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

is that his kids are now over eighteen and have disowned him. His wife committed suicide in 2010.’

‘Jesus. Surely Kate knew all about this when she hired him.’

‘I’ve been looking through the files again while we’ve been trapped here. They’re very meticulous until around 2005. Then she stopped requesting references and DBS checks.’

‘What’s DBS?’

‘Disclosure and Barring Service. It’s what we now call CRB.’

‘Oh yes, of course. But Kate told us she vigorously checks all staff before they’re given a job here. She told us that on our first meeting with her.’

‘She was obviously telling porkies.’

‘I’m beginning to think Starling House is built on lies.’

FORTY-FOUR

It was time to take off the kid gloves. She understood the ACC wanted a fast result on Ryan Asher’s murder, and now she did too. She was tired with everyone holding something back. It seemed strange how the convicted killers seemed to be telling the truth while the supposed honest, law-abiding staff kept wrong-footing the investigation at every turn.

Still using Kate’s office, Matilda gathered Christian, Rory and Scott. She kept looking out of the window to see how the fire crew were getting on with draining the water. They appeared to be standing around chatting and looking at the large pool of water like it contained all of life’s secrets.

‘It’s started raining again.’

‘Thanks, Rory.’

‘I bet we’re going to be stranded here all day,’ he said, looking up at the heavy grey sky.

‘I don’t want to have to spend the night with a bunch of killers,’ Scott said, a genuine look of horror on his face.

‘The same thing will happen as when you spent the night in Norwich with Faith – absolutely nothing,’ Rory said with a smirk.

‘Just because you spend the night in a hotel doesn’t mean you have to have sex.’

‘Bloody hell, Scott, what generation are you from? Of course it does. If I’d been there and Faith wasn’t having any of it, I’d have been straight on Tinder.’

‘Remind me not to send you anywhere that requires an overnight stay then, Rory,’ Matilda said. ‘Now, can we get on?’

‘Sorry boss.’

‘Right, there’s no sign of Jacob; we haven’t caught Ryan’s killer. I think it’s safe to say that whoever killed Ryan has somehow managed to get Jacob out of Starling House.’

‘You don’t think he escaped then?’ Christian asked, sitting in the far corner of the room picking his fingernails.

‘No, I do not. Those cells cannot be opened from the inside, and Kate, Oliver, Rebecca, and Peter said they were all locked in at nine o’clock last night. Someone went back to A corridor and let Jacob out of his room.’

‘I’ve had a word with Gavin Ryecroft about the CCTV camera and he hadn’t turned it back on. He said until he knows exactly what happened to it on Monday night he couldn’t trust it not to fail again.’

‘Knobhead,’ Rory said. ‘It didn’t fail; someone turned it off, it’s obvious.’

‘I said that,’ Christian admitted. ‘He seems to have got the Kate Moloney syndrome and doesn’t want to think his colleagues would do anything underhand.’

‘And we all know the CCTV cameras in the recreation room are dummies.’

‘It looks like everyone else knows too.’

‘If it was the same person who killed Ryan why not just kill Jacob in his room or somewhere else in the building? Why let him escape?’ Rory asked.

‘Maybe he hasn’t escaped,’ Scott pondered. ‘Maybe we’re meant to think he’s escaped.

‘We’ve had this entire building upside down,’ Christian said. ‘He’s not here.’

‘There are six rooms we haven’t searched,’ Matilda said, turning back from the window.

The three men looked at each other with heavy frowns.

‘Six?’

‘The rooms the inmates are currently locked up in.’

‘You think Jacob is hiding in one of the other inmates’ rooms? What would be the point of that?’ Rory asked.

‘To be honest, I don’t think Jacob is hiding in this building at all. I also think it is highly likely he’s dead. The question is, why has the killer’s MO changed? Why not have Jacob spreadeagled on a pool table or a table tennis table with twelve stab wounds? Why smash a window and make it look like he’s hopped it?’

‘To make it look like Jacob’s the killer,’ Scott said.

‘Well done, Mr Andrews. If we ever get back to HQ help yourself to two items from Sian’s snack drawer.’

‘So you think that whoever killed Ryan is setting up Jacob? Why? Why Jacob above all the other boys?’ Christian asked.

‘I’ve no idea.’ Matilda scratched her forehead. This case was beginning to give her a headache. Every day something else occurred to add to the confusion. She wasn’t helping herself either by throwing Thomas Hartley into the mix.

‘Maybe Jacob was the easiest to bribe,’ Scott said, breaking the silence.

‘Sorry?’

‘Let’s say the killer is a member of staff but didn’t want to get his hands dirty – or her hands dirty. He, or she—’

‘Let’s just go with “he” for the moment, Scott,’ Matilda interrupted. ‘It’ll save a lot of confusion, and I can already see smoke coming out of Rory’s ears.’

‘OK. He obviously knows the inmates, they’re all killers, they all have the potential to kill again, but how many are open to be bribed into killing again? He arranges for Jacob to lure Ryan to the recreation room and kill him with the promise that a few days later he’ll help Jacob to escape. The member of staff isn’t going to care if Jacob is out there or not. He’s achieved his goal: Ryan is dead. And, if Jacob is eventually caught and tells the truth, who are the police going to believe? A convicted killer on the run or a member of staff at Starling House?’

‘You could be onto something there, Scottmeister,’ Rory grinned.

‘But we’ve been through all the files of all the members of staff, past and present,’ Christian said. ‘None of them have any links with Ryan Asher before he arrived at Starling House. As he was only here for a day nobody could have taken against him enough to warrant killing