life. Yes, it was fine to think about Carl, to cry for him even, but not to give up your life. You had to move on.

‘You’re right,’ Matilda said out loud. She picked up her Val McDermid hardback and went into her bedroom. She wouldn’t allow Carl in there.

Before getting into bed she looked out of the window. The sky was cloudless, and the moon was full and bright. She had so many questions running around her mind but no energy to answer them. She should concentrate on finding Ryan’s killer, on trying to prove Thomas Hartley’s innocence, but there was nothing left of her tonight. She was spent. Her grief for James and Carl saw to that. She left the curtains open just enough so she could see the moon from her bed. It was comforting.

Matilda had read three chapters when the phone started to ring. She looked at the alarm clock: 23:47.

‘Hello?’ she answered cautiously. An anonymous call at this time of night would never be good news.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Matilda Darke?’ the caller asked.

‘Speaking.’

‘I’m Danny Hanson. I’m a crime reporter on The Star. Is it true an inmate of Starling House has been murdered?

Matilda knew she wouldn’t get much sleep following the call from the crime reporter. She rummaged around in the bathroom cabinet for her sleeping tablets, took two and went back to bed. However, sleep did not come. Still awake at 2 a.m. she kicked back the duvet and went downstairs.

The rain had started and was coming down in stair rods, as her father said. She stood at the living room window looking out onto the dark street ahead watching the rain pouring down. She missed the moon. Another thing her father said was that a good storm washed away all the detritus of the city. Once the storm passed the air would smell fresh and clean, and so would the mind.

Matilda moved into the conservatory. Was it too early to go on the treadmill? Probably. Maybe she should join a twenty-four-hour gym. At this time of the morning there definitely wouldn’t be anybody there for her to feel self-conscious around. She could use the weight machines or go for a swim.

The rain was bouncing hard on the conservatory roof. Against the backdrop of the night’s silence it sounded loud and each drop echoed. Matilda sat on one of the easy chairs and listened, trying to focus on every single drop. It was calming, relaxing. It was pleasant hearing noise in an ordinarily silent house. She leaned back and closed her eyes while the rain washed away her dark thoughts.

Twelve stab wounds.

Ryan Asher’s body on the pool table came to mind, and Matilda’s eyes shot open. He had been laid out perfectly. Posed. Why? It was obviously a message but to whom and what was the message? Ryan was laid out on his back, his legs straight and his arms by his side like he was in a coffin. Was that the message? A way of saying he deserved to die; a nod to bringing back the death penalty for killers like Ryan Asher. If that was the case then why Ryan? He had only arrived at Starling House the night before his death so why had he been chosen?

Twelve stab wounds.

Why did that keep coming back to haunt her? What was the significance of twelve stab wounds? If Ryan had been drugged and incapacitated then the killer could have struck many more blows: twenty, forty, a hundred. So why only twelve?

Twelve disciples.

Twelve signs of the zodiac.

Twelve months in a year.

Twelve days of Christmas.

Twelve Labours of Hercules.

Twelve inches in a foot.

Twelve members of a jury.

Matilda shot up out of her chair. That was it. Twelve members of a jury. That was the significance of Ryan being stabbed twelve times. The killer was the judge, jury, and executioner sentencing Ryan Asher to death.

Twelve stab wounds. Twelve members of a jury. Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie. Thomas Hartley was reading Agatha Christie last week.

She shook the thought from her head and turned her attention to the victim. Ryan Asher. Maybe Ryan